How To Sing Barbershop Style in 5 Easy Steps - Chorale POP DDO

 

How To Sing Barbershop Style in 5 Easy Steps

 

Barbershop singing style has slowly, but continuously evolved over the years, and it’s safe to predict that it will continue to change in the future. Where they once valued “vocal blend,” barbershop judges now greatly favor a continuous wall of sound that is freely produced, with everyone singing with their best voice and matching their resonance space.

“I am a singer, I don’t play an instrument.” Wrong! You play one of the most portable, versatile, and emotionally communicative instrument that exists. It’s important that you be aware of all its interconnected parts and learn to master them so that the music you make is as close as possible to the picture you make of it in your mind..

“I have been told to sing so forward as if it’s through a unicorn horn by one coach, and to sing completely backwards by another.” Welcome to the world of psychokinetics where, in order to simplify instructions to their absolute bare minimum, coaches use imaginative and suggestive language to produce a certain desired vocal effect. But how does it work? What are the physical mechanics that these instructions elicit?  That’s what they don’t tell you. The good news is, neither is completely wrong, or completely right. 

The detailed explanations below completely sidestep psychokinetics and give you the science straight up.

 

Step 1: Master the resonant smile

Your facial expressions are controlled by 43 different muscles. Inside your head, you have even more muscles to control breathing, deglutition and speech. 

Smiling is quite a workout for the face as it requires the contraction of several muscles that link your lip muscles to your cheek bones. It takes a lot of stamina and endurance building to sustain a smile the whole length of a song… and especially a whole rehearsal.

When you smile, some of the muscles inside your head for which you have very little conscious control, sympathetically move along with them and lift up your soft palate.  It is this lifting up of the soft palate that increases your resonance. 

Conversely, if someone asked you directly to lift up your soft palate (provided you knew where it is!), a smile would happen at the same time.

CONCLUSION: the smile facial muscles and the soft palate muscles are interconnected through the displacement of soft tissue between them. 

If you smile while you sing, you smile with a lifted soft palate. This increases the resonant space in your “buccal trumpet bell” and produces sounds with a brassier timbre, and therefore more well-defined higher overtones. 

When the  lips and soft palate are collapsed downward, the timbre becomes darker as the higher overtones are filtered out,, much like the effect of a mute on a trumpet.

PRACTICAL EXERCISE: Singing and smiling is easy. The challenge is to build up muscular endurance of the muscles involved. Every time you sing, force yourself to smile, no exception. With time you’ll be able to do it naturally without tiring your face out. 

 

 

Step 2: Minimize consonants

 

Delicate and brisk consonants are a key part of the free and legato singing that will give us a professional and recognizable sound. As you will see, minimizing consonants is one component of creating as much uninterrupted sound as possible. 

P   T   K   B   D   G

PLOSIVES: English has six plosive consonants, p, t, k, b, d, and g. These consonant sounds are characterized by the momentary blocking (occlusion) of some part of the oral cavity, or articulated stop. A completely articulated stop usually has three stages: the catch (implosion), or beginning of the blockage; the hold (occlusion); and the release (explosion), or opening of the air passage again. In other words, the air is stopped completely in the oral cavity for a brief period. Then it explodes with the release of the closure, producing loud-enough noise to be heard.

P and  B  are bilabial, that is, the lips are pressed together. T  and D are alveolar, so the tongue is pressed against the alveolar ridge. K and G are velar; the back of the tongue is pressed against an intermediate area between the hard and the soft palate.

• A “plosive” in the lyrics causes an interruption of the flow of sound, and wastes breath capacity as they consume a lot of air in their production. Practice singing plosives with fast and nimble lip movements, so that the air release is imperceptible.

 

F   V   TH   S   Z   SH   H

FRICATIVES: Fricatives are characterized by a “hissing” sound which is produced by the air being passed through a narrow channel, creating turbulence.  Fricatives are pronounced through the narrowing of some parts of the vocal tract.

The hissing sounds are white noise, and by definition tuneless. 

