Formant Tuning, Vowel Modification, Male and Female Passaggio, and Registration - with KEN BOZEMAN

[@dundrumleith]

What a fine interview and presentation. Here are some approximate timings: 04:50 "The vocal tract is a tube..." (KB starts) 05:10 sound improves 06:45 tube length and voice type 07:30 harmonics and the vocal folds 08:55 KB shares an image from first book, "Power Spectrum of the Vocal Tract" 10:50 cover and the turn of the vowel 11:33 whoop timbre and the classical female voice 13:25 formant tuning 14:40 voce aperta and voce chiusa 16:00 "every pitch change changes the vowel quality slightly" (Passive vowel migrations) 17:40 as the pitch ascends, "the instinctive thing to do is to yell..." 21:00 "I have increasingly gone to affect... I suggest a vowel and insist on a feeling" 23:15 over vowels and under vowels 24:00 whispered vowel sequence 26:50 active vowel modification in treble voices 28:00 "the under vowels are [u] and [o]..." 29:50 Miller, "the tongue speaks the integrity of the vowel..." 31:00 "I don't use the front room for darkening..." 31:45 "My ideal is a qualified sing-as-you-speak..." 32:45 What is formant tuning? 36:00 "there are times when we tune the second formant to a higher harmonic..." 41:30 KB shares a student soprano demonstrating an [i] vowel to E5 45:30 "most affects tune the pharynx to the sound you want to express..." 48:00 practical advice on C4 to F4, on vowel turning 52:30 KB shares a student tenor demonstrating passive vowel migration to B-flat4 54:00 Question on laryngeal registration, acoustic registration, and the female middle register

[@briteich5561]

You're an unsung hero

[@samsschool3639]

First sime I saw this, I understood zero, second time after a lot of research I really realized how helpful this really is, a lot of AHA moments so big thanks to Ken and Karyn

[@6p00l]

I lived the same process!

[@maslorom_audio2989]

I'm educated singer and audio engineer and I found Mr.Bozeman's explainations amazing. I learned a lot, thank you!

[@boothbuster]

I highly agree, I only knew what formants meant when adjusted in vocal tuning software or vocoders... this really explains why, perhaps, it makes sense to EQ a vocal in a particular range, but only for certain vocal sounds! Will definitely keep this in mind.

[@Lunatraktors]

22:10 - "You just track the expressive path that the feeling motivates. And, by the way, expression, affect, communication determines pretty much everything. It determines the pitch, it determines the pitch path. Melody is really just choreography for expression." YES (Don't worry folks - sound quality (delay / feedback issue) improves later in the talk. Don't give up!)

[@Rosannasfriend]

Just finish this video! I did learn a couple of things. There's other things that I struggle to understand, but that's OK because I plan to either rewatch this video in the future or watch other interviews of his with other KZbinrs.Thank you for introducing this man and his theories to us.

[@Rosannasfriend]

It's funny that Mr. Bozeman is encouraging us to allow the sound to migrate. I remember when I was taking vocal lessons and doing exercises with my teacher at the piano, all of a sudden she would stop me and say "you've changed the vowel, go back to the original vowel that we're practicing". And I was like "oh, I did?", And I would basically spread my way into getting back to that sound. So if I take classes again and a teacher says this to me, I'll let them know that "Mr.Kenneth Bozeman says to 'allow the sound to migrate!'"

[@coryspence5903]

I think dr. Bozeman is refering to rhe exploration of sound for the development of your ability. Your teacher was likely trying to enforce a specific sound that was more suited to the song you were practising. Or one could you "found" the sound while exploring with yoyr teacher and the teacher eanted you ti focus on that, in that particular lesson. I will forever be confounded by conclussions like the one in your comment here, how can you be so broad with your assumptions...?

[@Rosannasfriend]

Good. I just finished watching this for the second time, and I definitely understood so much more! Wow, he's given me a lot to think about and see if I can incorporate into my technique. I watched the video he did with Dr. Dan at the same time, and it really made understanding both of the videos much easier. Mr. Bozeman is the 8th wonder of music.

