When should I start singing songs?

The first thing we do in at the start of a first voice lesson is have the student sing a series of five tone scales on the vowel "ah" throughout their range. We do this to learn a few things about the student, such as their vocal range, how they navigate their bridges, whether they are connected to their chest voice, if they tend to disconnect or "flip" at one or more of their bridges, if they tend to force the voice or "pull chest," and so on. These are all technical issues. As soon as a technical issue has been discovered we are motivated to give them an exercise or series of exercises that will immediately address and eventually assist them to overcome the technical difficulty. In the process of discovery and correction we effectuate the actual building of the vocal instrument.

This building process can take a long time; in fact the voice continues to be built in one manner or another during the entire life of the singer. That said, the idea of vocal exercises being sung for many years at the exclusion of all else is one that is archaic at best, and counterproductive at worst. The moment a student can show at least some signs of being able to cross their bridges in a relaxed speech-level manner, it is imperative that songs (or at the very least some phrases from songs) be introduced. 

If the singing of actual vocal music is delayed for too long a condition develops in the student that they are able to vocalize at an advanced level, but are singing songs at a beginning or intermediate level. Why? because they have not yet learned to apply this new-found technique to music. I have found that many students who seem to enjoy the building process of scale singing can be extremely hesitant to start singing actual music. There may be many reasons for this, but if left unchecked in can develop into a pattern in which they don't ever feel ready to or comfortable in singing anything other than vocal exercises. This pattern is neither desirable nor easy to overcome; so it's best if vocal teachers never let it happen in the first place. It's important to start application of technique to songs as soon as the technique will allow it.

There are students however on the other end of the spectrum who don't want to vocalize at all, they only want to sing and perform. To these students it must be made very clear that vocal technique and solid form is not built from the songs they are singing. They must commit to a minimum of solid, healthy vocalizing every day if they are to ever expect progress in their development of a professional caliber vocal sound.

Have a great week!

Guy

Voice Lessons

Why do I Need Vibrato?

Many singers who study with me who sing styles of music not associated with a full vibrato wonder why I insist upon developing a smooth steady vibrato in their lessons.  Why bother if they aren't every going to use it? This is an excellent question.  I can't remember who said it, but I love the analogy of vibrato being like the idle of the car.  If the car is idling too quickly or too slowly you know something is wrong.  

A good vibrato comes at a rate of approximately 6 to 8 beats per second. The actual cause of vibrato is a point of controversy among many vocal professionals, but we do all tend to agree that it is the result of a balance of air flow and cord closure in a vocal environment where the extrinsic laryngeal muscles are in a neutral posture. As I state often, when a singer is vocalizing, the style is completely stripped from the voice as we are building pure technique. Good vocalizing is essential for achieving and maintaining optimal vocal health and longevity.

If a singer is engaged in singing styles that do not use vibrato, this means that the style of singing is farther away from vocal balance than styles which use vibrato. It is imperative that these singers have a clear sense of what balanced vocal production is in order to know how far they can healthfully take their styling before getting into danger.

If a singer is needing to sing in a "vibrato-free" manner, I first want them to develop a balanced singing technique where the vibrato is spinning freely at a healthy rate. Then, rather than "eliminating" vibrato from the voice, I prefer that we begin to reduce vibrato to the point that it is almost imperceptible.  The difference in the presence of overtone frequencies and intensity of sound between a voice with vibrato and one with a straight tone is quite stark.  By reducing vibrato rather than eliminating it, a singer will maintain a healthy voice with much more resonance and power than a singer who strains to sustain pitches on a straight, flat tone.

Until next time!

Guy

Voice Lessons

How Long Will It Take?

The one question that wins out as the most frequently asked question of all is "How long will these lessons take before I can sing well?"  My answer is always the same: "I have absolutely no idea."  It really depends on many factors such as, the student's inherent talent, How well they practice, how deeply set their current vocal habits are, etc. 

The only thing a voice teacher can offer a student is the ability to assist a student in training themselves to operate the vocal mechanism as efficiently as possible.  Inherent talent cannot be taught, but skill can. Anyone can improve and get better.  What matters is that the student trains with a qualified teacher, that they practice every day, and that they practice mindfully. Also, I always recommend that a student who is serious about dumping bad singing habits fast abstain from singing along to the radio, CDs and MP3s.  Remember, what we are training here is habits.  If you practice your vocal exercises for 20 minutes a day and sing poorly along to the radio for 4 hours a day, which set of habits will win out?

All art-forms take great amounts of skill, training and practice to approach a level of mastery that rises above mediocrity.  A good singer is both an artist and an athlete.  They spend a good deal of time training and singing scales, practicing phrasing, analyzing lyrics and finding a balance between a solid vocal line, phrasing and emotional distillation of the pieces of music that they interpret. Singing is an art, a skill and a physical discipline.  Just like any artist or athlete, a good singer never stops training.

