The Physics of Sound: Resonance and Standing Waves

So what does happen when two sound waves are in phase with one another?  The two waves constructively interfere with one another to result in one wave that this double the amplitude of the two waves.  Basically, they both add up like some awesome crime-fighting team...and they...help people hear and stuff.  (Yeah...I don't know where I was going with that metaphor.)  Anyway, to better understand this, let's talk a little more about the phenomenon of interference.

Interference is when two waves sorta "line up" together.  Depending on how they "line up," the two waves combine to form one wave that is either of lesser or greater amplitude than the two waves were just on their own.  Think of it like this:  If one wave is going along with an amplitude of, let's say, 2 dB, and it meets up with another wave that's out of phase with this first wave, and the second wave's amplitude is 1.5 dB, then the resultant effect will be the 1.5 dB wave "canceling out" some of the amplitude of the first wave.  So you'd get a net result of a 0.5 dB sound wave.  If, however, the 2 dB sound wave meets up with a wave that's totally in phase with it, and this wave is going along at 2 dB, the resultant wave will be 4 dB.  So, yes, interference is very much like when you hang out with that soul-sucking person you really shouldn't be around (destructive) or that person who just makes you feel great (constructive).  (That's a super-basic way to represent interference mathematically, and the real math is much, much more detailed and complex, but it's just there to give you an idea.  So please don't go around thinking it's just addition and subtraction when scientists are figuring out interference.  It'd be a bit like those people who think a graduate degree in vocal performance just means you sing karaoke all day and get a degree for it.)

Sound waves travel along just fine until they hit a boundary.  When that happens, the waves bounce off the boundary and become reflected waves.  The initial wave, called the incident wave, can meet up with the reflected wave where the two waves interfere with one another to form a new wave that is the sum of the other two waves.  This is called the principle of superposition.  (I know I'm getting a bit redundant, but hang with me here.)  If, during superposition, two waves meet up that are completely in phase, the result is a standing wave.

As you can see above, one type of standing wave doesn't travel anywhere.  It stays in the same place constantly.  This results in areas where the displacement is zero, called nodes (shown by the red dots above), and areas of maximum displacement called antinodes (the tall peaks and valleys above).  So the constructive interference of an initial wave meeting up with a reflective wave to form a standing wave looks something like this:

The red and blue waves meet up to form the standing wave in black.  Other cool animations can be found here and here. 

But how do standing waves that don't go anywhere contribute to a singer's resonance?  Well, that question is kinda jumping a bit farther ahead than where we are now.  For now, just think about standing waves on a medium that is fixed on both ends, like a string.  Ever played with a string or  necklace where you bounce the string up and down?  If you have, you actually formed a standing wave at the string's first resonant frequency, called the fundamental frequency.  But the string does have other frequencies it could resonant at, called overtones.

First fundamental and first six overtones of a string

But why am I talking about strings?  What do strings have to do with vocal resonance?  Think about it a second:  What acts like vibrating strings with fixed ends when we speak or sing?  Yup, the vocal folds.  But, the vocal folds vibrate in patterns that are much more complex than just a single string.  Remember how the air opens them from the bottom to the top, due to subglottal air pressure, and then the folds get sucked in laterally because of the Bernoulli effect?  The resulting wave pattern is very intricate,which results in a complex waveform (multiple simple sine waves going out at once) being produced at the level of the vocal folds.  The fundamental frequency and all of the overtones of the human voice originate at the level of the vocal folds.

*That last bit is very, very important, and it seems to be where a lot of singers get very confused...usually not due to any fault of their own.  The vocal tract absolutely cannot create sound waves or overtones to those sound waves:  Not the singer's formant, not the harmonics, not any of it.  All of the frequencies picked up by a spectrograph originate from vocal fold vibration.  The vocal tract only acts as a filter for the frequencies sent out by the vibrational pattern of the vocal folds.  And that's where we'll pick up next time!

Raphel, L. J., Borden, G. J., Harris, K. S. (2007).  Speech science primer:  Physiology, acoustics, perception of speech (5th ed.).  Philadelphia, PA:  Lippincott Williams & Williams.

Physics of Sound Series: The Waveform (or, What the Heck am I Looking At?)

We now know that a sound wave is made up of moments of compression and rarefaction, and we know a little bit about a waveform as well.  But there are other parts to a wave that we need to know about before we get into just what resonance really is.  Those parts are:  Period, frequency, amplitude, phase, and wavelength.

