I’m always thinking of ways to understand and relate to my voice (and other voices) better. Thinking as a socialist: my job is to assist people in accessing their ‘means of vocal production’, to feel less ‘alienated’ from our voices and the expressive process and to not feel ‘exploited’.
Another analogy is, a singer being like a high performance athlete. For both runner and singer – their body is their instrument. We must be sensitive to the way our body works and take full responsibility for cause and effect. If, for example, we go out and drink too much and forget to use open-ness and twang to project the speaking voice over background noise, the next morning the voice may be husky and sore. Accordingly, we will have to be gentler and more accommodating with our vocal warm-up – carefully noting and registering how it feels and what the voice sounds like. Athletes, similarly, know how to adjust and recover from injury.
Athletes (though often masochists!) look after themselves with great care and learn from their bodies. Physically and psychologically, they register what constitutes misuse, and conversely, what will give optimal performance.
We as singers, have to know our instruments and how they function and respond so well that we are not destabilized or compromising our ability to ‘deliver’ – live or in the studio. We train ourselves to be sensitive to the way environments, traumatic circumstances, emotions, nerves, fatigue and stress effect the voice. After all, the voice is a barometer of the soul and our job is to express from the soul – as directly and authentically as possible. We must reflect on what our ‘life’ does to our voice and what our voice does to our life (using all seven senses, especially kinetic and organic).
Driving and maintaining voices is also analogous to driving and looking after a car. It helps to understand how the engine works and how to drive with greatest fuel efficiency, for the smoothest, safest drive and least wear on the engine. Being legally blind, I don’t drive. However, I teach a car mechanic rock-God who kindly helped me flesh out this crazy simile.
Firstly, if you are a high performance racing car driver – you get to know your vehicle very well! You are sensitive to how it feels when it’s driving optimally. Inversely, you notice when it’s running ‘rough’ or not responding the way it should.
Essentially: – the steering wheel is your forehead: the engine is your support muscles of stomach, back, intercostals, diaphragm and pelvic floor: the accelerator pedal (or throttle) is the super-trebly voice quality of ‘twang’: the clutch used to smoothly change gears is the ‘ng’ device that places the sound in your head bypassing the throat: the wheels can be thought of as posture – which must be balanced and aligned: the brakes are like tension in the body.
A good mechanic diagnoses problems best by listening and ‘feeling’ how a car runs/handles while driving it (sometimes we can misdiagnose a problem and it takes an expert to help steer us back to equilibrium).
The clutch is what connects your ‘engine to your’ wheels and ultimately to the road.
Inexperienced drivers ‘ride the clutch’, that is, let it out too slowly or not let it out all the way, when they are hesitant or nervous. Riding the clutch disconnects you from your engine and you loose all control. Singing with excess breath makes the voice quieter. However, you’d never use the clutch to slow the vehicle down, just as you’d never use breathiness to soften or quieten the voice because it disconnects you from your ‘engine’ and you loose control. To drive (the voice or the vehicle) slowly and smoothly using the right technique takes more skill than just driving it fast or loud).
Using too much gas is also like using too much breath. The clutch will over heat and burn when it’s been misused much like the throat drying out.
Driving with the hand brake on is like using push for volume and accessing higher notes. The hand brake is equivalent to having a tight throat when you sing!
The accelerator is ‘twang’ – the only way to control power.  When the clutch and hand brake are being used correctly, the accelerator is used for fast, slow, hard or soft driving. Similarly, if we are open and don’t push or use too much air, twang is the means by which we can sing high, low, quietly or loudly.
Using a silent ‘ng’ placement to begin notes and put the sound in the head is like using a clutch to shift gears smoothly in a manual car (The correct way to change gear is a combination of using the clutch, shifting the gear and using the accelerator in perfect time with each other. A good ‘simultaneous’ onset creates a clean sound because air gently strokes the vocal cords exactly as they start vibrating to start the sound).
Once people discover how to change gear smoothly and correctly they do it without thinking and it feels undeniably correct. Similarly, singing through and with ‘ng’ feels balanced and effortless.
Both your voice and your car need to be well serviced, maintained ‘tuned’ and used regularly. Singing shouldn’t be a struggle. You should feel when you’re overworking the engine so as not to do damage and be in need of repair (that is – lose your voice or burn out). What you wish to achieve from singing should be your ultimate destination. You’ve got a Ferrari – so why not enjoy the ride?