Mark JW Graham - Singing Lessons Nottingham

September 19, 2013December 2, 2017

Crash Course in Singing for Worship Leaders

Prompted by a discussion on Twitter with some worship leaders, I wanted to put together a short primer on WHY it’s so common for worship leaders to lose their voices, and how to avoid that… as well as making songs easier to sing for the congregation. Here are the top 3 tips to follow if you are a worship leader:

TIP #1: PUT SONGS IN HELPFUL KEYS

Don’t automatically go with the original key. Instead, do the following:

1 – Find the highest note of the song.

2 – Does the song hit that high note repeatedly / require you to sustain the note?

IF YES – Then I want you to change the key of the song so that the highest note you found is no higher than a C4 or C#4 (that’s C or C# above middle C). Note, women would be singing the octave above (i.e. C5)

IF NO – Is that high note just ONE singular high note that you touch just once, then go nowhere near again?

If so, it’s OK to put the highest note you found as high a D4.

Why?
The reason for this is because of something called ‘vocal bridges’. These are passageways in the voice that singers need to learn to navigate to pass through to higher parts of their range. They are different for men and women. No matter how skilled a singer is, it is ALWAYS more difficult to sing a song right on or around a vocal bridge than it is to sing away from a bridge. Worship leaders often put songs in keys that are NOT in helpful places relative to singers’ bridges. Therefore, to put a song in a helpful key means changing key so as to place the highest note comfortably from a vocal bridge (or bridges).

Because the location of bridges are different for men and women, there’s not really an ideal key for congregational singing of a given song. Instead, all I’ve done with the above is give some guidelines that can help you find the optimal key for a) everyone to sing in b) not strain your voice.

If you observe these rules, your congregation will love you, and your voice will feel all the better for it.

NOTE: Men, if you are thinking ‘THAT’S TOO LOW!’ – no, it’s not. If you want put songs higher than that, they need to be MUCH higher to look after male and female voices equally. So if you want it to be higher, get some lessons and improve your own voice first.

ANOTHER NOTE: Women, if you are thinking ‘THAT’S TOO HIGH!’ – no, it’s not. Women’s voices are built to sing high, and if you are struggling to hit C5/D5, you NEED to see a good voice teacher.

TIP #2: SING IN A MANNER MORE COMPARABLE TO YOUR NORMAL SPEAKING VOICE

The way you speak on a day to day basis reflects the natural calibration of your voice. No need to be ashamed of it, but recognise that this is the natural state of your voice.

Yet, many singers try to bend their voices so far away from their natural calibration that they damage their voices. For example, there are many worship leaders who sing too loud or are intentionally breathy, or sing more nasally or incredibly light relative to the natural balance of their voice. It’s not that these are stylistically wrong, but excessive singing in a fashion that is out of kilter to the natural calibration of your voice can lead to strain, fatigue, voice loss, and in extreme cases, long term vocal damage.

It’s really hard to identify this by yourself, so my suggestion is to see a voice teacher that can help with this. Alternatively, record yourself speaking the lines of a song then singing them, and listen to volume and tonal differences between the two, and perhaps ask a friend or fellow musician to comment on the differences as well. Even then it’s hard to hear it, so my final tip is….

TIP #3: REALLY, GET SOME VOICE LESSONS…

Whatever you see yourself as – singer, guitarist, keyboardist, worship leader – if you’re using your voice, it’s a tool that you need to keep in shape to be used effectively. I’m not saying that the ONLY element to being a worship leader is being a great singer, or that you even need to BE a great singer, but you ONLY stand to better your own musicality, your team’s musicality, and musical options for supporting congregational worship by improving your voice with lessons. Put a little more bluntly, how many of you advocate that your team pursue excellence, practice, get better gear, etc, yet you rarely practice or seek to fix issues in your own voice? I know I was always very quick to get another guitar or bit of gear to ‘lead worship better’, even dropping a lot of cash on equipment, but somehow I would never see the same value in getting lessons… that was a while ago and a lot has changed since then!

Even one or two can help…
You don’t even need to have loads of lessons with a teacher, but even a handful with a good teacher can REALLY help fix ongoing issues with your voice and help you to better understand this instrument you no doubt use regularly to lead worship.

I’d strongly recommend seeking out an IVA teacher in your area. A number of us are Christians and on our own worship teams, so we really do understand the pressures facing worship leaders and backing singers out there, so know that you are not alone. Feel free to post a comment on here or drop me an email and I can point you in the direction of those I’m in touch with.

September 3, 2013December 2, 2017

How to practice singing: Part 1 – The Mind-instrument connection

How to practice singing?

It’s been a while since I did a series, so here is a 3 parter to help you understand how to better work on your voice.

Every student I teach asks me how to practice singing, and which songs they should work on… and it seems quite straightforward a question, and sensible to ask such a thing. The difficulty is, the answer isn’t always helpful unless you understand how effective voice training works.

The difference between the voice and every other instrument.

There IS a big difference between the voice and every other instrument that most singers and musicians alike don’t fully appreciate.

