Mae Huntington, age 16, of Lake Charles, La., for her question:
HOW DO WE SING?
When we sing, we utter words or sounds in succession with musical modulations of the voice. When we want to sing, nerve centers near the brain cause the vocal cords to start vibrating. The energy of the air stored in our lungs amplifies this vibration to make it audible.
Small modifications in the length and width of the vocal cords produce different pitches and also musical phrases.
An average untrained voice can sing 12 notes, which is the range of most popular songs. Well trained voices can cover two octaves, or 16 notes. Some unusual voices can cover three octaves after much training.
Singing is as much a natural function of the human voice as speaking. We speak for practical purposes, in order to convey our thoughts. And we sing for joy from very early childhood and, through the songs we learn later, to express emotions.
The spontaneous singing of children and the humming of adults may happen without any cultivation of the voice or technical training. But the singing of songs and of more elaborate music in front of an audience definitely requires study and lots of training.
Voices are classified by their range and by their timbre or tone color. The highest female singing voice is the soprano. Below it is the mezzo soprano, and the lowest is the contralto or alto. The highest male voice is the tenor, then the baritone and below it the bass.
Most people can be taught to sing at least simple melodies. With the help of microphones, talented singers of popular songs have made successful careers with voices that are strictly of average power, range and quality.
Vocal training for professional singing takes patience and much practice. A voice student must learn to discipline the way he stands, depth of air intake and the relaxation of neck and chest.
A singer must learn to express the full range of human feelings. He must study music because the human voice in song is definitely a beautiful musical instrument.
A singer must control the energy created by the large quantities of air in his lungs, and must use this for sending tones into the resonance of the head without making his throat tense and tired.
A trained singer learns to make low notes sound near the lips and high notes sound in the cavities above the bone of the palate. Breath support must be able to back low tones or spin soft ones. The singer does this by regulating smoothly the muscles of his lower chest and upper abdomen.
A music student usually starts by singing scales on pure vowels. Then he switches to words and phrases, and finally to entire songs.
The singer must remember that the words he sings must be clearly understood. Singing clear and precise vowels and connecting them with crisp, light consonants will improve the enunciation more than any exaggerated effort of the mouth to project the diction.