• Whenever there is a “fricative” in the lyrics, there will be, unsurprisingly, some hissing - an effect that is multiplied in choral singing situations. “S” and “SH” cause the most hissing. Minimizing the action at the lip and tongue and emphasizing movement against a high, open soft palate will remove a lot of the hiss while keeping the consonant intelligible.

 

CH   J

AFFRICATIVES: Affricatives are a complex consonant that begins with an occlusive phase before moving on to a fricative phase.

• An “affricative” will cause an interruption of the flow of sound, compounded by a hissing or white noise gap in the chordal continuum. Handle like you would any plosive that is followed by a fricative.

R

APPROXIMANT: In English, the r sound is produced by pressing the tongue near the roof of the mouth and voice out. The “r” consonant produces an unattractive dull and tense sound at the end of a word, for example “timer.” It also causes tension in the back of the mouth if pronounced in a normal speech-like manner. 

• Avoid tension by approximants lightly and against a lifted soft palate in the far back of the buccal cavity. If the “r” ends a word, omit it and use “ah” as your target vowel - if the following word begins with a vowel, attach a light “r” to the . Aural illusions will fool your listener into hearing an “er” as they are used to hearing it.

L

LATERAL:  A lateral consonant is one in which air escapes from the mouth along the sides of the tongue. When at the start of a word, it’s quite easy to enunciate an “l” quickly and clearly. When the “l” precedes another consonant, for example in the word “balding” it’s easy to get a little tongue-tied with the “ld” sound. 

• Laterals are handled much like proximants, by minimizing the action at the lip and tongue and emphasizing movement against a high, open soft palate.

W  Y

COMPOUND VOWELS: The “w” and “y” sounds are not true consonants, but compound vowels, with “w” being pronounced as “oo-aw - x” and the “y” “ee - x.” The change in vowel sound or formants will create an illusion of pitch instability. 

• The “-x” part of the syllable must be reached as quickly as possible. For instance, in the word “way” the “oo-aw” can be sung extraordinarily quickly and the vowel “ay” lands almost immediately. 

N

NASAL CONSONANTS:

These can be sung in open or closed vocal track. Default is open, but sometimes closed for rhythmic effects and “word painting.”

most immediately. .  

 BR   WR  etc

COMPOUND CONSONANTS: These come in many combinations and require a variety of approaches. One can practice with common song words like “place,” “breaking,” “between,” “birds,” “fly,” “stars,” “spring,” “dreams” etc.

Articulating with THE RESONANT SMILE

Try not to move the outside appearance of the resonant smile that are your lips. Try to speak everyday words in that position. You’ll notice that immobilizing the outside of vocal tract mobilizes the back of it in order to form consonants. There are exceptions such as plosives, but you should be able to almost speak like a ventriloquist. Practice this every day to build up your vocal tract musculature.

COMPOUND CONSONANTS: These come in many combinations and require a variety of approaches. One can practice with common song words like “place,” “breaking,” “between,” “birds,” “fly,” “stars,” “spring,” “dreams” etc.

Articulating with the resonant smile and using mostly the back of your vocal tract to form consonants will help you sing more nimbly.

HOW TO ACHIEVE “LIGHT CONSONANT” LEGATO? 

Let’s start with some video examples.


Listen to, and observe this video of The Real Group singing “Pass Me The Jazz.” While you enjoy their light and breezy acappella harmonies, pay attention to the movement of their lips. Notice how little and how nimbly they move. The back of their oral cavity is producing a large part of their articulation, much like a ventriloquist would.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRqOjKWobSI


In the link below, The Ladies are performing “How High The Moon” on the Barbershop Harmony Society (BHS) stage.  Their sound is darker and rounder than it would be on a Sweet Adelines stage. BHS has put aside the notion of “ringing chords” in favor of what they now call “expanded sound.” Pay close attention to the variety of lip movements and mouth openings. See how they open wide sometimes quickly, and other times slowly for artistic effect. It’s almost like ballet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=set5mPSu6tE