No doubt, you've heard of some of these before.  Frequency and amplitude, in particular, get a lot of attention in the music world.  A lot of times, we talk about frequency and amplitude as synonymous with pitch and loudness, and for most purposes they are.  However, when I talk about frequency and amplitude, I'm going to be referring to the actual physical properties of the sound wave (or waves), meaning the parts of the wave that can be measured with proper instrumentation and then studied.  Therefore, frequency and amplitude are objective measurements.  Pitch and loudness are usually associated with the perceptual properties of the wave, i.e. just how loud or how high/low a person perceives that sound differs from person to person (and from ear to ear, for that matter); so pitch and loudness cannot be measured per se, but rather discussed subjectively.  (And remember from my previous post:  Anytime I'm talking about perception, I'm talking about the interaction from a sensory signal with a person's higher cognitive functions and life experiences.  Therefore, perception is always subjective.)

Yup, those are the same sine and cosine functions from trigonometry that you see on your calculator.

When you look at the waveform of a basic sine wave (the red line) shown above, you'll see that it has a repeating pattern.  The number of repeats of this pattern in a given amount of time is called the frequency of the wave.  This is usually given in Hertz, but can also be stated as the number of cycles per second of the wave pattern.  (See, it was originally called cycles per second (cps), but then the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) decided to honor Heinrich Hertz's contribution to the field of electromagnetism, so they gave him a unit of measurement, cps, and called it Hertz (Hz).  Scientists are always re-naming units to honor the great contributors to the field.  Sorta like how medical terminology is also littered with the names of big anatomy contributors, etc.)  So, for the famous A440 that orchestra's (supposedly) tune to, the frequency is 440 cycles per second, or 440 Hz.  In math terms, frequency is shown by:  frequency = velocity over wavelength (f = v/λ).  Sounds pretty fancy, but the reason I'm putting this here is because the period of a wave is related to the frequency.  The period is how long it takes for one cycle of the wave pattern to complete itself.  So if the frequency could be shown as: 1/period, then the period is shown by:  1/frequency.  Seems like we're talking about the same thing, but in general, the frequency refers to how often the wave pattern is repeating itself where the period refers to how long it takes for one pattern of the wave to complete itself.  Why do we bother with this distinction?  Well, because it comes in really handy for mathematical analysis of wave patterns.  Why should singers bother to know about this?  Because...well...I'll get there for ya.  (Besides, if your ever playing around with PRAAT or some other spectrograph software, you'll probably see options for period or frequency change, and you might want to know what you're changing out as you play around.)

Wavelength corresponds to the distance one cycle of the wave travels.  Slower frequencies have longer wavelengths, so one cycle of A440 travels double the distance through the atmosphere than A880.  (In the above equations, wavelength is represented by that funny-looking symbol, which turns out to be the Greek letter lambda.  So now, when you poke around wikipedia and see frequency equations, you'll know some of what you're looking at.)

The amplitude of a wave corresponds to it's perceptual loudness, and is related to the amount of displacement the air particles go through in the sound wave.  Because it has to do with how far each particle is being "pushed," amplitude represents the atmospheric pressure of a sound wave, and is measured in decibels (dB).  In the waveform shown above, amplitude is represented on the vertical axis.  So if the sine wave had a higher amplitude, it would have taller peeks and lower valleys, going past the 1.00 marked above.  Even though amplitude of sound is represented by this vertical displacement on the waveform, in longitudinal waves, the displacement in the real world is happening horizontally.  This is different for other wave types, like light, but the math and the graphical representations are the same.  (I just want to point that out because it's easy to misinterpret the sound waves from your mouth as looking just like the waveform representation, but if we could see the sound wave, it would like more like the animation here.  That's kinda important to remember once we get to the anatomy of the ear and the role the ear drum plays in hearing.  And, oh yeah!  I'm going to get into the anatomy of the ear and how it plays a role in resonance as well, for both the audience and the singer!)

Phase is where we start to get into some important stuff when it comes to understanding resonance, and especially the phenomenon of standing waves.  The phase of the sine wave in the above picture basically is where in the cycle the wave starts when you're looking at the vertical axis.  Let's look at it more closely:

See how the sine wave is passing through the vertical axis where the horizontal line equals 0?  Now look at the cosine wave (blue, dotted line).  Cosine is passing through that vertical axis where a horizontal line equals 1.  So the phase of the sine wave is not the same as the phase of the cosine wave.  The fancy way of saying that is that cosine has a different phase shift than sine.  In fact, that's actually the main difference between sine and cosine:  The phase shift between the two.

Phase is really, really important because if you have two sound waves that are out-of-shift like this:

Look at the three middle waves to see the phase difference.

