Weeks 3-4 · range · sol → fa → mi → re → do
Hum five notes down. Don’t let the voicing drop out.
The rule
pass: clean descent · no break > 80 ms · 6/8
Five anchor dots stepping down — sol → fa → mi → re → do — with an emerald glide connecting them as one continuous hum. The grey trace below shows the same descent, but with voicing dropping out between the third and fourth notes. Anything longer than 80 ms unvoiced counts as a break and fails the trial.
Hear it first
The descending phrase as a single hum, then the same notes with an airy gap mid-way — the kind that happens when subglottal pressure drops faster than the larynx can compensate. The third clip is steady but stepped: each pitch arrives, but the glide between them is missing.
What’s happening. Going down the scale is mechanically harder than going up, because the cricothyroid gradually releases tension while subglottal pressure has to stay coordinated. Most untrained singers lose voicing around the third or fourth descending step — the folds stop coming together cleanly and the tone goes breathy or silent. The hum on /m/ adds back-pressure that stabilizes the descent.
Why descending, why five. The ascending direction is the obvious one to practice — but descending phrases are everywhere in melodies (cadences, sighs, resolutions) and they expose breath-support weakness first. Five steps is the minimum length to cover a pentachord and force at least one likely break point. The 80 ms threshold is tight by design: briefer than the eye blinks at, so anything over it is audibly broken.
Why this is the foundation.Clean descending legato is the prerequisite for cadential resolution, hum-to-vowel transfer, two-syllable legato, and a-cappella resolve-to-tonic. If you can’t keep the voice on while pitch drops, the end of every phrase will betray it.
Session ahead
8 trials · hear the descending phrase, then echo on /m/ · contour must descend cleanly · no gap longer than 80 ms · 6/8 to pass.