Category: 500 words or less

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30 second tip: Let the larynx rest

This should only take you 2-3 minutes to read, and only about 10-30 seconds to apply each time you use it.

What’s the problem?

When you’re singing a song and you get to that difficult passage/line, you ever noticed how it’s sometimes harder than doing that difficult passage just by itself? Or perhaps you are trying to practice that difficult passage by itself repeatedly, and the first 2-3 times are decent, but then it feels like it’s getting worse no matter what we try? We’ve all experienced this and it’s frustrating as all heck – we’re on a roll then we lose the flow, and it feels like it keeps slipping away despite repeated attempts to regain it. What gives?

Why does this happen?

No matter how skilled you are as a singer, the longer you are singing without rest (rest as short as even 10-30 seconds), the more the larynx will continue to rise, whether obviously or gradually/imperceptibly. This happens as a result of continued vocal use without a break. This compromises ease of singing, no matter what your level of technique.

The simple solution…

Give yourself 10-30 seconds rest at that point. Try to JUST rest – don’t fill that rest with speaking, singing, coughing, or even drinking excessively (a few sips will suffice).

All things being equal you should find this returns you to a better state for attempting that challenging passage. By letting the larynx (and voice as a whole) rest for even just 10-30 seconds between sets of attempts to practice a line can make the world of difference. Rest will naturally allow and encourage your larynx to drop naturally. A quick yawn can help encourage a descent of the larynx as well. Don’t just keep hammering the line, let your voice rest and as soon as you feel yourself departing from the easier state, rest it up again. If you find 30 seconds isn’t enough, give it longer – experiment!

Give it a shot next time you’re tackling a tricky passage!

Learn More: Related Articles

If you’d like to learn more about what good vocal function involves, check out these related articles:
Pursue vocal function BEFORE sound, every time
What makes a song “feel” high?
Tongue Tension: How to spot it and fix it
5 Reasons Sleep Helps Boost Your Singing
A Key to Great Singing: Hyper-function vs Relaxation

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Five Songs From This Week

Yet another instalment of the very popular ‘Five songs from this week’…

1. Rolling Down to Old Maui – The Longest Johns
One of my longer term students sings in an old folk group that sings a lot of sea shantys. This is one of their current songs and he’s working on this – reeeeally nice melody and lyrical content, have a listen.

2. Only You – Alison Moyet
Ahhh, who doesn’t love a bit of Moyet? With this particular singer, we take it a bit slower and treat it as a bit of a ballad, and it really sits beautifully in their voice.

3. Fallin – Alicia Keys
This student has worked really hard to get their vocals up to a level where they can attempt this kind of song. While we are leaving some of the riffs for now, the melody is still quite demanding even when stripped back.

4. Resurrecting – Elevation
I had a couple of church worship leaders in last week, and this was one of the songs that came up. It’s a great song lyrically for contemporary churches, but the key is a nightmare. That aside, have a listen!

5. This is the moment – Jekyll and Hyde
This was a recommendation of mine to another student who loves songs with content and meaning, and he’s taken to it rather well!

(and for an extra laugh… The Hoff takes a stab at it)

That’s it for this week folks!

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Five Songs You Should Hear – John Mayer and Bonnie Raitt

I ended up having a fairly long Facebook chat with a few students today on a variety of songs, and five songs came up that I recommended they have a listen to… and they just hadn’t heard them before! So I figured I’d share the five right here for your listening pleasure!

#1 – Bonnie Raitt – I Can’t Make You Love Me

Some of you will have seen me blog about it before, but it’s excellent and WELL worth checking out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmK1H6EXUYs

#2 – Bonnie Raitt – Thing Called Love

This one is awesome. She’s a great slide guitar player. And Bruce Hornsby is a mean accordion player.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shnHm8D-XRk

#3 – John Mayer & Keith Urban – Sweet Thing

I’m a big fan of John Mayer, not necessarily the most technical (or even safe singer, given his ongoing vocal health issues), but MAN he can sell a song like very few others.

#4 – John Mayer & Keith Urban – Til Summer Comes Around

I did this song a LOT with a client a year or two ago, and it really suited their voice. A really moody anthemic song, great melodic hooks throughout.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmvbjkH5RgI

#5 – John Mayer – Free Fallin’

Save the best til last… just an awesome tune done so well by Mr Mayer.

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Brett Domino How to Write a Hit Pop Song

Those of you who are in for lessons regularly know about my love for a songwriting guru called Ralph Murphy, but I’m also a big fan of Brett Domino and his hilarious satire on hit songwriting.

While this is not quite the same sort of intellectual level of that sort of songwriting advice, this video by Brett on ‘How to Write a Hit Pop Song’ is VERY funny.. and remarkably catchy… maybe it says something about the pop industry?

Check it out and enjoy!