The Newfangled Four. Watch a fantastic example of light consonants, very fast and accurate landing on the target notes and vowels, and extreme stability of the chordal space and uniformity of the wall of sound.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhFiqFA6Bcs



 

Step 3: FAVORED vowels

From most resonant to least resonant:

1. A as in back and bateau
2. AE  or ê as in bell and baie
3. AY as in bay and quai
4. EE as igloo
5. E as in menu and petit
6. O as in over and auto (can be sung bright or dark) 
7. OO as in igloo  (can be sung bright or dark)

Always aim for a vowel that is high on the list if it can be done. The higher on  the list, the more resonant it is; and yes, “ay” is more resonant than “a” - this is not a mistake.

These are simple rules that apply to every word of a song, and are the same for every song. After a while, target vowel discussions should become increasingly rare.

Forget about sinuses and vibrating bones, there are only two resonators. Every vowel is produced by a specific configuration of these resonators.

https://dood.al/

 

In this video, you can see a demonstration of an artificial vocal tract. You can hear the strident sound of isolated vocal cords, and the selective dampening of the overtone profile. It’s almost a calming effect on the sound, from buzzing to a smooth and clear vowel.

With awareness and practice, you can control a lot of your timbre - but you cannot “place your voice.”

 

Step 4: EXPANDED SOUND

 

FUnDAMENTALS and overtones

The pitch made by your vocal chords is referred to as the “fundamental” or F₀ in scientific parlance.

What is expanded sound?’ Expanded sound is achieved when an ensemble utilizes a freely produced tone, proper balance, precise intonation, and unified vowels to increase the awareness of the presence of overtones which results in a feeling that the sum is greater than the parts. This is not a function of power and can be achieved at all volume levels and vocal ranges.  

PRACTICAL EXERCISE 1: With your RESONANT SMILE, sing and/or talk with this smile, barely moving your lips, except for plosives and “m” which you will pronounce with barely any closure, and without the air explosion that normal speech would produce. Do this as many times a day as you can, until your lips and cheek muscles are exhausted. This will increase the strength and stamina of these muscles much like a physical workout would for the rest of your body.  

Become aware that minimizing articulation movement in the front of your buccal apparatus (lips and tip of tongue) forces you to transfer articulation to a completely different set of muscles in the back of the mouth, much like a ventriloquist. Notice that this makes your articulation freer, faster and gentler.

PRACTICAL EXERCISE 2: Imitate everything. Birds, cartoon voices, accents. Try to emulate the singer on the tracks as closely as an impersonator would. 

PRACTICAL EXERCISE 3: 

Choose a few bars of a traditional barbershop song. Choose a sequence of bars and write out where thirds, fifths and sevenths are for fast consultation.  

Keeping your eyes closed practice in the order below.

• Bass and Baritone
• Bass and Lead
• Bass and Tenor
• Baritone and Lead
• Baritone and Tenor
• Lead and Tenor
• Bass, Baritone and Lead
• Bass, Baritone and Tenor

Hold chords for as long as necessary, remember this is an exercise. The lowest voice in the exercise needs to sing with a steady breath support, avoiding swooping and pitch wobble. The overtones thus created will be more easily matched by upper voices. A tuning analyzer like TE Tuner can give individual singers instant feed back on how close they are to the target note. Stay within 3 to 5 cents of this target note. Make sure that you set the app to the proper song key and “Just Intonation” otherwise this will not work. It’s important. The app will adjust the pitch targets for thirds and sevenths.

The upper voice(s) now need(s) to pay very close attention to microtuning and listen to how the harmony shifts as they try to feel their way into singing in perfect tune with the voice below. Check how what you hear relates to what the TE Tuner app tells you is happen. What does it sound like when a singing part is a third or a seventh above the bass? A perfect fifth?

Before you train your voice to be in harmony with another voice, you need to learn what to listen for.

One main distinction between styles of singing g is which harmonic is boosted.  For classical singing it is usually lower harmonics that are boosted, for popular music it is higher harmonics. Barbershop sits roughly in the middle, leaning towards higher harmonics and a “rounder” sound produced by a lifted palate and increased space in the vocal tract.  