You'll see how when one wave has a peek in its amplitude, the other wave has a valley, or a negative amplitude.  This means that when one wave is in it's period of compression, the other is in rarefaction.  The result is that these two waves actually cancel each other out, because if the atmospheric pressure is equally positive in one wave while the pressure is equally negative from the other wave, the two pressure differences cancel each other out.  1-1=0, right?  Crazy, huh?

But what happens when two sound waves are perfectly in phase?  What if you've got 1 + 1 instead of 1 -1?  That's where the phenomenon of standing waves comes in, and that's what we'll start up with next time.  Stay tuned!

Raphel, L. J., Borden, G. J., Harris, K. S. (2007).  Speech science primer:  Physiology, acoustics, perception of speech (5th ed.).  Philadelphia, PA:  Lippincott Williams & Williams.

Physics of Sound Series: The Acoustic Wave

I always have the hardest time starting up these series, because I spend a lot of time trying to figure out where to start.  I always know what the ending conclusion should be, but what's the beginning?  What's basic without being too basic?  So I'm going to start out where I think it should start out, but if I'm not being basic enough, please feel free to post any questions you may have.

Everybody always talks about resonance in the singing world.  Resonance, resonance, resonance.  Let's face it, as opera singers, we're pretty obsessed about it.  And why wouldn't we be?  It is, after all, the key to how opera singing works.  It is exactly how we are able to sing over an orchestra for hours at a time without hurting our voices.  The only issue I have with all this resonance talk is that it is painfully obvious that (some) singers have absolutely no clue what resonance really is.  It often gets talked about as a subjective thing that changes from person to person.  This is understandable given that so much of the sensation of singing is subjective, and therefore, how we teach singing is subjective.  It only makes sense that singers would start to think everything about singing is subjective somehow.  However, when we take something from the hard sciences, like resonance, and think of it as something that acts differently from person to person, as if it doesn't follow the laws of nature, we kinda sound like fools.  The other issue with all this resonance-as-subjective talk is that it makes what could be very clear pedagogy very fuzzy and confusing.  So, in order to fully understand what resonance is and how it can help us sing better, let's start with how a single sound wave works.

There are a lot of things in nature that function like waves:  Light, sound, the water in your bathtub...(okay, fine, ocean water too), but what exactly does that mean for sound to have a wave-like pattern of behavior?  Well, here's the definition of a wave from physics:  "a disturbance (an oscillation) that travels through space and time, accompanied by a transfer of energy...often with no permanent displacement of the particles of the medium (Wikipedia)."  Sounds pretty fancy, am I right?  But it does make a lot of sense.  If you drop a rock straight down into a body of still water, the rock disturbs the water's stillness causing a rippling of waves that travel out to the edges of that body of water.  Energy was transferred from the rock to the water which then traveled out to the edges of the body of water.  The water itself, though, will return to being still, i.e. it doesn't just keep traveling away from the rock until there's no water left, so there wasn't a permanent displacement of the particles of that water (you know, H₂O).

So what's the "medium" for sound waves?  Air particles!  All the lovely little air particles that make up our atmosphere is the medium for all the sound waves we hear, and the ones we don't hear too (i.e. ultrasound, infrasound, etc).  For our purposes, we'll think of a sound wave as beginning with air particles at rest.  An external force then comes along and sets those particles in motion (like when the electric slide is played at a wedding...sorry, couldn't resist.)  Anyways, let's imagine those particles are all lined up nicely next to one another.  The particles in row A, the ones closest to the external force, then get "pushed" up towards the particles in row B.  This is where we say the row A particles are "compressed" against row B, which then gets pushed up against row C, and so on.  (Anyone who's ever seen elementary-school kids line up for recess knows what I'm talking about here.)  So while each row is going into it's period of compression with the particles in front of it, the rows that have already been compressed then go into a period of rarefaction.  This would be when row A, after compressing with row B, swings back towards it's resting position.  But instead of landing at rest, row A actually over-shoots its resting position and ends up being spaced out farther from the row B particles.  If we want to get even more specific here, the property of inertia for those particles causes row A to compress with row B, then the property of elasticity over-takes row A's inertia, sending the particles back towards resting.  However, the property of inertia for that row of particles then over-takes elasticity and causes row A to over-shoot it's resting position.  But, don't fear, cause elasticity will over-take inertia and send row A back to towards resting.  This process will repeat itself until row A is again completely at rest.  Sounds complicated, but if you've ever set a pendulum into motion and watched until it came to rest again, you've seen this same action at work.  (*Edit to add:  This pattern of motion is called simple harmonic motion and is actually what pretty much everything in nature can be reduced to.)

