会 By Rachael Gates

Free To Sing
Encouraging Postural Release
For Vocal Efficiency

S
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o often student singers will sing without investing in thousands of dollars’

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as though they are just busts and worth of equipment. So they strive, with
MTNA e-JOURNAL some— just heads— with little to no variable suc- cess, to develop a keen
accurate sense of their instrument kinesthetic awareness. How can the voice
extending down through the thorax, teacher help expedite the student’s
abdomen and pelvis, and without any con- discovery of efficient singing?
nection to their knees or the floor. These sing-
This article discusses the benefits of Alex-
ers tend to deliver inconsistent performances
ander Technique for the singer and walks
that rely on effortful singing (such as larynge-
through basic mapping tutorials and
al hyperfunction) and leave their empathetic
images of the skeleton and the vocal
voice teachers tight and tired. Effortful sing-
instrument that you, as a teacher, can do
ing requires more pressure or compression of
along with your students. Exercises at
the vocal folds than what is necessary, which
the end are included for further exploration.
in turn, limits smooth register transitions,
By guiding your student singers into a
causes the pitch to go flat or sharp, and/
holistic physical awareness and accurate
or prevents the singer from accessing her
mapping of their instrument, you gift
full range, timbre and use of dynamics. The
them with not only a more accurate kin-
effortful singer feels sensations in the neck
esthesia but also a self-awareness of what is
while she sings, fatigues with voice use and
inhibiting or feeding efficient singing.
is susceptible to vocal fold erythema (red-
Encour- age your singers to sing
ness), vocal fold edema (swelling) and Muscle
intermittently as they explore guided
Tension Dysphonia (MTD).
adjustments so that the end result is
(Note: The larynx doesn’t have many nerve
known by its ease and delicious bio-
endings so sensations felt in the neck while feedback. The goal? The natural high that
singing are an easy self-diagnostic tool for occurs when minimal effort is used to pro-
vocal inefficiency.)
duce a glorious sound; the vocal folds ride,
Singers are already at a disadvantage
uninhibited on a steady stream of air,
because they cannot readily access a feeding consistent sound waves into open
magnified and well-lit view of their vocal folds resonators, and sending sympathetic

Defying Gravity
Singers are likely to find more vocal effi-
ciency from practicing Alexander Tech-
nique. Frederick Matthias Alexander was a
turn-of-the-20th-century Shakespearean
actor who frequently lost his voice when
he orated. By practicing slowly in front of
the mirror, he found that he had habitually
conditioned himself to pull his head back
and down, crunching back on his neck and
thus compressing and shortening his spine
when preparing to vocally project. His vocal
issues resolved when he discovered he
could release vocal tensions by elongating
through the back of his neck, directing his
head for- ward and up. 1
( Note: Lengthening through the seven
cervical (neck) vertebrae maximizes
laryngeal mobility. The thyroid is free to tilt
on top of the cricoid to access higher
pitches and the entire larynx has the
buoyant suspension to raise and lower its
potential seven centim- eters; from a
swallow to a yawn.)
Alexander teachers often guide with, “let
the neck be free. Allow head to go forward
and up,” and pedagogue, Pedro de Alcantara
adds, “as though being pulled by a magnet
while another magnet is pulling your sacrum
and coccyx into the floor. Oppositional forces
allow us to stabilize our bodies. Gravity pulls
at us and we must continuously direct our-
selves upward. The vocal folds oppose the
breath [for there to be sound]…our task is
not to relax, but to balance the tensions [just
enough to prevent either from winning] 2 , cre-
ating energy so that the voice is strong and
free.”3
(Note: Eurythmics, Feldenkrais, yoga,
swim- ming and dance are other singer-
friendly forms of movement that
encourage ease in movement for freer
singing.)
Free To Sing
Body Map With Your Student
Coined by Bill Conable, one of my former
Alexander Technique professors at Ohio State
University, body mapping refers to the pro-
cess of refining your mental representation
of your body’s size, structure and function. 4
When singers have an accurate body map of
their skeleton, larynx, lungs, diaphragm and
ribs more options and exploratory choices are
open to them and their playing ability grows. M
Using a mirror in lessons and visual record-
T
ing devices during performances are two N
effective means of accelerating the singer’s
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self-awareness, but these only go so far to
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help the student digest physical truths. My
former voice instructor at the University of 9
Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music,
the late Patricia Berlin, is fondly remembered A
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for her mid-lesson requests that we draw R
the ribs, diaphragm, tongue or whatever it I
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was that she felt inhibited our sound. 5 These
drawings—even from the weakest of artists—
would shed light on the student’ s concept
of that aspect of the instrument and initiate
fruitful discussion that would lead to a more
three-dimensional ability to play the well-hid-
den instrument. Ask your student what they
understand to be true. Ask them where the
diaphragm is located, where their vocal folds
are, where the top of their spine is…
An Easy Stance For An Easier Sing
Discussion point: Housed within the neck,
the singer’s instrument goes everywhere she
goes. She relies heavily on her voice to com-
municate and uses it with little regard until
she is asked to sing. Suddenly she goes into
singer mode! She straightens up, puts on her
singer-posture, and applies herself to giving
her teachers and audiences something they
will be pleased to hear. She is rather stiff and
waiting… Ask your student if anything about
this description bears resemblance to them-
selves. (See Figure 1.)
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Figure 1
Which one are you?
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(Note: Posture is an inherently problematic whole body and draw closer to