[@OrbisonTributeArtist]

Absolutely brilliant, practical, and nearly earth shattering information. I will watch this over and over. I appreciate the both of your expertise. I am a tenor with a baritonal sound low, and a little too heady sound when I am singing high notes. I think this is the very thing that will eventually lead me to get a more connected sound up high.

[@maryannwilson6425]

15:21 it just now dawned on me that- reason why I experience vowels shifting differently, and in my lower passagio especially. Wow!!

[@vincentchen5341]

That actually supports the validity of sls training, great video learn a lot of great info, love it!

[@vincentchen5341]

The last few minutes discussion is fabulous, we should practice naturally and maintain the balance and never go extremes.

[@tylerwysong]

Thanks so much for doing this video! Great great stuff in here!

[@singwisevocals]

You're welcome.

[@samsschool3639]

The two of you (Ty and Karyn) should have a regular podcast

[@khephrenchambers878]

oh wow…around 24:00 when he demonstrated the over/under-vowel concept, the most salient frequency for each vowel was higher/lower based on where the vowel stood within the F1/F2 chart. i guess that makes sense since the “over” vowel is more correspondent with F2 (more influenced by the shape of the front of the mouth) and the “under” vowel with F1 (back of the throat, which is where he was plucking!) not sure about that explanation and i haven’t watched the rest of the video, but it makes sense and is fascinating!

[@Vocalnebula]

Thank you so much for this, Karyn! I read Kenneth's first book, Practical Vocal Acoustics, about six months ago and it caused a profound effect in my training and singing. I had never heard about passive vowel migration and once I began to explore this process, I began to improve by leaps and bounds. Great stuff.

[@singwisevocals]

I'm sure Ken would be so pleased to hear that! I'm hoping to record some more videos on resonance tuning soon.

[@RachelGerrard]

Watching this for the second time. So interesting the concept of "tracking the second formant" as you go into a belt or a yell.

[@singwisevocals]

I attended the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) conference in Las Vegas last week. I got a chance to hear Ken Bozeman speak, as well as Ian Howell and Johan Sundberg! I'm going to be sharing some highlights of those talks here in the next couple days.

[@RachelGerrard]

Yes! Please do! Can't wait :)

[@unterrichtbreedt9725]

So very interesting , so wonderful that what we hear with our ears and what we've taught for centuries as teachers down the ages , we now can also prove scientifically and so gain a deeper understanding of how it all fits together....

[@singwisevocals]

Yes, it's very interesting. You make a great point that while the singing maestros of the past may not have understood the acoustical science behind the sounds they were hearing and directing their students toward, they did refine their listening skills and developed effective teaching strategies for eliciting desirable performance timbre.

[@petergraham4744]

i know there is so much knowledge here but its going to take me a while to uncover it. Its so interesting. Thanks Karyn for another great interview.

[@singwisevocals]

You're welcome! It is a lot of information and science. But I absolutely how Ken makes it as accessible as possible for the layperson. Please let me know if any questions come up.

[@fidrewe99]

Very nice and helpful video! From time to time I encounter moments, where I follow a new idea and suddenly it makes "click" in my head. When Kenneth Bozeman said, don't change ANYTHING while raising in pitch, and I tried it, that was such a moment. Before I started doing research on how to sing better, I just felt that "head voice" and "chest voice" were two different things which cannot be connected. Later I encountered the picture drawn by many singing teachers, of two registers and a "bottle neck" in between. You could "blend" those two registers together by doing all kinds of adjustments to get through that bottle neck, train yourself to shift the resonance, use less of the vocal folds, make the voice thinner and smaller, strengthen the "mixed voice" gradually etc. Getting through the bottle neck seemed to exclude a lot of flexibility in the timbre and power in the voice. Yet I knew singers, who had this one big, strangely unaltered voice all over their range. Not every piece of advice was bad and so, by trying what seemed to work best, over the months I gradually got better at "bridging" the "registers". It worked, when I was singing rather gently. The brighter the voice, the more likely a break would occur. It was only after watching this video, when I finally realized that those, who said, registers don't exist were right... I mean literally. The break in the voice is solely a product of bad conditioning, of building up strain that ends in a deadlock. There is nothing to bridge in my voice. And without all the tension, I have the full flexibility in the timbre all along the way. My task is now to internalize that experience through repetition, unlearn bad reflexes that still occur in songs and to play with the timbre to build a powerful voice in the middle range. PS.: What about the third formant? It's also taking part in the vowel formation. When you go from r or u: over ʌ to l, it shifts up. I know, r and l are not considered vowels, because the tongue is involved in their creation, but accoustically I don't see any difference. If you sing an i:, the order of F2 and F3 is actually reversed. It is F2 that's making the Y sound, while F1 is producing an u:. So, there are three vowels contained in each vovel.

