Functional Voice Training

Through
Jazz Literature and Style
LIZ JOHNSON SCHAFER, MM, CERTIF. IN VOCOLOGY
JAZZ EDUCATION NETWORK (JEN) CONFERENCE
JAN. 7, 2017, NEW ORLEANS, LA
Key Points:
Difference between vocal function and style
Understanding of Vocal Athleticism
What Jazz singing offers in terms of voice training
Style
Literature
Definition of Vocology
Muscle specificity and (music) Interval Training
Future of Vocology and Jazz Voice programs
Collegiate marketing selling jazz voice to contemporary singers
Identifying populations who could benefit from functional voice training
Creating Vocology courses for all singing programs
Vocal Athletes
Training of the performing voice is not unlike training an
athlete to achieve optimal performance. Individuals who
rely on the voice for stage or song use skeletal muscles
that share many of the same properties as the muscles
used by athletes.

~Mary Sandage, PhD

The Voice Foundation Newsletter, 2015, Vol. 20, Issue 1

Assistant Professor
Dept. of Communication Disorders
Auburn University
How I learned about vocal function:
Saxophone player turns to singing (its all about jazz)
Started teaching JAZZ Voice lessons @ collegiate level
Wait! WHAT?!? Help!
How does the voice work, exactly?????

Mission Impossible: where does one learn the deeper science of the voice
as a jazz singer?
Graduate School in Commercial Music Performance, with a heavy,
heaping dose of vocal pedagogy

Summer Vocology Institute @ University of Utah and the

National Center for Voice and Speech
What I learned teaching
Jazz Voice as a University Elective:
Wide array of students
Instrumentalists
Students from Arts and Sciences Departments
New singers
Singers scared of classical
Kids who love jazz and jazz newbies

Bottom Line: jazz will get a voice up and running!

Literature
Style
Both opportunities for addressing functional and technical voice issues
What does Jazz Literature offer the
Vocal Athlete?
Language jazz vocabulary can be used for composition and creativity
in all commercial styles
Ear Training
Theory
Overall MUSICIANSHIP
Offers an opportunity to incorporate efficient vocal function and
technique
Demonstration of lower and upper registers of healthy, functional voice
Efficient breath support and control
Articulation, vowel development
Intonation
Resonance
etc. etc. etc.
What does Jazz Style offer the
Vocal Athlete?
Agility, flexibility and healthy registration again, a gateway for addressing
functional issues that inhibit artistic expression
Creativity - FREEDOM
Musicianship again, putting all the technical ability to use
Celebrates unique timbres of voice
Speech-like singing genre, applicable to other commercial styles
One syllable per note
Low volume microphone supported vocal production
Rhythmic Training
Awareness
Skill Building
Experimentation sound, phrasing, emotional expression
What is Vocology?

Audiology : hearing

Vocology : voice
Anatomy and Physiology
for Singing
Laryngeal Anatomy:
Antagonistic (intrinsic) Muscle Groups

TA (Thyroarytenoid) Muscles:
CT (Cricothyroid) Muscles:
Vocal Folds, Adductors
Pitch Control
Muscle Specificity
One of the key tenants of exercise physiology is the principle of
training specificity, which holds that training responses/adaptations
are tightly coupled to the mode, frequency and duration of
exercise performed (Hawley, 2002). This means that the vast majority
of training-induced adaptations occur only in those muscle fibers
that have been recruited during the exercise regimen, with little or
no adaptive changes occurring in untrained musculature.

John A. Hawley
Specificity of training adaptation: time for a rethink?
Journal of Physiology. 2008 Jan 1; 586(Pt 1): 12.
Muscle Specificity
Furthermore, the principle of specificity predicts that the closer the
training routine is to the requirements of the desired outcome (i.e. a
specific exercise task or performance criteria), the better will be the
outcome.

John A. Hawley
Specificity of training adaptation: time for a rethink?
Journal of Physiology. 2008 Jan 1; 586(Pt 1): 12.
Interval Training Using Lit.
Interval Analysis
Here's That Rainy Day Consecutive Intervals
28

16

7 7
6

3 3
2
1 1
0 0

0 Half Whole min 3rd 3rd 4th T.T. 5th min 6th 6th min 7th 7th
Interval Analysis
Well You Needn't Consecutive Intervals

52

27

20 21

14

6 6
3
0 0 0 0

0 Half Whole min 3rd 3rd 4th T.T. 5th min 6th 6th min 7th 7th
Interval Analysis
Midnight Sun Consecutive Intervals
92

56

16 14
9
6
2 2 0 0 0 0

0 Half Whole min 3rd 3rd 4th T.T. 5th min 6th 6th min 7th 7th
Interval Analysis
Desafinado Consecutive Intervals
75

39

21 21

12
8
3 4
1 2 1 0

0 Half Whole min 3rd 3rd 4th T.T. 5th min 6th 6th min 7th 7th
Interval Analysis in Skylark
Interval Analysis in Skylark
Interval Analysis Skylark, mm. 22-24
Consecutive

3.5

2.5

1.5

0.5

0
Root half whole m 3rd 3rd 4th TT 5th #5th 6th
Interval Analysis Skylark, mm. 22-24
Simultaneous

3.5

2.5

1.5

0.5

0
Root half whole m 3rd 3rd 4th TT 5th #5th 6th min 7th 7th Octave min 9 9th
Interval Analysis Skylark, mm. 22-24
Skylark, mm. 22-24
4

3.5

2.5

1.5

0.5

Consecutive Simultaneous
Future of Jazz Voice Training

We need to see ourselves (jazz educators) in a larger context

Contemporary Voice Programs
Training for Vocal Athletes
Collegiate Programming should contain Functional Voice Training
Start Introducing Vocology into our Programs
Pedagogy (is different than!!)
Vocology
Plumb the depths of jazz literature and style for performance and
training methods
VoiceScienceWorks.org