Wednesday, June 30th, 2010
Question from Blog reader:
Chris, I am having a voice problem and need your input. I’ve been using your training CD’s for a few years now and they have helped me a lot. But, here’s my problem: When I first start a song I feel short of breath. My voice feels unstable. After a few words it gets better, but I still have a problem with my voice breaking or quivering. It’s not solid, or stable. Is this a throat problem, breathing or ??? Your comments would be greatly appreciated.
Vocal Coach Answer:
When a voice is unstable, wavering, tentative or breaks and quivers there are several possible causes. Here are some likely ones and some solutions
1. Anxiety. When you are mentally or emotionally unsure about what is going to come out when you open your mouth it can interfere with breathing, posture, diction, tone, expression . . . everything. The solution will be found in being more mechanically solid than you are anxious. In other words, having such secure technique in the posture, breathing, tone and diction that nothing can interfere. Solid muscle memory, of right techniques will be your friend every time.
2. Posture. If your posture is bent or broken it will interfere with breathing, tone and self-confidence and how the listener perceives your confidence. By lifting your arms straight up over your head you will discover your balanced posture. As you slowly bring your arms back down be sure to maintain the upright alignment. The shoulders should be completely relaxed, not pulled up or back. The feeling is one of being “athletically alert,” with a comfortably upright chest. Feel like you have a long back of neck and a shorter front of the neck. The head is back, over the shoulders, with the eyes looking straight ahead. Don’t let the chin lift for high notes or fall for low notes. Keep the head position neutral. Once you can sing your songs comfortably in this position you can look anywhere you want. Just don’t move the head to help you hit a note; it won’t.
3. Breathing. Securing good breath management will help you sing through the nervous times. The muscles will just continue to get you the right amount of breath. Not too much; not too little. Good breathing starts with good posture. A good first exercise is to get on your back, on the floor and feel what parts of the body are naturally engaged when you breathe in, and out. Then start sipping the breath in through an imaginary straw, and out on a SSSSSSS sound. After you have memorized where the breathing is naturally felt, stand, check your posture and repeat the exercise with a still chest and ribs.
4. Tone. Getting your posture and breathing more secure opens the possibility for your best vocal sound, or tone quality. The physical sensations of good tone are a relaxed throat, and lots of buzzing resonance (harmonics and overtones) vibrating through the face, mouth, sinuses and nasal passages. These are all sensations that you can physically feel, memorize and reproduce. A gentle hum will begin the sensation. Adding a chewing motion to the humming will keep the face and jaw more relaxed. And, don’t be afraid of all the vibrating you feel in the face. That’s a good sign, and means you are allowing the voice to work and not forcing it. These are aspects of your vocal sound you can “feel,” and that means you can reproduce them using muscle memory.
5. Diction. Another important area is diction, pronunciation or enunciation. It just means that the listener gets the message, not just the music. The other bonus of clear diction is this: As your own ears hear clear words coming out they tell the brain to tell the larynx to just relax and keep giving the pitch. If, on the other hand, your ears hear mumbled words they often tell the brain, and the brain (for some unknown reason) gets the larynx involved. That just leads to useless tension in the throat since the larynx can’t help diction. So, when in doubt, over-pronounce a bit so that even the least attentive listener hears your message.
So, there you have it. A systematic approach, to freeing up an unstable voice by paying attention to your POSTURE, BREATHING, TONE and DICTION. Needless to say, there’s a lot more to be said on all these topics. If you want to go deeper, with principles and exercises just go to the main site at vocalcoach.com and look for the Vocal Coach Singer package, or individual subjects by title.
If you have thoughts or comments leave them in the space below. Thanks.
Tags: breathing technique for singers, chris beatty, chris beatty vocalcoach.com, larynx, performance training, Singer, singing lessons, vocalcoach.com, voice lessons, voice training
Posted in Ask the Coach, Breathing, Choir Directors, Diction, Duets to Groups, From the Coach, Performance, Posture, Singing Subjects, Tone, Voice Fatigue and Strain, Worship Team | 2 Comments »
Monday, November 9th, 2009
As Vocal Coach moves to our new BLOG format I wanted to feature a previous article that addresses a key to being a successful singer. When you sing there needs to be a coordinated effort between a number of parts of your presentation. If not the distractions and filters between you and the listener can completely block your message from getting through.