[@pilarnoseda6915]

I just came back from Pevoc 2019 and heard an amazing talk of Ken Bozeman! He is amazing! Congrats on your channel. I have a singing channel as well but mainly in spanish! Maybe in the future que can share a talk or video!! all the best!

[@flaze3]

Wow, that was really interesting! It all does make a lot of sense, I have to say.

[@aznbryanc]

Brilliant discussion and explanations! Thank both of y'all so much for doing this. Very timely for me too!

[@singwisevocals]

I'm glad it was timely. And thank you for watching and commenting.

[@operarocks]

There is so much fantastic pedagogic knowledge here. Thank you and Professor Bozeman for doing this. May I suggest that a timing of topics be added to the description for referral and in the longer videos like Michelle's and Dan's? It'd be most helpful to be able to click on a time stamp for a specific area of discussion. Thanks in advance. You are doing singers everywhere a huge service. Join her Patreon page peeps! Keep supporting if you want these informative video's rolling out!!!

[@singwisevocals]

Opera Rocks | Andrew Richards Thank you so much for the encouraging words and the feedback. As for your suggestion, I can give it a try. I've started time stamping in the description box for my live Q&A sessions.

[@operarocks]

My own personal time stamp: 59:50

[@michellemarkwartdeveaux3009]

WOOOOT! Two of my favorite people in the same place!

[@singwisevocals]

Thank you, Michelle! I hope you enjoyed it.

[@speedskis777]

Had to watch through this second time to really understand it, but I think now that I understand it it will pay off

[@dabneyrossjonessoprano506]

This is incredible information! Thank you for making these videos!

[@singwisevocals]

My pleasure!

[@JohnProph]

am watching and following along with the diagrams. Good stuff

[@VIDEOHEREBOB]

Thanks so much! A great dose of knowledge. I appreciate it.

[@singwisevocals]

Ken's great, isn't he?

[@VIDEOHEREBOB]

Yes, Ken is a "Regular Guy" Professor. I like that.

[@michaeltilley8708]

Has anyone here read or seen the work of Geoff Lindsey? He has several excellent videos on phonetics and is quite emphatic that [i:] is an incorrect symbol for the english sound in words like ‘free’ and that [Ij] (darn youtube for wrong capital I font!) more accurately describes the way that dound is produced, with very few exceptions. So, if we accept the goal of imitating speech, why sweat someone for singing big I with the natural closing glide at the end? Italian closed [i] is also pronounced with a lower jaw, as far as i can hear. He also has a recent video about these two vowelsthat demonstrates, in a very English manner, the clear acoustic presence of big I in native French é vowel sounds. Anyway, absolutely fascinating stuff, thanks for posting!