In popular music, there is room for many different types of voices. Traditional "vocal talent" is not necessarily a prerequisite for success. Barbara Streisand and Anthony Kiedis are each artists of high calibre. They are very different types of singers; yet each of them must be in good vocal shape to perform well.  Hayley Williams and Josh Groban each have demanding performing schedules regardless of the vast difference in the styles of their singing. Each has trained hard and continues to train.

The answer to the question, "How long will it take," is that it takes forever. Art has no end. There are no perfect singers.  All excellent singers keep improving and keep training.  And that's a good thing!

Voice Lessons

Frequency of Lessons

I do apologize for the tardiness of my blog post. I got back from a fantastic two weeks in Scandinavia and have finally shaken the jet lag!

I sometimes hear a new or potential student tell me that they, as beginners, would like to come in for a lesson every few weeks and then once they are more advanced bump it up to a weekly lesson. This is backwards. It is important to remember that a voice teacher is there to help you train your neuromuscular habit patterns. That is to say a voice teacher is there to correct and guide the student to the point where the technique becomes second nature.

Habits are the most powerful things there are. Singing is a very complex process. The only way that a good singer can stop thinking about their voice and start thinking about the songs they are singing is by training their neuromuscular habits to the point where healthy vocal technique is on auto pilot. Habits are developed very quickly. Therefore, a new student needs to be under proper guidance as often as possible, whereas a more advanced student who already has good singing habits established doesn't need lessons as frequently.

In the 19th century and probably prior, it was customary for a student to have daily lessons with the maestro. It was common that they trained daily together for upwards of eight years before the singer made their debut on the operatic stage. These days, we have the ability to record lessons on CD or MP3; and with these recordings the student can practice the specialized lesson plan the teacher has developed for them between lessons. These recordings make it no longer necessary for a student to have daily lessons; however, I recommend that a beginning student have a minimum of one lesson per week with a qualified instructor. Twice per week is ideal if time and budget can allow it. As the technique becomes more developed the student can taper off the frequency if desired, but only to the extent that they are able to maintain a healthy speech-level posture during singing at all times.

Until next time!

Guy

Voice Lesson

Vocal Balance and Performing

When I am vocalizing a rock singer and the technique is sounding very balanced, the question often arises, "how am I supposed to sing a rock song like this?" That is a valid question. Very few styles (including opera by the way) sing with perfect technique.  Good singers of all styles must move away at least somewhat from perfect balance in order to give the appropriate sound necessary to the song or aria they are singing.  

Let's think of singing as a clock.  Perfect balance we will call 12:00. Perhaps some church soloists and oratorio soloists might sing at 12:00.  A singer who is singing a Mozart aria might sing at 11:00, or 1:00, whereas a singer in a Vagnerian opera might sing at 10:00 or 2:00.  A musical theater singer who is singing "legit" may sing at 11:00, while a "belter" may be at 9:00. An R&B singer may sing at 8:00, while a heavy metal singer may sing all the way at 6:00. Singing a hard core rock style at 12:00 would sound ridiculous.

All that being said, if I were to walk in on a voice lesson and hear a singer vocalizing, ultimately I shouldn't be able to tell what style of music they sing; all I should hear is perfect balance.  The job of a voice teacher is to assist the singer in getting back to 12:00 (perfect balance) and vocalize them through their range using a perfect balance of air flow and cord closure with the larynx at a stable speech-level posture.

Sometimes a good voice teacher can feel like a chiropractor.  The student goes out and performs well, but in an unbalanced manner; when they come into the studio for a lesson we have to get them back in balance.  Also, we have to make sure that they are able to sing in their style in a believable manner using as much balance as possible.

The important thing to understand here is that the first step is building the voice in a balanced manner.  If you don't have a decent "12:00" then finding style is only going to cause poor singing habits and inhibit the building of good technique.  If the voice hasn't been built properly it is difficult at best to maintain vocal health while maintaining a professional performance schedule.  Start building technique now, so you have versatility and stamina in the future.

Until next time,

Keep singing!

Guy

Voice Lessons

A Mixed Voice

If you look inside a piano, you will see a set of strings that looks like a harp.  The low notes are created by the hammers hitting strings that are very long and thick.  The strings gradually get shorter and thinner until the very high notes are sounded by the hammers hitting strings that are very short and thin.  This demonstrates acoustic law.  Low notes are sounded by a larger vibrating mass than high notes.

In the bottom part of a singer's range the vocal folds are thick and long.  As the singer moves up a scale the folds start to stretch and thin out a bit; this is a similar concept to a guitarist using a tuning peg to stretch the string in order to raise the pitch. In the lower and lower middle parts of the voice as the folds are in this long position, the resonance seems to travel out of the mouth while sympathetic resonance is felt in the chest of the singer.  This is why this lower part of the voice is also known as "Chest Voice."  When the singer reaches the top of the chest voice, they have three choices, only one of which is desirable in order to sing pitches which are higher.

