Question 14

Dear Ms. Lang,

.........Could you please explain to me how much air is needed for singing. My professor always says that I should "give more breath" and that a singer has to "press halt" at high pitch. I had replied to him that pushing the air makes me tired and then a lot of air resonates with the voice. My throat is always very dry afterwards ...........
Thank you!
A.B.*

*Initials changed

Dear Ms. B.,
thank you very much for your trust and for the recording you sent, on which it can be clearly heard that you go up with a lot of breath pressure after being asked to do so. As a result, the true vocal folds lose contact and the sound is breathy.
The true vocal folds always try to maintain the best possible contact adapted to the requirements in order to be able to vibrate well and evenly. If now more air than necessary meets vibrating vocal folds, it comes after a short "fight" to the "surrender": the vocal folds close then no longer so tightly and it can come to a breathy sound. This can have a very unfavorable effect on sound production in the high register. First there is an over-airy sound with a raspy/head voice, which then slides into a falsetto sound with more pressure, since the body cannot compensate for the pressure. The air rubbing in the larynx causes dry mucous membranes, discomfort and is responsible for faster fatigue.

What I find difficult is the specification of your instructor, who, as a man, can lead the full voice higher without any problems and, due to the thicker body cover, produces a longer vocal fold contact and thus naturally a sound with more core. However, from the upper passaggio on, the latter also gets a significantly greater air admixture in the sound due to higher breath pressure and the pitch is too low from the transitional register, which he again tries to compensate for by applying more pressure.
For female and male voices it is true that around the c' the transition from "chest" to "head" voice, from thick to thin body cover. I.e. your teacher sings you the exercises with full voice or relatively thick body cover and doesn't seem to know that this is not possible for women's voices one or two octaves higher. You also do this correctly up to a certain point and blend the voice well. However, if too much air pressure is added on the way up, you get the result described above. And this brings me to the next point: building up adequate subglottic pressure, which should produce optimal vocal fold contact at every pitch, at every volume, and with every timbre. Singers should create "suction" pressure, not abdominal pressure.
A longer vocal fold contact, i.e., a longer closure phase produces a more intense, "louder" sound. If the vocal fold closure phase and thus the contact of the vocal folds is shorter, the sound produced will also be less intense. Loudness is therefore created by mass, not by air!
I would like to answer your question about the quantity of air needed with the words of my teacher, the Paul Lohmann student Ingrid Bjoner: as much as necessary, as little as possible. My teacher Angelo Loforese said that "the air that is in the mouth is enough to sing."

Sincerely

Petra Lang