Don't like your voice? Let’s Improve it!
Singing is pretty amazing. Who doesn’t want to learn to sing better, right? I’m assuming most of you reading this article are looking for advice on how to sing better. Today I want to take some time to talk about the importance of the approach you take in learning to sing.
We live in a fast-paced world. With ever evolving technology at our fingertips, instant gratification is the norm. Mastering any instrument, especially the voice, is not something that happens overnight. However, unfortunately I see many young students exhibit frustration when they can’t belt like Beyoncé after their first voice lesson.
I’m sure many of you are familiar with the term “muscle memory”. Contrary to what the name suggests, our muscles aren’t remembering whatever tasks we are working on, but our brain is. Through repetition, our brain remembers certain tasks and sends signals to our muscles. As I am typing this article, my fingers are clicking away at the keyboard, and I am not thinking about where the different keys are. Because I have typed so much, I can now execute that task on a completely subconscious level. That is an example of muscle memory. I’m sure you can think of many examples of times when you practiced something over and over until it became easier. That is how you learned to walk and talk as a baby!
As our vocal cords are comprised of muscle, obviously muscle memory comes into play when learning how to sing. This is why you should be practicing your vocal exercises 5-6 times a week. The exercises that your teacher gives you are most likely repetitive exercises up and down a scale that are designed to be practiced frequently for the best results. After you practice these vocal coordinations over and over, they will become easier. I will go back to the example of walking. When you were a baby, you really had to concentrate on walking, but now the muscle memory has taken over, and you walk without thought.
One of the hardest things to change is bad muscle memory. A lot of singers have been practicing bad habits, whether from singing a lot without instruction, or from poor instruction. Perhaps the wrong muscles are firing when they are singing. Oftentimes, singers are engaging their jaw and neck muscles unnecessarily. To correct this, the bad muscle memory must be undone before the new can be taught. This can be a frustrating process, but consistent practice can most definitely change these habits.
This is where patience comes into play. Learning how to sing is not something you can expect to master in a few lessons. I have been singing my whole life, and am still learning and improving all the time. Besides the fact that muscle memory takes time, your voice is fragile. You can’t practice for hours on end like you can with other musical instruments. The voice can only do so much.
To study singing is an enormously gratifying experience, and one that can change you in more ways than you can imagine. However, you must be serious about your studies if you expect to see results. Consistent practice is key, and you must be gentle with yourself. As in any journey, there will be great moments, and moments of frustration. You must know that it is all part of the process. You should approach each lesson and practice session with focus, enthusiasm, and patience. You should be willing to take risks and fall flat on your face. Most importantly, you should continuously remind yourself that it is a process. Enjoy the journey!
How to control the Tension
Tongue tension is the enemy of many singers. Learn a simple exercise to help you release the tongue tension and build more freedom when singing.
Do you feel heaviness while you sing? Do you feel vocally fatigued or have a sore throat after? Are you able to complete the exercises mentioned above without tongue interference? Believe it or not, a large portion of my teaching day is devoted to freeing singers of tongue tension and its undesirable effects. I'll take you through one student's first few steps toward freedom of the tongue.
A lot of the time students will admit that they’ll get frustrated and discouraged because they feel a major squeeze and/or a choking feeling on their higher pitches. Students would feel they had to push hard in order to engage a register or to hit the right note.
Especially with a beginning singer, it is often that one would judge his or her singing in terms of how they hear themselves and feel. I remember a student, not too long ago, told me that while singing she felt an overall sense of heaviness, felt tired, and getting sore. It was stealing the joy from her singing.
You could tell that this student loved to sing caused it showed, but her voice wasn't reflecting her hard work. She was pushing when transitioning registers thus, she had to push harder to sing any higher. The voice was strident and harsh above A4. She had one general loud volume in her chest and mixed-voice ranges, which ultimately led to no mixed voice at all. When singing in her head voice, she wasn't able to access it without a major squeeze.
This student's voice was being robbed by that common culprit: tongue tension. It's a tough issue to self-diagnose. Without trained eyes and ears, students will say phrases like "really feeling it" or "this song is too high for me." And it has to do with the tongue.
