Problems that CVT can't explain

[highnotemaniac]

I have made some progress since last time I posted. Yay! I noticed that whenever my voice starts feeling tense I shouldn't allow it to contrict and affect the work of CT-muscle. Instead I would add a little more compression (not too much though) and support. Well, I ended up hitting my easiest B4 ever before (I thought it would've been C5 ) It's no the prettiest one but it's still something I'm not sure whether it's ELN or Edge. Could someone maybe confirm that?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/dsa1k99w5r6mq5g/EB4.mp3?dl=0

Anyhow, that still doesn't solve my main issue = singing with a soft tone. It seems that I can't close my cords delicately in the high part of my voice. What could be the solution? Should I just try to lower the volume in Overdrive (like previously suggested) which is hard since when I start loosening the compression my voice cracks. Or is there any other trick to achieve Neutral?

[Thewall]

This is edge. You are using "a" vowel as in "and".

To me this sounds really good. Great progress! I think your sound-color may be just a bit too dark to stay in edge if you wanna go really high. But I would say it's natural to not go too light before you really have to, but this is also a matter of taste.

[Kaare]

Hi Burandon, I hear you changing the setting of the mode as you ascend in pitch.
Its a technical issue and it should be possible to solve quite easily.
What I hear is uncontrolled constrictions. This happens when some parameters are not adjusted correctly.

You are changing something on your way up.
Think gradually lighter color and focus on the continuous movement at the abdomen by the navel.
On top of that use the tricks/method for each mode.

On another topic:
the problem with these terms Vocal fry, Modal voice, Falsetto, Whistle is that they mean different things to different people at different places.
If anything is confusing it is polluted terms like these. Is it pitch, volume or a certain sound color that is referred to?
And I think terms like these (if taken literally) can contribute to many uncontrolled constrictions.

CVI is always researching and though the Neutral sometimes can be hard to get your head around, at least it means one thing =
A non metallic mode that can be sung all over the voice (Mode = meaning a specific, identifable wav form, a specific laryngeal setting and a specific sound)
Start high up in Neutral at volume 3 on "EE"/see (vol scale 1-10) maintain setting as you descend in pitch. decrease volume as you climb now on single notes untill you reach middle part/low part.
As you descend keep the mode!! - Dont get lured to changing into Overdrive etc.
This is the key to cracking the mode of Neutral = stay in Neutral.

Makes sense?
Kaare

[highnotemaniac]

Thank you for your answer Kaare, but it didn't quite make things clear to me. I'm gonna provide more sound examples here.

1. So here's a scale with what I call "Falsetto with air" or "Falsetto-Neutral with air".

https://www.dropbox.com/s/wdqdlpefznags ... r.mp3?dl=0

2. And here's a scale with "Falsetto" or "Falsetto-Neutral without air"

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6pimuh47tmsbw ... r.mp3?dl=0

3. This is a scale with Neutral or "Modal-Neutral". I had to lower the key a bit because my voice gets quite constricted higher if I don't add Metal. Is this perhaps Metal/Curbing-Like Neutral?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4spdpelahqgeq ... r.mp3?dl=0

4. If the previous example was Metal-Like Neutral. Then why can I add air to it as well? Or is Metal-Like Neutral with air a possible coordination?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/e9cvghpo40s0f ... r.mp3?dl=0

To prove my point here's a couple of crescendo examples.

5. Crescendo from "Falsetto-Neutral" to Curbing. Breaks or creaking occur.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ibl6cu9xrmykb ... o.mp3?dl=0

6. Crescendo from "Modal-Neutral with air" through "Modal-Neutral" to Curbing. No breaks.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/lveuotj0vi4o6 ... o.mp3?dl=0

7. By doing some fine adjustments it's possible to do quite an indistinguishable transition from "Falsetto-Neutral" through "Modal-Neutral" to Curbing. Can't do this much higher though :/

https://www.dropbox.com/s/naksqu61v5nxk ... 2.mp3?dl=0 (The third attempt worked out best)

I have discussed about this with my teachers and they have agreed with me that there are some indirectly explained stuff going on here and that it's causing a little bit confusion in the CVT community. Whatever the case may be, when it comes to reaching high notes is it useful to train that "Falsetto-Neutral" with crescendo in order try to achieve "Modal-Neutral"?

