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Hi everybody!
My name is Justin Stoney and I'm the founder of
New York Vocal Coaching here in New York City.
Welcome to episode 45 of Voice Lessons To The World.
The show where we want to help you guys as singers
by answering your questions from all over.
And I'll give you a chance to ask questions later.
But our question for this week comes from Reg B. in Vancouver, British Columbia.
And Reg writes, "Dear Justin, I'd love for you to do an episode
on classical singing.
Specifically, on what is the passaggio
and how do I navigate it well?"
Wow, great Reg.
Thank you so much for that question.
Yes we will do that episode right now on the passaggio.
This is a very common term, it's used in classical singing.
But actually I want you guys to know this...
No matter what style of singing you're doing,
today we will do a little bit more of a classical episode,
but this is for all singers everywhere, really.
This idea of the passaggio.
So what is the passaggio?
Passagio comes from the Bel Canto singing tradition
of vocal technique and understanding of the voice.
And if you guys don't know about Bel Canto.
I really hope you go and research this a little bit
or find a teacher that understands Bel Canto.
So much of what we know about vocal technique comes from Bel Canto.
It's not everything but it's really, really one of the very finest
vocal technique systems in the whole world.
So check out Bel Canto.
But it's an Italian tradition, the Italian vocal school.
And "passaggio" is an Italian word that means passage, okay.
Now I know you guys know a little bit now about vocal registration.
We have different registers of our voice.
There's the chest voice, the head voice, the falsetto,
the mix, vocal fry, flageolet, whistle voice.
There's many registers.
And we're going to talk about all of them in great detail
as we go forward into the future.
But the registers of your voice also have transitions between them.
And usually the lower mechanism, often chest voice,
and the higher mechanism, often head voice,
has a moment of transition which is that passagio, right?
Transitioning between the vocal registers.
So there's a lot of terms that are sometimes used to describe this.
There is the passaggio, also like I say known as the passage.
Or transition, or bridge, or break,
or that place in my voice where it cracks so horribly and miserably
that I want to crawl into a hole
and never show my face to the world ever again.
There's tons of terms that we can use to describe that passaggio event.
But what I'm going to do today is show you first
with a song how to navigate the passaggio.
And then give you tips on how to navigate it,
and then give you an exercise too - for men and women,
on how to navigate the passaggio, okay?
Now this song here is called, "O Del Mio Dolce Ardor".
It's a very common Italian art song
that many of you classical singers may know.
I'm going to navigate the passaggio in this song
to show you what that sounds like.
This is by Gluck.
♪
♪ O del mio dolce ardor ♪
♪ Bramato oggetto ♪
Okay.
So, that top note in there, that "Brama",
that is a note that is right on the male primo passaggio.
Which is right around an E or F, this happens to be an F.
Now here's some things that could go wrong.
That did not go wrong, that was good.
But here's some things that could go wrong.
I could go, ♪ Brama ♪
And go into falsetto.
♪ Brama ♪
And not be able to connect that.
That's one thing.
I may lower my larynx too far and do...
♪ Brama ♪
And have too deep of a sound.
I may raise my larynx up...
♪ Brama ♪
And have too tight of a sound.
I also may spread my lips and do,
♪ Brama ♪
And get too wide of a sound.
I may also do, ♪ Brama ♪
and get too loud on my passaggio.
And that would also not be good to have to change the volume.
So there's tons of ways that I could
navigate a passagio poorly.
But really...
♪ Bramato oggetto ♪
The one where nothing really changes
and the air zips inside my head.
That's the one that we're looking for,
for navigation of the passaggio.
So let me give you some flat-out tips for
navigating that passaggio region, okay.
We want to stay narrow, right?
We don't want to get wider, okay.
We want to use nasal resonance, alright?
In fact we don't want to lift the soft palate too far,
we want to have some nasal resonance in the sound.
Like I say, we don't want to get louder.
We don't want to have to push the voice
past the passaggio area.
We also don't want to use more breath.
That's a similar thing but not quite the same.
