Michael Trimble Vocal Method "Identifying the True Mask" 

I just discovered I was using my resonance wrong yesterday. I started using his "D or B" exercise and I felt this intense vibration right behind the eyes and between the eyebrows. As long as you keep your notes sitting in that area, you find that you can go up and down your entire range with intense volume, free vibrato and what he calls the "invisible throat, jaw and tongue"! Finally I am having fun! haha

@@GunAssassinx29 sound like you are finding the magic pocket!

Still haven't found mine :(

​@@miyuki2206any luck?

💯

Voice acting was extremely tiring for my voice so I gave it up. I'm glad you found this if it helps

Thank you, I will! I have sung since 1997, and I think that if I had seen your videos then, I would have found my voice much earlier... Now, after nearly 20 years, I sing quite well, so I can very esily recognise the topics you speak about. Espesially "slender singing" and explenation of the appogio, and of course this video about singing in the true mask. It is just like I want to do, and what I should have done from the very begining, but I didnt. I established no Appoggio, and I was pressing air through, like you demonstranter with a thin paper. I did not "hold the breath" (this "before coffing"-feeling. It works! All the best! Øystein

like you said, too many people want to teach without sufficient knowledge and experience.. ive been learning on my own for a year or two now and im so happy i came across your channel. thank you for these excelent videos

Sir, you are a true Master. Thank you and looking forward for more valuable knoledge to come.

Sir what Caruso say about breathing "do contrary emotion" is that right sir?

You should also visit IMSLP and get the singing texts of both Lampertis (Francesco and Giovanni Battista), Luigi LaBlache, and Manuel Garcia II. Garcia’s text has been very instructional for me but if I hadn’t studied Lamperti and LaBlache first some of Garcia’s book wouldn’t have been as clear to me.

I'd like to add I just read your book! The more I learn from you the better I get. The point of Appogio or lean seemed so mystical at first but it's REAL and it anchors the voice. For me messa de voce worked best to find that point rather than staccatos as i have heavy chords and i needed to be forced to lighten up. Finally i am beginning to feel freedom.

I how long have you been singing for?

Rachel Wheatley couldn't have worded it better

It's been 3 months now , how's the experience? U got ur mask??

@@rohith3261 great! Vibrations everywhere

MILLE

It's amazing to hear the difference instantly. Before when i sing in my nose. Its lifeless. No tone. No...how do i say...it just does not sound all that remarkable. But once i start singing ABOVE it. Not necessarily higher but above the nose. It sounds more like me..

Michael Trimble thank you so much

Adrian, if you try to think of more than one thing at a time, it will split the focus. I never use the word "focus' because it implies that concentration requires an action that narrows or constrains the phonation. Ideally, I want to concentrate on my "point of leaning of the breath" (il punto d'appoggio) and accept the reaction. The resonance will automatically "place itself" and i can achieve a concentrated sound by thinking of only one thing (in this case, the "leaning of the breath" on a specific location. If you watch the video again, you will notice that i don't recommend trying to think of more than one thing at a time. You breathe deeply into the lower back before you sing, so at the instant you inhale, you are thinking only of that one process. At the instant you begin to sing, you thing only of the "true mask" or the "attachment of the breath to the diaphragm " (il punto d'attaccamento"), but never both at the same time. Your text should always be memorized in order to avoid having to think of it while you are singing.. I think if you keep studying the videos, you will notice how i always concentrate on one concept at a time. Some of the moves (and results of those moves) become habitual. As each concept or action becomes habitual and the response becomes automatic, we become free to think something different while the breathing or the "leaning of the breath" or the location of the resonance (the True Mask) become automatic. So, don't try to think of more than one thing at a time. You will eventually gain collective control of a variety of ideas that become the totality of your voice, emission, diction, and resonance.

@@Tenoretrimble thank you so much for replying! Your explanations are always so easy to understand. I shall be watching many more videos and asking more questions if you don’t mind.

Thanks so much, Michael! I've just bought the kindle version from Amazon. I also see now that you're on Bainbridge and I'll be in Bellevue visiting family all of November and maybe I can see you for some work. My sister lives up the road from you in the Agate neighborhood. I live in south Brazil, presently. I study classical technique and apply it to contemporary singing. I also started with training late in life, for the love of it more than anything else, and I've begun to write songs. I've recently adopted the breathing technique you speak of here and the results have been miraculous. I had been taught "down and out", or "belly out". I've also be working on the "pre-sneeze" and "inner smile". I do a breathing exercise daily similar to the one Caruso did on his walks. It's sometimes called the Farinelli exercise. The results of these changes can be described very much as you write here, in that the placement just soars up and out much higher than before,- the skull, forehead, eyebrows,- and it's a weird feeling, as if too high or too light or too far forward, possibly voce branca territory. Possibly strident. Before, I would force it down and into the mouth, not unlike how you described what you did singing a bass repertoire in school. My question was more along the lines of, for tenors, is this True Mask placement for the entire range, or only the upper range? For example, in an interview with Opera Focus you described how Melocchi taught some of his students an extremely low placement in the throat's "listening chakra". I think Del Monaco was one of his students, and possibly Corelli, for a short while. Jerome Hines wrote about this placement, too. Also, I've read that a successful placement can be in the mouth, up against, but below, the hard palate. Do you place your entire tenor range in the True Mask? Do you feel any sensations of the placement lowering in your middle or lower-middle range, possibly up against and below the hard palate?

+Michael Trimble O! ok awesome - apologies for my lack of research lol. I only looked at the amazon page. I just found your channel the other day and it has been really insightful! - have been watching youtube videos on singing and studying on them - and from all the teachers i've seen you are certainly among the TOP In terms of FREE content full of tons of value - a lot of teachers hide their best advice behind paywalls - so it's very refreshing too see a teacher as smart as you - humble and kind enough to share with us youtube people!. I definitely have to check your book out. I have found no teachers on youtube that approach teaching singing the way you do specifically. In a very researched and smart way and using certain techniques that have been made famous and quoted by many. Never have seen that here - if i have i forgot. Maybe it's just my lack of attention but i certainly have watched A LOT. So - thanks for all your kindness!. I don't know if you will read this - but it would be awesome if you made a video on your book if you haven't?. Just talking a bit about it - what we will learn etc. If you did make a video already i gotta check it out.

Hi! I never took the time to thank you, because over the course of the last weeks, I experienced huge progresses thanks to your words and videos. You allowed me to discover the fact that you could for instance use your chest in order to produce sound (among other things you said), therefore freeing both of your abdominal area and throat. It's how I have discovered one way to empty my lungs (breathing out) without using the muscles intended to produce sound. I doubt this is the final form of what you call leaning and I'm pretty sure I'll discover new things and substantially correct my recent way of perceiving it, but for the first time of my life it granted me access to controlled singing. Actually, in one sentence rather than ten, from the explanations you give on your channel and that answer you gave me, I now know how to start a sound. To me that's huge! I've looked for that for so long. Short after, it felt so natural to sustain notes and then to sing arpeggios or songs with (an economy of) breath rather than force; my range has widen greatly. I now feel my body moving, I have new sensations of mellowness (diaphragm, larynx...) that are part of my overall singing and daily speaking routine! Thanks to you your very simple, precise and timely (!) words and approach, I could sort all of the knowledge my teacher gave me and make something out of it. I now have to tools to learn properly and consistently, whereas I had been randomly trying things that were meaningless to my body for too long. You unblocked so much! Thanks a billion times ! It's been a fantastic month singing-wise :)

Hi Michael! Although it's flattering to read, I think you've confused me with someone else. We don't know each other in person. I'm a soprano.