Should singers open the nasal port or not? Johan Sundberg settles it with five experiments, then unpacks breathy, flow and pressed phonation.

Voice science pioneer Johan Sundberg takes on an old pedagogical argument with actual data. Across five studies, from fiberscopy in eighteen opera singers to iron tubes, 3D vocal tract models and airflow measurement, he shows that a small velopharyngeal opening attenuates the first formant and boosts the singer's formant region, giving brighter, stronger high partials without any extra subglottal pressure and often without sounding nasal at all. He then demonstrates live, with a long tube and a piece of cotton, how to tell whether a student's register breaks come from source-filter interaction or from the folds themselves. The second half covers glottal adduction, flow phonation, the candle myth and smooth register transitions.