This pattern of compression and rarefaction makes up what we call the sound wave.  This is why sound waves are sometimes called compression waves, but more commonly, they are called longitudinal waves.  (If you clicked on the link I had above on "compressed," you probably saw that coming.)  I encourage you to go ahead over to the link for longitudinal waves, because there are some very nice animations over there for you to see these waves in action.

One last thing before I sign off:  This pattern of compression and rarefaction is often graphically represented as a waveform.  Typically, waveforms are set on a typical Cartesian coordinate system (the graphs with x and y from math class), with the y, or vertical, axis representing the amount of displacement, which also happens to be the amplitude of the sound wave, and the horizontal axis representing the amount of time the wave has traveled.  We'll go over this all a bit more later, but I wanted to introduce it here for you just to get you more familiar with the terminology I'll be using.

Raphel, L. J., Borden, G. J., Harris, K. S. (2007).  Speech science primer:  Physiology, acoustics, perception of speech (5th ed.).  Philadelphia, PA:  Lippincott Williams & Williams.

Physics of Sound Series (Part I): Why do I need to know this stuff?

Because the necessity to resonant over the sound of an orchestra is dependent on vocal tract, and therefore resonance, adjustments.  However, many singers either do not understand resonance, formants, or harmonics well enough, or don't understand how physics relates to physiology well enough, that many misconceptions develop that can greatly hinder vocal progress during training.

Now, I don't mean to generalize, but I do know a lot of singers who roll their eyes at words like "physics" and "math."  In fact, I have had so, so many conversations with musicians about these topics now that I'm taking math and physics courses.  They usually go something like this:  "I can't meet then because my physics class is at that time.  Can you do Monday?"  "Physics?  Why on Earth are you taking Physics?"  "Well, I want to have more detailed knowledge of how the physics of sound and air pressures work so I can understand certain areas of SLP research better."  "Well, good for you.  I know I would never take those classes.  My brain just doesn't work that way."  It is that last sentence that I take the most issue with.  Why, oh why do we as musicians have to demean ourselves when it comes to the potential our brains have to understand something?  Do we even realize the message we're sending out?  I mean, we are the people who learn multiple languages for our roles, we learn some anatomy and physiology of the voice, and we are supposed to have at least some foundational knowledge in harmonics and formants when it comes to resonance.  This is all in addition to music theory, history, performance practice, etc.  Why do we pass off math and physics like it's "over our heads?"  Or maybe we want the world to recognize that we're plenty smart in our own right and should be respected for that (which is true).  Maybe we think that in order for our field to be respected as art we have to separate so thoroughly from science that we must turn our noses up at it.  Maybe we're sick of people in the sciences turning their noses up at us...(I know I'm sick of that).  Maybe we don't want to have to add more stuff to our already extensive list of stuff to know.  Either way, I do wish my fellow musicians would stop looking at me like I've grown a second head when I say I'm enjoying learning calculus and calculus-based physics.  But I digress...

Perhaps most of the issues with math and physics for singers, or just most people in general, comes from the fact that these subjects are very rarely taught well in high school (in the US,) and even in college, for that matter.  Much of the time, teachers in these subjects see the class as some sort of grand IQ test in which student's successes or failures have no bearing on the teacher's ability, or inability, to effectively teach the material.  That's a common fallacy of certain hard-science classes.  (Personally, I liked my calculus's professors take on it:  Success in her class, as far as she was concerned, was totally up to the student's dedication and motivation to keep up with the homework (practice) and get help when needed.)  So we've relegated the teaching of these concepts to a month or so during a vocal pedagogy class.  But maybe, just maybe, voice teachers trying to teach these concepts don't quite give the right amount of time or clarity to these concepts either.  I mean, if you're knowledge doesn't have a strong foundation, it is really easy to get confused when, a few years after your pedagogy class, you've been swamped with new information, new ideas, new research, new teachers, new coaches, etc.  I know I did!

I thought I got plenty of this stuff in my vocal ped. courses.  I thought I had a very good understanding of harmonics, resonance, formants, etc. because I was one of the few in my pedagogy class that was not confused by the lectures or book chapters on it.  I now know I was mistaken.  My mistake came from not having enough of a base-level of understanding in physics to be able to apply these concepts effectively to understanding my own vocal training, and to not get confused a year or two down the road.  There is a huge interaction between the physiology of the voice and how the physics of vocal resonance, as well as the physics of air pressure to breath support, work.  Those connections were simply missing from my pedagogy classes, and, from what I can gather from other conversations with singers, I think it's missing from many singers' academic training as well.

