Onset equilibrium

My esteemed teacher, Dr. Bennie (Benjamin) Middaugh, was the first to point me in the direction of the perfect balance of vocal ism as demonstrated in the speaking voice.  As a singer who had enjoyed some success,  I had hungrily absorbed concepts that kept me on track; maintaining 2800 (singer's formant), lots of breath support etc..  While some of what I had stumbled onto heretofore as a singer helped me to realize a tremendous potential for singing and understanding the voice, I was beginning to have trouble.  I was losing range and both ends, finding it difficult to stay in tune, I could not ascend the scale with out having to increase the volume (effort) and was losing the ability to demonstrate vocal subtlety, some would argue that subtlety was something that had always eluded me.  Regardless, I had found myself working on an MM at a local liberal arts college near my home town where my friend of several years at that point, Dr. Middaugh (Bennie) had been teaching for three decades at that point in the early 90's. 

In his vocal pedagogy class, he went through the William Vennard book, "Singing:  The Mechanism and the Technic".  If you know this book, you'll recall it has no narrative, it simply breaks down the technical components encountered in the processes of the voice through an outline of Breathing, Musculature, Vowels etc.; each section containing bulleted statements on research, practice, concepts and the scientific verification available at the time.  Bennie went right to the bone as he enlightened us on the principals of our craft; admonishing us to stick to the facts and stay out of the weeds when working to develop singers and our own voices.  I fondly remember this time as a miracle unfolding in my life and am deeply grateful for my now departed teacher.  Bennie changed my life in the first couple of sessions of this course.

The first thing he pointed out to us were the "Principals of Tone"

1.  Actuator
2.  Vibrator
3.  Resonator

He then said, "Lets start with defining a tone:  A sound that has a measurable frequency (herz, pitch) and amplitude (volume)."  So, we gleaned that the sound made by a book falling onto the floor is not a tone, but rather noise.  Then the stage was set for a miracle to unfold for me.

The actuator is the power source, what initializes and begins the tone.  The vibrator was the vibrating entity that maintained the measurable frequency.  The resonator is what empathized with the frequency and amplified the tone.   A piano's actuator is the arm motion of the pianist throwing the hammer, the vibrator is the piano string, the resonator is the sound board.  A violin: arm- bow, string, case.  An organ: wind, opening in the pipe (think the top of a coke bottle), the pipe itself defines the pitch through its size and space for vibrating air, and is the initial resonance that is further expanded on by the room in which it is played, hopefully containing no carpeting. Thus, the human voice then is Air, Vocal Cord (thyro-arytenoid), and the vowel sound.

More specifically, the Actuator in all wind instrument,  of which the human voice is one, is the air-flow.  It sets into motion a physical principal referred to as Bernoulli's principal.  You have experienced this dynamic when you play against the wind flow around you hand outside of a moving vehicle, or in the water in a moving stream or while in a boat or canoe.  It is a flow dynamic where anything flowing (water, air, lava etc.) encounters an obstruction and the flowing material seeks out the path of least resistance creating a differentiation of low/high pressure.  The vibrator is the thryo-arytenoid muscle (cords, vocal folds, glottis).  The slit in the middle of the two thyro-arytenoid muscles inside our larynx is adducted (drawn together) which then sets into motion a vibratory cycle that is replicated over and over as the air moves through the vocal folds.  And lastly, the vowel sound, which is unique to our time and space inside the earth's atmosphere as humans and further, how we can manipulate the varied vowels sounds available to us with the spaces and cavities above and below the larynx.

I imagine that the baby must allow some of our atmosphere into the mouth cavity when the mouth is opened, even slightly,  this first teaspoon (if) of air is used through the devices of Bernoulli's principal to eek out the first spark of sound.   This then is followed by the first full breath and that really gets the party started.  It is a miracle! It is a divine spark! It is also maintained by a physical marvel and balance that imprints on our tiny body and our budding awareness the basic simple impulse to express our being through the marvel of balanced physical principals and sound.  Like riding a tiny bike for the first time.  An infant has no other strength at this point. It is our first attempt to resist gravity as we push out against the pressure of the Earth's atmosphere.  The vagus nerve and the newly stimulated sympathetic nervous system ( the miracle) begins interact with these first attempts to resist gravity in the only way possible for us at this point.  Breathe, scream, breath, scream, breath, scream, breath scream.   Not causing vocal fatigue, but rather, strengthening the laryngeal musculature with every vocal gesture after every new breath; developing an awareness of vocal equilibrium as it is this that dominates and maintains vocal-ism; it is balance not exertion.  While exertion can be mingled with it, it is purely impedance as we haven't learned how to refine the process at this point.  We haven't learned how to control the resonator.  This is done as we age and imitate the sounds around us. We, as infants at this point are engaging the spark of our voices as it relates to this new physical world we have just become aware of.  It is this onset equilibrium imprints on us,  and dominates our speech patterns for a lifetime.  To consider this equilibrium is of primary importance in developing a healthy singing technique and for maintaining a healthy voice for a lifetime as it serves as a vehicle for vocal expression through our individual and highly dynamic voice.