CONSIDER THESE KEY ELEMENTS AND HOW YOU NEED TO PREPARE:
The Sound/Tone Quality
Think about it. Does the message invite a full rich, vibrant tone quality or a softer, almost airy sound? Is it a declaration or conversation? Are you testifying or asking questions? You need to answer this question then practice the various possibilities. If you can’t think of any, try listening to accomplished singers and imitate what they do for various kinds of songs. Then, begin in integrate some of these qualities into your own vocal sound. A caution: I said integrate, not copy. You still need to be you, just with more possibilities of sound.
Treatment of Diction
If you’re singing a hymn or English art song, the way you pronounce the words will be handled differently than in a worship song, or a contemporary/pop style of song. If I’m singing, “My Jesus, I Love Thee,” I’ll treat the words differently than when I sing the Broadway song, “To Dream The Impossible Dream.” If I don’t, I will be putting up walls between myself, and my audience. Again, listen to the pros, imitate and play with the different options. Build some choices into your diction options. It’s the only way to keep things real and really communicate with the listener.
Phrasing & Expression
Going back to the earlier example of the difference between “My Jesus, I Love Thee,” and “To Dream The Impossible Dream,” let’s consider phrasing and other tools of expression. To begin with, most hymns will have built-in phrases that invite breathing at certain places. And, though you may make things more interesting by stretching that a bit, you are still at least partially limited unless you are doing a real pop arrangement.
With other songs, however, you have more options as to where you might breath, pause, or bring attention to a word with more or less volume or a dramatic and sometime sudden change of tone quality. The options are many and best learned by listening to those who do it best, then imitating them to feel and hear you and your voice doing it. That’s how a singer builds a repertoire of creative options. If you have never heard and felt yourself do it, you are not likely to draw on that option any time soon, even when it would be the perfect solution.
Summary: Get inspired by those who do it well in the same way you get inspired by watching an excellent, experienced athlete. Observe, analyze, imitate and integrate. And, remember throughout that to do this safely you must maintain the foundations of posture, breathing, tone, diction and expression. It’s a lot of work . . . with a lot of rewards.
Tags: chris beatty, coaching voice, expression, performance training, vocal coach, vocal coaching
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Monday, October 26th, 2009
If An Audience Is Going To Receive Youre Message
If an audiend is going to receive your message they need to be comfortable with you. That means they need to be vulnerable, mentally available and ready to hear what you have to share.
The Areas You CAN Control
Anything you can do to help them believe you is worth doing. This can be done in the way you promote yourself, the way you look and the way you sing your message. Those are all areas you can control.
The Areas You CAN’T Control
There are other areas that you may, or may not be able to anticipate, and this means you need to be ready to make things right in real-time.
* If the listeners are tired, it’s your job to revive them. This may mean adding a song that gets them up on their feet, singing, clapping and getting some much needed oxygen. Once they’re mentally and physically refreshed you can get to your message.
* If they’re distracted, your job is to get them focused . . . on you and your message. This may take a bit of personal story telling that engages then personally. Do your homework and know what your audience it likely to be interested in. Using name/stories from their community, sports teams etc. will draw them into what you are sharing. Remember: It’s about them, not you.
* If technical issues are getting between your message and the heart of the listener you need to do something about it. If they’re cringing or leaving because the sound level is too high, or look like they’re hearing more track/band than words do what it takes to change things. When in doubt ask the audience between songs. “Is the sound a little loud?” or “Are you hearing more instruments that vocals?” Then, in your most friendly tone ask the sound person to lower the accompaniment, or overall sound level. Better to offend one sound person than several hundred in the audience. You can also have a trusted ear seated on the isle in the middle of the house who can go back and suggest some changes to the sound person. (This, of course, should be pre-arranged to avoid an awkward moment.)
Summary
Your job isn’t just to get up there, sing your songs and then sit down. You are responsible for successfully communicating your message. Do what is necessary to get that done well.
Tags: chris beatty, performance coaching, performance training, singing lessons, Vocal Coac, voice training
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