Category: Voice Science Explained

Unlock the Science Behind Your Singing Voice

Dive into the mechanics of vocal production—from vocal fold vibration and resonance to acoustic formants and register shifts.

This section demystifies how your voice works using clear, accessible explanations. These are all rooted in science and teaching experience.

Whether you’re exploring vocal registers, or learning how sound is shaped in your body, these articles blend theory and practice to help you sing smarter.

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The Power of Singing With Simplicity

I want to talk to you today about singing with simplicity.

I was chatting with another vocal coach this week about what fires them up, musically and vocally speaking. This coach (female) is massively into RnB, soul, etc. THAT’S their bag. People should be going to them, not necessarily to polish their technique on a foundational level, but because this coach gets most fired up about styling the voice in the way that they & their students want.

This is awesome. I love this. It shows an understanding of who they are, and (most importantly) WHY they do what they do.

And it got me thinking, at least from a style point of view, why do I do what I do? Musically and vocally.

Well, once about a time, I was a bassist and guitarist, and I was heavily into jazz, some of it fairly advanced. I got stuck into virtuoso musicians and, in trying to cop what they were doing, I went out and learned how to do some pretty darn complicated things. I loved it… or at least, I think I loved it… truth be told, I can’t really remember whether I ACTUALLY loved the sounds I was making – i.e. I was making sounds that I genuinely thought sounded good – or whether I loved the feeling of doing something complicated – i.e. I was making sounds that I thought sounded impressive.

And it’s that question that’s driven me over the last few years. Am I doing something because it SOUNDS good, or because I think it’s impressive? Singing with simplicity forces you to confront that question head on.

Don’t get me wrong, the two are not mutually exclusive… but it’s an interesting question isn’t it?

And when you drill down into it, there’s also a fundamental difference in what each says about you. Choosing to do something because it sounds good is about delivering OTHERS a great sound, but doing something because it’s impressive says more about your need to impress others – again, not that either are necessarily mutually exclusive or that impressing others is a bad thing, but these are definitely some powerful thought experiments for musicians to play with, and these are the outcomes I’ve reached over the years

So where does that leave me with my voice and my kind of music?

Well, the realisation that simplicity and quality go hand in hand has been huge – singing with simplicity is the crystallisation of this. It’s made me realise there is real power in simplicity. Immense power, in fact. Just singing the melody (like my blog article ‘The importance of singing the damn melody’) and committing 100% to delivering it beautifully is HUGE. It can raise the hairs on the back of people’s necks without ever breaking a sweat, and without having to do insane vocal acrobatics.

In short, I’m a big believer that if your technique is solid (and I mean REALLY solid), utilisation of range, riffs, power, etc, they all get recruited pretty naturally as a way to support the quality of your voice. I’m not even saying “sound good first, style second”, I’d go so far as to say “sound good first, and you will FIND your style through that”… in essence, style becomes a natural by-product and outworking of great technique.

This is not to say that other teachers who start with style are necessarily wrong (though there are definitely coaches out there who ONLY know how to style, and not to train a voice), nor that style should never be looked at directly/explicitly… rather, that the above thought experiments and my own personality have led me to the working conclusion that simplicity is incredibly powerful, and that this musically trumps complexity every time.

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Can vocal technique fix laryngitis?

Or a sore throat? Or other vocal issues?

Laryngitis is an inflammation of the larynx, usually caused by a viral infection, but sometimes has a bacterial source. The vocal cords are typically swollen and irritated, leading to hoarseness, partial or even complete voice loss depending on the severity of the laryngitis. It typically takes around a week to clear, sometimes a little sooner, but often takes a little longer.

As a vocal coach and singer, to contract laryngitis is not good. It not only means sessions with clients need to be arranged, but a great source of joy is basically off-limits to permit speedy recovery. If you’ve ever had issues like this, you’ll know how frustrating it can be.

Your instrument is essentially broken for a period of time, and returning to it too soon can result in prolonging the issue, or even causing some harm to it outside of the laryngitis-related swelling.

Now, with that out of the way, time to answer the question:

Can vocal technique fix laryngitis?

In a word, no.

BUT!! It can do amazing things in the recovery – let me explain.

In my experience of working with singers as they are getting over a bug, whether laryngitis or something else, a working knowledge of the state of their recovery can help a HUGE amount.