[@JohnProph]

the point at 42:50 is the point I always end up at when I have conversations about vowel modifications. I personally NEVER (so far) actually THINK about changing to this vowel or that. So I say "im not modifying the vowel" and people say "yes you are, I heard it". Maybe, but its not a CONSCIOUS decision. Im modifying the vocal tract or support or 100 other things, but the thought has never entered my head of "go towards an ih vowel". He made the point earlier..."we want it to sound like an E"

[@singwisevocals]

Yes! I think the singer should always 'think' the intended vowel - and "the tongue should always speak the integrity of the vowel" (Richard Miller) - but allow the vocal tract to make the necessary adjustments for pitch, register, and intensity. The vowel WILL modify passively. This is also going to be more noticeable in the open voiced singing that characterizes most of the CCM singer's scale because in order to stay in open voice, we have to make more radical adjustments to our resonator tracts. If a singer struggles with a given vowel sound - it doesn't quite sound right (is poorly defined) - some intentional vowel 'leaning' can improve how that vowel is defined and actually make the vowel sound more like its speech version. This is the case for me with the /e/ (AY) vowel. My AY always sounds too much like /ɛ/ (as in 'bed') and sounds too 'back' throughout my scale, and so I actively/consciously have to lean/shade it toward AE (as in 'cat') to make it actually sound like AY and produce a timbre that's consistent with that of the other vowels.

[@Rohme.33]

Great guest, great channel. Thank you!

[@kaustin6969]

Wonderful. It would be great to have this at studio quality. It's rather amazing that given the quite dreadful audio quality of the connection - and his cold[!], so many of Bozeman's examples are clearly articulated and easily heard. If it is considered a possibility, the materials of the video could be broken into three or four main sections, and required graphics, and audio files could be prepared beforehand to produce a video that would be useful / educational to many tens-of-thousands of musicians.

[@danahalevi330]

Thank you for this wonderful and informative webinar. About 10 minutes into the webinar, Prof. Bozeman shows a spectral graph of the first 5 formant locations of the vowel /a/. The super-imposition of the overtones within that shape is a wonderful way to show how pitch and vowel shapes interact. I loved it! In the example Prof. Bozeman gave, it appears that if the second overtone is to cross the first formant, that would be true for one specific pitch, wouldn't it? Same for the example given for female singers, resonating the first overtone within the first fomant. Would that not be true for just one particular pitch in their range? Does that mean that the vowel /a/ will sound best only on one particular note? Would that qualify for the note being in resonance with the vowel shape? And do we shape the /a/ differently for other pitches in order to make them "whoop" ? Thank you for this fascinating talk.

[@SongRainbows]

You should do a video like this with Michael Trimble!! He interviewed and worked with some of the best opera singers in the world including Pavarotti. :)

[@singwisevocals]

I do know of Michael Trimble. Maybe I'll reach out to him.

[@operarocks]

Trimble WOULD be a hoot. Such a personality. I'd also strongly suggest Jack Livigni as a possible other person to interview long form like this.

[@SongRainbows]

Opera Rocks | Andrew Richards Michael is hilarious! Probably should’ve mentioned in my comment that he also WAS a fantastic opera singer himself with quite a career. He’s one of my favorites because of how he talks about the fact that a lot of the original ways to sing were lost in translation/misinterpreted over the years.

[@singwisevocals]

Alright. You've convinced me to ask him.

[@RachelGerrard]

I love Michael's work and he is such a nice man too.

[@JohnFraserFindlay]

so cool!!!

[@Paljk299]

Very interesting thanks.

[@JohnProph]

very good and thought provoking. It does bring up two main questions: 1) this approach of passive modification is very much related to classical singing. What about other styles such as rock or any type of belting? In essence we would almost just reverse the advice and go ahead and "chase the vowel" by opening the mouth wider etc since we DONT really want to get the hardcore covered Pavarotti sound. True? 2) When he is showing the harmonics passing the formant with the hand gestures, and also on his interactive diagrams, the formant is FIXED. Of course we know in reality its not fixed, as he did mention. So how do we personally find out at what freq our formants lie for the different vowels etc. Is this going to be a case of having to use vocevista to map it out for different vowels, pitches, and manipulations such as widening the mouth? for instance us nerdy rock singers are going to want to know how high we can sing the vowels without having them turn over if we open the mouth wider etc

[@singwisevocals]

