Subharmonic Warm-ups

SR2: Breathe in ice arrows, sing out fire arrows. Be efficient with proper weight and breath. Do not sing to yourself, sing with a target audience in mind. Cover what is necessary, not the middle part of your range. Accuracy and transition is the goal. Use fry as a warm-up tool properly, not as a means of full vocal production. Shape the voice for seamless transitions.

 

In the previous post, I provided you with information on how to sing subharmonics. This post will give you a starting point on how to warm-up your subharmonics.

Sound Warm-up

Your breath is very important in subharmonics. I always imagine that my breath feels like a cool stream of air when I breathe in and a fiery arrow moving at mach speed to its target when I sing. Assuming that you are in a proper stance for healthy singing already, too much breath and a weighty mechanism (an arrow and bow that is too heavy) would be very inefficient; too little breath and a light mechanism (arrows and bows made for ants…) is like-wise.

 

 

 

Within the context of your own voice, you need to match your “target” of sound at the exact, proper time (as the music composition demands it) rather than trying to use the same arrows and bows as the people around you. In this case, the singer has a few targets: the director, the audience, and the room. Here are a few things to consider when trying subharmonics:

• the only thing that really changes is the “setting” of your vocal folds
• your breath energy and resonance do not change drastically (assuming that you want a consistent sound)
• your “break” between modal and subharmonics will move around

 

I noticed after many years of singing that I have the least success when my voice is trying to sound “warm” or trying to “blend” within a choir (which is usually an indicator that the throat/tongue is depressed and/or too much sound is absorbed by the soft palette and surrounding areas). Usually, what happens is that I sing my middle register too wide and “covered”, a tendency of younger singers OR sometimes even experienced singers that have very strong voices that hold back their resonance as to appease the director and appeal to the concept of “blending”. Directors will rarely tell basses to hold back on true bass parts, however. (Please do remember that the singing bass voice does cover parts of the baritone range as well which is usually the area where basses tend to lose negotiating power).

 

I am not against the concept of having a unified sound (which needs to be done by shaping vowels and space, not attenuating the healthy resonance of the voice to fit the sound) – it just doesn’t have to be at the expense of the singer.

 

 

As you are trying to find the subharmonic in your voice, you will notice that there is a small place where it is optimal. If one were to divide the voice into vocal fry (black) and modal (white), subharmonics (grey) would live in the shades between the two. (not mentioned is a modal/fry mix which would also be considered a grey area).

When first starting, you may notice that your voice may only have a sliver of grey area for subharmonics – there is no room for error, but a lot of room to experiment. Here is what I do to go through all three shades:

Flip Back and Forth between these sounds (long tones flipping between modal and subharmonics and then to fry)

Start on a comfortable note for you – I will use D2 and D3 as the example since it is the area in my voice where I am able to sing all three shades with clarity. The sounds will start with: “Mm”, “Nn”, “Ee”, “Eh”, “Ay”, “@”, “Ah”, “Aw”, “Oh, “Oo”, and will end with “Mm.” What you want to focus first is your accuracy and then your transition time from note to note.

1. Modal will be shown with an “M”;
2. Fry will be shown with an “F”;
3. Subharmonics will be shown with octaves and “SH”.
4. Sing through entire exercise with one sound shape (“Mm”) and then repeat this exercise with a new shape (“Nn”, etc).

 

 

Feel free to use this virtual piano online for your starting pitch if needed:

Virtual Piano

 

Again, understand that in order for me to sing a D2 using subharmonics, I need to start on D3 (otherwise, I would need to start on a D2 and then move up the octave which will take too much work – this will be shown when going from fry to subharmonics in measure 6 and 7). Once you have finished this exercise, the natural progression would be to completely leave out fry and just use modal and subharmonics – using fry as a warm-up tool with proper care can be efficient when used correctly and can build good compression (folds coming together for phonation) so long as you don’t press the voice down and try to squeeze out sound.

 

This exercise accomplishes a few things: accuracy (yes!); transition between modal, fry, and subharmonics will become easier; you will be able to line up your subharmonics with your modal voice; and the shape (vowels) of your voice will be similar and seamless as you move between subharmonics and modal.

Thank you for waiting patiently. Finding time to work on this site has been harder than anticipated and I appreciate your support.

 

This content has referral links which is no extra cost to you when you click on them. Please refer to the Disclaimer page for more information and THANK YOU for your support! – Thou