I had such simple misconceptions that I would be embarrassed to admit to in front of anyone with basic physics knowledge, now that I know better.  I see a lot of musicians saying some of these same misconceptions quite frequently, and I really, really want us to stop sounding like complete fools in regards to basic math and basic physics to a large portion of the general population (and not just those in hard sciences, either).  And I know a lot of singers who would really, really like to not sound like fools, but it's just never been explained well enough, or thoroughly enough, to avoid it.  Even if your interest in this might just be cursory, a more thorough understanding of the physics-physiology connection really does help to understand the science behind how the voice, and operatic singing, works and how to apply that knowledge to long-term training.  


So here's how this series is going to work:  I'm not going to get all up in calculus, cause I'm not interested in making this a math course, but I will present some basic algebraic equations.  I will also thoroughly explain these equations so that you can see how the equation is a working representation of how your vocal tract shapes sound.  We'll start with the basics and move up from there, but I'm also going to do my best to detail the interaction between physics and physiology...even if I can't get to that interaction until I get a little further down the series.  If you've ever been confused looking at a spectrogram of your singing, like in PRAAT, then this series should help you out a lot.  It shouldn't be as long as the anatomy and physiology series, so I hope you can hang in here with me.  And ultimately, just like the A&P series, I want this to be a reference tool for singers and teachers to be used whenever you need it.

Sensation vs. Perception: The crux of pedagogical contradictions

Just like Martin Luther King, Jr.,* I have a dream that one day vocal pedagogs will have field-specific, unified terminology that will eliminate the pedagogical confusion so many students experience when moving from one teacher to the next.  However, I'm starting to think this dream is too lofty.  In the subjective field of vocal training, trying to unify the centuries of pedagaogical terminology with the current science of voice might be a little too much of a hurdle to overcome.  I mean, motivated voice students will still desire to read and understand the writings of Lamperti, Garcia, etc. in the context of current voice training, so a complete shift toward unification might alienate the past writings of great pedagogs.

So what are we new pedagogs/voice students supposed to do?  How are we supposed to wade through the old information and understand it in terms of the new?  I think one piece of the puzzle might be to understand the differences between perception and sensation.

I touched a bit on this near the end of my previous post where I talk about what I feel is happening when I am singing, but it is something I've incorporated into my teaching that, I think, many of my students, even the teenagers, seem to appreciate.  One of my high school students had one of her choir teachers give her a few "vocal tips" that seemed to confuse her in terms of what we had been working on in her lesson.  Using this established difference between sensation and perception, I was able to explain rather quickly to this student that we were, in fact, working on those things, we were just calling it something different in our lessons.  This difference has become such an easy way for my students to begin developing a "tranlation" ability, which I find so, so important, since I know for most of them, I will not be their only voice teacher throughout their training.

What is sensation and what is perception?  Sensation is a term used in psychology, as well as anatomy and physiology, to refer to sensory information from the outside world coming into our bodies via the nervous system.  When this information reaches your brain, it processes this information, associates it with memories, etc. through some cognitive processing, and then decides how to act.  This is the process of perception, which happens to be a very individual process.  So sensation (diff. link) is the incoming information, and perception is the interpretation of that incoming information.  This works all the time for all of us in some obvious ways:  If two friends go to see the same movie, both people receive the same incoming information, i.e. the movie, but they might interpret the "take home message" of the movie in two different ways via their individual perceptions.  (How many of us have sent friends articles, etc. where the friend seemed to miss what was, to us, the vital underlying point of the article?  You can now blame their perception for getting it wrong...or yours, if you're humble like that.)

How does this work for pedagogy?  Well, a lot of the differences we encounter in pedagogical terms comes from the vast differences in the perception of proper singing...at least as far as I perceive it.  (Yikes!  This article could quickly become an exercise in circular logic, couldn't it?)  For example:  So much debate has been waged over the "low larynx" issue.  Student 1:  My teacher said my larynx should never move while singing.  Is this right?  Student 2:  Well, my teacher said research has shown that it does move quite a lot and should raise on high notes, so I guess you're teacher is wrong.  Student 1:  But my teacher said historical documents all talk about the importance of a lowered larynx, so are all those singers of the past wrong?  And the debate rages on.  So what's going on here?  How can science point to the opposite of what all the great singers and past teachers say they're doing?  Sensation and perception!  Biologically, the larynx is certainly moving around during singing, and yes, it is raising on high notes.  It's a physics-thing that simply must happen.  However, when laryngeal efficiency has been obtained, the singer feels like their larynx isn't moving at all and the teacher might not see the larynx raising as much in the throat as it used to.  So the singer might perceive that their larynx is stable, but it's just due to how their brain interprets the sensation of laryngeal efficiency throughout their range.