8. The interesting part is when I try to increase the volume in "Falsetto-Neutral" in the high part of my voice the creaking is replaced with something else.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/g4ry89h3mtrhn ... O.mp3?dl=0

A couple of my teachers have told me about this "canyon voice" -concept what I have been calling a "metallic falsetto". And that's where my voice wants to go whenever I'm trying to reach pitches above E-F4. The lower the volume the earlier it wants to change (if I'm allowing it in order to avoid uncontrolled constrictions). So for example the "Modal-Neutral" ends up creaking because the change is happening "too early".

So the "Canyon Voice" (or whatever it is) gets pretty loud in the very high part of my voice and somedays it's also very clear (not much creaking) and unsmuthered. The "Edge" sound on B4 I posted earlier is done with it. My teacher says it has not enough "body" to be Edge. The reverb might fool you.

9. Here's more distinct difference between Overdrive and the "Canyon voice". (Don't worry, the creaking doesn't hurt me ) But as I mentioned, somedays it can be clearer and very easy to connect with Overdrive or Edge.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/bswgaagaf06td ... n.mp3?dl=0

The "Canyon voice" doesn't work (creaking appears) or works poorly with vowels "EE", "OO" and "I". And works best with vowels "EH", "OH" and "A". And that's probably why the Canyon voice can be quite indistinguishably connected with Overdrive and Edge.

Centering the modes should do the trick but the quiet (excluding Falsetto) and medium volumes trigger uncontrolled constriction and in louder volumes my voice lures itself into the "Canyon" or creaks no matter what I do. Is there hope?

Hopefully, this gives you some kind of a clue what's going on.


- highnotemaniac

[gera89]

you sir, have encountered the flageolet split of the voice!

[highnotemaniac]

That's probably the case and the key to solve the split is to increase volume. But in my case above F4 the split or canyon voice can be as loud as 7 or 8 on volume scale. I think the vocal tract setting is staying the same but something's going wrong on vocal cord level. So it's really hard to find a good way to approach this problem.

[Kaare]

Hi there.
Well:
The first 4 links is Neutral - not Modal-Neutral or Falsetto-Neutral but Neutral.

5 link: You are simply changing between to settings in the vocal tract making the cords go from full lenght to partial vibrations (flageolet) so a break occurs.

6 & 7: You attempt to do a gradual transition between these two "extreme" positions and hey...no break so no problem

8: No "canyon" (and I would suggest that you dont use the word as no one knows what "Canyon" is) - its just a wrong setting for the given mode you sing in - hence Creaking appears.

So...in your examples I dont hear anything that indicates that you have a problem with a split, its simply 2 "extreme" positions that you have already found a way to get to "communicate"/avoid the break in your crescendo examples.

Hope it makes sense.

Best regards
Kaare

[highnotemaniac]

Thank you for your answer, Kaare This should clear things out a bit. Just want to make sure whether I have understood your answer correctly:

"Falsetto-Neutral": Neutral + flageolet (below C5) (breaks can occur, link 5)

"Modal-Neutral": Neutral (full vibrations) (no breaks, link 6)

So in order to have a break you need flageolet? If I continue to singing in Neutral + flageolet to the very high part of my voice I have to either let it go loud or let it break into this relatively tiny sound. Is that "second break" kind of an "second flageolet"? I'm referring here to the illustration on page 68 which states that the amount of dampening of the cords can vary.

I would call this one the "Whistle-Neutral". Here I am demonstrating it alongside with Neutral + flageolet in B4. On a good day I can bring the "Whistle Neutral" above C6, but it's not very usable because I can't control it and the volume is pretty low if you compare it to for example Adam Lopez's.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/z48brzpwg5rgv ... 4.mp3?dl=0

It seems to me that whenever Neutral is discussed (at least when it comes to male voice) CVT is referring to Neutral + flageolet -coordination. In my opinion this is not necessarily helpful to a singer since Neutral + flageolet is rarely used below F4/G4 in professional singing due to it's comicality and weak volume (BeeGees etc. might be a whole different story). I think there should be a clearer division between these two.

Here's a male subject singing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" in Neutral without air from CVI's research site (There's a typing error in the titles. It says "Song in Neutral with air" although it should be "without air). You need to scroll it down a bit to find the video.

http://completevocalinstitute.com/cvtre ... thout-air/

In this video I hear only the Neutral + flageolet coordination.

And here is Adam Lambert singing an acapella of his song around the same pitches. Here I hear mostly Neutral in full vibrations (the most quiet notes and the high notes in the end might be in flageolet)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNdufFrTLko

That's the sound I'm looking for and it's probably found through lowering the volume in metallic modes which seems to be quite an impossible task for me above C4 Is flageolet below C5 also possible in metallic modes? It just seems that there's a place, where my voice can go, between Neutral + flageolet and full vibrations (=rest of my voice) below C5. But then again it tends have creaking in it so perhaps it's just an uncentered mode like you pointed out.

