curtis☆experience.net

This gets slightly complicated!

You must find the center! It is not reaching forward and up—no reaching forward at all! Never reach forward, for this is how you reverse! It is not quite pressing down and forward either.

A little more history

Originally, I was trying to speak as effortlessly as everyone around me; then, I became obsessed with singing like my favourite singers, but became scared of using my voice outside singing because I thought it would wear out; then, I did become fully immersed in my ‘work’. I was on a mission! I did feel I was on to something! Today I share with you the epiphany: The growth of VE can be accelerated to a great speed when the right force is placed upon it.

But I was so lost! I didn’t think pushing down and out was right anymore, simply because the forces you feel when singing really confused me. That’s when I lost it: in a conversation.

What does one with a superior mass of voice energy reap as reward?

　•　Penetration, i.e.: ability of the voice to vibrate molecules so that the sound passes through them
　•　Ease of use, i.e.: ease of uttering
　•　Ease to shift tone, i.e.: some of what you see in phonetics
　•　Ease of articulation, i.e.: more of what you see in phonetics, but more concerned with language
　•　Ease to control, i.e.: quite a hypernym to the previous three and more; ability to start and stop, change pitch, carry notes through interference, use vibrato
　•　Vocal range, i.e.: ability with respect to the ‘ability’ known to a singer
　•　Length of sustain per breath, i.e.: greater ability for a length of utterance for a time per breath
　•　’Naturally’ ‘richer’ and ‘fuller’ in ‘sound’*
　•　Effect by growth algorithm, i.e.: states last longer making it less likely to be inhibited by the growth algorithm
　•　Feeling of VE, i.e.: both heavy and dense feeling at all times†
　•　Accessibility of texture, i.e.: texture added by the vocal folds

In every way, superior VE translates to everything.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, one with inferior VE will experience fluctuations in a sustained note because of the heartbeat, the natural growth pattern VE experiences, and other interruptions or intrusive events, e.g.: walking, running, taking steps, etc. It will be harder to utter, harder to talk, harder to have the voice reach the target, will have a very limited range of pitch (including no falsetto), vocal fry will be quieter, registers will be unreliable and one will have little ‘stamina’, i.e., vocal folds will become inflamed quickly from overwork; and, while the contrary has likely or absolutely likely been taken for granted, the voice isn’t felt. Basically, think of the opposite of everything mentioned above in the bullet points. The opposite of them, really, is a frightening thing!

Additional points when affected by weak VE (these are mostly for future reflections): (Because I’ve never learned the word for it) that phenomenon when two notes of the same pitch are uttered next to eachother does not happen.

*Sound, richness, and fullness are all dependent on the overall state of the mass of VE, i.e., some states make the voice have a more piercing or sharp effect, etc. Also, not to be confused with someone’s timbre. Naturally is scare-quoted for emphasis.

†There is no way anyone even realizes their voice has ‘feeling’ in this sense (except under very special circumstances). We do feel the voice when we utter, but we take for granted the feeling of VE as an unyielding presence!

Hello all and welcome!

Imagine a train sitting on railroad tracks. Now, rather than the tracks supporting the train, instead the tracks thrust out from underneath the train. This is, essentially, the vision someone may have to describe ‘skipping of the voice’.

(Ctrl + F > ‘skip’ here: https://curtis-experience.net/2022/08/23/vst-final-edit/. Refer back to this body of text for the little-more concerning data on skipping the voice.)

Don’t—and I repeat, don’t move focus away from the center of origin! The origin of utilization for the voice! The very place is natural to speak!

But once you are sure—once you are absolutely positive—after months, if not years of training (Ctrl + F > ‘glottal stop’ in the aforementioned body of text), try initiating the voice and pushing at the same time.

Remember all that I’ve spoken of in these relevant VST papers!

No! There is no guarantee! You must meet the criteria set by nature’s awesome law first (and I believe it high time to give it a name): ‘Copley’s Theshold’; that threshold that perhaps some of the population have already passed. (I say this without any true certainty).

Fear of voice – The makings of irony

I stood for a long time in the dark. The closer I [ultimately] came to understanding, the more I grew fearful. ‘THE VOICE!’, I scream. Terrified—with two conditions arousing, agitated and continuing whenever found to be in use or during my toiling.