Another example:  #1:  The ribcage must stay elevated and stable!  #2:  The ribcage collapses during exhalation out of necessity since the lungs are getting smaller!  #1:  You're wrong!  Here's a youtube video.  #2:  No, you're wrong!  Here's an article by "Prominent Scientist."  How does sensation and perception help explain this one?  Well, the fact that the chest cavity decreases in size during any exhalation can not be argued.  It's another physics-thing that simply must occur.  But why would so many singers swear up and down that their rib cage is as stable as stable can be and always elevated during singing?  Sensation and perception!  The act of using excess muscular effort to keep the rib cage from lowering too fast sends very different sensation information to the brain than what it's used to.  For most people, the brain interprets this information with the perception that the rib cage is not moving at all, perhaps because the information is so opposite of what the brain is usually getting about the movement of the rib cage.  So you end up with a lot of singers and teachers swearing up and down that the rib cage must not move, when in fact, it must move, but it must move so much more slowly than usual that it feels like it's not moving at all.

I'm sure there are other examples out there, but I cannot think of any at the moment.  If you have had a similar debate about another important pedagogical concept, please let me know.  I'll see if I can answer it using this sensation/perception model of explanation for ya!


*Disclaimer:  This is a dry-humor joke equating my tiny, little dream of unified pedagogical terms to the great deeds accomplished by Dr. King during his lifetime.  I'm pretty much an ant on the mountain of his greatness as far as I'm concerned.  I've just been watching too many 30 Rock reruns to resist the joke. **
**Disclaimer for the disclaimer:  I find dry-humor doesn't always come across online so I felt the need for disclaimer #1.  However, upon reading the over-explanation of the joke in disclaimer #1, I realize the already bad original joke has now been effectively destroyed.  Awesome.

How to Appear to be an Expert: The "Fake It Till You Make It" Principle

A lot of folks have heard that phrase, "fake it till you make it," but what does it mean?  Does it mean to develop some over-inflated ego about your pretend "abilities" and brag about it until those abilities suddenly appear?  Somehow, I doubt it.  But it often seems to be interpreted that way...at least by the very young, or the delusional.  For me, though, this phrase means making a list.  I tend to lack confidence...or at least, I did when I was a singer, big time!  I tended to undervalue any abilities I actually had, and I honestly had no idea of how to even "fake" confidence.  Seemed like such an impossible thing to do.  Now that I've moved into a field of study where I have confidence in my abilities, I think I finally know what that phrase really means.

All fields have certain necessary abilities to succeed, and nearly everyone in those fields has some natural, or easy, ability to do at least one of those abilities.  Not one single person, from a Nobel Prize laureate to a Met. singer ever woke up one particular day and said to his/herself:  I am now an expert!  Sure, they received great awards, like landing that lead role or winning that award or grant, etc., but they got those after a certain level of expertise was attained.  So, if the recognition that you're an expert doesn't suddenly happen overnight, how do experts have that air of "expertise" about them before those awards flow in?  How do they speak with such authority and feel that what they have to say has value?  I suspect that, in the beginning of their studies, most of them "faked" being an expert by realizing exactly what abilities and potential they had and building upon those abilities.  So, basically, they claimed ownership to their place in their field at every point along their education.

So how do you own your abilities?  Well, there are certain abilities that are necessary to succeed in pretty much any field.  Some of them are:

• Being internally motivated to put in the necessary work.  (I.e., learning your languages, completing your homework on time, etc.  I find this tends to come easily when you're passionately dedicated to your field...not just your own potential "greatness" in that field.)
• Biologically capable in the field.  (I.e., having a healthy-functioning vocal system or having at least an average intellect in a rigorous academic field.)
• The ability to problem solve.  (Need to change up some study or practice habits?  Who could you go to to get suggestions on how to do that?)
• The ability to generally apply constructive criticism.  (Think you really only need to work on your legato in that one phrase, or think it could be an issue in all your songs?)