Offtopic: Just out of curiosity, when ascending pitch and keeping the same volume and mode does the CQ also stay the same?

EDIT: Maybe it's a little bit misleading to define my problem as "flageolet in metallic modes" because it actually doesn't have any metal in it Is it even possible to produce metallic sound in flageolet? Is that why male singers usually switch to Metal-Like Neutral in the very high part of their voices?

I can't bring any metal above E-F4 (okey there may be days when twanging helps to get my Edge a bit higher). But the E4 is pretty uncontrollably constricted already.

Here's a sound clip where I'm changin between Neutral(+ flageolet) and the loudest sound I can produce on F#4. It's not as loud as my Overdrive/Edge/Curbing on E4. So I'm guessing it's Neutral/Metal-Like Neutral in full vibrations? It's very unstable, sounds horrible, shouty and like I mentioned many vowels break it apart. I think my voice switches to that in order to remove the constrictions I start getting after C4. Is there anyway I can modify it to become louder (=gain metal) and better sounding because from bottom to top approach doesn't seem to work?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/md35s0wbezjc5 ... l.mp3?dl=0

[highnotemaniac]

*bump

[Kaare]

Hi there, in relations to the videos on CVT web site, one can clearly SEE that its not partial vibrations (flageolet) - as the volume is too loud - meaning that you are not hearing what is actually taking place anatomically.
On top, the wav from shows Neutral, not flageolet.

If you are looking for "Adam´s" sound I would do as suggested:
Start in metal and decrease volume untill the metal disappears and leave the sound of the last link as the position sounds impaired and inconsistent and theres no clear indication as to what sound you are actually going for...

Trick for Like:
Say "Hey" in the low part with air.
Keep this sensation (of "Overdrive + air" - which of course is rubbish but as a image...) - keep position/sound but remove air.
Ascend in pitch but still keep volume on the Neutral side.

Image:
Wooden box.
Place a "square box of metal" in the mouth cavity.
The further forward you place it, the less metal. The further back, the more.

Hold:
For Curbing place the hold far back/Down to achieve standard Curbing.
Place forward to find medium or Curbing-like N.

Make sense?
Kaare

[eggplantbren]

Hi there, in relations to the videos on CVT web site, one can clearly SEE that its not partial vibrations (flageolet) - as the volume is too loud - meaning that you are not hearing what is actually taking place anatomically.
On top, the wav from shows Neutral, not flageolet.

Awesome! I might try and see if I can detect the difference in my own voice. I've often had trouble distinguishing between regular and flageolet when using neutral in the high part, so if I can get a more objective handle on it that would be very helpful.

[Kaare]

Great!

[CaroleSenecal]

This is a test (sorry).

[Kaare]

In your examples I simply hear some small technical issues that, at times, make the sound slightly unstable.
I would assume that, with the right technical approach and some discipline on your behalf when practicing, those issues can be eliminated rather quickly.
You write that you have been taking voice lessons for 2-3 years now.
Is that with an authorized CVT coach?

As soon as the voice becomes unstable, check your lower jaw.
Is it protruding? (Check with a finger on single notes)
If this is the case, something is perhaps positioned wrongly in the vocal tract and the gradual, inwards movement of the support by the navel is perhaps impaired.
You might be contracting your abdominal muscles way too much.

In short, what I hear are quite normal technical issues that begin in the higher range.
The general voice quality is good.

So...pick a mode, single notes on your favorite vowel, with the right volume, the right trick whilst focusing on the right movement in the support.
All of this is explained in the CVT book, so if you need any add. help look to the book to get some pointers.
Also read about "How to practice".

Remember: practice slowly to learn fast.

Hope it makes sense.

Best regards
Kaare

[highnotemaniac]

This is quite an old thread. Somebody just bumped this up. Yes, I have worked with three different authorized CVT teachers for a couple of years and all of them have kinda concluded that they don't have much to give me anymore. I'm thinking about paying a visit to CVI when I find the time.

It has been confirmed that I can center the modes in my comfort zone. When I get in trouble in the beginning of the 4th octave the center is lost but of course I'm not changing anything voluntarily. My guess is that my voice just tries to compensate the excessive air pressure and guides it towards Flageolet when constrictions stop almost all the vibrations. So my main problem is more support related than anything else. Anyway, I have more recent posts in the "How long can you hold a note?" -thread.