Singing Is Actually Quite Simple

2008/7/7 15:48:09

There's not much to say about short-term stocks. What needed to be said has all been said before. Break through the first level, then see if the pullback can hold. If it holds, continue pushing for the second level. That's all there is to it. As for medium-term, there's even less to say. The basic judgment has been clearly given multiple times -- just watch how the market plays out according to the script.

Recently everyone's been discussing how to relax the so-called macro controls. On this issue, talking about it now is only locking the barn after the horse has bolted. Better to revisit this ID's article from early this year: "2008: Beware of Excessive Macro Controls (2008-01-10 17:33:22)."

Enough chitchat. Too much economics talk -- let's change the flavor and talk about singing.

Singing is of course quite simple, especially now that technology has advanced and society has become entertainment-ified and karaoke-ified. As long as you're a person and your throat can squeeze out some sound, you can have a go at singing. Add some electronic processing, and anyone can release an album. However, what this ID is talking about today is getting to the root of things -- investigating the indispensable physical operational factors behind producing beautiful sound.

From a purely physical perspective, a fact ignored by most people is that a basic prerequisite for beautiful singing is the ability of the vocal cords to freely produce a firm fundamental tone. A hollow-sounding voice cannot be beautiful. Your voice can sound ethereal, but etherealness must have roots. Hollowness is merely a manifestation of incorrect voice placement. Singing is essentially very much a matter of physics.

This morning, while re-exercising my voice, even with this ID's neck still having a large swelling, I could still produce firm sound across the full range. This also experimentally proves that, apart from serving as a resonating chamber, truly beautiful sound has nothing to do with anything above the shoulders. While this ID was recovering and practicing, I was thinking about how to enable more people to simply grasp the secret of singing.

A person who cannot produce beautiful singing is actually quite pitiable. Life is short -- how wonderful it would be to have the most beautiful instrument of the human voice accompany you through life's darkness and light. A person with a terrible singing voice who can't carry a tune cannot possess well-rounded cultivation (from the Confucian educational perspective, music is one of the most fundamental qualities). Yet the secret of singing has been kept from the public by so-called professionalism. This completely contradicts this ID's ideal that knowledge belongs to all of humanity. So, though I know it's difficult, I still want to try revealing this secret in the simplest way, allowing more people to truly bask in the glory of music.

Honestly, many people speak with incorrect voice placement, let alone sing. The so-called correct sound is certainly not the mechanized, parts-like "standard pronunciation" of CCTV -- that's merely an instrumentalized sound. True sound comes from the stimulation of one's own emotions -- it is vivid and alive.

But emotion alone is not enough; certain basic techniques are essential. Actually, when humans are first born, their voice placement is correct. Look at those babies -- they cry all day long and their voices remain loud and clear. Why? Because their voice placement is correct, enabling them to produce the loudest sound for the longest time with the least effort. As people grow up, numerous bad vocal habits ultimately make beautiful sound extremely rare.

Truly beautiful sound, in the most colloquial terms, means being able to produce both the conversational sound of pop music and the dramatic voice of opera. If you can't do both, then the voice still hasn't achieved true technical mastery.

For the voice to produce beautiful sound, one must first let the vocal cords freely produce a firm fundamental tone, then use the resonating chambers to embellish and amplify it. In practice, this complex human engineering can be achieved quite simply. Here I'll describe this ID's unique method -- hopefully those with some aptitude can master it.

Directly manipulating the vocal cords is doomed to fail, as this only increases their tension. What we can actually control are the muscles related to the vocal cords and the entire laryngeal structure, and the natural functions of the human body make this control less complicated than imagined.

First, you must learn to produce the smallest sound with a pure fundamental tone that has a transparent metallic luster. Note: before finding this smallest but correctly placed sound, you absolutely must not try to produce louder sounds. Doing so will only damage the entire vocal system. Though it can be recalibrated with correct methods, that's unnecessarily tortuous.

The cross-section where the neck meets the shoulders can roughly be seen as a circle. This circle contains an intermediate cross-section of the correct vocal tube. Correct vocalization must be tube-like. The only adjustable aspects are the diameter and length of this vocal tube. Adjusting the length is simple, provided you can correctly and freely adjust the tube's diameter. Correspondingly, as the musical mood changes, you can naturally find the appropriate length adjustment -- this requires only specific practice.

