A tale of two tenors I have two tenors who have come to me recently for lessons. They share a similar problem: they have no approach to the passaggio area, blasting their way up to the top. This means that neither have high notes. The first tenor sings as a baritone; the second finesses everything above a “g” in a light head tone. Tenor 1 works as hard as he can to keep his larynx down, to no avail; inevitably, it goes higher as he ascends the scale. Tenor two “puts it forward” as a method: of course, his larynx is up around his eyeballs. Is there any middle ground between trying to force the larynx down (don’t even try it, it never works) and just letting it the larynx do what it wants, which is to lift as you ascend the scale? Mercifully, there is a natural function which releases the throat; it is called yawning. Unfortunately, no one ever taught us how to yawn and sing clearly at the same time. If we examine the feeling of a yawn very carefully...
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