word. The word comes from positura or “a pos- maximizing their vocal potential.
ition” and ponere “to place” evoking an image Take your student on a trip through
of standing perfectly still, which is not condu- their scaffolding:
cive to singing. Better results come when we 1. Begin by having the student put
are mindful of buoyancy and balance.6) their fingers in their ears. Explain that
This section explores five of the Six Points
their fingers are pointing at the top
of Balance, as determined by Alexander. vertebra of their spine, called the
They are discussed at some length because atlas/ cervical vertebra one/C- 1. That
the awareness and alignment they offer top vertebra cups two convex
has chain-reaction power to undo unneces-
bumps that protrude from the base
sary tension in phonation and— added
of your nine- to 13-pound skull and
bonus— gifts the singer with an appearance
allow you to nod your head “yes.”
of easy confidence and sophistication. Just
as effort travels, so does release. With a little (Figures 2 and 3) “If you are
reminding, the student singer will begin balanced at your A-O joint, your
to perceive new freedoms throughout the neck muscles will release and
allow other muscles of your body to
 Free To Sing

the suspended larynx its greatest mobility and freedom. Licensed Andover Educator
and certified Alexander Technician Mary Jean Allen suggests that to find this
balance, students ignore the jaw and instead pay attention to feeling the chewing
surfaces of their top molars with their tongue and aligning the top molars to be
parallel with the floor. The result should be a head that moves freely on its atlas like
a teeter-totter.
Figure 2
Figure

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Figure 3:
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2. There are seven cervical or neck To discover optimal thoracic– lumbar align-
vertebrae, and C-7 sits at the base of ment, Allen suggests slowly walking back-
the neck. The next 12 vertebrae are ward and then without shifting your balance,
thoracic/chest vertebrae. T- 1 through walk slowly forward. The student may feel
T- 12 increase in circumference as they as though they’re leaning forward, however
extend snake-like down from the a look in the mirror will tell them otherwise.
neck by curving outward to make Now ask your student to sing, and ask wheth-
room for the lungs. The final five er they’ve discovered a new freedom to their
vertebrae are the lumbar vertebrae. sound.
They are the largest— like a tree (Note: The bumps felt on the back are the
sapling in diameter— and curve spinal processes that project out from the
inward toward our guts. vertebrae body. The bumps are very super-
(Note: Put the thumbs and index ficial. The bodies or discs of the vertebrae are
fingers of both your hands deep.)
together for a sense of the room 3. Now a take-home assignment: Ask that
the lumbar vertebrae take up your student observe how in Figure 4
inside your abdomen!) the bottom lumbar vertebra (L-5) joins
 Free To Sing

with the thick, weight-bearing top of the sacrum—a set of five fused vertebrae that
curves steeply back away from the pelvis and ends with a tucked, non-weight-bearing
coccyx or tailbone. Ask them to attempt, while lying down or standing, to palpate the
thickness of the upper ridges (the iliac crests) of their widely flared pelvis bowl, noting
how it cradles not only the guts, but upper body weight as well, and distributes that
weight down into the legs. If they are able to palpate down from the crest, they may be
able to isolate the hip’s bony protrusion—the greater trochanter. From the anatomical
drawing, the can make out the hip bones giving off a stabilizing, upward-angled neck
and bulb (covered by connective tissues in Figure 4) that insert into the outside of the
pelvis’s sides.
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Figure 4
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By Internet Archive Book Images [ No restrictions] , via Wikimedia Commons.
 Free To Sing

(Note: Wouldn’t it be nice if they just made Barbie anatomically correct? Think how much
of this understanding could be innate. After performing so many popped hip replacements
on Barbie legs during the formative years, my concept of hip joints as a student lacked
accuracy.)