John, thanks for your questions. At some point earlier on in this interview, Ken does briefly talk about belting, which requires us to raise the first formant and use a divergent (megaphone) resonator tract shape - higher larynx, narrower pharynx, and larger mouth opening. He stated here, and also does so in Practical Vocal Acoustics, that it's essentially a yell coordination (which produces a yell resonance coupling - F1/H2). We absolutely do 'chase the vowel' in belting. However, there are a few teachers I know - good singers with successful teaching studios - who teach belt using a closed voice approach. And that's an approach that I've been toying with in my own singing in recent months. It's possible to acoustically close the voice and not sound like Pavarotti because we don't shape the vocal tract precisely as a classical singer would. We keep the vowel more speech-like.

[@singwisevocals]

True, the formants are not fixed. The most accurate way of learning about the natural frequencies of our formants would be to use a spectrogram. However, if you experiment with keeping the vocal tract shaping as 'fixed' (consistent) as possible and sing a chromatic scale on a given vowel. If you don't 'chase the vowel,' the voice will turn over. That will give you a rough idea of where your formant for that vowel is - one octave above, actually. And that pitch (or the one just below) will be the pitch at which you'll start making your adjustments to avoid the 'turning over.' You'll do this for all your vowels. Honestly, though, as Ken mentions here, 'chasing the vowel' is actually far more instinctive. We naturally want to go into yell.

[@singwisevocals]

One more really interesting note: Ken and I spoke for about fifteen minutes after this, and he told me that, while he does use spectrographic software during most of the lessons with his students, he doesn't actually use it for formant tuning purposes. He uses it for consistency and 'watches' vibrancy.

[@JohnProph]

yeah, I didnt understand your previous video on vowels "turning over" but I experimented while watching this vid by using a fixed mouth shape on an "ah" and of course it did start turning into an "uh" eventually as I went higher. But going back to my earlier point...for rock etc, we arent so worried about a fixed mouth shape or a super particular quality. So we'd never worry too much about something as artificial as "a fixed mouth shape". In essence, who cares what the mouth shape is if you are singing non classical. I guess a practical experiment would be to spectrogram a given vowel on maybe 3 different mouth positions, almost closed, medium, gaping lol...and see the differences. I want to know where this or that is turning over for DIFFERENT mouth positions. OR...this could be a cool idea. What if we sang into a spectrogram and when we just happened to hit killer sounding notes, we then go back and study what was going on with the formants etc and then see if we can adapt our singing approach to hit that great resonance on a wider range of notes?? Obviously though the complexity can go through the roof because even on a fixed pitch we have different mouth positions but I would think that different intensity levels would make a huge difference as well

[@singwisevocals]

I did record a follow up video to that 'turning over' video, but never posted it. (There are so many videos that I've recorded that I chicken out of posting.) Closed voice (voce chiusa) is the topic that I've been discussing in my Patreon videos. I show how I train this concept with my CCM students, who mainly sing in pop, rock, and musical theatre, so that they ever so slightly close the vowel without sounding like Pavarotti.

[@RachelGerrard]

OMG, this was sooooo interesting.

[@mrfahrenheit2006]

This is amazing stuff

[@singwisevocals]

I'm so glad you like it! Thanks for your comment.

[@mrfahrenheit2006]

I really heard what you guys were saying at the end about over thinking and tinkering too much. I’ve just experienced a huge breakthrough when I noticed I clench my pelvic floor all the time. By practicing letting it relax in sync with my breathing my voice has been freed in ways none of the other thing I tried did

[@singwisevocals]

Singing truly is the great experiment!

[@kangjeanne7890]

Thank you so much for this fantastic video. You have talked a lot about formant tuning. I am wondering whether the passagio relates to the formant tuning. Does it mean f0 come across f1? And what about the lower and upper passagio? Thank you again.

[@flaze3]

I have one question: as regards the achievement of the singer's formant in the male voice, was the idea that men should aim to coincide the first harmonic with the second formant? As in a "hey" sound? Sorry if I got the technical explanation wrong.

[@satori_mountian_station]

Question in regard to the voice "yelling" wondering: if you want to keep the same volume, same foment strategy.. do you just need to define the vowel more?

