Many singers struggle with nasality in their tone. Many teachers try to address nasality by emphasizing space in the mouth or pharynx or even by approaching the note 'from behind'. These approaches are incomplete and simplistic at best. The answer to nasal singing is not space. The answer to nasality is good singing. Let's explore this.
Why do some teachers/coaches try to open up space to address nasality?
If the sound is characterized by a nasal quality it means that the nasal port is open. By opening up space in the mouth, voice teachers are trying to make the soft palate stretch, blocking off the nasal port. This is problematic because the general instruction to 'add space' is engaging many more muscles than just the soft palate. In addition, I find active manipulation of the soft palate risky. When singing well, a flexible soft palate engagement does not have to feel separate from the mouth opening, or the vowel being formed. If the sensation is not "oh my sound is free" but "I feel my soft palate up, and I know how to keep it up" I'd say there is probably something to be suspicious of.
Another reason why teachers choose to 'add space' is because a free sound does *sound* spacious. It sounds expansive and filling in the room. But in most parts of the range, that is an acoustic phenomenon, a frequencies game rather than *making* it spacious. It's like the color of the sea... It seems blue, but that is an optical phenomenon. The water is not actually blue. Functionally, there is also a huge misunderstanding between unobtructed and spacious. Spacious does not equal unobstructed.
Now why do some teachers/coaches address nasality by approaching the tone 'from the back/behind'?
That plays into the inaccurate, binary idea of 'front and back' in singing. The nose is experienced as 'too forward', so they try to approach the tone 'from the back' to bring balance. In truth, however, the voice (larynx) as a body part is where it is, and sound waves cannot be placed. Feeding that binary, inaccurate concept in lessons is risky. Trying to 'start the sound in the back' is not a functionally accurate idea, the sound starts in the larynx. By giving that instruction, singers are engaging unnecessary muscles that make them feel/confirm what they think/imagine it feels like to 'start the sound in the back' (a functional impossibility). At first it may seem that there is some improvement because of a change from in nasal texture, but in the long run, the singer may be flirting with another side of the same coin.
The real question is, why are you singing nasally?
Here's a few possiblities that I came across from my students:
A. Singing nasally can be a way of holding your breath. Some singers have not worked on ways in which the breath interacts with the vocal folds. They try to restrict vocal fold vibration by adding the narrow quality/sensation of nasality. That can be due to fear to release their breath, confusing that release with pushing, or simply not knowing that there is a more unreserved alternative. In this case, working on the interaction of airflow and full, unrestricted vocal fold vibration is the most appropriate course of action.
B. Fear of 'feeling it in the throat'. Different people have different levels of kinesthetic awareness. That means that for some people, it is okay to feel activity in the throat, as long as we are clear on what is okay and what is not okay to feel. Afterall, the undeniable truth is that things are happening in the throat. And that is okay, as long as it's efficient things. Nasality can be used by some singers who are not familiar with the difference between energy and pushing in the throat, trying to suppress any sensation there. Once the right energy levels/events are achieved in the throat, the need for nasality disappears.
C. Having been taught 'placement". Placing the tone is a functional impossibility. Being taught to place the tone either by thinking of the voice being 'in the mask' or singing through one quality such as 'like a crying baby' means the singer is sacrifizing structural integrity in the vocal tract because the priority stops being singing well, or sing language. The priority becomes molding the tone/vowel in a way that confirms those ideas. Suddenly, the goal is not to sing (for example) [i] anymore, but to sing an [i] 'in the mask' or 'like a crying baby', which will affect how that [i] is structured.
D. Technical misconceptions. A common one is singers trying to force/shape 'ring' or 'twang' into their sound. It is important to understand that clarity (I prefer this term to twang or ring) is achieved by singing well and it not experienced as a quality we add to the sound. I differentiate between 'true ring/twang' that is the result of efficient fold closure and 'forced/fake twang' that is the result of vowel modification, placement, or an added quality in an attempt to help 'twang trained' singers form new associations.
Most of the times, nasality is not caused by a single reason. For example, if you've been taught to 'sing like a crying baby' and started losing structural integrity of your vowels you may notice that once you shape an efficient vowel with a good laryngeal posture, you're not able to produce a comfortable sound. This is the point where to a lot of singers feel like the old habit is a better option. In reality, what is happening is that to accommodate that 'placement' the larynx got used to producing tone in a way that 'fits' the 'placed' sound/quality. Now, that mode of phonation does not compute with the new event. Therefore, work is also needed at the laryngeal level to find a freer sound that agrees with the new-found vocal tract position.
So we don't address nasality by closing the nasal port through generic muscular activation or by 'bringing the sound back'. We address nasality by encouraging good singing, and addressing the root of why the singer or the body is choosing nasality.
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