4. Point out that the knee joint, as shown in Figure 5, is just behind and below the
patella. Knees can be locked, balanced or bent. Singers often lock their knees before
they’ve discovered their balanced thorax-lumbar relationship (refer to the walking
backward exercise above) and as a quick-fix, voice teachers may advise them to
bend them. However, balanced knees are freest, allowing the singer to release the M
contraction of both the thigh and knee muscles. T
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Figure 5
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[ CC BY 3 . 0 ( http: / / creativecommons. org/ licenses/ by/ 3 . 0 ) ], via Wikimedia Commons.
 Free To Sing

5. Ankle joints can only find true balance when all the four points above are balanced. The
lower leg has two bones. The narrower bone to the outside of each leg is the fibula,
and the thicker, weight-bearing bone to the inside of each leg is the tibia. (Figure 6)
The bony lump on each side of the ankle are the bottoms of those bones, respectively
and each bump flanks the talus bone of the foot, creating the ankle joint. The student
can distribute weight into a tripod of points on the bottom of each foot: on the ball
of each foot behind the big toe, on the ball each foot behind the little toe and on the
center of the heel. Point out to your student singer that the foot is not an “L” but that
the heel extends farther back from the ankle joint. 8
The Points of Balance are practical and easy to practice throughout the day. Well-
respected Alexander Technician, Alice Pryor appreciates that “You [can] just carry
APR I L on your activities and apply your understanding of the process at that moment…
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improvement can happen in a matter of seconds.” 9

Note: This author’s opinion is that

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when a singer performs from the crook
of the piano, she looks attractive when
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her feet are hip width apart, and the left
foot comes comfortably forward so that
her body is aligned on a slight diagonal.
This is not only a more interesting picture
from a directorial standpoint, it allows for
a more visible team relationship with the
pianist and prevents the singer from feel-
ing as though she could be pushed over.
This is not a fixed position, but a home
base. The singer has a three-foot stage in
which to perform while in the crook. Just
remind her to bend at the hip joints for
those final bows and never at the waist.
(There is no such thing as a waist joint!)
And take time to say hippopotamus while
she’s down to make the bow sincere.

Figure 6
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 Free To Sing

Bodymapping The Instrument

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Figure 7
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Ask your student, “Where is your voice?” Many will point vaguely to their necks. Ask them
to find the Adam’s Apple or thyroid prominence at the front of their neck (Eve’s Apple is a
little harder to find as it is less protrusive and sits a little higher). Thyroid means shield and
that bump protrudes from a shield-like cartilage that protects the vocal folds extending in a
“V” horizontally just behind and below that bump. Now with the pad of their finger on the
bump, they can likely find the bottom of the hyoid bone with their fingernail. The hyoid
bone is a horizontal horseshoe that sits closed at the front and open toward the back of the
neck, floating between soft tissues at the base of the tongue. From it, the larynx, or voice
box is
 Free To Sing

suspended. If the head is directed forward and up, the cervical spine elongates and the larynx
is buoyant and poised for free movement. If the chin begins to raise, reaching for a note, or
juts out like a turtle in an effort to project, the entire larynx’s mobility is inhibited including
the vocal folds inside. Because the larynx is suspended from the hyoid at the base of the
tongue, excess tongue tensions hike up on the larynx and render it less mobile as well.
Now ask the student to palpate downward from the thyroid prominence until they reach
another bump; the front of the cricoid cartilage. Cricoid means ring and the cricoid is the only
aspect of the larynx that is a complete circle. (Remember, the hyoid and thyroid are closed in
the front and open toward the back. See Figure 7.) The cricoid forms the base of the larynx
and sits on top of windpipe or trachea. If we could peer with a dentist’s mirror and a bright
light just behind and below the tongue we could get a bird’s eye view of the whitish vocal
folds housed inside the larynx. (See Figure 8.) The point of the “V” is toward the front of the
neck, just behind the thyroid prominence, as mentioned. The legs of the “V” extend horizontal-
ly across the trachea below and connect with cartilages called arytenoids that sit on the back
of the cricoid. When the larynx hangs freely suspended, the thyroid can raise slightly and rock
forward,
Toward closing
the frontthe visor
of the neckof soft tissue between it and the cricoid. The arytenoids hang onto
the vocal fold “reigns” and— Woah Nellie! The vocal folds are being stretched long and thin,
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Toward the back of the neck

