Tag: singing lessons

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Why do I keep losing my voice?

Why Do I Keep Losing My Voice?

Most people lose their voice due to one or more of the following: abuse (e.g. shouting), overuse (e.g. too much vocal activity without rest), or misuse (e.g. unhealthy speaking habits). Identifying and adjusting these patterns is key to recovery and long-term vocal health.

“Why do I keep losing my voice?”

As well as…

  • “Why am I constantly hoarse?”
  • “I feel like I’m never getting back to full strength vocally”

The truth is, losing your voice can be caused by something very small and simple, but is a serious, serious thing whatever your job.

I meet a lot of speakers (e.g. church preachers, business-people, teachers, call-centre staff, etc) who are losing their voice on a regular basis throughout the year.

Why is this?
This is due to abuse, overuse, and/or misuse.

When we do any or all of these things we cause a swelling in the vocal cords — an edema. If we are not careful, this general swelling can become localised inflammation such as nodules… which can carry serious consequences (read more about nodules here).

The best way to tackle losing your voice (before even talking about voice therapy) is to identify where you are abusing, misusing or overusing your voice in the week.

IMPORTANT DEFINITION: A comfortable speaking volume is the volume you would use when holding a conversation with one other person, in a completely silent room. This is your voice’s natural weight and calibration showing through. Bear that in mind as we read the following:

AREA 1 – Abuse

This is often the easiest one to spot. If you spend a lot of time at football matches or clubs, then you’re going to be shouting. It only takes a few minutes of intense shouting to cause noticeable damage to your vocal cords.

Even a soft yell or aggressive speaking style used for dramatic effect can wear on your cords over time.

Mark’s Suggestion: Reduce your weekly vocal load
Look for regular events where you’re raising your voice and reduce the frequency, duration, or intensity where possible.

AREA 2 – Overuse

This one is trickier. Many people don’t realise how much they’re using their voice. You might not be shouting, but you may be speaking at length over multiple days without rest.

Mark’s Suggestion: Establish and change problematic patterns
Track when your voice starts to fatigue. Look for back-to-back vocal-heavy days and reduce usage where possible. Rest is critical.

AREA 3 – Misuse

Misuse refers to how you’re using your voice, even if the volume and duration aren’t extreme. Speaking with excess breathiness, glottal tension, or vocal fry can wear out your voice over time.

Mark’s Suggestion: Establish a base-line of your voice, and stick to it
Compare your neutral speaking voice to how you sound during work or stress. You may be deviating from healthy norms without realising it.

Summary

Question: Why do I keep losing my voice?
Answer: Abuse, overuse and misuse

Revisit your week and assess these three areas. With a few simple changes, most people see massive improvements within weeks—and lasting resilience within a few months.

Try following the above suggestions, and look after your voice — it’s the only one you’ve got!

Learn More: Related Articles

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Clever Use of Keys

Today I want to talk about the clever use of keys. For those of you who don’t know I grew up in Hong Kong. One of the things that you hear a LOT of in HK is canto-pop – i.e. cantonese pop music.

In canto-pop there is a HUGE love for softly sung ballads with lighter voices and higher pitched songs.. often CRAZY high pitched in order to get a much thinner and arguably more feminine sound even from the men.

Other countries in Asia have a very similar preference for pop music, and Korea is no different. A Korean student of mine (who has great taste in music!) brought in this prime example of more Asian lighter-voiced pop from Park Hyo Shin:

IMPORTANT: Even if (like me) you don’t speak Korean, just have a listen to the quality of the voice in the verses – notice how light and airy it is…

This is the result of intentionally picking a higher key than perhaps is vocally ideal for ease in the voice, then overly thinning the voice out in order to make it more comfortable to sing.

Over time this can be verrrry fatiguing or even damaging for the singers’ voice, and can also result in a singing voice that is drastically disparate from the singers speaking – i.e. they sound verrry different when they sing.

While there are many singers that do this, at a very basic level (to one extent or another) this does erode the conversational nature of the singer singing the song…

If singing is about moving people, maintaining a conversational spoken quality to the voice is of critical importance in achieving this… irrespective of style.

The Clever Use of Keys I Mentioned…

Here is another singer from Korea (also brought in my by Korean student) who keeps that conversational quality I mentioned above…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVLgi39b84g

Notice how he bucks the trend of the light voiced Asian pop? There is real depth and definition to his voice, and the WHOLE range is richer for it.