In fact, most of us only have one or two abilities we bring to the table at the beginning of our studies in a new field, but recognizing those couple of things you do well actually gives you more validation throughout your studies/training as you are able to add to that list.  Trust me, it gets longer the more work you put in.
For example:  A beginner opera singer's list could look something like this:

• I have a pretty good vocal range...even if it's not all pretty.  (Biologically capable)
• I like to watch a lot of opera videos on youtube.  (Internal motivation)

As you go along, that list will expand.  It might start to look something like this:

• I can sing clean, accurate coloratura.  (Internal motivation and problem solving.)
• I have very good French and Italian diction.  (Applying criticism.)
• I have an ability to move naturally on stage.  (Biologically capable and applying criticism.)
• I enjoy thoroughly researching the history of my pieces.  (Internal motivation, biologically capable.)
• I have good musical phrasing.  (Applying criticism, problem solving.)
• I have knowledge of the great singers of the past and ability to analyze what made them great.  (From internal motivation and applying concepts/criticism.)

What might still be missing are things like marketing skills, language fluency, solid breath support, etc.  But, if  you have a decent list of what you can do well, it makes focusing on the list of what you still need to work on not seem so tedious and impossible, because you know that one day, one of those things from the "needs work" list will be moved over onto the "can do it well" list.

For a more academic example of a list, I'll use me at the beginning of this semester in calculus I.  I haven't been in a math class in fifteen years before studying and passing into calculus, so needless to say, I was pretty intimidated going into that classroom.  But here's what I brought with me:

• Pretty strong algebraic skills.  (Internal motivation...relearned it to get into the class.)
• Knowledge that I had the intellectual capacity and discipline to do well in the class. (A mix of biological ability, i.e. intellect, and internal motivation.)

That was pretty much it.  Now that I'm approaching the end of the semester with a good grade, I know I have these abilities:

• Very strong at algebra and trigonometry  (Applying criticism and problem-solving.)
• Ability to work through a problem even if I don't know where to begin  (problem-solving)
• Ability to recognize how many steps I'll need to solve a word-problem  (Applying criticism)
• Beginning to learn how to think abstractly about math and how it models movement studied in physics (Applying criticism/concept generally)

How do I know I have those abilities?  Well, did you notice how almost all of my "new" skills came from applying criticism of some sort?  My professor is a very picky grader, so we all got a lot of critical feedback.  Am I an expert?  Oh heck no!  But I am developing skills that I did not have before, and my recognition of that gives me confidence when I go to class...and it helps me to enjoy class, even if I leave a bit confused at times.

You know, when I was going through my master's program in voice, I kept thinking that I was the underdog who would one day achieve success once the right person recognized how great I was.  However, I completely missed the fact that I was the one who would have to show that person, or persons (i.e. casting directors, agents, etc.), what small amount of greatness I did possess, and to do that, I had to know what that was.  Being perceived by others as an underdog is fine and all, but you can't believe you are one or else you'll just be walking around begging for the scraps left over after the stars get their turn.

Now that I've changed fields, though, I feel like I'm coming in with a lot to offer.  I've got plenty of teaching experience, subjective evaluation of the voice, etc.;  I'm also insatiably curious, enthusiastic, and intellectually capable, which together create the perfect "geek" package for an academic field.  So am I an underdog again?  In a sense, yes.  I'm coming in without an undergraduate degree in the field.  I have no interning experience, very little related volunteering experience, and I have science and math deficiencies on my transcripts that undergrad majors don't have.  My resume in this field is, in two words, a bit shoddy.  So maybe I am an underdog...but I do not think that I am, and, therefore, I don't behave like an underdog.  I behave like someone who knows exactly what she brings of value, what she has the potential to be, and what she still needs to learn.  Does it phase me that my list of abilities is shorter than some undergraduates in the field?  Nope.  Because I know I have the abilities necessary to catch up in no time.

So, if you're like me and you have a tendency to underestimate yourself a lot, go ahead and try making a list of the things you do well.  Even if there's only one thing on that list, it's still something!  And heck, if you're just starting out in the field, your list is supposed to be short!  Own it!

P.S.  If you ever find yourself wandering over into "arrogant jerk" or "delusions of grandeur" territory, make a list of what you still need to work on and keep that handy when you need a dose of humility.  Works like a charm.

From professional singer to advocational singer: A fun emotional journey of guilt, shame, and acceptance

It will always take courage to dramatically change the plan you originally had for your life and career.  Leaving what you know and stepping into the unknown, especially not knowing if you'll succeed, is a scary thing.