1. The singer can continue to stretch the cords and continue to try to pull the resonance out of their mouth.  This results in a strained, yelled type of sound which is commonly known as "pulling the chest voice," or simply "pulling chest."  Over time this pulled type of production can be very irritating on the folds and can cause several types of damage to the voice.

2. The singer can allow the vocal fold adduction to stop and allow only the outer edges of the folds to vibrate. While this does reduce the vibrating mass and allows the pitch to rise, massive amounts of air rush through these "oval-form" folds causing the voice to "break" into a very breathy production, accompanied by a sudden loss in intensity.  This is known as "falsetto" or a "disconnected" sound.  This type of production is not acceptable in most types of professional singing, as it doesn't blend in quality with the low notes, and the sound has no carrying power.

3. The singer can keep the stretch and adduction of the vocal folds while at the same time allowing the vibrating length of the folds to shorten.  This is a similar concept to a guitarist fretting up the strings to raise the pitch.

This third condition also creates a split resonance feeling in the singer. Some of the resonance continues to come out of the mouth as in the chest voice, yet some of the resonance begins to rise up behind the soft palate.  This mixed resonance has the potential to have a great deal of power.  This is known as a "mixed voice," or simply "the mix."

The mix has the potential to sound like a belted chest voice, a strong head voice or a soft yet powerful pianissimo.  The mix is extremely versatile and very resilient.  The mix is not easy for most singers to find on their own, and it must be built very carefully.  Once a singer has built a solid mix they sound like they have one voice from the bottom to the top of their range with no apparent breaks in their voice.

There is a lot more to discuss in regards to the chest voice, the mix, the head voice and the balancing of the different bridges in the voice.  More shall be revealed!

Until next time,

Keep singing!

Guy

Voice Lessons

Breathing and Singing (For Beginners)

Very often I hear beginning singers tell me that they heard some voice teacher tell them that singing is 90% breathing, and that if you can master your breathing you can master your voice. Yet, if it were all about breathing, then we would be able to recruit the best singers from the swim team and track team; every aerobics instructor could be a diva, and yogis from all over the world would reign supreme on the operatic stage. Obviously breath control is important for singing, but it is not the panacea it is often made out to be.

Breathing exercises are often a staple for beginners in modern vocal training methods.  Yet, I have found that it is actually a hindrance for most beginning singers to attempt to increase their lung capacity, or to learn to "support" the tone with the rib cage and abdomen as a part of their early vocal training.  What is important in the beginning is for a student to learn how to do the following two things:

1.  The student must learn how to sing through the different parts of their vocal range while maintaining a relaxed laryngeal posture. The outer, or "extrinsic" laryngeal muscles are trained to not involve themselves during the pitch-making-process.  These outer laryngeal muscles are responsible for things like swallowing, chewing and yawning, but their involvement in singing actually inhibits a free vocal tone.

2. The student must learn how to sing through the different parts of their range while maintaining a balanced ratio of air flow to vocal fold resistance.  

These skills are developed by practicing specialized exercises at a medium volume under the supervision of a well-trained instructor.  These skills enable the student to begin to free their voice and eliminate any breaks or registration events which often occur as a result of either an imbalance between air flow and cord adduction or the activation of the extrinsic laryngeal muscles.  

If the student is instructed to focus on breath support before the inner muscles of the larynx have gained strength and coordination, he or she will invariably use more air than the vocal folds can resist comfortably and the tone will either become forced (which will often also result in outer muscle activity), or the cords will lose adduction (which will result in the voice breaking into a breathy production often called "falsetto").

I'm not saying that teaching breath support is never appropriate; however I am saying that it is almost always inappropriate for a singer who has not learned the two skills I have outlined above.  Using larger amounts of air pressure will be of immense importance to a singer who has gained a certain level of mastery in maintaining a speech-level posture and who has balanced their bridges from the the bottom of their range to the top, with no apparent breaks or sudden changes in vocal quality.

The metaphor I often use is this:  Suppose you decided you wanted to build really big muscles. You found a personal trainer and showed up for your first session.  The trainer then told you to lie down on the bench and immediately started to pile a bunch of plates on the bar and said, "OK, lift!" Would this seem prudent? Of course not. A good trainer would take the empty bar and have you go through the motions of the exercise with no plates at all in order to train you in proper form.  Once your form was correct, they would add a little bit of weight onto each side of the bar.  The minute your form faltered, they would know they had added too much weight.  Of course a trainer might let an advanced lifter work with a lot of extra weight at times even if their form faltered in order to really start building some serious muscle, but only when they were absolutely certain that this advanced lifter could handle it.  

The same principle applies to singing.  Extra breath pressure and vocal fold resistance are added only after the student has demonstrated they can handle it properly.

Until next time, keep singing!

Regards,

Guy

Voice Lessons