FIGURE 8 5 Notice that 3, 4 & 5 form the rim of the aryepiglottic

1 True Vocal Folds (actual size is about a V in a dime or nickel) sphincter. The sphincter is a resonator within a resonator and
2 False Folds (a.k.a. vestibular folds) can narrow with contraction.
3 Epiglottis 6 Pyriform Sinuses
4 Aryepiglottic sphincter (a.k.a. laryngeal vestibule) 7 Back of tongue

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Figure 9
Notice how the heart ( faded out) sits on the diaphragm’ s central tendon between the lungs. The diaphragm’s rim connects with
the base of the sternum in front, the bottom ribs as well as the base of the sternum in front and along the spin in the back, creating
the rib cage (not shown) floor and neatly separating the lighter chest cavity from the guts below.
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The windpipe extends down just behind
that sexy little dip in the front of the neck.
The trachea divides into two bronchi,
leaving room for the heart, snuggly nestled
between the lungs, and insert into each
lung, continu- ing to branch into
bronchioles that end in curly parsley-like
air sacs called alveoli which fill with air on
each inhalation. (Figure 9) The lungs are
roughly the size of two footballs (If you’re
petite, they’re likely petite footballs) and
are made up of passive soft tissue with- out
any muscles at all. So the next question
to ask your student is: “How can the lungs
inhale?” A wet pleural sac surrounds them,
sealing them like a wet plastic bag on a
window to the surrounding ribcage and to
the muscular floor of that ribcage—the dia-
phragm. When your brain senses a need for
oxygen, it sends a message to the phrenic
nerve which tells the diaphragm to contract.
The diaphragm lowers and flattens slightly
as it contracts, creating a vacuum and suck-
ing air into the lungs. Have your student
feel the ribs— how each rib originates from
 Free To Sing
a thoracic vertebra in the back and, except
for the bottom two floating ribs, continue to
wrap around to insert into the breastbone or
sternum at the front of the chest. Ask them
to imagine holding that ribcage and peer-
ing down into it to see the parachute-like
diaphragm floor that domed up and stuck
to the bottom of the lungs, ready to receive
enervation to inflate. 1 0 The diaphragm origin-
ates along the bottom ribs and inserts into
a stiff tendon at the top center of the dome.
Because muscles pull toward their origins
when they contract, the diaphragm’s muscle
fibers pull toward the ribs, shortening and
pulling the tendon center down as a result.
APR I L This action displaces our guts or viscera; the
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water balloon- like organs underneath the
diaphragm (for example, the liver, stomach,
intestines and so on). 1 1 They can’t go down
much because they’re cradled in the pel-
1
vis. They can’t go back much because of
MTNA e-JOURNAL the large lumbar vertebrae. When we relax
abdominal muscles, they can be pushed out
the soft wall of the belly and the singer gets a
fat tummy.
When we allow the abdominal walls to
relax and distend on inhalation, the breath
is referred to as a belly breath or abdom-
inal breathing. However, now you know
that breath doesn’t actually enter the belly!
“ Abdominal breathing” is helpful for singers
who must sing long legato lines and is used
most often for classical singing. It allows the
singer more control over the speed of their
exhalation. They can slow the
reengagement of abdominal muscle
contraction, which wants to smoosh the
guts back into place, which will in turn
press up on the lowered diaphragm and
expel air during singing. 1 2
Teach Them How To Practice
At their lessons and in their practice, invite
your student singers to be ready to experi-
ment and explore. Clarify that there is no
right and wrong way of singing, just more
and less efficient. Add that they are their
own best teacher, and they will likely take
more
ownership of their vocal exploration. Encour-
age your singers to sing their most difficult
passages while they are fresh and to take a
5-minute break every 30 minutes of practice
to avoid a build-up of tensions.
Practicing slowly and quietly can help a
singer isolate and release tensions that want
to creep in. Slow and quiet practice can also
improve the singer’ s breath management
when returning to sing a piece up to tempo.
Here is some food for thought: This auth-
or believes the student singer’s kinesthetic
awareness is rarely served by the piano as an
accompanying instrument. Like singing next
to someone with poor technique in choir, the
effort of percussive onset can be contagious.
Even with the finest of pianists, the finger and
hammer attacks can infect the young sing-
er’s approach to “playing” her instrument. As
teachers, we compensate with, “Don’t sing
like the piano! Coast over it! Think horizontal-
ly! Sing through the phrase. Find connection
and sing legato!” We assign singers with
similar Fachs for our students to listen to and
hope they discover an empathy for what
they hear. Perhaps if we arranged for some
singing lessons to be accompanied by violin,
viola, cello or double bass, student singers
with the respective voice types would be
positively influenced by the balanced effort
of a bow on a string. Easy, simultaneous
onsets would initiate beautiful, consistent,
spinning tones like the coordinated
application of just enough pressure from
the bow sending sound waves passing
undulations ( compres- sions and
rarefactions) through the string.
More Exercises To Try
In many student singers, the wiring from
the brain to the tongue often includes the
jaw so that the entire tongue and jaw are a
packaged unit that work in tandem. These
singers feel a need to employ both the jaw
and the entire tongue when articulating an
[l]. Efficient singing means minimal effort.
Have the singer place a finger on their chin
and invite them to sing “la la la” (such as

