Physical Sensations In Singing Pt. 2

Read Physical Sensations In Singing Pt. 1

Facial (Mask) Sensations The most popular sensations in the singer's world are face or mask sensations. According to many voice instructors, mask sensations, above all other sensations, hold the key to correct singing. Why? Because, in their view, mask sensations indicate that mask resonance is occurring. But there are a couple of serious problems with this position. If by mask sensations voice instructors and singers mean vibrations in the nasal cavities, then there could be little disagreement. Sensation in the nasal cavities is an undisputed fact of voice production, but mostly with certain consonants like m or n. If you place the tips of your fingers on either side of your nostrils and then begin humming mn, you will feel your fingertips vibrating, as well as feel vibrating sensations in your face. On the other hand, if by mask sensations we are referring to areas of the face independent of the nasal cavities, then we are back to the same sort of problem that we encountered with head sensations, namely: there is simply no empirical evidence for conduction-producing sensations in the structure of the face; nor are there resonance-creating spaces “behind the eyes” or “behind the cheeks” that vibrate and could cause facial sensations.

Mask Resonance Science has rarely stood in the way of adamant voice instructors. Committed to the notion of mask resonance, they have devised a number of vocal exercises to help a singer to achieve it by using mask sensations as his guide. An exercise that I was taught as a young voice student was to sing and sustain the word hung until I felt the ng sound vibrating my nasal cavities. While sustaining the ng, I was instructed to begin slowly to sing the "a" vowel at the same time, in the effort to incorporate the ng mask resonance into the vowel sound. After mastering this exercise, I was further instructed to repeat the same routine with all the vowel sounds, one by one, until they all possessed ng mask resonance.

The ultimate goal of these exercises was to master how to sing complete songs with this kind of mask resonance quality. The ng sound, in particular, is useful for voice instructors because they claim that it produces the mask resonance that they believe to be fundamental to good voice production. In this way, a singer could know when he is singing correctly by being attentive to the facial sensations that should accompany good mask resonance. I was told that these exercises were good for teaching balanced voice production in general and were the key to producing reliable high notes. I was also taught that mask singing helps reduce tension in the throat—throat tension being, in their view, the cause of many vocal limitations and problems. Another favorite mask-inducing exercise that I was taught was to vocalize vowel sounds while humming. Once again the goal is to create the buzzing resonance, and sensations of humming in actual singing.

Only later, during my own research, did I realize that all these so-called mask resonance exercises were really nasal-resonance exercises in disguise and that the reasons my instructors put forward to prop up this view were bogus through and through. But there is a great deal more to this sad tale. The misguided philosophies of sensation-based singing and mask resonance are directly related to a number of supporting theories that are equally as false—diaphragm support, breath control, and voice placement.

The Illogic Of Voice Placement

Singing From The Diaphragm Foolishness

The Mythology Of Breath Control

Image source: Nikolay Tarkhanov/Shutterstock

Comments

[Shumi]

Thanks for pointing out the major topics here for physical sensation..