Anyone know more about these myofascia massage on throat methods?
Archive for the ‘theory on tension’ Category
throat massage and myofascia
February 24, 2013Full voice idea
September 28, 2010It would seem that a full voice can be achieved by: 1. reducing the tension on the soft upper pallet, which gives the vocal tract a slightly longer tract, as the soft upper pallet can then be more concave upwards. This gives bassy sounds a longer path. 2. Then, send (push) the sound more to the sinus mask to increase higher frequency resonance as well. Curious as to whether this idea is correct. Love to hear your thoughts!
This is not to say that it’s easy to detense and push at the same time, while there’s still vocal tract tension. Vocalposture’s view is that eventually, detensing will make the full sound the natural, innate sound.
Different singing sounds after jogging
July 5, 2010From themodernvocalist.com:
[quote=classical guitar]Okay here’s the deal…
Vocal Range without jogging 3 miles in the morning= A2-A5
Vocal Range with jogging 3 miles in the morning= B3-C#5 (at least)
What’s going on? It’s so frustrating having to deal with a different instrument half the days of the week… It’s like bi-polar voice syndrome or something…
Also, I tend to wake up with a realllllly low voice for a tenor in the morning. Maybe the two are related. I’m currently on meds for acid reflux, and drinking about a gallon of water a day (have been for a year). Lot’s of sinus drainage also on days that I don’t get the cardio in…
Anybody else deal with this frustrating crap?[/quote]
Well, here’s my two cents worth.
The body stores muscle tension patterns. When one runs, one “shakes” up these patterns, and your resonanting mechanism as well as your musclar controls are affected. Musclar controls return quickly after some rest, but shaking up tension patterns are not restored quickly. Afterwards, one’s vocal apparatus sounds entirely different.
To solve this, one needs to get rid of the tension patterns–detense–which is a difficult process being described in my blog, www.vocalposture.com. (Most of the information isn’t on there yet). By permanently ridding of stored muscular tensions, you’ll sing far better than your current conditions, in any pitch ranges.
Acid reflux meds, especially proton inhibitors, in general, help sufferers sing better. The reason is that when acid touches the esophageal and mouth tissues, these weaken; furthermore, acidic fumes cause nasal congestion (as the nasal tissues protect themselves by shutting closing the nose to nasal fumes). With acid reflux med, the vocal tissues are stronger.
Of course, it is better not to use acid reflux med at all; there are lots of techniques for this–some of which is explained or will be explained in www.vocalposture.com.
Getting rid of tension before accurate singing
June 22, 2010Alan Greene is mostly accurate in that one’s vocal practice does little good until the tension is gone. He’s saying that the practice can develop bad habits.
This is somewhat accurate–that tension causes other types of sounds to emerge. And because hearing remains inaccurate with bad posture; such that, due to Maya and even accompanying music, one continues to believe that one is singing accurately.
However, this Vocalposture’s detensing involves the entire body and can take a very long time. Also, the optimal goal is flexibility to tonal and body changes, such that the practices can easily change to a new style, due to detensed tissues.
Hence, Vocalposture’s methods differ from Greene in that vocal exercises start early, before all tension disappears. Vocalposture is concerned about excessive tensions that may injure voice, so harmful singing should not be part of its initial exercises.
Expanded chest and ribs for singing
January 8, 2010The question is asked whether the rib should be expanded.
http://www.punbb-hosting.com/forums/themodernvocalist/viewtopic.php?id=586
The question, in my opinion, should not be whether to keep the ribs deliberately expanded, but, instead, how to have the rib relaxed and in tone, which, in my opinion, is usually is a far more expanded state. Your singing state should be its ribs in muscular tone state and adjusted for the emotional effect your singing is trying to achieve.
The reason the ribs are usually not in a relaxed and in-muscular-tone state is because of posture problems and emotional tension. These are difficult to fix, but if fixed, the result will be an expanded chest, similar to what is described frequently in professional dance classes. It is also possible to attain an expanded rib similar to that in a military stance, but this often produces lesser varieties of emotional sounds.