TESTING THE CONDITION
Firstly, we can test the extent of the swelling during laryngitis (or any other vocal trauma/illness) using simple tests. Swelling means it’s hard for the vocal cords to adduct and perform as they normally would. This normally causes excess air to bleed through, and head voice co-ordination to be hard to access without force, or even inaccessible. Trying to sing a simple melody in the head register (e.g. happy birthday as lightly as possible) tends to indicate whether any work can be done on the voice, or whether it needs to be a day of vocal rest. It’s important to note that sometimes this test is passed, but rest is still necessary.

DURING THE ILLNESS/ISSUE
Often the very swelling of the vocal cords causes the condition to last longer than the initial condition would suggest. Why? The extra thickness in the cords tends to result in a lower pitch of vibration for the person’s voice. Even with limited speaking/singing/talking, this can really grate on the person’s voice even during recovery.

This is where specific applied use of exercises can be immensely helpful. This is NOT something that an inexperienced person can do, it does require training and time spent regularly working with voices.

In a nutshell, the way that functional voice exercises work is to get the operational muscles of the larynx to co-operate correctly with one another. Specific stretching exercises done lightly and in an appropriate range/direction can help to *lift* the voice out of the heavy area it has been left to sit in. While this does not *fix* the condition (laryngitis, nodule recovery, etc), in my experience it DOES serve to neutralise the day-to-day symptoms of those conditions. This can aid in the speed of recovery, and in the cases of singers with bad habits that caused the issue, help them to form new good habits during recovery so that they do not return to that state so readily in the future.

So why did I ask whether vocal technique could fix laryngitis, if the answer is ‘no’?

Well, in short, while it can’t fix it – physical and vocal rest, staying hydrated and keeping energy levels up (like recovery for any illness) is best – the manner in which good functional vocal exercises work can aid massively, both in the diagnosis, and also in the recovery process.

Learn More: Related Articles

If you want to learn more about vocal technique and great singing, you may enjoy these related articles:
The Difference between Amateurs and Pros
The problem with trying to teach voice using ONLY voice science
Vocal Pedagogy: Past, present and future
Singers: The Difference Between Vocalists and Performers
Vocal Tessitura: What is it?
What is vocal fach?
The Key to Vocal Consistency

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Formants In Singing – What on earth are they?

So, let’s talk about Formants in Singing…

While I’ve taken a break from coaching and working on my own voice in general over the Christmas holiday (boy was that a good rest!), I’ve been doing quite a bit of reading on formants in singing. If any of you have any interest in voice science, I can thoroughly recommend Kenneth W. Bozeman’s ‘Practical Vocal Acoustics’. This is a helpful book covering the science of the voice from the perspective of the TEACHER and the singer, rather than purely from a voice scientist’s perspective. It’s this book that I’ll be drawing on for today’s explanation.

One of the things that keeps cropping up in my ol’ noggin is how critical the first bridge is… why? Because it’s crossing this portion of the voice that enables access to the rest of the voice… therefore, pretty important!

For many of us, we may accept that there IS this magical mysterious thing called a “bridge” or “passagi”, or as Kenneth W. Bozeman puts it, “where the voice turns over”… but…

What exactly is the first bridge?

Let’s discuss this. To do that we need to do a very quick (and very coarse) anatomy lesson.

The voice as an instrument consists of two parts:

1) the vocal cords; and

2) the vocal tract (the airway tube between your vocal cords and your lips)

The vocal cords

The vocal cords generate sound (acting as a source of sound), the vocal tract shapes the sound (filter). From here on in, please do me a favour – think of the vocal tract like a plastic water bottle, the squishable kind you can buy from any corner store.

The vocal tract

Have you ever blown across the top of a bottle that isn’t completely full? Have you ever noticed that the bottle has a particular pitch that it seems to generate? This is called resonance. Empty volumes (like plastic bottles) have distinct frequencies that they vibrate at when excited (e.g. by blowing across the top of it). You can spot the same effect by banging the side of a long cardboard poster tube and notice the pitch of the noise it emits, or even by humming down the length of that tube. These pitches are referred to as “formants”, and are a by-product of the fact that empty volumes exhibit resonance at particular frequencies.

NOTE: You don’t need to remember all this per se, I merely mention it so you respect the idea that empty volumes have an associated pitch they like to vibrate it, and that these pitches are called formants.

