#1 [url]

Mar 30 07 5:40 PM

Re: hmm

Breathiness, while related to incomplete adduction, is a different issue. Let's start with "noise". "Noise" in the voice is considered any non-harmonic spikes in the spectral readout. (Can't think of a better way to phrase that at the moment.) Noise is heard as airiness, static, clicks, or just about anything impure in the sound. The causes of noise are many, and is where the issue becomes complicated.

Breathiness, by the definition, would be considered a kind of noise in the sound. However, I use the term breathiness to describe when someone intentionally wants to make the sound airy. That's something that you do intentionally by literally abducting your cords in the throat so that they don't provide any resistance to the air. David does this often in his lower range. However, when you begin to sing out (to any extent) and there is airiness present, it means your cords aren't coming together all the way. That's incomplete adduction. That's what happens to David in his mid to upper range often. That's incorrect and wears the voice out. You also can have it in degrees, so it's not just like you have either no adduction, complete adduction or incomplete adduction. Sometimes, the adduction can be more complete than in other situations. Mariah Carey is someone that comes to mind who has a rather bad case of incomplete adduction. There was one recent performance of her on YouTube where she went to hit a D5, I think, and you hear this big whistle come out in the middle of her tone. That's due to incomplete adduction and her cords not closing correctly. You hear all types of things like that when there is incomplete adduction.

With that being said, breathiness is actually kind of an advanced thing to do. (And I mean do correctly.) You really have to know how not to send so much air past your cords, especially when they're in an open state like that. A lot of times, when people go to do breathy stuff, they're actually just singing with incomplete adduction that leans heavily towards the airy side of things rather than the adducted side of things. Doing this, especially at any kind of medium volume, is constrictive and will wear out your voice. This is the reason why I am against learning to sing by doing things lightly and softly at first. When people go lightly and softly, they rarely do it correctly and are more prone to singing with incomplete adduction. If you practice in more of a medium to loud volume, you're less likely to experience incomplete adduction (and the resultant constriction that goes along with it).

I want to add that noise in the sound is not just limited to airiness, in case I didn't make that clear. Noise can also come from distortions and growls that you do in your vocal tract. You can also get noise by singing with your cords in an overcompressed state. However, most noise in the voice will be due to airiness.

And to make this clear, airiness is just the air your hear in the sound. Air that has not been converted to sound energy. It's caused by you intentionally making the sound breathy or by singing with incomplete adduction (which is kind of unintentional).

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We have eyes, but cannot see; ears, but cannot hear.