Voice Placement is an Illusion

Voice placement is an illusion.

That's what William Earl Brown recorded in his book Vocal Wisdom: Maxims of Giovanni Battista Lamperti (1931).

He also recorded Giovanni Battista Lamperti as saying that everything that was perceived in the head above the larynx was the means by which the singer could tell what was happening in the larynx. I submit that this has everything to do with the singer's process of audition via bone conduction.

The illusory nature of voice placement is not some academic exercise for me. Rather, I experience it first-hand since I’ve worn hearing aids as a result of minor hearing loss coupled with the onset of tinnitus. Suffice it to say: My auditory awareness of voice placement is quite different when I am wearing my hearing aids as compared to when I am not. What's the difference? I hear clear vowels seated in front of my face and extending out around my head in a nimbus of sound when I have my aids in. When taken out, this phenomena diminishes significantly.