those found at the end of Tout gai by Ravel)
with the jaw hanging in the vowel position
and only the tip of the tongue tacking the
[l]’s superficially. Isolating the muscle fibers of
the tongue and engaging only what is need-
ed, rather than using the whole body of the
tongue. Minimal effort is needed, the vowel
is no longer chewed or distorted, and the res-
onating space is maintained.
Noisy inhalations and exhalations stem
from nearly closed (approximated) vocal folds
(as seen in Figure 8). To help the student
singer understand this, ask them to inhale
through passive lips and then through
pursed lips. Breath is audible as it passes
through a narrow opening due to the
friction created. Likewise, we create [h] by
narrowing the space between the vocal
folds (glottis) during exhalation.
Experiencing sensations in the throat and
neck during phonation is a sure sign of vocal
inefficiency. The sensation of tightness or
hitting a ceiling, for example, typically
means that the singer is not allowing the
thyroid to tilt or rock forward on top of the
cricoid to elongate the folds.
The feeling of opening the throat (as in
surprise or the gentle beg of yawn) helps
to avoid the false vocal folds from trying to
adduct (close) or the larynx from squeezing
in, both of which impede true vocal phona-
tion.
My co-authors and I have found it’s nearly
impossible to isolate closing only the true
vocal folds. While talking, it is normal and not
a vocal health risk to use glottal onsets for
word beginning with a vowel ( for example,
“Ohio,” “uh oh”). These onsets require the
false folds and the true folds to fleetingly
adduct and be blown open with a burst of
air. How- ever, if the false folds are held
tightly closed so that vibratory onset must
be forced with a grunt- like sound, the onset
is considered to be a hard-glottal onset. If
produced often, the tension and force can
wear on the vocal fold tissues to the point of
developing nodules.
Free To Sing
To ensure the tongue is not trying to be
overly helpful during singing, check your stu-
dent’s tongue base by placing your thumb
gently under the student’s chin while they
sing. If the tongue’s underbelly presses down
against your thumb pad, invite your student
to replace your thumb with her own. Ask that
she observe how the tongue base is soft at
rest and ask whether she is able to maintain
that softness while she sings.
Resonator Exploration
Introduce the student singer to their instru-
ment’s resonating belly; their resonating M
spaces. Explain that once the vocal folds are T
set into motion, the vibrations create sound N
waves that travel up away from the vocal
A
folds and into every nook and cranny open to
e
them. The nooks and crannies are resonators
and play a large role in why our voices sound 1
different from each other.
Within your physical limitations, you have A
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an amazing ability to manipulate your voice’s R
natural quality by choosing how to channel I
L
sound waves and by changing the shape of
your moveable resonators (oral cavity and
pharynx). Raising your larynx and contracting
your aryepiglottic sphincter (See Figure 8)
in your laryngopharynx while lowering your
soft palate in your oral cavity will give you a
bright witch’s cackle. Or you can sound more
operatic by lowering the larynx and raising
the soft palate so that it closes off the naso-
pharynx and redirects your sound waves out
the oral cavity only. Protruding your lips elon-
gates the oral cavity, darkening your sound. 13
When the lips are closed, the oral cavity is
no longer an exit for sound. If the soft palate
is lowered, sound waves will pass into and
out of the nose and a nasal [m] is the result.
Raise the back of the tongue to meet the soft
palate, sealing off access to the oral cavity
from the inside. Now the larygo-, oro-, naso-
pharynx creates one long tube. Phonation
is channeled again into and out of the nose,
creating the “ng. ”
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Figure 1 0
From Gray’s Anatomy 1918 edition
This photo is a sagittal cut, that is to sayjust showing one side. Only one true vocal fold and one false (ventricular) fold are shown.
Note how the inner entrance to the ear is just above your soft palate. This is why a yawn helps to relieve ear pressure.

