Training the Female Adolescent Voice

While a reasonable body of research exists investigating vocal mutation in the adolescent male, until quite recently, little research was available on the vocal adjustment experienced by female adolescents. Certainly, the change is less dramatic in girls than in boys, but girls do undergo certain adjustments, and many of the problems they experience can be corrected with proper vocal technique.

When I began teaching young girls more than twenty years ago, I was advised by more experienced teachers that the voices were really too immature to learn technique, and that I should simply focus on teaching song repertoire. This is an attitude that I have found persists among the teaching profession - notably among teachers who have specialised in teaching adults.

My own experiences as a teacher suggested that this was not the case - that teen-aged girls have a healthy appetite for vocal technique and can verify for themselves whether various techniques would assist them with the problems they were encountering with their changing voices. In almost every case, the voice has responded well to vocal technique, and some students who presented rather unpromising voices at a first audition have gone on to become fine performers.

The prevailing attitude among some vocal teachers is that voice training should be delayed until the voice has matured (ie, after puberty has completed), lest there be any damage to the young voice. Kenneth L. Phillips, in his book “Teaching Kids to Sing” claims that there is no empirical evidence to suggest such a belief. In fact, it may be harmful to omit such training altogether, particularly in a culture where young singers attempt to emulate the popular “belt” style without training in the proper techniques needed to use this style with-out harming the voice. Similar damage can be caused by untrained choral directors or classroom teachers insisting a loud sound from young voices which may not have devel-oped full resonance, or simply by raucous use of the voice on the sports field.

The challenge for the vocal teacher with adolescent students is to understand and educate the student on the physical changes of the female adolescent voice, its abilities and limita-tions, and to apply vocal technique only when it can be used to usefully address problems.

Physical Changes of the Female voice during adolescence

During adolescence, the female larynx lowers from the high position of young children to a lower position at approximately the fourth, fifth or sixth vertebrae. The larynx and vocal tract begins to grow in length and circumference, albeit at a slower rate than that of the male. The thoracic cage and lungs increase in size and the vocal folds develop to produce a more mature sound.

Female voice mutation may happen at any time between the ages of eight and fifteen, and typically takes one and a half to three years. One study1 notes that the age of puberty is falling quite rapidly at present, up to a year earlier than was observed forty years ago, and that adolescents are also passing through the phases of development at a faster pace.

1 Tanner, james M. “Sequencing, Tempo and Individual Variation in Growth and Development of Boys and Girls Aged Twelve to Sixteen.” ed J. Kagan & R. Coles. Twelve to sixteen: Early Adolescence. New York, City: W.W. Norton, 1972

Gackle notes the following characteristic symptoms of the female voice in mutation2:

• increased huskiness/breathiness of tone;• lowering of speaking voice• decreased and inconsistent range (tessiturae tend to fluctuate)• noticeable changes in timbre (tone quality)• voice “breaks”/cracking• obvious transition notes or register breaks• insecurity of pitch• difficulty initiating phonation

The huskiness/breathiness of tone can be partially attributed to the “mutational chink” - a gap between the arytenoids representing a weakness of the interarytenoid muscles. How-ever, in a study by Williams3, less than half of the girls examined presented incomplete clo-sure of the posterior vocal folds, suggesting that problems of breathiness in adolescent voices are just as likely to be the result of poor technique, and that this should be investi-gated before assuming that the problem is a physical one.

The adolescent voice typically lowers in pitch by about a third, and is also likely to lose some top notes although these will be recovered and extended by the end of adolescence. While the voice is in mutation, fluctuations in comfortable singing tessiturae may be ob-served.

Gackle suggests the following four phases of maturation:

Stage 1: Prepubertal: Ages 8-10(11)At this stage, the singing voice has a light flutelike quality; no apparent register breaks and a soprano quality.

Stage 2A: Pubescence/Pre-Menarcheal: Ages 11-12(13)This coincides with the first signs of physical maturation. The vocal mutation is evidenced by breathiness in the tone; register breaks appearing between G4 and B4 and an apparent loss of the lower range where the girl is not using chest voice. The girls may have difficulty in achieving volume and an obvious “flip” into the weaker head voice can be observed.

