What is Speech-Level?

I sometimes hear people who haven't studied SLS say things like, "Speech-Level-Singing simply means singing the same way you speak; it's just bringing your chest voice up throughout your whole range." WRONG!

Let's put this myth to bed once and for all. I'll help you find your own speech level right this minute! Place your finger gently on the thyroid cartilage of your larynx. This is also known as the Adam's apple (uh, Eve's apple for women???). Now swallow. It goes up right? Now yawn. It goes down. Now simply count to five in a comfortable speaking voice. It pretty much floats in the middle? This floating area is your speech level. Now try swallowing while counting to five. I'm sure you discovered that this doesn't really work too well.

When you swallow, the larynx rises and the epiglottis closes over your wind pipe to prevent food from entering your lungs. Often what happens is that as a singer sings pitches up a scale, their larynx will rise up as well (let's save the many reasons for this for another post) and thus the sound cuts out. What we want to do is train your larynx to stay at that floating, comfortable Speech-Level throughout your whole range. This gives the voice freedom and power with no strain whatsoever.

As you rise through your range you will move out of your chest voice and into your mid range voice (mix) and up into the head voice. We will be dealing with these concepts on other posts, but just suffice it to say that singing at your speech level does not imply that you drag your speaking voice, or chest voice up; it simply means that your larynx stays at a comfortable speech level throughout your entire singing range.

See you tomorrow!
Guy
www.voice-lessons.com
www.vocal-products.com