THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, December 13, 1995 TAG: 9512130028
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARIE JOYCE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 134 lines
THE WORDS OF ``Amazing Grace,'' rising from a dozen, or a hundred, individual voices, melded by the discipline of the written music.
``What are they physically and psychologically doing to make the music? The answer is: We don't know,'' says Robert F. Coleman.
Coleman makes it his business to find out. And where better to study the interaction of voices than his own church choir?
Coleman is a professor of communication sciences in Eastern Virginia Medical School's Department of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery. He helps people who use their voices professionally, like singers and teachers, take care of that voice.
He also does research in a scientific field that's relatively uncharted, looking at how earthly practice and discipline produces something so ethereal as choir music.
For a recent study, Coleman hauled his sophisticated recording equipment to Thalia Lynn Baptist Church in Virginia Beach, where he asked various chorus members to sing - first at their normal volume, then very loudly and very quietly.
He found that the people who have some voice training control the volume of a choir. A very amateur singer can vary his volume by only 15 decibels or so. A person with training
might have a 40-decibel range.
``The director says `forte.' . . . The guy with the 40-decibel range is going to drown out the guy with 15,'' Coleman says. It's a simple question of muscle control, he adds. The vocal cords, which form a V-shaped structure in the throat no bigger than a nickel, are made of muscle. A trained singer is like a trained athlete.
That doesn't mean amateurs don't count. While trained voices contribute the volume, amateurs contribute quality, creating the rich tapestry of voices that makes the sound what it is.
``The soft people are there for a purpose other than the jollies they get from singing,'' says Coleman, who has not been participating in the choir this semester because of a schedule conflict.
Psychology, not just conditioning, also appears to play a part, he says. Amateurs, especially, tend to listen to those on either side, or the acoustics of the room, to decide how loud to sing, he says.
Professionals tend to be tuned to their own internal judgment. That independence is not necessarily a good thing in a choir.
``The amateurs will listen to each other and try to blend,'' Coleman says. ``The opera singer is trained to sound optimal for himself.''
There's even an argument in voice circles about whether young singers destined for the opera should be allowed to sing in choruses.
For another experiment, Coleman enlisted the help of his church's choral director, Robert Crute, associate pastor of music at Thalia Lynn Baptist.
Coleman wanted to see how singers interact in a duet. Recording equipment can't separate airborne sound well, so Coleman used a special microphone that tapes to the throat and measures vibration.
Uncomfortable perhaps, but Crute has been Coleman's good-natured subject before, once singing with wooden blocks in his mouth for a study of vowel formation.
This time, Coleman says, he found that psychology plays a big role when just two people sing together.
For one thing, he and Crute unconsciously restricted their amplitude. ``Bob's a loudmouth, and so am I,'' Coleman says. ``We work it out all right.''
And, he found, they changed their individual timing. All singers put their own interpretation on a piece, within the constraints of the written music. But in duets, the singer with the melody seems to set the pace for the harmony singer.
Yet the difference between when the first singer starts and the second follows is so small - 50 to 75 milliseconds - that it can't be a case of the second singer hearing the note and responding, he says. Coleman can't explain it, although he says the effect has been noted by instrumentalists, too.
The results amazed Crute, who says, ``It's almost like there's an internal clock that somehow people are part of.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photos by Jim Walker\The Virginian Pilot
Above: Dr. Robert Coleman of Eastern Virginia Medical School is
studying how voices blend.
Below: Members of the Thalia Lynn Baptist Church choir sang for Dr.
Coleman's research.
Side Bar
How to protect your voice
A GOOD VOICE is an important professional asset for many people,
not just singers and actors. Teachers, lawyers, receptionists,
anyone who must give a talk at a staff meeting all need good voice
control.
That's why you should take care of your vocal cords like you
would any other part of your body, says Robert Coleman.
Coleman, a voice expert at Eastern Virginia Medical School,
offered tips for taking care of your voice, whether your performance
is a solo with your school chorus or a presentation to the big boss:
Don't abuse it. Don't scream at football games - or at your
spouse, for that matter. See a doctor about chronic coughing, which
is very destructive to the vocal cords.
And you know that forced whisper you use when you have a sore
throat? That's the worst thing you can do. A true whisper - one that
doesn't use the larynx at all - requires so much breath that you
shouldn't be able to count past four.
Practice with a purpose. If you're singing in your church chorus
or preparing for a big presentation, practice to achieve certain
goals. Don't overpractice. And don't do anything different to your
voice, like extra work, in the days before the performance.
Stay hydrated. Drink six to eight glasses of water a day.
Maintain adequate humidity. Most American homes are too dry. If
you must water your house plants more than three times a week,
that's a sign that you've got problems. Use a vaporizer - but not
the type that produces steam.
Before performances, avoid heavy use of aspirin. It thins the
blood and could cause a vocal cord hemorrhage.
Avoid menthol-eucalyptus cough drops. They thicken mucus in the
throat. Instead, use lemon drops or vitamin C drops. Or put two or
three drops of real lemon juice in a glass of cold water. The slight
acidity cuts through the mucus better than any cough drop.
Be careful with antihistamines. With too much use, the body
becomes acclimated. When you stop, the body overproduces mucus. And
don't start taking them right before a performance either. ``They're
changing the entire mechanism of your voice by changing mucus
viscosity,'' Coleman says.
Get plenty of rest before a performance.
Learn to cheat. In a chorus, if you know that a particular high
note kills you, ``open your mouth and pretend you're singing, and
look enthused. No one will ever know,'' he says. ``I've acutally
seen professional singers do that.''
Don't try to rule with your voice. Whether it's an unruly
classroom, a contentious staff meeting or your kid's rambunctious
soccer team, don't try to rein them in by talking over them. It
doesn't work anyway. If you have to, bring a bell or whistle.
by CNB