Italian is called the "language of song" because it contains so many open vowel sounds. The burden of singing must always be carried by the vowels. Consonants have their own importance and it is necessary that they be enunciated distinctly and properly, but swiftly, so that they present no opposition to the fact that one is singing on legato vowels. This point will be taken up more fully in later posts.

Those readers who have already had some instruction in singing will now be interested in learning to what extent the Bel Canto method, as I teach it, differs from the fundamentals they have been taught. First let me say that while long years of experience and careful study have proved to me that this method will do most for a singer in the shortest possible time, there are many, many fine singers and teachers who arrive at the same goal via their own modification of the fundamental principles. This is not only natural, but inevitable, because of the many physical and mental differences in people.

For example, one person may sing his high notes best while the mouth is in a smiling position, and another may obtain an equally correct and beautiful tone with the mouth held differently. One pupil gets correct placement by thinking of her tone "between the eyes," while another thinks of her tones as "coming out from the top of her head." Any method, to be successful, must be able to accommodate itself to all such individual differences.

Every experienced singing teacher realizes that each student requires personalized instruction; nevertheless I feel that much good may be accomplished by describing the various outstanding faults that appear in the voice, and, by giving the reader the basic method applicable to every voice, he may be able to eradicate those faults which he recognizes as his own.
To begin with, what do we mean by tone focus or point? Simply, we mean that a tone must be concentrated to a given central point
which gives it a clean-cut attack, keeps it exactly on pitch, and imbues it with the right quality. A tone that is lacking in these attributes is as wrong as is a photograph that is out of focus. Such a photograph is indistinct, blurred, and distorted. The same is true of such a tone.

The act of singing is a voluntary physical act of breathing and exhaling that breath so that the vocal cords vibrate and transform that breath into sound. As soon as the breath becomes sound the mental processes can change the character of that sound. The sound can be high or low, rounded or dull, depending on where the tone is allowed to vibrate, or whether it is allowed to vibrate in the body at all.

For example: Say "come over here" in your ordinary speaking voice. Now repeat the words in a high, shrill voice, and now in a low, hollow voice. You hear the difference, do you not? And you also feel a difference.
You "placed" your voice as you wished. And, as it is possible to place your speaking voice, so too is it possible to place your singing voice.
But what placement will give you the voice you desire? What sensation, or group of sensations, must you strive for in order to acquire a singing tone that can be modulated and manipulated as you wish? What placement will give your voice roundness, purity, brilliance?

The answer is: That placement which uses all the resonating cavities of the body as they are needed. If you place your hand on your chest and speak or sing a very low tone, you will feel vibration in your chest. You will feel an inner vibration, and your hand will also feel an outer vibration.
Now place a finger lightly just at the spot where your nose and forehead meet, and speak or sing a high tone, trying to arch that tone up and out so that it seems to hit that spot (the juncture of nose and forehead). You will feel a sensation of vibration in that spot. It may seem to spread across your forehead, but its center, or focal point, will be where your finger touches. Now, relax for a moment and then open your mouth wide and say " ah " in the middle voice. Don’t try for vibration in the chest or forehead; just say it or sing it. As you do so you will feel a vibration in your mouth, on the hard palate or roof of your mouth.

From these slight experiments you will have discovered that there are three resonating cavities in the body—chest, upper head, and mouth—and that all three can be used in singing. The correctly trained voice makes use of all three, as needed, but the incorrectly trained voice uses only one, or possibly two. As the properly trained voice ascends the scale the chest resonance diminishes and the head resonance increases. The mouth resonance remains always, if the other resonances have been established, and requires little attention. But as the pitch of the voice rises higher and higher the head resonance increases until the very highest notes, especially in high voices, are almost entirely head resonance.

It must be understood, however, that this head resonance, even in the highest tones of a high voice, is not falsetto alone. A tone with head resonance, regardless of pitch, must always have "body." It must always have breath support, and it must be placed so that it can drop to any lower tone with utmost ease and no change in placement; likewise even the lowest tone must have its head resonance covering so that the highest tone can be reached without any physical readjustment or change of placement. In brief, the sensation of head resonance, the vibration and focus of tone at the place where nose and forehead meet, must never be lost. No matter what the pitch or volume of tone, forte, mezzo voce, trembling with emotion or vibrant with joy, it must hold to its point at all times.

Singing Success by Brett Manning