Now, let’s continue the analogy. If you change the shape of the empty volume inside the bottle (e.g. by squeezing it or adding some water in/taking some water out), then blowing across it, the associated pitches it wants to vibrate it (the formants) will have changed. The same effect can be achieved by cutting that long cardboard poster tube to a different length, then banging it again. The change in shape affects the resonance, which in turn affects the formants.

HALFWAY SUMMARY:
– The vocal cords generate specific frequencies (the singer’s pitch)
– The vocal tract resonates at specific frequencies (the formant(s) of the instrument)

In short, despite the chief difference where the cords generate the frequencies whilst the tract doesn’t actually generate those frequencies, both the vocal cords and the vocal tract possess their own particular sets of frequencies that are associated with them.

It’s the interaction between these two sets of specific frequencies that is an important phenomenon for singing.

Here’s the low-down…

The first bridge occurs when a certain frequency generated by the vocal cords happens to pass through a certain corresponding frequency of the vocal tract (a specific formant)*.

As you can see, this makes the whole concept of the first bridge *relatively* straight-forward to understand, but also results in the realisation that it’s a REEEEEEALLY complicated thing to get sorted in singers. If the first bridge happens as two frequencies cross each other, then what happens if they both start changing together? What happens if one suddenly changes during the process?

It’s a complicated system… it’s dependent on the pitch/frequency of the voice, the pitch that the vocal tract wants to vibrate it, which in turn is dependent on the shape of the vocal tract, but is also affected by the volume of the singer (as this affects excitation of the vocal tract).

*Deep breath*

Don’t panic.

This is all completely trainable, and completely manageable… but it takes more than just good exercises. It requires (in my opinion) a structured and logical approach to applying those exercises, so that singers are not constantly hyper-aware of bridges and essentially trying to control a million things at once all whilst trying to sing with emotion, but instead builds the required co-ordination into muscle memory, to thereby make easy connected singing automatic.

So… now you know where the first bridge comes from… What’s stopping you?

* – Specifically, when the second harmonic (H2) generated by the vocal cords passes through the first formant (F1) of the vocal tract. You DON’T need to remember this to be a great singer.

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Mix Voice Exercises – The Texture of Chest and Head

One of the things I’m asked a lot is how mix voice works, and what mix voice exercises people can do to improve their voice. It’s hard to describe, it’s far easier to demonstrate… but while demonstration makes people go ‘ahh, that’s how it sounds’, it doesn’t go quite far enough to explaining what they are trying to achieve in their own voice on a level other than ‘well, it’s a blend of the two’.

In this vocal technique and vocal registration article, I wanted to talk a bit more about the nature of the blend and the balance of that mix. I also want to talk about some mix voice exercises that can help with this.

And I’m going to do that by referring to what I’ve been discussing as quality or ‘texture’ of the two respective registers of the voice.

Head Voice

This is regularly step 1 in introducing people to mix, generally because many don’t quite grasp what their head voice is or sounds like. In isolation, it’s a light, bright, vibrant sound, but not necessarily much to write home about (specifically in isolation). Particularly for chestier singers, this is a key introduction to ‘meet your head voice, this is how it sounds’.

We then progress them from working almost exclusively in chest voice to introducing a little bit more of that ‘texture’ of head voice into their voice. This extends range and adds a wonderful sheen (at the very least) to the top of chest voice as that light bright sound when mixed in with the quality of chest voice gives that wonderful balance.

Chest Voice

An under-discussed topic is the quality or texture of chest voice. Sure, for light-chested singers, we spend time establishing chest voice, but rarely are we actively LISTENING to the quality that chest voice brings. To my ears, chest voice in isolation is very raw, almost reminiscent (to my ears and brain) of velcro coming apart, at least when done to an extreme.

But one of the issues I’ve seen with many mix-voice specific techniques is the over-emphasis of moving towards head voice, and an absence of discussion on the fact that chest voice must also be present. This chest voice texture ALSO needs to be blended into head voice. So often we talk about bringing that head voice quality to the range we refer to as chest voice, but rarely do we talk about bringing the quality of chest voice up into the range we refer to as head voice.

And this is CRITICAL for creating a convincing and effortless mix.