I could see her frustration, but I knew exactly how we would spend our session together…
First, we identified the problem. Indeed, she felt her tongue retract, or pull back into the throat. Not only that, the tongue was flat. A lot of trainers will say to bring your tongue forward. This is correct but there is more to that statement. But don’t worry, it is not going to get complicated.
To create great sound, your tongue needs to be just as released as the rest of your body while you sing. The tongue is a huge muscle, and if it’s tense or bunched up in the back, it blocks or it squeezes the tone, making it sound tight. Your tongue should slightly arch when making those consonant and vowel sounds.
We would want to form the back vowels ooh, OOh, oh, aw, and ah by arching the back of your tongue and creating very specific lip shapes. The tongue arches to its highest point on the ooh vowel and then gradually lower for OOh, oh, aw, and ah. The lips create a specific shape for the back vowels, but the shape is more open when you sing the higher notes.
To sing the ooh vowel (as in shoe and new ), allow your lips to pucker forward (that is, to move forward away from your front teeth) and to round to a small opening.
The OOh vowel (as in took, shook, and crook ) requires that your lips pucker and open just slightly farther than they do for the ooh vowel. For the oh vowel (as in go and no ), your lips round into a circle.
For the aw vowel (as in awful and slaw ), your lips are slightly rounded and open into a wider circle than the circle they make for the oh vowel.
For the ah vowel (as in father and gaga ), your lips are slightly rounded but without the protrusion that they made for the oh or aw.
For all the back vowels, the tip of the tongue continues to touch the bottom front teeth. If the back of your tongue feels tight when you make the back vowels, you’re pushing up the tongue rather than raising it. To fix this problem, allow the space in the back of your mouth and throat to release; then you can raise the back of your tongue without having to tighten the muscles. You’ll feel some movement in the muscles as you arch your tongue, but that basic movement is different from tension.
This is an exercise that I usually give my students to feel the difference of the slight lift. As this particular student slid up to the higher tone, she could feel the tongue trying to retract again. So we made an adjustment. She placed the relaxed tip of her tongue between her lips. (Think of it as a hum position with tongue showing.) Now we could really see when her tongue was trying to help her change the pitch. It took some practice, but she finally made it through the exercise without the tongue retracting.
Since this session, this singer has made tremendous improvements. She easily glides through her registers, rarely cracks, and has increased her range. Most importantly, however, is the newfound confidence she feels.
How about you? Do you feel heaviness while you sing? Are you tired or sore after? Are you able to complete the exercises mentioned above without tongue interference? If so, don’t worry! This is quite common. Just give the previous exercise a try. And depending on where you are on your vocal journey, you may want to investigate starting voice lessons. There are many great teachers out there. Find one in your area and get started.
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Until next time, Happy Singing!
Why do we Sing?
Why do we sing instead of speak? It's an honest and serious question. Why do we? We can talk for hours but when it comes to singing we only get so lucky! Well, in singing there is an emotional meaning stronger than regular speech. Embracing this fundamental fact is the joy of singing; having control and understanding of it is the challenge of all vocalists.
What is it about what you’re feeling, what you’re experiencing, what you’re listening that must be sung? Getting specific and detailed with this question in every moment of a song is sure to bring out the clarity in one’s performance like no other point of analysis can. Close friends of mine who are professional performers have shared that, due to the size of the houses they perform in front of, details like these are essential to communicating the intimate details and to share their realizations alike to their fullest potential. However, it wasn’t the idea of performing and getting people engaged that brought this question to my immediate attention. Her voice had energy and sounded smooth.
What inspired me to write this articles were my students. When they are singing a song after class they get so expressive, they are sharing their emotion, sharing how they feel. One specific example: my 11 year old student was singing "Sad Song" by We the Kings thinking and showing how she felt about her crush. When singing becomes lazy, when vocals don’t appear motivated, when catchy riffs or embellished arrangements dominate a song above its message it becomes a burdensome thing to watch or it just makes you sleepy.
We sing because we feel a relation to a song and it is easier to express when we don't have the words to describe when speaking. It is a way that we can express us without not thinking about it. This is why we sing. Singing is the extension of communicating what we want to say and feel.
What to do if you need to sing and your sick?
As a professional singer there are times when I have to perform when I have to sing. I'm sure some of you can relate. So here is a video blog that will help you if you are in that situation.
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