Brett Domino How to Write a Hit Pop Song

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A complete artist at work – Ryan Adams Lucky Now

Quick one this time!

I was working with one of my favourite students (Mike) on some guitar-y songs, and how to meld singing and guitar playing together, and we got talking about songwriters who do this really well.

John Mayer is a great one, Chris Cornell is pretty cool too, and there many others too numerous to mention, but today I wanted to highlight Ryan Adams.

Ryan Adams

Way back in the early 00s, I remember my Mum buying a copy of ‘Easy Tiger’, one of Ryan Adams’ earlier albums… and I didn’t ‘get it’ then. I Was more interested in heavy rock and intense guitar solos (rah!) at least at that time.

But now the songwriter scene is MASSIVE. EVERYONE and their Mum is a ‘singer-songwriter’… how many of your friends have ‘singer-songwriter’ on their Twitter account?

I’m not knocking it! It’s just what’s trendy right now.

A seminal singer-songwriter

Yet, despite it being a big thing now, Ryan Adams is (IMO) the earliest example of a true singer-songwriter. Someone who wrote lots of songs (good to great songs) and performed them… and he’s still going. To me, even though I didn’t appreciate him at the time, he is one of the earliest ‘seeds’ of the singer-songwriter ‘movement’ (if you can call it that). Someone who knew what he wanted to produce, didn’t say no, didn’t give up, and kept doing what he wanted. Now loads of others are doing that it’s not quite the pioneering genre it once was (every episode of Scrubs and House ended up having a singer-songwriter song playing it out… now every mobile and energy company advert has a singer-songwriter in the background), but cast your ear back 12-13 years, and you’ll find Ryan Adams doing it all from scratch even then.

As an artist, I think Ryan Adams is the real deal. Someone who knows what he wants, and spends time developing and crafting it.

See for yourself…

Just watch this fab video of his song ‘Lucky Now’. It’s not got the most incredible vocals in the world, it’s not ear-shredding guitar, but it hangs together as a complete piece… and he sells the piece. To me, this is the sign of a complete artist, and beginning singer-songwriters could do far worse than to learn from Ryan Adams and take a leaf out of his book.

Remember to watch this version…

Ryan Adams Lucky Now

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3 Musical New Year’s Resolution

NOTE: I’ll be asking you ‘what would your 3 resolutions be?’ at the end of this post, so do have a think while you read mine, and do also leave a comment on yours below! I’d like to hear from you!

When I was at school and university, I used to love holiday times not just because they were time off from studies, but because they gave me uninterrupted time to focus on ‘woodshedding’. This is a term often used by guitarists and jazz musicians to refer to time spent locked away in (often!) a woodshed away from the world honing particular aspects of their craft.

While I won’t be doing these in a woodshed, here are 3 of my resolutions I’m working towards this year. Some people opt for more, some for less, but I feel 3 gives me enough resolutions to stand a chance of doing at least one without getting stretched too thin!

1. Get better at piano – While I play it sufficiently well enough to teach, I spend far so much time in front of a piano everyday for voice and teaching, that I am out with a vengeance to learn to play the thing properly. I will then go through every song in my repertoire that I can already perform vocally with a guitar and learn to play an equivalent version with a piano. That way if I ever am presented with guitar OR piano, I can do my entire repertoire equally well on both.

2. Reduce the amount of gear I own – I’m a true minimalist at heart, and while I love exploring new equipment and how it works for me and my sound, once I have experimented and branched out, I like to strip back to the basics. This last year I’ve started to develop more of my own sound, or rather, develop a confidence in the sound I had already started to develop, and this requires a more simplistic approach to gear (if not musically). As such, I plan to shed at least a 1/3 of the remaining gear I have.

3. Add 10-20 more songs to my repertoire – One of the problems with having come from a technical instrumentalist background is that I am quite fussy about songs. I want songs that challenge me, and that present some technical challenge to my development. Which means I find it increasingly hard to find things I want to work on as I develop and get better. This is obviously helpful in some respects, as every song I work on develops my voice such that other songs become easy and often automatic, but it does mean I struggle to find new songs to add to my repertoire. In this regard I’m going to be less picky and just find 10-20 songs to add to my repertoire over the course of this year, regardless of their difficulty, just based on whether I like them or not!

I’d also add that I will be ‘writing more songs’ as a resolution, except that this is an ongoing resolution, so it’s hardly new for this year!

What are your resolutions?

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5 Simple Tips to Bolster Your Performances

I was recently at a training event, and I got to sit in on a masterclass with a Master Teacher of IVA – Spencer Welch, who can be found at www.spencerwelch.com. He spent time with a handful of performers getting them to hone their performance and practice performance techniques to further engage them with the audience. In short-hand, here are the highlights:

1) Direct complete ideas to particular sections of the audience – By dividing up the audience – however large or small – into sections, it becomes easier to address particular sections of the audience. Many people know this technique. However, many people often think that they need to frantically look from place to place… instead, try addressing lines of the song that reflect a complete individual idea to one section, then for the next idea pick another section to address that idea to. This makes people feel like you are actually talking to them, telling them something, inviting them in to a conversation with you.

