So, how do you place the tone? You get a spoon, and pick up some tone, and move it to where you want it to be. Does this sound ridiculous? If you take the time to look at an anatomy chart or drawing of the larynx and pharynx, you will see that there are things that move and things that do not move.
You can manipulate your lips, tongue, jaw and soft palate. When you do this incorrectly, you are not “placing” your tone; you are only distorting your sound. An inconsistent sound from the bottom of your range to the top is not pleasing. It is irritating. It is annoying. It is an aberration of tone, not an improvement. Many, many mis-trained and ill-informed singers who are the product of our degraded education system robotically sing, with distorted looking faces and mouths and sound very distorted. It is difficult at times to even understand the words being sung even though they are in “English”.
I have seen a tenth grade music appreciation textbook from Italy which had more music theory, music literature, and music history than what is being taught in this country as a college freshman music major in the same specific courses. This is, I repeat, a textbook for music appreciation. I took that course in high school, and it was mainly listening to music from all eras. It was fun, but it was an easy A. I also took it in college, attended 3 or 4 classes, skipped the rest, aced the final and got an A for the course. The point is, in the U.S., we are way behind by comparison.
In my next blog, you will find out how to achieve your OWN sound, and why “placement” is inaccurate depiction of voice theory.