I would probably put money on the notion that if the other singer (Park Hyo Shin) was given the same song, he would probably choose to place it several keys higher to achieve that more thinned out sound (NOTE: I’m reliably informed Park has adjusted his sound to be more appropriate for the natural balance of his speaking voice since that era of his recording life).

By changing the tonal centre, by way of a clever use of keys, singers can not only embrace the best bits of their voice and avoid the pitfalls of any organic instrument, but also create a more conversational spoken quality to their performance… irrespective of style or genre.

Try it yourself!

Try taking a song you feel is a bit of a reach down about 3 semitones and see how it sounds in your voice. It’s not about ego or being macho, it’s about sounding the best for your voice. Remember, 3 semitones is not the magic key change number, it’s just to get you starter in experiencing a different sensation in your voice, and to realise that a clever use of keys and key-changing of your songs is a BIG factor in how good (to great!) you can sound!

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Luciano Pavarotti Caro Mio Ben

Yesterday I had a conversation with a foreign student who is currently working with me on their voice, who did not know who Pavarotti was. While this seems unthinkable to many of us here in Britain, I can completely understand how those growing up overseas may well never have heard this incredible voice.

Pavarotti was a monster vocalist, not just of his generation, but in the over-arching story of great singers of the ages. He had an incredible voice, one with great agility and range, but also power and tenderness to boot. What is important to remember is that he also had to put a lot of work into his voice… it just goes to show how even gifted singers need to work on their voice. Good can become great in this way!

Check out this beautiful piece, Luciano Pavarotti Caro Mio Ben…

Luciano Pavarotti Caro Mio Ben

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Quickest Route to Your Goal

Want to find the Quickest Route to Your Goal? Let’s get a plan together first

I attended the National Entrepreneur’s Convention at the end of this week, and it was jam-packed full of stuff to make your head hurt and your business grow. I love what I do, and I’m always looking for ways to make it better. One of the things that was discussed was ‘quickest routes’ or rather is this ‘the quickest route to your goal’.

In business the goal is to do stuff better to make money, but the key to this is to find what people REALLY want and give it to them – better, bigger, and faster. And you can apply this in your work as an artist or songwriter, hell, even musicians can learn from this!

Here’s a key phrase for you that has been in billboards everywhere this summer promoting educational institutions.

A dream without a plan is just a wish.

When someone starts up a company, the successful ones do so having already defined where they want their business to be in the long term. They then work backwards and work out what steps need to be taken to get to where they want to be. Not only that, but the goal is to engineer it so that each step isn’t immensely difficult, and so that each step takes them the QUICKEST possible route to their goal, step by step.

A key thing that comes out of this principle is:

A person without an ongoing plan is just playing at running their own business.

And in our world of music, I would say this:

An artist or songwriter without an ongoing plan is just playing at being an artist or songwriter.

Any success is hit or miss, and unfixable failure is rife. They don’t learn or grow from their mistakes, quite frankly because they often don’t know they are making them. They think that ‘working hard and hoping for the best’ is … well…. the best they can hope for.

What utter nonsense.

Wherever you are, whatever your skills, whatever your dreams. You NEED a concrete plan. This gives you a scalpel to cut away the nonsense that is encumbering you, enables you to say ‘yes’ to the right things, ‘no’ to the wrong things, and get up and move forward again in the wake of failure. It really is your most powerful tool, knowing what your goal is. Without it, you have no destination, and (therefore), no direction (i.e. you’ll be going nowhere fast without one!).

You need to sit down and work out what you think success needs to be for you… because it’s this that will nail down what you really want from your artistry.

What happens once you understand your goal?

Once you define and understand your goal, you can break that (perhaps) seemingly impossible journey into achievable progressive steps. From there, you can identify what step 1 is. And with every step you should be asking myself – ‘is this the quickest route to your goal?’ – what one step will take the minimum amount of effort for maximum gain? step 1 should to be that simple step, but that takes you the furthest distance from step 0 (i.e. nowhere!) towards your goal.

What is the quickest route to your goal? Only you can tell (though give me a shout if you think I can help – I do this pretty often!), but you need to understand your goal before you can craft a plan! But always ask yourself:

So ask yourself, what is the quickest route to my goal?

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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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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.

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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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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.

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