When someone wants to take up guitar, they go and buy a guitar. When they buy that guitar, the guitar itself has already been built – it’s finished, end of. There are some adjustable elements, but the instrument itself is ready to go from day 1 to make the right sounds.

The work that a student of guitar (or piano, trumpet, any other instrument you care to name) is almost exclusively directed at establishing a mind-instrument connection, whereby their musical thoughts are translated into notes played by the instrument. They need to learn the right movements to make the instrument play the right notes in the way they desire. The instrument is not a part of our body, so we need to learn how to approach it and respect what it can do. We don’t have any similar movements in our day to day lives to map over to the way we need to approach guitar or other instruments. We are learning these from scratch to develop that mind-instrument connection.

But no work is expended by the student in order to ‘finish’ the instrument – it’s already done! If there is a problem with the instrument, the student buys a new one or finds a professional to fix the instrument. The instrument itself is already complete and (barring any modifications) the sound of the instrument is the sound of the instrument.

The voice is the opposite.

The voice, on the other hand, is NOT a finished instrument. It requires work to develop. Sure, some people have voices/instruments that sound pretty good almost from the moment they open their mouth, but EVERYONE needs to work on their voice to make it better than it already is.

With the voice – unlike guitar or other instruments – we already possess that mind-instrument connection – we use it every day and it is part of our bodies. There are no mechanical hand movements or the like that are alien to normal every day use that we must incorporate into muscle memory, but we operate the voice every day regardless of whether we are singers or not. This gives us unparalleled connection and control over our voices when compared with other instruments, even when we are unskilled singers.

But the voice as an instrument itself is not actually fully built when we start, or even as we progress as singers – it is a never ending process. The voice is an instrument formed of muscles, cartilage, and various other bodily components. The challenge lies in co-ordinating the voice efficiently for use in singing. As such, we are actually building the instrument at the same time as learning to play the instrument. We must learn to co-ordinate our vocal cords in a predictable and repeatable fashion, across a range of pitches, volumes, styles, and to be able to produce a great tone every time.

Like a master luthier making a guitar, it takes time to learn how this works, and it takes dedication to ingrain co-ordination and tone into your voice as an instrument.

So how does that affect the way we should practice?

The real question should be (in my opinion) ‘how do I effectively train my voice’, and the answer, like anything to do with muscles in your body, is with prescribed exercises. If you go to the gym and consult a personal trainer, you will be given a prescribed set of exercises based on the condition of your body when measured against your goals. You can do exercises without a personal trainer, but serious athletes and gym-rats know that only amateurs do it themselves without ever consulting a skilled personal trainer. Personal trainers know their way around different people’s bodies and how such body types will respond to particular exercises. They can help you achieve your goals often many times quicker than when a gym attendee would go by themselves.

The same truth is applicable to training your voice. You need exercises that are geared up for your voice, and you need to practice those exercises regularly. These are not just random scales to improve musicality (though these can be helpful), but are prescribed by skilled voice trainers based on the state of your voice and your desired goals. These tools act as spanners, screwdrivers and wrenches to get inside and tweak the very muscles of your instrument… to co-ordinate them better, to enable you to sing with more ease, less strain, and better tone across your range.

So when you practice, it’s important that WHAT you are practicing is leading you to a state where the condition of voice further enables you to deliver the vocal performance you are after.

If you have any questions about this, just leave a comment below and contribute! Stay tuned for part 2!

August 5, 2013December 2, 2017

U2 Gospel Choir – Rock Lead and Gospel Backing

U2? and a Gospel Choir? a U2 Gospel Choir?

I was at a training event recently, and as part of this I did some testing. Some of those tests involve teaching people I’ve NEVER met or even heard sing before, and I have 20 minutes to make them sound better in that time. Pleased to say I passed!

Another part of it is a voice test, where I basically get a voice lesson but we also focus on what’s going on in my own voice in relation to teaching as well. There’s always stuff to work on.

In this case I decided to work on U2’s ‘Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For’. This is a beautiful song – rich vocals, strong lyrics, gorgeous and powerful melody, and the arrangement is wonderful.

Afterwards I had someone who’d observed the lesson mention that U2 once did a gospel version of this song (say whaaat?!) with a proper black gospel choir – a ‘U2 Gospel Choir’ if you will!

I looked it up, and was absolutely astounded by what I heard….

Talk about merging of styles… truly, a U2 Gospel Choir!

When was the last time you sought out a song done in a merging of two or more styles? When was the last time you tried one of your favourite songs in another style? It’s sometimes tough to imagine these things, but it’s a real doorway to finding some cool sounds you would never have stumbled across otherwise… sticking songs and styles in a particle collider and seeing what comes out is a fantastic way to develop your artistry and understanding of what makes certain songs work in particular styles.

Check out the video and see what you can come up with in your own repertoire!

August 1, 2013December 2, 2017

Josh Groban – Drummer, then singer?

Josh Groban was a drummer?

So, believe it or not, I don’t get THAT much Josh Groban brought in to the teaching studio… quite surprising given how great Josh’s voice is and how popular he is.

Nevertheless! Here is a great video someone posted on a forum I’m a member of.

