Vocal Tension: Taming the Beast Within

When I first joined Sweet Adelines five years ago, I sang with a lot of vocal tension.  I know this because I remember my throat feeling very swollen at the end of chorus and quartet rehearsals. Sometimes I was even hoarse the next morning.  

For a while I ignored this feeling.  I was having a blast, and I figured that hoarseness, like physical fatigue, was normal after two or three hours of full-out singing and choreography.

I started to think differently when the lead singer of one of my favorite BHS champion quartets made headlines in the barbershop world after undergoing surgery to remove a polyp on his left vocal fold.  

Polyps and nodules can result from repeated overuse of the voice, and they can cause serious vocal problems such as chronic hoarseness and decreased pitch range.

I wasn't personally dealing with the nonstop performance demands of a touring international champion, but I suspected that singing to the point of hoarseness a couple of times a week couldn't be good for my voice. 

That's when I began to ask, "How can I tell if I'm singing with vocal tension?  Does it matter if I am? And how can I get rid of it?"

WHAT THE JUDGES SAY

Reading the Judging Category Description Book convinced me that I needed to take vocal tension seriously if I wanted to improve as a barbershop singer. 

The Sound Category chapter and the Guide to Vocal Skills repeatedly emphasize the importance of eliminating tension in the throat, jaw, and tongue: 

"A completely relaxed throat is a must for proper functioning of the vocal cords to produce clear, beautiful tones."

"Proper [inhalation] for singing begins with a relaxed jaw, a relaxed, open throat and an erect, expanded ribcage."

"[A]ll well-produced voices [are]  . . . free from tension . . . "

Et cetera.  But here is the problem: it's easy to find people who can tell you if you're singing out of tune or standing with awkward posture.  Diagnosing and eliminating vocal tension can be much trickier.

WHO LET THE DOGS OUT?

Vocal tension is complicated, but much of it is caused by the "swallowing muscles"-- muscles in the jaw, tongue, and throat that help with swallowing.

The swallowing muscles are like a well-trained team of Alaskan huskies. Just as sled dogs are selectively bred for one purpose -- to race hundreds of miles across the tundra-- the swallowing muscles have evolved to do one thing really well:  tighten up and make spaces smaller.

Hundreds of times each day, these strong, well-coordinated muscles spring into action to constrict your pharynx (the space in the back of your mouth) and squeeze your saliva or food down your esophagus, all while sealing off your airway so you don't choke.

And just like a dog team, the swallowing muscles are very POWERFUL and EXCITABLE.  They have energy to spare!  They are game for anything! They want to be wherever the action is!  Woof, woof!

Unfortunately, this means that any time we are working hard or feeling anxious or excited -- for example, when we are singing the epic tag of a driving uptune as our director gestures emphatically for "More!  MORE!" -- it is the most natural thing in the world for the swallowing muscles to wake up and crash the party.

They just want to help!  By tightening and constricting!  Because that is what they know how to do!

But letting the swallowing muscles help us sing is like letting a pack of dogs sort the fine china or decorate a wedding cake.  They will eagerly participate in the activity, but it won't end well.  

HOW THE SWALLOWING MUSCLES WRECK YOUR SOUND

Here are just a few of the ways that the swallowing muscles can hurt your sound:

--They constrict your airway so that air moves less efficiently as you inhale and exhale.

--They dampen some of your natural overtones by constricting the available resonating space in your pharynx.

--They cause your vocal folds to close too tightly, resulting in irritation, hoarseness, and (sometimes) the formation of nodules.  

--They prevent a smooth transition between the vocal registers, exacerbating the register "break."

--They add tension to your tone, causing your individual voice to stick out of the unit sound.

PUT THOSE PUPPIES TO BED!

Singing works best when the swallowing muscles are as relaxed as possible -- like dogs fast asleep in a big puppy-pile.

The challenge for singers is to (a) recognize when our swallowing muscles are starting to wake up and (b) gently send them back to dreamland.

I DON'T FEEL ANY TENSION, SO I MUST NOT HAVE ANY -- RIGHT?

Vocal tension exists on a spectrum.  At one end of the spectrum is Extreme Tension.  At the other end is No Tension.  No Tension is the goal.  Most of us live somewhere in the middle. 

Extreme Tension is easy for coaches and directors to recognize.  It sounds as though we are on the verge of shouting.  If we sing this way for very long, our throats start to feel swollen, and we get hoarse.  

Mild-to-Moderate Tension is much harder to recognize.  Here is a super-simple, one-minute exercise that has helped me develop awareness of some of the muscles associated with vocal tension and keep them more relaxed.

THE NOISY BREATH EXERCISE

Step 1: Open your mouth as though you are going to say (or sing) "Ahhh."  Take a few very noisy breaths.  Make them loud enough so that a person 20 feet away could hear you. Think Darth Vader With Asthma.