Interesting how the words musical tone and muscular tone are related—this is what http://www.vocalposture.com is stating.
Aging and singing
May 16, 2009As people age, they seem to lose some of their singing tonal qualities and pitch range. Why?
Athletes need muscles, which is prime in the mid 20s, so we can understand why athletes tend to be in their prime in the 20s. But is this true for singers? The amount of athleticism involved in singing is miniscule.
Singing is more akin to acting–very little athleticism to accomplish a goal. The youthful muscles might not be key; emotional maturity makes a big difference in acting, as well as in singing.
Drinking, smoking, acid reflux–yes, these will all degrade the voice, possibly permanently. But, suppose someone didn’t do any of these, why can’t he or she sustain a lifelong great voice, as good as younger and possibly better?
VocalPosture.com speculates that this is somewhat possible. All that a voice is is a vocal tract in action. As long as the tonicity of the muscles in the vocal tract is intact, there is no reason why an older vocal tract can’t produce sounds as well as an younger one.
VocalPosture.com speculates that it is primarily due to a process called shortening of the muscles due to aging and injury that the vocal tract muscle tone is thus degraded.
Thus, to reverse much of the effects of aging, as it relates to the voice, the objectives are: to keep posture aligned so that shortening is reduced; to then stretch what has shortened
Singing emotions and microexpressions
May 14, 2009To better understand how microexpressions (which I claim the name doesn’t explain its causes well, as are many terms in the “subconscious” terminology) affect singing:
To sing an emotion, basically the vocal structure needs to be formed in a certain way…. whether it is sadness, anger, happiness. This means that there are large muscle movements that cause a sad face, an angry face, an enthusiastic body, etc.
Microexpressions are frequently subconscious reflexes, and my claim is that these are imbued within the tonicity of muscles and the myofascia tissues. This is less of a nerves issue, but is instead a failure in the nervous system complete circuit.
What happens with the microexpressions is that they prevent the larger muscles from fully extending itself. Hence, if one has suppressed sadness, the imbued sad tissue-tension counter the happiness gestures. So, if one tries to sing happy, and is feeling sad unconsciously; yes it will work, but not nearly as well as if the microexpression sadness wasn’t there.
Emotions, posture, and microexpressions
May 13, 2009I agree, Judy, posture and emotions are interrelated. This is why in meditation there is such an emphasis on a straight spine–because a straight spine gently pulls all the tensed and loose muscles into alignment. This is also why yoga has pose and counterpose. The objectives of both of these practices are to reach a spiritual level where the “soul” isn’t affected by the emotions. In modern terms, we can think of this as “detensing” the muscles to achieve mental and emotional flexibility and stability.
There was a U. of Chicago scientist Eugene Gindlin (sp?) who wrote a book titled “Focusing”, which described a term now known as “microexpressions”? These are subconscious emotions, usually not visible to outsiders, that express true emotions. This gives a clue as to how emotions work–they are bound up with the muscles.
Thus, I’m suggesting, unless suppressed microexpression emotions are gotten rid of, it is very difficult to sing the songs that the feel is counter to the emotions. It is possible though to sing songs that the feel is consistent with these emotions–this can also be a form of sublimation.
Microexpression emotions cannot be gotten rid of by forcibly getting one into good posture–it takes a long time to get rid of these emotional muscular miniscule tensions.
Anyhow, these ideas are being blogged in my VocalPosture.com website.
Suppression of sorrow
April 29, 2009It is well known that the body can suppress pain and sorrow. These are retained primarily in the muscles. We also know, from Eugene Gindlin’s (sp?) “Focusing” the idea of microexpressions. And from Travell, trigger points and taut muscles. These are inconsistent with the idea that vocal structure is correct to begin with.
It is these suppressed body pains that cause interference and can cause sublimation.
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