Stage 2B: Puberty/Post-Menarcheal: Ages 13-14(15)This is a very critical time in the developing voice. Tessituras may become unreliable or can narrow at either end. Register breaks are still apparent between G4 and B4 and also at D5 to F-sharp5. Lower notes may be more comfortable but this does not necessarily indi-cate an alto voice and singing in the upper register should still be encouraged but not strained. A lack of clarity in the tone is also quite common.

Stage 3: Young Adult Female/Post-Menarcheal: Ages 14-15(16)During this time, the overall range usually increases, and there is greater consistency be-tween registers. Voice breaks are more apparent at passaggio D5 to F-sharp5 which is

2 Gackle, Lynne “Finding Ophelia’s Voice: The Female Voice During Adolescence” Choral Journal 47:5 (No-vember 2006) p 28-373 Williams, Bonnie Blu “An Investigation of Selected Female Singing- and Speaking-Voice Characteristics Through Comparison of a Group of Pre-Menarcheal Girls to a Group of Post-Menarcheal Girls” Journal of Singing - The Official Journal of the National Association of Teachers of Singing 52:3 (January-February 1996) P. 33-40

more typical of the adult voice. Breathiness decreases and tone becomes deeper and richer. Vibrato may appear in the voice. Volume, resonance and vocal agility increase.

Challenges and risks

Both Collins and Cooper claim that adolescent girls are neither sopranos nor altos in the adult sense of the word. While some may have a comfortable tessitura in one or other register, all the major research suggests that this does not imply that they should sing mainly within that register, rather, that the teacher’s focus should be to work on the entire compass of the vocal range.

This includes the middle area - bringing the chest and head resonances together to get a mix in the middle range. In this way, the sets of muscles that control the head and chest areas are being exercised equally. Collins notes that achieving a smooth mix in the middle register is something with which even adult singers may struggle, and he cautions against too high expectations in this regard where adolescent voices are concerned.

Many adolescent girls voices are breathy in the head register, and the lower part of the head register in particular may be weak and colourless. Still other singers may be unable to make any sound in the head register at all. However, this CAN be improved through regular exercise of the muscles controlling head resonance. Cooper suggests that girls singing in choirs should not be labelled “soprano” or “alto”, but rather something neutral such as “greens” and “blues” - swapping regularly between higher and lower ranges to en-sure that all muscles are being developed equally. This has the added advantage of en-suring that all girls learned how to sing harmonizing lines as well as the melody.

There is a real danger today that girls are not getting the opportunity to develop their upper register, particularly due to the prevalence of music requiring “belt” technique, which re-quires young female singers to sing with a typical range of A3 to A4. As a result, many young singers present themselves for audition at conservatories at the age of eighteen with a completely undeveloped top register. Most popular music tends to lie in the chest resonance area, and this can cause problems not just with vocal development but in good vocal health generally.

While a properly supported belt voice is not harmful to the voice, many young singers at-tempt this style with no knowledge of vocal technique, which requires considerably more energy in the vocal musculature than classical singing. Burdick4 notes that

“Singers who are not trained correctly or who cannot maintain the energy needed for belt of-ten exhibit vocal pathology. [...] Doctors have observed polyps, cysts, or hemorrhages. Lawrence [...] found that in the belters he treated, those with the least amount of vocal pathology had the greatest amount of vocal training.”

Phillips5 notes that vocal abuse is a common occurrence among children and adolescents, and that vocal music instructors must be able to communicate the need for proper vocal hygiene for both singing and speaking voices. Towards this end, he suggests including an overview of the physiology of the voice in vocal curricula, as well as a carefully thought out vocal-technique curriculum, including sequential exercises through five areas of vocal de-velopment: respiration, phonation, resonant tone production, diction and expression.

4 Burdick, Barbara “Vocal Techniques for Music Theater: The High School and Undergradu-ate Singer”

Conclusions

To assist with the proper development of the female adolescent voice, as well as to avoid the real risk of vocal damage, it is important that choral directors and music theatre singing teachers are fully cognizant of the real and supposed limitations of the developing voice. The real limitations include a breathy tone in some cases, an inability to produce loud vol-umes, and to belt without proper supporting techniques. In all attempts to force a resolu-tion to these problems, vocal damage may result. Supposed limitations include the idea that the voice cannot be trained to produce a more mature resonance, or that a student may not have the ability to pitch upper register notes or to achieve a good sound in that range - in these cases, careful vocal training will yield results in perhaps as little as six months.