[@abdulgafoor7076]

But how vocal folds vibrate at multiple frequencies means harmonics at the same time

[@martinezfamily5800]

How to you get the 3000khz formant to be in voice without sounding nasal just that ring while sounding round and dark

[@mseadog]

The irony of an acoustics expert having bad audio sound.

[@samsschool3639]

They're not sound technicians

[@geespar1]

The problem is at her end, she should either turn her mic off while he’s talking or wear headphones or at least turn her speakers down

[@KristinaRjazz]

the sounds is better after a few minutes. focus on content

[@ame3690]

Thank you, Karyn

[@ame3690]

www.kenbozeman.com/formant-location.php this probably describes it? :)

[@singwisevocals]

Not in Practical Vocal Acoustics. (I'm waiting on my copy of Kinesthetic Voice Pedagogy.) On page 32, he mentions that women's vocal tracts are, on average, 20% short than those of males, but I don't believe he gives specific lengths. I'm not sure how critical that information would be because our formant tuning is relative to our own unique vocal tract dimensions. Ken does, however, list the approximate first formant and turning over pitches based on voice type. You can find this in the Appendix and also on his website. If I recall correctly Johan Sundberg does talk about average vocal tract lengths (in The Science of the Singing Voice) in centimetres, but doesn't break it down by voice type. You might find something in a Google search.

[@singwisevocals]

Yes, that's the chart.

[@dalegillman5287]

Wonderful video. I would like to know (to anyone)- how much of a market is there in the US for REAL singing (such as Bel Canto singing)? It is a shame that this is so rare. Many thanks

[@singwisevocals]

I guess that altogether depends on how one defines 'real singing.' There are many brilliant vocal technicians who don't sing in classical styles.

[@MustacheVerra]

This should be interesting.

[@singwisevocals]

I think it was!

[@palestrinachoirschool2314]

This confirms my own ideas that all pure singing vowels are composites of the /u/ vowel. The "oo-niversal vowe" I believe that is why Guido d'Arezzo chose the ut to be the first syllable of his hexachord system. Thanks a million! check out my perspective here: palestrinachoirschoool.com

[@creatioexnihilo6599]

The good prof is incorrect about the use of "feminine", stating that pure head voice is not "feminine" in male singers. The reason it has been referred to thus through history is that the full voice of the male has a distinct edge that is absent in female voices. That should be obvious, but political correctness seems to have an agenda to ignore such. He is a great practical scholar, he places too much faith in social fad. BTW, Karen, TY so much. I am going to Patreon you some little thing. ;-) BTW: I have tried to contact you 2 times through your site and once on youtube with the "about" page with no reply. How can I get a hold of you?

[@singwisevocals]

Thank you.

[@AcousticVocalPedagogy]

Mr Perkins is correct in that I find myself in the current climate needing to be careful in the use of terms, a care which he rejects. He is incorrect in somel other counts. He incorrectly presumes to know from one comment where I "place my faith," but might learn that I am closer to his view than he surmises. That said, we have learned that all voices have all laryngeal registers, and that there is nothing innately male or female about the registers. But he is right again that the singing ranges and registers are more delineated by sex, with head voice associated with women (and counter tenors) and chest with men. But just as we have thankfully learned not to avoid chest register in females (which was unfortunately the case in some quarters for a while), we have also learned that males can and should develop their head or falsetto registers, and attempt to get good vocal fold closure there. I don't personally think of it in terms of male or female, rather in terms of the register and range needed to be developed by voice and for the genre. By the way, the presence of edge or not is not gendered either--it's also a matter of range and genre. A female in her lower register had better have edge. It is now understood (from Ian Howell's work) to be "necessary roughness" caused by resonated, clustered higher harmonics. It actually exists in many females all the way up, but is increasingly more refined, smoother, the higher it is, and buzzier lower. That is true to some extent with every voice in classical timbre.

[@mikehopkins4040]

Just a little too complicated.Need bringing down to street level.