The Blend of The Two

Once you start identifying those two textures of chest voice and head voice, and thinking about whether the two are present in appropriate amounts, it allows the following to occur in singers who are already mixing, but could be strengthening and balancing their mix better:

Singers who sing with an overly weighty mix suddenly start to recognise they are not ushering in sufficient head voice quality into their voice, and adjust this accordingly with mix voice exercises.

Singers who sing with an overly light mix suddenly start to recognise they are not maintaining sufficient quality of chest voice in their voice, and can begin to adjust this accordingly.

It should be stated that this is not a quick-fix. It’s not a *trick* or a silver-bullet mix voice exercise that can suddenly fix someone’s voice, it’s more of a mental concept that can allow singers to recognise the importance of allowing the texture of BOTH registers of their voice to be present in all areas of their range. I’ve found it tremendously effective in my own voice, as well as in my students’ voices. Remember, your mix needs BOTH chest voice and head voice present in appropriate amounts to constitute a strong sound.

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Why Does My Singing Voice Sound Bad?

While I am never explicitly asked ‘why does my singing voice sound bad?‘, as a coach and a singer, I KNOW that this is the often unspoken question that many people ask.

Usually, what I get is students telling me what they’d like to improve about their voice (a far more constructive way to go!). From there, the logical question that gets asked either verbally or internally once they start to experience those desired changes is no longer ‘why does my singing voice sound bad?‘, but ‘how long will this take?‘.

And there is no hard and fast and answer to this. The reality is that every singer and every voice is different. What will work and what is appropriate for one singer, may not be the most effective or helpful for another… and vice versa! And it’s this that I wanted to talk about today.

Instruments Vary

I was chatting with another high level vocal coach about this in a lesson I had recently, and we were talking about how certain physiological attributes (not necessarily observable from outside the body) seem to result in certain advantages and disadvantages for certain singers. As an example, this coach pointed out that there is a certain volume of space within the voice as an instrument that is referred to as the epilarynx (as I understood it, between the glottis and epiglottis) that is quite important…

NOTE: even if you’re not scientifically minded, go with me on this, trust me – the story will make sense!

When it comes to singing, the epilarynx is a fairly big factor in how voices behave and function well. It is believed that the narrower/tighter this volume becomes in a singer, the better the vocal cords tend to behave in the process of creating a powerful and connected vocal sound. As a further example, at a vocal science meet where a number of vocal coaches had their own voices scoped (i.e. a camera put down their throat to observe vocal behaviour), one of the coaches was found to have an almost UNBELIEVABLY narrow epilarynx… it was said to be so tight in it’s dimensions that they struggled to actually see the vocal cords beyond… and this coach has an incredibly powerful and well connected voice.

What the point of this story is, is to point out that whilst EVERYONE can learn to sing, some are – from at least a physics and biology perspective – gifted with an instrument that is better than others for achieving power and connection throughout their voice, right from birth. Their own biology means that they are predisposed towards having a voice what WANTS to connect itself up, that WANTS to be powerful. The physics accorded by their own biology makes it so. Now while there are many other factors at play, and training can play a role in a singer’s voice and development, we can’t ignore this as a starting point.

By extension, there must also be singers for whom their own biology makes it harder to sing with ease, connection and power from the outset, as every degree to which they vary from the functional ideal will affect their own initial ability.

But here’s the good news!

The Functional Ideal is LEARNABLE

And it’s this that we seek to address in lessons. In every students’ first lesson, we identify the tendencies of the singers (i.e. in what way do they deviate from the functional ideal, and to what degree), and then we apply appropriately designed vocalises (i.e. voice exercises prescribed based on their tendency and the degree of that tendency) in order to PHYSICALLY change the behaviour of their instrument from the ‘base’ state.

Like anyone going to the gym, despite the different body shapes we all have, we can all improve our bodies and physiologies through correctly applied exercises and training. Sometimes it takes longer depending on the starting point and the propensity for that person to take on new muscle memory, but it’s about trusting the process. However many degrees someone’s voice varies from the ideal, and however co-operative their body is about taking on this new muscle memory, these are all factors that affect the speed and degree of progress in developing a voice.

As such, regardless of someone’s vocal starting point, proper technique and appropriately applied vocalises can yield HUGE gains in their voice… it’s very much about trusting the diagnosis of the vocal tendency, and the learning process that stems therefrom.

And here is the biggest catch of all…

We don’t measure someone’s singing ability with numbers.