Figure 1: This is an MRI of an individual pronouncing the S consonant, which is mostly white noise. Both resonators are in neutral, relaxed configuration.

 

Figure 2: Vowels sound the way they do because of the way we shape our vocal tract resonators when we speak or sing. Your vocal chords create a vibration which is the fundamental (F₀ for you scientists) and the pitch. Your timbre and vowel sounds are created when this sound vibration passes through your vocal tract and some harmonics (naturally produced higher pitched sounds, with mathematical relationships with each other) are either boosted or suppressed by the shape of the vocal tract.

 

The RESONANT SMILE raises the ceiling at the back of the horizontal resonator and adds a bit more “ah” color to all the vowels. You can see in Figure 3 below that the “ah” vowel has the greatest number of harmonics, and that the stack is uninterrupted by harmonic gaps.

TAKE HOME MESSAGE:  The resonant smile improves your resonance profile, helps with tuning and creates the sought-after “expanded sound.”

Figure 3: Spectrogram of different vowel sounds. When singers match their vowels, their harmonic profiles will match. This helps singers tune more accurately with each other, creates a brilliant shimmering soundscape for the listener.

 

 

Step 4: sound stability aka breath support

Minimizing consonants is one component of creating as much uninterrupted sound as possible. Without hissy, white noise, popping and tongue-tying consonants, one can sing more lightly, legato, and freely! This helps you economize air as you sing, which brings us to breath support.

 

Figure 4:  Tim does not have five lungs. This is a myth. He has three at most. 

Breath support is essential:

• The last sung note before a breath needs to have as much energy as the first note after a breath. In other words, consistent breath pressure over the full course of a phrase.
• Acappella requires a sustained chordal sound free of unscheduled gaps, and gasps for air.’
• Breaths must be short and inconspicuous, unless purposefully meaningful.
• How else will you awe your entourage with your posting stamina?

 

PRACTICAL EXERCISE 1: Take in a normal breath. Do not push air out, simply allow your vocal chords to vibrate with minimal passage of air. Imagine that strings are pulling your rib cage and keeping it expanded, preventing the air in your lungs to be expelled too fast. Sustain notes at a constant volume as long as possible, grow tolerant to the urge to breathe. Time yourself and beat your own personal records.

PRACTICAL EXERCISE 2: Learn how to take fast inconspicuous breaths. The fastest way to take a breath is to “drop the belly down and forward.” This wording has fallen out of favor for fear that singers will overfill their lungs, and explode too much air at the beginning of the following phrase, with no noticeable increase in breath support at the end of the phrase.

PRACTICAL EXERCISE 3: Sing anything you like and pay attention to the ebb and flow of of your wind pressure. Is it graceful and purposeful?

 

ENERGY - NEVER LET YOUR AUDIENCE FEEL LIKE YOU'RE RUNNING OUT!

The default setting should have ever syllable start with a quiet consonant followed quickly by a vowel that increases, and not decreases, in volume. A phrase should end with a certain amount of energy... and the next phrase should begin with that same amount. This prevents the gaps between phrases that are perceived as a dying down of the energy levels and interrupt the flow of storytelling.

 

SING IN “BREATHISON”

Most of us have heard of “breathing plans” where we agree on where to breathe, and where to fight the urge and sing through. That is the most basic level of breathing plan. Once that is mastered, the next step is to make sure that the ends of phrases close at the same time, and at balanced volumes among all parts. 

You want to avoid situations where, for instance, a baritone or tenor has developed more breath support through practice than the other parts and “pop out of the chord” at the end of phrases and end up singing with gusto… by themselves… while the bass and lead are gasping for air and don’t sing the last note to the full value.

All singing parts should strive to be at the same steps of the breathing cycle. 

 

Step 5: SOPhistiCatIOn

LIPS THAT MOVE GRACEFULLY HELP MAKE GRACEFUL SOUNDS

Your song is the sound that is made when your mouth dances.

