Mythbusters

For the last four years I've been involved in the Performance Voice Conference sponsored by the University of Utah Voice Disorders Center. Twice I sat on a panel called "Vocal Health Mythbusters" with Ingo Titze, PhD, Marshall Smith, MD, and Kristine Tanner, PhD. The purpose of the panel was to discuss the many ideas surrounding vocal health and singing that may not exactly be based on fact.

Many of these ideas seem to make sense when you hear them. Since most of the physical mechanisms involved in singing are hidden inside our bodies, we can find ourselves assuming something is true just because it feels a certain way. While sensation is an important tool for singers, it's also important to understand what's really going on.

Here are some of the more common myths or misconceptions I have heard over the years (along with my responses). Most of them are things I believed at one point or another until I learned otherwise. And as Oprah says (via Maya Angelou), "Once you know better, do better!"

You must breathe into your diaphragm. 
When you inhale, your diaphragm engages and lowers, drawing air into your lungs, not your diaphragm. Your diaphragm is a muscle. You cannot breathe into it.

You must breathe into your stomach. 
When the diaphragm lowers, it presses on the contents of the abdominal cavity which can give a sensation of outward expansion along your waist. But, again, since the air is going into your lungs you are not breathing "into" your stomach.

You must stand up straight to sing.
Efficient alignment will generally benefit your singing. But the spine has natural curvature. If you straighten that out...ouch!

You should always sing with enough space to fit three fingers vertically into the front of your mouth.
Again, ouch! This may be true for certain notes in your range (I'm thinking specifically of your extreme top notes) but if you don't have a particularly large mouth, three fingers of space may make your jaw feel hyper extended.

Raise your eyebrows to keep from singing flat. 
Pitch goes up when the cricothyroid muscle engages and the vocal folds are lengthened. Your eyebrows are not connected to your CT muscle. [Disclaimer: There are elements of breath flow and resonance that contribute to pitch as well, but your eyebrows don't impact these either.]

Drinking water will help wash phlegm off of your vocal folds.
Only if your epiglottis fails you. Your epiglottis closes over the larynx when you swallow so that food and liquids are directed into your esophagus, where they head to your stomach, and not into the trachea where they would pass your vocal folds on their way to the lungs. If water is passing by your vocal folds, you are probably drowning.

Lift your upper jaw when you sing. 

Myth: Eventually you're going to have to grow up.

You only have one jaw, which connects to the skull at the temporomandibular joint and can move up and down when speaking, singing, and chewing. If you are moving your upper teeth, you are moving your skull, not an upper jaw.

Let the sound resonate throughout your head.
Please don't. That's where your brain should be.

Always sing with a lowered larynx and a high soft palate.
That depends on what sound you are trying to make. Some singing may call for a higher laryngeal position and/or a lowered soft palate.

What other vocal myths have you heard? What vocal myths did you once believe? (be honest!)

What are your practice goals for the last month of the semester?

Now go practice.