Sarah Brumm's Voice Studio

       The topic brought up in this week's vocal pedagogy class in singer's/vocal formants. Vocals formants are created in the vocal tract. The air inside the vocal tract resonates and depending on the tracts opening shape and size, we produce formants. We can change vocal formants by changing the shape and size of our vocal tracts. Pictured below is how common vowels should be placed within the vocal tract.  Let's use these words to body map vowel shape. Say each word and notice the differences. Some parts of the vocal tract you might notice are: tongue placement, location of soft palate, pharyngal space, laryngal placement, and lip shape. Now sing these words on a pitch, does that change anything in your body mapping or how you feel the different shapes in your vocal tract.       This topic still have lots of questions for me about how to apply this learning to my voice students. I understand that vocal formants are about resonant space and...

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...