Sing Better with Staccato

Staccato: with each sound or note sharply detached or separated from the others.

Legato: sound is produced in a smooth, connected, flowing manner.

Singing Staccato exercises is a great way to find vocal balance.

When singing staccato, we use the "silent H" onset.

The silent H is midway between the inefficient hypo-adducted breathy onset (which allows excess air to escape); and the adducted onset or coup-de-glotte.

The silent H encourages a healthily balanced onset with no breathiness.

Efficient breath management in singing is all about creating a balance between air pressure and the vibrating vocal folds. This balance is not static, but shifts constantly to meet the demands of vocal styles, volume, and intensity.

Staccato helps singers find this balance while developing better appoggio; staccato both requires and also encourages good appoggio.

Appoggio is expanding the lower torso with the breath, then slightly firming the lateral oblique and transversus abdominis muscles outward, subsequently maintaining that posture as long as possible.

It is a feeling of suspension: the ribcage; sternum and chest do not collapse. When we sing, we maintain the expanded position of inspiration, delaying the collapse of the ribcage, epigastrium, and torso with antagonistic muscle activity. We neither push down nor pull up on the abdomen.

Staccato helps us find just enough and not too much engagement of the core muscles, with appropriate vocal fold adduction at the onset of phonation and better appoggio, or support.

To produce staccato correctly, the singer must apply the tenets of appoggio

• Inhalation is low, with a 360-degree expansion at the level of the lowest ribs.
• After inhaling, the lateral oblique and transversus abdominis muscles should firm outward slightly.
• This position is maintained throughout the performance of the staccato exercise.

Remember- when performing staccato, all the H’s are SILENT!