I'm not gonna lie, when I told my friends and family that I was making this career change from professional-ish singer to SLP, most people were crazy happy about it.  My mom was happy because she had always seen my love for medicine and science, so I think she was happy I was going more in that direction.  But a lot of other folks I met always thought of one thing:  The money.  The SLP field has plenty of job openings, even in this tough economy, so it's a stable future career...unlike singing, obviously.  So that must be why I was doing it, right?  I mean, vocal injury...blah blah blah, but part of me must like the good job prospects, right?  Okay, well, I would be lying if I said the potential for a good, stable job isn't appealing.  Of course it is!  But changing from singer to voice scientist brought a different thought of myself:  Quitter.

Singing is what I know.  Training to be a singer is what I put years and years of effort and put *mumble mumble* amount of money into.  Making a career change after over a decade of musical training made me feel like a big, fat quitter.  I mean, I had finally gotten my voice back in working order!  I was finally able to make a professionally-viable sound!  I finally had something to offer the musical world!  How could I just quit after all of my struggles?  How could I just hang up my hat when I finally had a chance to be competitive in the performance circuit?

The truth is, I didn't give it up quickly.  As I started my classes for the SLP undergraduate leveling courses, I figured I'd be able to do professional singing on the side of being an SLP, no problem.  I kinda thought of SLP as a totally awesome supplement to my singing career.  I still practiced everyday.  I still intended to do this particular state voice competition that year, and I still intended to audition for summer shows and YAPS.  But very shortly after staring my classes, my goals in the SLP field began to readjust, I began to totally fall in love with the field, I started to desire a PhD after the master's degree, and I realized I had to start giving up some of those dual-career dreams of mine.

The breaking point came when the application deadline for that state competition was approaching.  I went to my voice teacher for a lesson knowing I'd need to really bust my a** over the next two months to get into competition shape since I had not been getting regular coachings in while in school.  I had a good friend of mine, also a singer, who was really excited for me to do the competition.  He was convinced that I would place very highly (which I doubted very much), but at the least, he felt I would finally be able to show all those folks who knew me "pre-therapy" what my voice could "really do"...now that it was healed up.  (Remember, I had this injury for probably about ten years before my diagnosis...including during all of my master's of music program.)  My teacher, though, felt I had too much on my plate already, so she suggested I not do the competition.  Being the great teacher she is, she recognized that I wasn't totally in the performance-career-mode anymore, and busting yourself to compete in something that you're just not that into is exhausting and rather pointless when you already have a lot going on.  So, just like the lesson when she suggested I look into SLP as a career, I left that lesson thinking about what she said, and I realized she was right, I probably shouldn't sign up.

When I got home, I looked over my class schedule and realized the competition date was the same week as three of my mid-terms, and two major projects were due that week as well.  And what I had already discovered from my first semester in SLP, being in a non-music major yields very little time to practice music at all.  See, it's hard just keeping your voice in shape if you're not in music school or performing, cause you have to make time just to sing everyday.  As a voice student, though, you sing everyday anyway.  So even if you're not practicing your own rep., at least your instrument is staying in tip-top shape.  I'd have to work double-time to not only get my rep. up to snuff, but also just to keep my voice in good shape day-in and day-out...and there's no way I'd be able to do all of that on the side of studying for three mid-terms, completing three projects, and maintaining a full studio of voice students.  It was too much, and I had to give up the idea of singing at the competition.

What I realized the most through all of this was that my more-latent vocal science passion was very quickly over-riding what had been my dominant passion of performing.  I felt a bit depressed letting go of those performance dreams, and I felt like I was letting myself, and all the people who supported my singing, down.  I really felt like I was morning the loss of "performance me."

The truth is, anytime someone chooses to leave behind the world he/she knows and the dreams he's/she's been following for years to enter into the unknown there is an inherent morning period for the dreams that are being lost in the transition.  You have to grieve for those dreams, let go of the guilt, and walk into the unknown, which, despite possible job prospects in any field, is a scary place to venture, for anyone.  When someone leaves a lucrative profession to follow a dream of a career in the world of performance, they are applauded for being so courageous.  But I say that anyone who leaves the world of performance for a different dream of a potentially lucrative career is still just as courageous.  It's leaving the known for the unknown and not getting stuck in morning for what you're giving up.  It's going through a tough emotional journey to hopefully come out better on the other side.  That takes courage.  So for anyone out there making this transition out of the performance world, just know that, while it sucks at first, you're no more of a quitter than that "accidental tenor" guy is...and you're just as brave in my book.

And I must say, I really am enjoying singing and music more now that it's not a job to me anymore.  The joy is back, and it's heightened by having enough vocal freedom to really express the music...unlike back in high school.  Being a high-quality avocational singer is very liberating, once you embrace it as your new place in the music world.