PRACTICAL EXERCISE: Sing in front of the mirror with a high, resonant smile and watch the movement of your lips.  Are they dancing? Are they elastic? Work out and strengthen your lip muscles by singing with the resonant smile, and opening your mouth wide as much and as often as possible as you sing. Sing along to your favorite barbershop videos (the notes don’t really matter) and imitate their lip movement and articulation while watching yourself in a hand-held mirror. Does mirroring a singer’s lip movement that make you sound like a more this singer?
 

The tongue is arguably one of the most instrumental articulators in the vocal tract. If all other articulators are held still besides the tongue, most vowels and consonants are still intelligible. The tongue comprised of 8 different muscles, is one of the strongest muscles in the body, and one of the more complex parts of the vocal mechanism.  It is situated at the base of the chin, so a resting tongue is a forward tongue.  The hump of the tongue plays a strong role in determining which harmonics are accentuated, and therefore which vowel we perceive.

The tongue’s size and position in the mouth is hard to perceive. You may be able to feel where the tip of it hits your teeth but there is so much more to the tongue’s mass than we can see and directly feel.

Physical effects on our sound: If the tongue is retracted and the muscles by the hyoid bone are contracted, it can contract the space around the larynx, making free vibration impossible for the larynx.

Acoustic effects: If the tongue is forward, the space behind the tongue is large and the space in front of it is small. This can be a perfect acoustic combination for many singing styles.

A high tongue hump has a huge acoustical benefit as well (shaped like a slide like for the consonant cluster ‘Nngg’=[N]). This shape can help focus the energy on what harmonics are highlighted, bringing more clarity to the sound.

 

Exercises to try: Use a mirror to see if the tip of the tongue is resting at the bottom teeth. This will likely encourage less crowding in the back.

 

Nnnngggg-- Aaahhh=[N]-[a] Use the high tongue hump of the Nnngg consonant cluster to inform a high fluffy tongue for other vowels like [a], which can often have a pulled back, flat tongue in the back

 

Tongue thrusts – Get your tongue all the way out of your mouth like a big cat yawn. Sing with your tongue falling over the bottom teeth and notice if it wants to pull back.

  

Figure: The many moving parts of your vocal tract. The arrows do not do justice to the tongue’s extreme mobility and versatility.

Close your eyes and concentrate on all the moving parts of your vocal tracts while you sing. Do you feel that their movements have grace? Are they under your complete control?

 

Step 4: timbre control

 

Where you learn that “VOCAL placement” does not exist

Imagine that we could somehow remove our vocal cords from our bodies and could listen to them on their own. Assuming healthy vocal cords and producing the same pitch, all vocal chords sound the same. You would hear a great deal of higher harmonics, so many in fact that the sound is irritating.

This is where resonators comes in. They are nothing but containers of air that is in contact with a vibrational source. Smaller containers of air vibrate at higher pitches: compare a piccolo to a tuba, or think of the trombone that changes pitch as the length of the tube increases and decreases when played. With width instruments, the air column changes as holes are opened and closed.  

The vocal tract is different from musical instruments for its ability to change its shape.

Those differences are in what we call “timbre” and the word applies to both musical instruments and voices. In either cases, a timbre is a profile of overtones. 

Research on the singing voice is limited compared to research on speech, and a lot of this information comes from the latter. 

Speech scientists recreate artificial vocal tracts. They are an important tool for them because their fixed and well-defined parameters produce very clean data compared to human vocal tracts which would introduce significant variation that would obscure subtle effects. These artificial vocal tracks are topologically tubular. They are only the inner surfaces of the vocal tract and have no “head part” attached to it: no jaw, no nose, no brain, nothing. Just the vocal tract. The shapes are different depending on the vowel they want the artificial vocal tract to emit. It’s quite extraordinary to hear how not only do these shapes produce vowels, but also how the thin, mechanical sound of the naked vocal chords sound rich and human when the tract is placed over them as they would be in a human body.

 

Artistic choices

Word painting: Make the words sound like what they mean.