2) Change hands that you use to hold the microphone – Many times, people stand still with their hands by their side, unable to move or feel relaxed, and are rigid for the whole performance. There are also other performers who strut about stage frantically throughout the performance. Both become tiresome, because there is no variety. Actually, the slightest bit of change can introduce needed variety. As simple as changing hands that you use to hold the microphone can make a huge difference. Just remember to do this between complete ideas in the song, otherwise it can feel rehearsed rather than natural.

3) Don’t leave your microphone stand centre stage – Center-stage is the power position for the whole performance. Don’t leave your microphone hogging that power position. You can move it out of the way, drag it round with you, but YOU are the performer – you are who people are there to see, not your mic stand.

4) Don’t always stand right up to the microphone – If you see someone standing with their lips touching a microphone, your natural expectation is that they are about to start singing any second now. Even a few seconds delay between being right up against the microphone and starting to sing can leave an audience feeling confused about what is meant to be happening. If you are not going to be singing for a period of time, try backing away from the microphone until you are ready to sing again – this makes it abundantly clear to the audience what is going on and helps them to feel comfortable during your performance.

5) Practice songs with these moves – Spencer pointed out that performances are over 50% visual – how you look, how you move, how you appear can make or break a performance. The way you move about stage, how natural or UN-natural you look can win over or alienate an audience. We spend so much time honing our ability on voice, guitar, piano, other instruments, etc, but how often do we practice stage-craft? How often do we work through a song and think ‘how should this LOOK to the audience?’ The best bit of advice Spencer gave on top of all these tips, is to practice them in front a mirror and get used to them until they feel and look natural.

I’ll confess and say this post is a little over 500 words, but it’s such helpful advice to practice and get better at. It really does alleviate nerves and improve your performance. Can’t recommend these tips enough!

Learn More: Related Articles

If you want to learn more about performing and improving your own performances you may enjoy these related articles:
Performance Anxiety: What is it, where does it come from, what can we do about it
Performance Workshop with Rhonda Carlson: Part 1
Performance Workshop with Rhonda Carlson: Part 2
Performance Workshop with Rhonda Carlson: Part 3
Ease, Strain, Time to think: Improve your performances easily
Pacing yourself: Micro- and macro- rests in songs and sets

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500 words or less: Stuck in a rut

Stuck in a musical rut?

Are you stuck in a rut? Just rehashing the same stuff over and over? Maybe it’s singing, guitar, piano, bass, whatever, you just feel like you are going over the same ground again and again…

Well, here’s my top tip for getting out of a rut:

Listen to something you’ve never listened to before

Why? Let me tell you why…

Something from nothing.

Music is a wonderful thing. It can take so many different forms, encompass so many different sounds, be expressed in so many different styles, be incredibly complex or ridiculously simple, pieces can be hours long or less than a minute. It can be created from nothing, and can feel like it becomes everything in a given moment. It really is a beautiful thing.

Those who are able to make their living from music are truly blessed. They get to make music and play around with it every day.

One thing that surprises me about a select number of musicians, professional and amateur alike, is their propensity to listen to just ONE style of music to the exclusion of all others. They might profess that they want to be the best at that one style, to shine out above everyone else operating in that genre… and I say that they are shooting themselves in the foot.

Products of our environment

We are all products of what we surround ourselves with. People, television, music, etc. This is reflected in our personalities and in our music. If all we do is listen to one particular style of music, then we will only regurgitate combinations of music that already exists. There is nothing wrong with listening to music we love, nothing wrong at all. But if all we do is indulge in the SAME stuff over and over, how can we ever expect to produce anything OTHER than the stuff we’re indulging in?

However, if we immerse ourselves in as many different styles of music as we can, we can take in new ideas, play around with undiscovered – or at least underutilised – combinations of sounds, and we can still further identify things we DON’T like and why… which means we can become more discerning with the music we make. All music is useful in some way. If you like it, learn how to play it, ask yourself why you like it. if you don’t like it, maybe learn how to play it, and ask yourself why you don’t like it. By doing this, you can expand your musical horizons and creativity. Why would you consciously limit yourself?

You want to get out of a rut? Ask someone to lend you the most quirky thing in their music collection, and listen to whole album. Ask yourself what did you like and why, and what didn’t you like and why. Try and incorporate ideas from this quirky stuff, and expand your horizons. If you’re a rocker, get some jazz. You a jazzer, get some country. You a bluegrass artist, get some opera in your ears…

Listen to something new today.

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