The soft palate must be able to lift suffi-
ciently to close off nasopharynx and create
an acoustic that our Western ears perceive
as beautiful. The soft palate lowers only for
n, m, ng and for nasal vowels stylistic to
French cabaret. The nasal cavities are too
small to effectively resonate and amplify
vowels, and if the soft palate is insufficiently
raised so that resonance is leaking into the
nose, the sound intensity will be dampened.
If you perceive hypernasality in a student,
have them self- check for leaks by
plugging their nose on
vowels. When the student feels sympathetic
vibrations passing from the nose into her
fingers, she can then isolate her own soft
palate’s ability to raise and redirect the
sound waves out the mouth. Explain that the
soft palate is similar to the acoustic cloud
over a proscenium stage that assists in
projecting her sound waves out the bell of
her horn, her mouth. Phrases such as “bite
into an apple,” “raise the back upper
molars,” “maintain an inner smile”
and “inhale as though just begin- ning to
yawn—feel the cool spot? Send your
 Free To Sing

vowel to the cool spot” can help the singer isolate soft palate contraction. When the biofeed-
back changes and her nose is no longer buzzing with sympathetic vibrations, the sound has
successfully been re-routed into her mouth.
Hyponasality is when the nasal passages are blocked and the m, n and ng cannot resonate.
The result is the production of their unvoiced equivalents— [b], [d] and [g] respectively.
The larynx is suspended from and connected by soft tissues (ligaments, muscles and mem-
branes) that allow it to be mobile. It is pulled up by elevator muscles and down by depressor
muscles. Like biceps and triceps, these muscles work in an antagonistic fashion. We have
more elevators, and they are stronger due to their important role in helping the vocal folds
protecting the airway. Singers who sing with too much tension are often giving in to
laryngeal elevation as they reach for a high pitch. 14

A “ Low” Breath Exploration

Abdominal muscle contraction helps us to maintain alignment, so it can be difficult to
rewire the brain to relax abdominal muscles on inhalation. If the abdominal wall is held in
contraction during inhalation, the viscera (abdominal organs) cannot distend. The descent of M
the diaphragm is limited by T
how much it is able to displace N
the viscera.
A
The more a singer relies on
e
the diaphragm’ s contraction
and gut distention during inhal- 2
ations, the more they must
release abdominal muscles. If A
P
the rectus is relaxed on inhal- R
ation, distention will occur out I
L
the front of the abdomen. If the
obliques and transverse mus-
cles are relaxed, the sides of the
abdomen will expand. The five
lumbar vertebrae encompass so
much of the back, that disten-
tion can only occur out the soft
walls in the front and sides of
the abdomen. However, if the
quadratus lumborum is relaxed,
the lower back will feel pressure.
(See Figure 11.) Relaxing all
these muscle pairs on inhalation
creates a sensation of evenly dis-
tributed expansion throughout
the low torso.15