What makes the breath noisy?  Tension in your swallowing muscles. You are using muscles in your throat, and maybe your tongue, to slightly constrict your airway, which creates turbulence in the air. The noise in the breath is the sound of that turbulence.

Step 2: Make the breaths slightly quieter so that they can only be heard up to 10 feet away.  

Step 3: Make them quieter so that they can only be heard by someone standing next to you.

Step 4: Make them extremely quiet so that only you can hear them.

Step 5: Make them totally silent so that even you can't hear them.  Most of us (except for Darth Vader) breathe noiselessly whenever we are sitting at rest unless we have a cold or asthma. 

As you move through the steps, notice the slight adjustments that you are making in your throat muscles.  In order to breathe more quietly, you have to release a little bit of tension.  

Repeat the exercise a few times until you get the hang of tensing and releasing your throat muscles. When you reach Step 5, notice the feeling of total relaxation in your throat. 

This the gold-medal feeling that you want to cultivate on every breath. 

BAD NEWS: TAMING VOCAL TENSION IS HARD

What surprised me when I first did the noisy-breath exercise, and what will probably surprise you, is how SUBTLE the changes feel in the throat as we make the breaths louder and quieter.  Activating and deactivating vocal tension is not like clenching and unclenching a fist.  It's more like raising and lowering an eyebrow.  

It's easy to relax the swallowing muscles.  Yours are probably totally relaxed right now, unless you are currently swallowing, coughing, or running on a treadmill.  

But keeping those over-eager, hyperactive little critters calm and out of the way when we're singing on the risers requires practice and constant vigilance.

It is the most natural thing in the world for them to tense up any time we are feeling excited or emotional ("Here comes the tag! I'm going to rock it!") or just vaguely concerned ("Dang it -- should have peed during the break"). 

BUT WAIT: THERE'S MORE BAD NEWS

Vocal tension causes all kinds of problems for singers, but RELEASING tension can cause problems as well.  It's fascinating to watch what happens when an ensemble gets coached on reducing vocal tension.  I have seen it a few times.

On one hand, the sound instantly becomes freer and more resonant. Hooray!

On the other hand, when singers focus on relaxing the muscles responsible for vocal tension, they unconsciously tend to relax a lot of other muscles as well.  As a result,

--the tempo slows down;

--faces droop; the eyebrows, cheeks, and all the muscles in the "mask" lose their lift;

--pitch drops;

--character goes out the window;

--choreography loses its crispness;

--energy drains out of the performance.

In other words, the singers behave as though you have just given them all several shots of tequila.

It's no wonder that eliminating vocal tension is not at the top of every coach's priority list.  Nobody wants to take an energetic, on-pitch, slightly shouty chorus and turn them into a slow, flat, depressed, hungover chorus.

WE CAN CONTROL OUR OWN DOGS

Fortunately, we on the risers don't have to wait for our directors and coaches to tell us to correct our vocal tension.  We can address it ourselves while maintaining all the other skills we have worked so hard to cultivate.

Here are some strategies for keeping the swallowing muscles relaxed:

1) DEVELOP AWARENESS

Start by occasionally monitoring the sound of your breaths during rehearsal, either with a recorder or just by paying attention. You'll probably notice that many of your breaths are somewhat noisy, which means you have work to do.

2) MAKE THE FIRST BREATH PERFECT

Develop the gold-medal habit of preparing your resonant space and taking one perfectly silent, relaxed breath every time you start a song.  This will increase your resonance on the starting chord and make your director very happy. Add championship posture and character, and she'll think she's died and gone to Sweden.  

3) IGNORE YOUR NEIGHBOR'S CRAZY DOGS

Aim to make your breaths quieter than your neighbor's.  As we strive for ensemble unity, it's easy to unconsciously adopt each other's tense, excited breathing habits.  If you free your voice, it will help your neighbor to free hers as well. 

4) TRY BUBBLING

Bubbling (lip-trilling) is the ultimate bandaid for numerous vocal problems, including tension.  

Bubbling works by promoting forward placement, consistent airflow and a relaxed throat.  But the improvement in sound is usually very temporary. 

The key to permanent improvement is to notice exactly what we are changing in our own breathing and vocal musculature in order to sustain the bubbling, and then work to maintain those changes even when we aren't bubbling.

5) GET INSPIRED

Finally, get inspired by studying barbershoppers who display an exceptionally high degree of vocal freedom. 

Here is one of my current sources of inspiration: Fortuity Quartet's 2013 regional contest performance (Region 31).  They scored 656, one of the highest regional scores in SAI history.

If you haven't heard their effortless, ethereal performance of "Once Upon a Time," you are in for a treat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-yJDQwxIYM

See if you can hear them breathing, and enjoy!