Experience Can Be Misleading

It’s clear that many voice instructors have misread resonant singing. By misinterpreting the sensations of mask singing (really nasal resonance) and identifying the mask as the primary source of all resonance, the major sources of resonance—the pharynx, soft palate, and oral cavity—have been reduced in importance or ignored altogether. The erroneous belief that facial sensations are the origin of resonance does not, however, necessarily affect one's singing one way or the other. In fact, most excellent singers hold false ideas about how they sing. “Chest voice” and “head voice”—although metaphors that were invented by the Italian masters centuries ago—have no basis in physical reality; yet many good singers believe fervently in these notions.

A false belief about proper singing technique, even a passionately held one, does not necessarily impinge on the physical process of singing any more than, say, believing that the process of thinking takes place in the heart (by the way, a belief that was held by the Greek philosopher Aristotle). The physical process of singing follows its own laws and principles regardless of a singer's beliefs.

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