Figure 1 1
https: //commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3A1112_Muscles_of_the_Abdomen.jpg
https: //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/1112_Muscles_of_the_Abdomen.jpg
By OpenStax [ CC BY 4 . 0 ( http: / / creativecommons. org/ licenses/ by/ 4 . 0 ) ] , via Wikimedia Commons.
 APR I L
2018

2
MTNA e-JOURNAL

9. Alice Pryor, “The Alexander Technique:
Brief History and a Personal Perspective,” in
Bodymind & Voice, Foundations of Voice Edu-
cation, ed. Leon Thurman and Graham
Welch (Iowa City: National Center for Voice
and Speech, 1997), p. 537–8.
10. The comparison of the diaphragm to
a parachute comes from Len Horovitz, “Pul-
monary Medicine for Singers” in The
Singer’s Guide to Complete Health (New
York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 38.
11. The comparison of abdominal viscera to
water balloons come from Scott McCoy, Your
voice: an Inside View (Princeton, NJ: Inside
View Press, 2004), 115.
12. Gates, et.al., The Owner’s Manual to
the Voice, 3– 15.
13. Gates, et.al., The Owner’s Manual to
the Voice, 100.
14. Anthony Jahn “The Vocal Apparatus,”
in The Singer’s Guide to Complete Health, ed.
Anthony F. Jahn (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2013), 29.
15. Scott McCoy, Your Voice: An Inside
View (Princeton, NJ: Inside View Press,
2004), 95.
16. R. Leanderson and J. Sundberg,
“Breath- ing for Singing,” Journal of Voice 2,
no. 1 (1988): 2– 12.
17. Gates, et. al. The Owner’s Manual to
the Voice (New York: Oxford, 2013), 26.
18. Quote from conversation with former
voice teacher extraordinaire, Dr. Robin
Rice. OSU 12/12/17, 9:50 p.m.
Bibliography
Alcantara, Pedro de. “The Alexander
Technique for Singers.” In The Singer’s Guide
to Complete Health, edited by Anthony F.
Jahn, MD. New York: Oxford University
Press, 2013.
Gates, Rachael, Kerrie Obert, and Arick
Forrest. The Owner’s Manual to the Singing
Voice. New York: Oxford University
Press, 2013.
Hass, Leontine. “Musical Theater 1: The View
from London.” In The Singer’s Guide to
Com- plete Health, edited by Anthony F.
Jahn. New York: Oxford University
Press, 2013.
Free To Sing
Horovitz, Len. “Pulmonary Medicine for Sing-
ers.” In The Singer’s Guide to Complete Health,
edited by Anthony F. Jahn, MD. New York:
Oxford University Press, 2013.
Jahn, Anthony. “The Vocal Apparatus.” In The
Singer’s Guide to Complete Health, edited by
Anthony F. Jahn, MD. New York: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 2013.
Leanderson, R. and J. Sundberg. “Breathing
for Singing.” Journal of Voice 2, no. 1 (1988):
2– 12.
MacDonald, Glynn. Alexander Technique: A
Practical Programme for Health, Poise and Fit-
ness. Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books, 1998.
Malde, Melissa, MaryJean Allen, and Kurt-Alex-
ander Zeller. What Every Singer Needs to M
Know About the Body, 2nd ed. San Diego: T
Plural Publishing, 2013. N
McCoy, Scott. Your Voice: An Inside View. A
Princeton, NJ: Inside View Press, 2004.
e
Pryor, Alice. “The Alexander Technique: Brief
History and a Personal Perspective.” In Body- 2
mind and Voice: Foundations of Voice Educa-
tion, edited by Leon Thurman and Graham A
P
Welch. Iowa City: National Center for Voice R
and Speech, 1997. I
Watson, Alan H.D. “Breathing in Sing- L
ing.” In The Oxford Handbook of Singing,
edited by Graham Welch, David How-
ard, and John Nix. Oxford Handbooks
Online (2014): 1– 16. doi:10. 1093/oxford-
hb/9780199660773.013. 10.
Watson, Alan H.D. The Biology of Musical Per-
formance and Performance-Related Injury.
Lanham, ML: Scarecrow Press, 2009.
Rachael Gates has taught at Northwestern, The Hartt School, Yale
Gates, Rachael, "Free to sing: Encouraging postural release for vocal efficiency", MTNA e-journal
9/4 (Cincinnati, OH: April 2018), 8-23.

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