We don’t measure it by a standardised metric of ‘power’ vs ‘connectedness’. Sure, those things are helpful, important, and worth pursuing, but they do not define whether someone’s voice is “listenable”. All the former things are quantitative, but when it comes to music, we are into QUALITATIVE metrics, i.e. did we enjoy that piece of music? do we like what they do with their voice?

The point is this: as singers, we are into singing in order to sing songs we like better. We’re not in it for vocal olympics, vocal weightlifting, or vocal shred-competitions (though obviously that can be an enjoyable ability to show sometimes, and certainly a proud moment to enjoy as we progress)… but really, as singers we are in it in order to move people with what we do with our voices… and that’s not a game based on numbers or quantitative metrics.

Don’t be put off by what you don’t yet have… instead, be motivated by what you can achieve with work, and above all trust the learning process.

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Learn to Sing – Muscle Memory and the Experience of Singing

How do we learn to sing? Well, it comes down to Muscle Memory

Before we get to how to learn to sing, Here is a fab clip from one of my favourite movies, Inception… I’ve set it to start at the relevant bit of the clip:

Remember that explanation of the circular dream creation doodle that Leonardo DiCaprio does, as we’ll come back to it later…

Back to learning to sing

How we learn to sing is an extremely important question. Can anyone learn to sing is also one of THE most asked questions I ever deal with.

Today I want to focus on a certain aspect of that question.

I was teaching a lesson recently with a lovely singer from the local area, and the topic of conversation came around to how quickly they should expect the sound to change. They recognise that when they are in lessons the sound DRAMATICALLY changes, but when they get on stage, they felt like they had slipped back a few places – what is up with that?!

IMPORTANT NOTE:
This is a very valid question and one that needs to get asked – if you don’t feel comfortable asking your teacher why you are where you are, then there’s a problem!

In this singer’s case, he is employed to sing for approximately 8-10 hours a week, if not more. He has also been singing this much every week in the way he always has done for a couple of years at least. What this results in is a level of ingrained muscle memory that we need to strip out and overwrite with new and more *correct* muscle memory. It’s the development of new muscle memory that enables us to depart from the old ways of doing things and become consistent in the new ways of doing things – it’s how we learn.

However, when I am asked this kind of question, it shows (to me) that they need a glimpse of a DRAMATICALLY different “experience” of singing. I don’t mean that in ‘how much experience do they have of singing’, but I mean that in terms of ‘what do they physically experience whilst they are singing’… they really need to experience singing in a way that fundamentally takes them away from what they are used to feeling and hearing, and help them to witness it in a new light. I.e. not just ‘that feels different’, but to recognise how MUCH the feeling differs to their normal experience.

Now this IS what we do with every exercise with the intention of promoting new muscle memory (the only true way of ingraining new behaviour), but sometimes we need a different angle of attack.

Instead of the idea:

Develop new muscle memory –> leads to new experience of singing

We can adopt the approach of:

Give them a new experience of singing –> leads to faster development of muscle memory

It’s circular. Exactly like the analogy in Inception. One side feeds the other, which feeds the other, ad infinitum….

And THAT allows a good vocal coach to get RIGHT in the middle of the process and guide it.

I don’t believe you can skip straight to that second approach without a solid level of the first approach, as the tools are far less forgiving on a completely inexperienced or untrained voice, but sometimes what would otherwise be a “quick fix” for a song/difficult passage can provide them with a remarkably different snippet of what the future will hold when they stick at the exercises. that are creating the muscle memory.

The two synergise together in a way that is only fractionally as effective when approached separately.

OK Mark, so what are you trying to say?

I guess what I’m trying to show here is a glimpse into how we have to approach training voices. That it’s not just doing one thing over and over, and it’s not purely about the student receiving from the teacher… it’s about having a dialogue, a two-way street. About having one experience feed another, and to be able to get right into the middle of that to guide the process.

In the above case, by the student raising his concerns and questions, we were able to give him a HUGE shot in the arm for developing his voice.

On top of that, I also wish to point out that even with training it’s normal to see some disparity between what you see in lessons and what you see on stage. It takes time for that muscle memory that is oh-so-controlled in lessons, to manifest in the way you want on stage. It requires both new muscle memory, AND for your body to adopt a new experience of singing to make that the norm.

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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.

How to practice singing - the voice is different from guitar...

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!

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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
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GAkOd6vOEQ

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.

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