I hated it, but I needed to know and understand! The persisting paid off; it also destroyed me. The back, in shambles from collateral discovery and some brand of stupidity. Undoubtedly, a topic to be revisited at a later time….

Just explain to me the significance of burning in the mouth, throat, and later, the eyes! It’s absurd how fright makes for the onset of physiological symptoms a real thing!

Well, forgive me. I don’t mean to put one over on you and lump them together!

One would arise in everyday speech; the other arising during my training, exploration sessions.

Yes; and it became chronic, the burning. I hated it, but I was terrified the voice wore out.

While this is definitely the reason for my breakthrough, it bothers me: the situation, however transparent [now], was a great source of fatigue – causing great strain and worry most of my 20th year. I’m sure if my memory was as sharp as it once was, I’d be able to tell you earnestly, ‘It was actually most my late teens and 20th year’.

The second condition was more of a ‘level’; you reached it with the help of music, the weight of the voice (its states), and drive during a walk.

I used to think, ‘This is getting mighty close multiple personality disorder’, due to how separate I felt from my own self during these times of labour.

Chalk it up to insecurity and known fears that I never attempted to achieve this level of concentration without music.

The weight of it all….

You’d be surprised how heavy the voice is; and you wouldn’t know unless you lost a good chunk of it.

Is it heavy, or is it thick?

Damn. I miss my voice.

Hello all,

I hope this message finds you at a pleasant time.

I had a thought: Why not make a small ‘update’? Not necessarily an update, per se. It is more of an attempt to confront something I’d speculated in the past, to the applicability of measures to measure the impact or more specifically, the strength of a voice. And while that’s all good and dandy, leaving everyone off with ‘burp or inhale’ is a little silly. I’ll answer the question right now. It is possible! It must be! Yes! I realize I wasn’t really asking the question to begin with, but that doesn’t change the fact that this is of highest importance. Well, next to spreading the message, of course. More need to read and be aware; however, let’s not try to be off-topic here.

Back on track!

What news has been circulating in my head for however long now? It is that ‘edging the voice’ is a fantastic indicator of voice strength. That is all!

I don’t know that edging the voice will stick because it may not mean exactly what you think it does. I do mean ‘edge’ as in its verb form meaning ‘advance slowly, as if by inches’. Thank you, TheSage version 6.10 from 2016! (By the way, as a small aside, TheSage sucks now (or it may still suck) because the search field used to automatically be activated following a word search. That functionality was done away with in the next release… which was so dumb! I reverted instantly!) The only condition being usage of the voice is not actually fully initiated. Edge kind of works. Let me think of a perhaps-better way to express this action…. ‘The sustaining of loud whispers’? Maybe not quite there, but maybe it’s closer.

I don’t have anything else to add. This was the tidbit of information. Let loose! Go out there and compare your whispers! See who can whisper louder without the use of the voice! See who can whisper the loudest when using the very faintest of ‘sound’!

‌‌ ‌‌ ‌‌ Over the course of the past however much time, I’ve been trying my best to think of things I thought about way back when. All of this has happened some time ago. Still, I’ll try to go over them in a sort of as-they-come-to-me way; and they’ll be described as best I can. And that’s about all I can do….

（１）I mentioned some behavior of my voice in the weeks leading up to my breakthrough. ‘Chest rumbling’ is one such thing. I am uncertain if what I was experiencing was anything like the rumbling another person feels when singing (it was my first experience with such a sensation). All I know is that I felt it. Supposing you’re experiencing this sensation while performing the exercises I’ve written about, perhaps that is an indicator of having met one or more of the criteria needed to greatly accelerate voice growth in ‘short spurts’….

