glottal attacks

Hello,

Are only hard glottal attacks a problem? it seems there are alot of everyday words that require glottal stops etc.

are glottals involved when doing the "gah" exercise ?

thank you.

Hi, Grace! Here's an article with lots of examples. Glottal closure / stoppage is involved with many "hard" consonants (like G). We actually use the G to help provide secondary air resistance if our vocal folds are having a hard time holding back the air without "popping" open (cracking, flipping, or singing with an overly breathy tone). Voice teachers (like me) warn singers of relying too heavily on a "glottal attack", in which you're initiating your sound with a harsh glottal stop. In general, we want to have a balanced onset and use glottal onsets when required by the song. 

Thank you Camille for the article. In these cases when speakign or singing these words with glottal closure/stoppage involved do we need to change the way we pronounce them to avoid the glottal closure? I tried to sing softly but there still seems to be a bit of the click or catch in the throat, is this ok? 

Glottal closure is necessary to make those sounds! The glottal "attack" we try to avoid occurs when there is no consonant, as in the word "apple" or "up". It's still correct to use a glottal onset - we just don't want a harsh "slamming together" of the vocal folds.