Sarah Brumm's Voice Studio

Being able to be apart of this past semesters class of Vocal Pedagogy has strengthened my knowledge of body mapping and how to teach voice lessons, but it has also brought all kinds of new learning into my toolbox of knowledge. I believe that I have grown so much as an educator and a student by applying the principles of this class into the improvement of my voice teaching and how I approach my own voice along with its function.  One of the topics that I found most interesting this semester was about how we have control of your laryngal position. I was under the assumption that it functioned similar to the diaphragm where it moves to accommodate for space but we has humans weren't able to feel it or move it voluntarily. Through body mapping, experimentation and observation, I am now have more awareness of laryngal position in my own voice and how I can explain that to my own students. I am hoping to continue the observation of laryngal position and tilt and how I can...

  Image by: Fredrick Brown | Credit: Getty Images In the last twenty years, there has been much conversation around the concept of belting in singing. As a mainly classically trained musician, my knowledge and abilities on belting is limited but this week in vocal pedagogy we discovered and discussed healthy function of belt and how to create it in our own voices. When you listen to a musical theatre, folk, rock, or jazz, do you ever hear a very pingy sustained note that jumps out at you? If yes, then you might be hearing a vocalist producing belt. Belting is loosely defined as singing in your head voice but with the power from your chest voice. Healthy belting is also produced with a kind of trumpet-like intensity that makes the sounds seem to be very powerful without causing vocal fatigue or stress. It takes a good amount of breath support generated by a strong use of the abdominal muscles while singing.   Belting has been around since before singing because it was orig...

     In addition to being full-time in the choral conducting graduate program, I have worked as the Director of Music at a local Greenfield church for the last seven years. At the beginning of this semester one of my choir members shared with me some feelings she was having about her voice. She brought up a concern about her vibrato and how she felt like she had no control over it. At the time, I had no useful knowledge that felt would help her. I commented that she hadn't sung consistently for a few years due to the lack of choir because of the pandemic but with consistent practice she would feel more control over her vibrato. I assured her that if I found out any more information, I would try to make it applicable to her situation. I hadn't thought about that conversation until we discussed larygnal tilt in our vocal pedagogy.  Learning that we have direct control over our vibrato because it is activated by the on/off tilt of the larynx was a huge lightbulb moment...

The tongue has been the major troublemaker according to voice teachers for a long time. Teachers believed that tongue tension and placement has been getting in the way of other functions of the vocal tract and have tried to "tame the tongue" for better vocal abilities. But that is simply not true, the tongue to trying to do its job. Tongue is an important structure for swallowing and speech production. It is also the most flexible structure in the vocal tract and has the greatest potential to influence the resonance of the voice. There are four parts that make up the tongue including the tip, the blade, the dorsum, and the root. Each of these parts affects that way that resonance is produced. For this week, we will focus on the dorsum which is explained with the following pictures.  The dorsum has three positions and each produces a unique sound. The first is low dorsum. This is where your tongue lives in the jaw at or below the teeth. The sound produced will with dark and th...

Have you ever heard of the pharynx? Until this past week, I hadn't really either. I knew it was part of the respiratory system as a passage for air but I had no idea of it's function and how it relates to singing. So let's learn about the pharynx together. Pictured below is a side view of the mouth to the esophagus. We will be specifically talking about the area colored in orange which is the mid pharynx.  The mid pharynx also called the oral pharynx is a visible part of the respiratory and digestive system that can be seen when the mouth is open. Its primary function for singing is when we ascend in pitch the mid pharynx will narrow. The mid pharynx will only narrow and move back into a neutral position, no widening at all. When the mid pharynx is narrowed the sound that is produced will be brighter, where a neutral pharynx will have a more neutral sounding timbre.  The mid pharynx is also functions to help produce twang in the voice. By narrowing the mid pharynx we introd...