Your GPS for resonance

One of the important things you’ve heard (or maybe even never heard about!) is RESONANCE. And the words connected to it: placement, projection, resonating cavities, flow…

In few words how it works. The air is pushed out of the lowest part of the lungs, the flow makes vocal cords vibrate - this way we get a flow of air and sound. After this flow goes up to your head - to resonate! And here is the trick - we can conduct it to exact place we need.

The same note can be sang to the front of your face (in a “mask”), or to the nasal cavities, behind upper teeth, under the soft palate, or to lower jaw, or wherever in the head you want. Here will be the question where do you need it for exact note. That also depends on the style, pitch, syllable, emotion, etc. (Oh so many!).

But here I stop - because we understand that it should be there, but do we understand how to get it to the desired placement?

So get comfortable and try this!

• Acknowledge that your breath was supported by the diaphragm;

• Make sure that your neck and all the throat were not stressed;

• Notice the pressure you got in your lips and around while exhaling.

So you got 2 points of pressure: the “air pump” down in the waist area and the placement - in this case your lips and around.

Next step is doing same thing but using the second point of pressure as a resonance placement:

Try to do same as before, only switch “F” to humming on any comfortable pitch. Don’t stress muscles of your face (no lips/cheeks movements, relaxed face). The vibration/pressure you are feeling IS the resonance.

So now the placement is in your lips. And you can do this resonance wider/narrower, change the placement of it higher/lower etc. You can experiment and change the resonance placement to your nasal cavities: give your mind a task to move the pressure from lips to the nose.

Come back to the placement of lips area, open on the sound “Oo” [u:], the placement stays in the same point. Close back to humming. Move the placement to the nose, open on “Oo” [u:] again and keep the placement in the same “nasal” point.

And now - oh wonder! Same note and the same vowel sounds different! Try to record yourself to actually hear the difference;-)

Let me know if you could feel the difference, if you want more exercises like this, and if you struggle with anything related to resonance by replying to this letter, or DM me on my Instagram.

Your vocal coach,

Maria Dudnik

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