They are short spurts, after all. I get the feeling great amounts cannot be covered in stride. Why? Because of the behavior of the waves of growth. I get the feeling there’ll be some rinsing and repeating amongst your trying for success. I should like to point out: Specifically, this was happening during long single note humming roughly about my natural speaking pitch at the time. And while I’d like to move on to the next point, I believe something begs to be brought up once more. I underline that I was NOT exerting such great force as to yell or anything of that nature. There were concentrated bursts of utterance (with a little bit of confident humming to mix things up). The utterances were all aiming to be as exact as the last fired off – in quick succession in many instances. You could say it was an exercise in perfectionism. ‘Make each feel exactly the same as the last’. Repeat this line to yourself, for that is the great goal and the great mystery – that each following the last can be different. If that isn’t possible, then your voice is not strong enough. Of note: Waiting a modest time between utterances… apparent exactness could be both felt and, yes, even predicted! Yes, I did find myself falling quite squarely into the role of the perfectionist, both in activity and in thought, which is maybe why I am quite certain it will take a very special person who has significant qualities of patience, diligence, and persistence to see any hint of progress and, finally, truth to any of this. This leads to point two quite naturally.

（２）When the voice is not strong enough, sing and sing lots. Singing is, by far, the quickest way to build voice energy…. Give yourself a year or two to gain voice strength. Then, granted your lineage gave you just enough strength, perhaps that time is all you needed. I know I needed much longer to see some headway. I realize it wasn’t until later on that these revelations came to me, but it’s a feeling I can’t help but have.

（３*）I was dreaming about this following point a few days ago. It is regarding the ‘sweet spot’ that the essence of the voice should be placed in (probably) before ‘skipping’ is possible. (I am, of course, speaking of states of voice energy.) I do recall needing to shift focus ever so slightly when uttering. I do remember feeling as though the diagram that was illustrated in my previous paper was somewhat misleading because it showed the course of the arrow raising somewhat before pointing a little downwards. Truth be told, I am not very smart. This, I believe, was my way of hinting at there being a ledge of some sort (apart from the very real upward force voice energy exhibits at around that point). (Again, this is explained by there being states within the waves of growth. The ledge is the center where focus must be placed.)

So, in theory, you are uttering, but not just uttering straight out at first. You are trying to change the state of the energy first to one that allows for you to feel this ledge, then press out from on top of it there. Why is this such an afterthought that I hadn’t mentioned it in any of the times I’d published articles on this topic? Insecurity, for the most part. Insecurity stemming from the feeling that I didn’t know for certain which directions to guide others in (in application, of course). I only managed to do it once. It was once for a split second, and then I fell into a deep depression after I ‘lost’ my voice. I wasn’t trying to remember or write anything down. I apologize for this all being fairly messy. If there is any truth to this point, you’ll notice it. Just pay attention to the feeling of your voice changing over the course of utterances.

（４）There is no point in which you’ll be pushing out from the gut during these utterances (or perhaps it became so natural to me that I didn’t notice that it all was coming from the gut). I believe it was all purely from the throat, focusing solely on the center of the voice’s root. There’s no way for me to really teach the nitty-gritty of what it was I was doing. Experiment. Don’t rule out anything. The best I can do is leave clues (that may or may not help).

（５）This final item has to do with the placement of stress. During my experimenting, I found it best not to try to hold stress at basically any angle other than centered at the root with no tilt, completely inline with the body. This may sound silly to point out as we learn to speak at a very young age (and it’s all very unconscious and instinctual); however, if you find yourself in the same position as I did, you will raise questions such as: what is the right way to focus while speaking or uttering?; (or) is there a better place to focus on when speaking? The jury was out during my experimenting, and it stressed me out to no end. In fact, I was absolutely convinced pressing down while talking was detrimental to the voice at the time. Point three is clearly to blame for this. I was terrified of losing my voice, and I didn’t have anyone to tell me how to just talk normally. Thus, what came to pass, passed, and we’re indeed here now regretting beliefs and theories and actions founded on ignorance even years later.

Yet, the full depth and scope of the possibilities of ‘true’ experimentation is limited, first, by one’s assumptions, and second, by one’s ignorance. I mean that it was my intent to, essentially, ‘forget’ how to speak… how I use my voice… to test everything imaginable. I, at one point, had everything imaginable pinned down. I placed stress every which way and memorized every response. I had to give it to my sore larynx many times for putting up with me. Now, seeing as how none of this is possible for me any longer (it all relates to the mass of your voice energy), I can’t go ahead and try to learn it all once more. Sorry about that too. You all could have greatly benefitted from some elaboration. (I do remember the tearing sensation just under the belly button, but don’t remember how it was pulled off….) I would like to be able to offer more insight for those that end up stumbling across this…. This’ll have to suffice.

That’s all for now! Best of luck to you all!