zip
New member
Ok guys, I am not a teacher for a reason.
The first installment.
Vocal training for mid to low male vocals.
Well where to start? All of the things I will try to spell out for you have to be kept in mind at the same time. That is why practice is key. If you play an instrument at the same time practice becomes even more key. The fact is though that if you are on stage even just singing it becomes easy to loose your grip on vocals. Vocals are very emotional and that makes them harder to master for all environments.
A quick preface: The purpose of classical style vocal training (I don't mean that as in for classical music) is to achieve an even timbre (tone of voice, not pitch) Through out your vocal range. This has other good side effect like, longevity of voice, less strain on your muscles ect.
OK here goes. Remember these are in no order of importance.
Breathing in: We'll start here. When you breathe in throw your stomach out. You can get 20-40% more air in your lungs. You do not want to be running out of air at the end of a long vocal line. One could get away with out doing this a lot of the time but it also effects the quality of your singing and is best made a habit.
Breathe in every time you get the chance. Keep your long full. Don't breath in between every other word but look for and take opportunities when you can. If you are running out of breath at some point in a song, You are missing an opportunity. The longer you wait to take a breath the longer it takes to take that breath. You may be able to breath in in a tight spot when your lungs are half full where as if your lungs were empty you would not have enough time to get enough air to perform well. You have to learn every song. In some if not most or all vocal sheet music it will tell you when to breathe.
Singing out: always support your singing from the diaphragm. Put your hand on your stomach to feel what is going on down there. Hey now I said stomach...If that helped we'd all be awsome singers...... Just joking You should have a little bit of a tight feeling as you sing out and slightly before. I earlier mentioned throwing your stomach out on inhale. This is where it will do you some good. When your lungs are loaded and pressure is applied to the diaphragm you will get nice even air pressure when singing.
Think of your lungs as a bagpipe bag being squeezed by your diaphragm. Always filling before empty.
Not having enough air tends to make you clench your throat. Clenching your throat thrashes your throat and sends you in to a tailspin. You can not compensate for lung pressure by clenching your throat. It is however a natural reflex reaction.
Head position: When singing, keep your chin up. It should be about 1 inch above looking straight out, or if you look up at a 30-45 deg. Angle. This help open your throat and aids breathing.
You do not have to look like lemmy from Motor Head, but see where you are comfortable.
Adams apple: This is probably the hardest part to master and the most important. As you go up in notation the natural reflex is for your adams apple / larynx to move upward in your throat. This leads to the clenching of your air passage and a definite change in timbre. Put your hand on your throat and sing progressively hirer notes. Move up to the top of your range. Chances are your adams apple moved up and up and up.
OK now put your hand on your throat and yawn. Feel your larynx drop. There at the bottom is where it should be when you are singing. Once again this is tough to master. One thing that helps is to inhale like you are about to yawn when you are singing. I know this goes back to breathing, but had I said it then it would have been out of context. The best way to practice this technique is in front of a mirror. We will go more into practice later.
Vocal focus: When singing you need to focus the vibrations of sound waves leaving your throat. This is what I mean. Hum a low note, feel the vibrations in your mouth? Now try to focus the vibrations on the roof of your mouth. OK now see if you can move the vibrations (focus) from the back of the roof of your mouth and back. (This is going somewhere). In general most of the time the focus should be at the back of the roof of your mouth. Put your hand on the top of your head and with a very comfortable low note to hum, move the focus of the vibrations back to front on the roof of your mouth. Toward the back there should be an area that vibrates the top of your head more than other areas. That is a good indication of where your primary focus point should be.
As you move up in scale you can move the focus out toward your teeth more. Moving up in scale also requires more air pressure provided by your diaphragm (not your throat).
Air pressure: You have to support your notes. The higher the note the more work your diaphragm should be doing. Higher notes need more support. I do not mean you have to adjust your diaphragm for air pressure & flow with every note, but when you go high added effort is needed with your diaphragm (not your throat)
Vowels: This one is hard to explain. There are no bright vowels in singing. To illustrate, say the word "me". Hear the eyyyy sound. The brightness of vowels is out of context with the rest of the letters in the alphabet.
Try this, say A E I O U normally, now say it touching the tip of your tongue to the roof of your mouth about mid way between your teeth and the back.. This darkens your vowels making them closer to the concenents. I will try to give a chart for the difference but I think I will have to make a sound bite.
A = ehh E = same but darker (almost a dark A sound) I = ahhh O = same but darker U = ooooo (as in gross oooo)
I will find a place to post sound bites for follow up if anyone wants.
Word stretching: This is easy. Always stretch words on a vowel. Don't try to stretch M's and H's or T's or B's. keep all of your stretching with in the vowels in a wooooooooooooooooord. Get itļ
Practice: You are best to practice in front of a mirror. You should practice a half an hour a day at least .
Ok from hear I need to put a mp3 together and find a place to post it to better illustrate how to practice and the vowel sounds. As well as some other things.
*** with out review by a professional it is hard to excel at vocal training. On of the great things about classes in front of a trainer is you really do not want to come back next week still sucking. These techniques take time to master and you will doubt weather you are doing them right. For these reasons I would say live instruction is better by quite a bit.
If you master holding down your larynx you will be way ahead though.
I would post more but it is a Monday.
Later
F.S.
