Nasality

Nasality is a quality that singers should remove from their singing. Unfortunately, the idea of "placing the sound in the mask" has caused many modern day singers to become nasal and constricted. This sound has become widely accepted today as it has been forced upon singers as being the "right sound". It isn't. For those who really want to know how to remove this nasality there is only one way to do so.

When someone sings with nasality there is quite often an excessive leakage of air coming through the nose. The sound can be "honky", squeezed, buzzy, noisy and so on. However, if a singer correctly sings "dark" it will eliminate this nasality. It is not possible to sing dark and nasally.

I say "properly dark" because there are ways that people sing darkly that is incorrect. Singing with a dark quality means that there is an elongation of the vocal tract which makes a deeper sound, but there must also be intense core/squillo in the sound. Some people equate darkness in the sound to depth in the sound. 

I often use the example of non classical singers who go between singing nasally and then darker. You can hear a stark difference between the nasal sounds - when it is not dark - and then a riddance of nasality when they sing dark/deep. I will post and example below and also some classical examples. And always try to remember that if there is any such thing as a "mask" -which there isn't - then it is in the pharynx, not in the front  part of the face.

Below we can hear in the first minute of the song it is generally nasal except on the words "rush", "love", and "stay". On all of these words she sings much more darkly. The darkness (depth) rids of the voice of nasality:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbV7SDevw9k


This is nasal which causes a lack of proper darkness and constriction. The constriction causes the vibrato issues:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sE4EgIG0pew

This is a great example of singing nasally and then improperly dark. Through much of the beginning his voice is nasal in an attempt to get clarity. As he goes higher and wants to get a fuller sound it does go dark, but he loses all the core/squillo and gets depressed and woofy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VS1WRddhsSE

Non nasal; he is older here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RMMTKdlX1Y

This is a depressed larynx sound. It affects the natural beauty of the voice, distorts the vowels, is thick and causes vibrato issues:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5pQ5mTb2fE

This is not with a depressed or nasal sound:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGBaEqB8-RI

My mentor's brother at 60 years old and in poor health. Still not nasal:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NApwbbEqRY