Turns out Josh studied with Seth Riggs, the guy who started off the technique of Speech Level Singing (the method I initially trained and Certified as a singing teacher in) and which principles underpin the IVA teaching method.

In this video, he talks about his own background, how he actually started as a drummer (YES! a DRUMMER!), how he started getting coaching with Seth, and how his first gigs were massive concerts. Crazy stories but utterly true. He’s also one of the most humble guys you’re ever going to meet.

Check it out.

For those of you who are also musicians, but perhaps feel that because you started singing AFTER getting decent on another instrument you are somehow disqualified from being classified as a true singer… or that you can never become a great singer… Josh is a living testimony this is not true.

Whatever you think is stopping you from achieving your goals, is not what’s actually stopping you. It’s you THINKING something is stopping you, that is the thing that’s really preventing your progress.

Watch the video and hear the hidden nugget in there.

July 25, 2013December 2, 2017

How to get high notes? Is your volume knocking you off balance? Demonstration courtesy of Circa Survive

How to get high notes?

This is possibly THE most common question I get asked ‘Mark, how do I get to those high notes? can you make it easy for me?’

The answer is ‘I’ll show you’ and ‘yes’, but I want to talk a little about a common culprit and little known issue that often prevents students getting there.

The Issue is often ‘Volume’

So, I often get students come in who sing waaaaay too loud… I often get get students who sing too quietly, but far and away the most common issue is singing too loudly.

Now, it is not that singing loud in itself is a bad thing, but often when singers sing verrry loudly they are knocking themselves off balance. Let me explain…

The voice is a very complicated instrument, but at it’s heart it’s a wind instrument. The sound is generated by your vocal cords, which is stirred into motion by you blowing air through them.

If you play a wind instrument or know someone who plays a wind instrument, then you or they will know that all wind instruments require a certain amount of air to ‘get going’. It’s not about having LOTS of air, nor very little air, but a decent moderate amount of air makes it the easiest way to start learning to play an instrument.

Wind instruments players will also tell you how you CAN increase the amount of air/air pressure, but it requires an increase in skill as well to control the instrument, otherwise you can lose control of pitch or the tone.

The same is true of the voice. Once you leave that comfortable ‘moderate’ amount of air flow, at a comfortable volume level, it requires skill to keep the vocal cords behaving themselves with that increased pressure. At this point, other muscles surrounding the larynx go into ‘panic’ preservation mode, and tense up to protect the larynx and the delicate muscles within the larynx… unless the skill of the singer permits the vocal cords to maintain appropriate behaviour even under that extra pressure.

Here’s an example by a band called Circa Survive. Their lead singer Anthony Green sings pretty darn high, but sometimes sounds like he’s tearing his throat apart in this electric amped environment:

ELECTRIC SONG

But in this acoustic enviroment, while he still strains, it is FAR less noticeable. By simply knocking his volume down 10-20%, he has verrry quickly entered that ‘optimal’ amount of air flow and suddenly the tension he is experiencing (and that we’re hearing) is far more manageable.

ACOUSTIC SONG

THIS is a prime example of where adding volume before the skill is there results in strain and tension. Now these guys are a great band, and I’m not trying to knock them, but the strain he is experiencing is visually and sonically evident throughout the first video.

So, if you’re finding it tough to maintain control, try knocking your volume down just 5-10%, maybe even 20% on those notes that are causing a problem, and see how that tension alleviates itself. It may not sound as strong to you, but that muscular co-ordination of your vocal cords is far more balanced… we can then build strength into that co-ordination so that it FEELS that easy, but SOUNDs absolutely massive.

It’s absolutely possible, just drop us a line to get booked in and we’ll show you how.

June 30, 2013December 2, 2017

Riffing Lesson: Natalie Weiss does Tori Kelly’s Pretty Young Thing

Riffing is something many people think is harder than it actually is. Let me illustrate…

So here is a video of the amazing American artist Tori Kelly. There is just incredible control and artistry in this video by Tori.

Check out her stuff – really fresh and inspiring!

There is a KILLER vocal riff at 2m22s, which I’ve been giving a bash and I can promise you – it’s tough! That said, it is not as difficult as it might seem once you’ve broken it down. Here’s a link to a great singer Natalie Weiss Breaking Down This Riff – she was even teaching at a training conference I went to back in August 2013!

There are a great many things we all think are very difficult, but actually, EVERYTHING is difficult… until we’ve done it so many times that it becomes easy. Not only that, but sometimes it just takes a different perspective and simpler approach to make even the most seemingly-complex issue become pretty straightforward to solve.

With that in mind, if you want to start learning to riff, and learn the riff she pulls off at 2m22s, then check out this awesome video from Natalie Weiss from ‘Breaking Down The Riffs’

See? It might sound crazy but if you take it slow and break it down, it’s actually not as insurmountable as it first seemed.

So do me (and you!) a favour – ask yourself – what was the last thing you decided you COULDN’T do vocally? Is it too fast? Too high? Too low? Once you break it down, you may start to see in-roads to help you tackle the issue you’re struggling with. Honestly, all you need to start moving towards doing the very thing you’re scared of is adopting a different perspective and utilising the right tools.