Last edited by Freudian Slip on 02-05-2002 at 00:36
The first installment.
Vocal training for mid to low male vocals.
Well where to start? All of the things I will try to spell out for you have to be kept in mind at the same time. That is why practice is key. If you play an instrument at the same time practice becomes even more key. The fact is though that if you are on stage even just singing it becomes easy to loose your grip on vocals. Vocals are very emotional and that makes them harder to master for all environments.
A quick preface: The purpose of classical style vocal training (I don't mean that as in for classical music) is to achieve an even timbre (tone of voice, not pitch) Through out your vocal range. This has other good side effect like, longevity of voice, less strain on your muscles ect.
OK here goes. Remember these are in no order of importance.
Breathing in: We'll start here. When you breathe in throw your stomach out. You can get 20-40% more air in your lungs. You do not want to be running out of air at the end of a long vocal line. One could get away with out doing this a lot of the time but it also effects the quality of your singing and is best made a habit.
Breathe in every time you get the chance. Keep your long full. Don't breath in between every other word but look for and take opportunities when you can. If you are running out of breath at some point in a song, You are missing an opportunity. The longer you wait to take a breath the longer it takes to take that breath. You may be able to breath in in a tight spot when your lungs are half full where as if your lungs were empty you would not have enough time to get enough air to perform well. You have to learn every song. In some if not most or all vocal sheet music it will tell you when to breathe.
Singing out: always support your singing from the diaphragm. Put your hand on your stomach to feel what is going on down there. Hey now I said stomach...If that helped we'd all be awsome singers...... Just joking You should have a little bit of a tight feeling as you sing out and slightly before. I earlier mentioned throwing your stomach out on inhale. This is where it will do you some good. When your lungs are loaded and pressure is applied to the diaphragm you will get nice even air pressure when singing.
Think of your lungs as a bagpipe bag being squeezed by your diaphragm. Always filling before empty.
Not having enough air tends to make you clench your throat. Clenching your throat thrashes your throat and sends you in to a tailspin. You can not compensate for lung pressure by clenching your throat. It is however a natural reflex reaction.
Head position: When singing, keep your chin up. It should be about 1 inch above looking straight out, or if you look up at a 30-45 deg. Angle. This help open your throat and aids breathing.
You do not have to look like lemmy from Motor Head, but see where you are comfortable.
Adams apple: This is probably the hardest part to master and the most important. As you go up in notation the natural reflex is for your adams apple / larynx to move upward in your throat. This leads to the clenching of your air passage and a definite change in timbre. Put your hand on your throat and sing progressively hirer notes. Move up to the top of your range. Chances are your adams apple moved up and up and up.
OK now put your hand on your throat and yawn. Feel your larynx drop. There at the bottom is where it should be when you are singing. Once again this is tough to master. One thing that helps is to inhale like you are about to yawn when you are singing. I know this goes back to breathing, but had I said it then it would have been out of context. The best way to practice this technique is in front of a mirror. We will go more into practice later.
Vocal focus: When singing you need to focus the vibrations of sound waves leaving your throat. This is what I mean. Hum a low note, feel the vibrations in your mouth? Now try to focus the vibrations on the roof of your mouth. OK now see if you can move the vibrations (focus) from the back of the roof of your mouth and back. (This is going somewhere). In general most of the time the focus should be at the back of the roof of your mouth. Put your hand on the top of your head and with a very comfortable low note to hum, move the focus of the vibrations back to front on the roof of your mouth. Toward the back there should be an area that vibrates the top of your head more than other areas. That is a good indication of where your primary focus point should be.
As you move up in scale you can move the focus out toward your teeth more. Moving up in scale also requires more air pressure provided by your diaphragm (not your throat).
Air pressure: You have to support your notes. The higher the note the more work your diaphragm should be doing. Higher notes need more support. I do not mean you have to adjust your diaphragm for air pressure & flow with every note, but when you go high added effort is needed with your diaphragm (not your throat)
Vowels: This one is hard to explain. There are no bright vowels in singing. To illustrate, say the word "me". Hear the eyyyy sound. The brightness of vowels is out of context with the rest of the letters in the alphabet.
Try this, say A E I O U normally, now say it touching the tip of your tongue to the roof of your mouth about mid way between your teeth and the back.. This darkens your vowels making them closer to the concenents. I will try to give a chart for the difference but I think I will have to make a sound bite.
A = ehh E = same but darker (almost a dark A sound) I = ahhh O = same but darker U = ooooo (as in gross oooo)
I will find a place to post sound bites for follow up if anyone wants.
Word stretching: This is easy. Always stretch words on a vowel. Don't try to stretch M's and H's or T's or B's. keep all of your stretching with in the vowels in a wooooooooooooooooord. Get itļ
Practice: You are best to practice in front of a mirror. You should practice a half an hour a day at least .
Ok from hear I need to put a mp3 together and find a place to post it to better illustrate how to practice and the vowel sounds. As well as some other things.
*** with out review by a professional it is hard to excel at vocal training. On of the great things about classes in front of a trainer is you really do not want to come back next week still sucking. These techniques take time to master and you will doubt weather you are doing them right. For these reasons I would say live instruction is better by quite a bit.
If you master holding down your larynx you will be way ahead though.
I would post more but it is a Monday.
Later
F.S.
Last edited by Freudian Slip on 02-05-2002 at 00:36