Therefore, the initial key is learning to adjust the diameter of this vocal tube. The simplest method is to virtually "speak" silently using a tiny area at the lower back of that cross-section, as if you've moved your mouth to that position, imagining firm but soundless speech. If you have meditation experience, you can complete this visualization in one second. If your neck's energy channels are clear, you can then feel this virtual sensation extend as a thin tube upward and downward -- up to the space at the back of the head, down to the diaphragm.

As long as you can learn to control this tube, all those seemingly profound vocal terminology will naturally manifest perfectly. For example, "opening the throat" -- very few can actually do it correctly. Why? Because nobody has figured out what "opening the throat" actually refers to. Current singers all rely on incorrect muscles to support their sound. To test whether anyone's voice is perfect, you only need them to sing four types of sound consecutively: various types of pop songs (including rock-style sounds), lyrical high-range art songs (including folk-style), dark mid-to-low-range dramatic works, and dramatic high-range works. If one has correctly mastered the tube, all these completely different types of sound can be produced freely. A truly good voice knows no distinction between high, middle, low, lyric, and dramatic.

Start step by step. Begin practicing with pop songs or lyrical/folk-style sounds. The latter requires a slightly larger tube diameter and greater vertical extension than the former. Pop vocal sound uses a lot of falsetto. How to perfectly connect chest voice and falsetto is the key to further practice, though someone with aptitude can completely learn to handle this in three minutes.

As for lyrical/folk-style sound, one must practice the so-called "back-of-head voice." But actually, this doesn't need separate practice. As long as the tube diameter is adjusted properly, it comes out freely. The key is still tube diameter adjustment (so-called "adjustment" only requires the intention, as in meditation -- you don't need to deliberately adjust. Just think about it and the body naturally adjusts. If you can't do this, your nervous system has a problem and has lost the ability to fine-tune).

Note: the tube diameter cannot be opened too wide. If too wide, the sound will have difficulty being placed in a high position -- meaning you can't achieve the so-called back-of-head voice. When singing this type of sound, the sensation is of a tube of modest diameter going straight to the back of the head, with sound flowing out from behind the head, very high and bright. At that point, the entire head, including some bone connections in the cheeks, seems to open up.

I won't bother with specific medical terminology, as it would only hinder practice. In fact, when operating correctly, from the shoulders to the top of the head, at least three junctures are opened up. Only then can the back-of-head voice emerge naturally and automatically.

If you've done some research and practice in the secrets of body training, you'll know that in Tibetan esoteric practices and similar training, from the root chakra upward, seven energy channels need to be opened. The positions for singing are extremely similar -- this is this ID's way of bringing different disciplines together.

Of course, the thinnest tube cannot produce the dark mid-to-low-range dramatic or dramatic high-range sounds. These types of sound require adjusting the tube's diameter. At maximum, this leads to the opening of the entire chest cavity. The sound at this point is completely different from pop or folk sounds -- it seems like a different person's voice altogether.

For breathing, fully coordinate with the tube's adjustment. Generally speaking, for the first two lighter sound types, the lower abdomen provides only slight support. For the latter two, the entire diaphragm seems to open completely. The lower abdomen and even the soles of the feet provide powerful support -- but this support is not deliberate. It's the natural accompaniment when the tube adjusts to musical mood. This is a unique function of the human body. Being able to produce high notes with strong chest resonance and metallic luster -- not many people seem able to do this freely.

One must absolutely change these misconceptions -- for example, that breathing needs to be practiced separately, that resonance needs separate practice, and so on. In fact, singing is the best breathing and resonance practice. No additional practice is needed whatsoever. If your body is weak, start with quiet sounds and simple works. Nobody expects you to start with Aida or Turandot.

Truly beautiful singing, even when producing the most intense sounds, is relaxed -- as natural as speaking. Using silent speech to find the correct placement and then gradually expanding the tube diameter should be a shortcut. When you can freely handle the corresponding intensity of sounds and repertoire, the muscles and organs naturally achieve their optimal training effect. This is the true practice of practicing without practicing.