We don't want to push more breath across the passaggio.
We don't want to go to falsetto.
We don't want to get too light or, for females, too heady
of a head voice, right?
We don't want to get too light or airy of a phonation
right at the passaggio, we want it to stay solid enough.
And then finally we don't want to jam the larynx down.
We don't want to have too dark or too heavy of a sound.
And of course we don't want to have too lifted
or squeezed of a sound with the larynx.
So these are all great tips I think for
what things to think about that could be going wrong
with your passaggio region, and how to right them.
Now I'm going to give you an exercise.
First we're gonna have men coming up
and then I'm going to switch and change
to the ladies going up.
And give you an exercise that helps you do some
of those things that I just mentioned.
They're built into the exercise.
All you have to do is do it.
You don't have to even think because it's built into the exercise.
What we're gonna do is MA-AWN-NAWN.
MA on the bottom, something wider.
And then, AWN-NAWN.
Something smaller, slimmer, and more nasally resonant on the top.
Take a listen to this...
♪
♪ MA - AWN - NAWN - NAWN ♪
Okay.
The bottom is wider, the top is smaller and more contained.
That's what we're looking for in the passaggio region.
So this exercise is going to help you to do that.
Now here's guys, with me right here,
on MA-AWN-NAWN and I'll tell the ladies
when we're switching to you, okay?
But here is guys with MA-AWN-NAWN.
Here it is...
♪ MA - AWN - NAWN - NAWN ♪
Nice.
♪
Good!
♪ MA - AWN - NAWN - NAWN ♪
Nice.
♪
Good job.
♪ MA - AWN - NAWN - NAWN ♪
Good for you!
Now here's a male passaggio.
♪
Awesome.
♪
Fantastic.
♪ MA - AWN - NAWN - NAWN ♪
♪
Yes.
♪
♪ MA - AWN - NAWN - NAWN ♪
Fantastic work, guys.
So you can see that we use the same qualities
of how to navigate the passaggio as we go across it.
And then that's how you're going to bridge the gap
into your high notes and give them size
without giving them strain.
Now we're going to switch right to ladies.
And we're going to go up way high ladies.
And you're going to do the exact same thing,
the very same concepts apply for you.
So...
♪
Let's start ladies right here...
♪ MA - AWN - NAWN - NAWN ♪
Okay? Here you go...
♪
Nice.
♪
Good for you!
♪ MA - AWN - NAWN - NAWN ♪
♪
Fantastic.
♪ MA - AWN - NAWN - NAWN ♪
Passaggio area for women...
♪ MA - AWN - NAWN - NAWN ♪
Yes.
♪
Good stuff.
♪
Keep it up!
♪ MA - AWN - NAWN - NAWN ♪
♪
Spectacular.
So, I hope you guys now understand in greater detail
what the passaggio is and how you can navigate it.
We got some great tips there and also some practical exercises
for you to feel that slimmer, more contained shape
that's going to help you bridge that gap and not have that
miserable cracking or shifting in the voice
right when you don't want it to the most.
So Reg and all I hope that's been helpful for you guys today as singers.
If you have questions that you'd like to see us answer on the show
you can send an email to, Questions@VoiceLessonsToTheWorld.com.
And we just encourage you not to lose that joy,
don't lose that passion.
Get with a great voice teacher in your area that can
show you classical technique or contemporary technique
or hopefully both.
And don't let anybody ever tell you that you can't sing.
You and I both know that is not true. [♪]
If you guys are in the New York City area [♪]
you can come visit us at www.NewYorkVocalCoaching.com. [♪]
Or check us out on Skype, we do Skype lessons with [♪]
singers from all over the world. [♪]
I encourage you guys to also download the free app, [♪]
Voice Lessons To The World the app. [♪]
Tons of free articles, tips, resources, right there for you guys [♪]
that hopefully can help you take your singing to the next level. [♪]
Or you can visit www.VoiceLessonsToTheWorld.com. [♪]
I'm Justin Stoney. [♪]
We'll see you next time. [♪]
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