Roxanne's Vocal Tips

1. BREATHING:

The art of breathing correctly; it is a very natural thing for babies to breathe as they have not yet developed tensions and their whole torso opens up and then closes in without effort. This includes opening deep into the back as well as the stomach and sides. You will also see the breath then rise up and the head will move.  Babies breathe using their diaphragm and they keep breathing this way until they learn to sit.  In a sitting position their breathing becomes shallow but when sleeping they breathe deep into the diaphragm once again.  We as adults shallow breathe and when deep in sleep, breathe deeply into the diaphragm. This is exactly what we need to learn to develop for singing.

Exercise:  In a sitting position with feet flat on the floor, keeping shoulders relaxed and with no tension around the neck and jaw, create a space within your mouth and without making a sound take a relaxed breath in with no shoulder movement at all. 

Take the air down deeply into your diaphragm.  The movement should be “down”, “out” and “hold” (a bearing down motion) Be aware that the incoming air can open you up from within quite naturally.

Now let the air out.

Don't push it out nor carefully let it out, just let it out.

Time for discipline! Once you think you have let out ALL the air, let a bit more out and you will find there is more.

Now wait, and……. wait, and……. wait: 

When you feel that you cannot hold your breath any longer, then and only then RECEIVE the air. Don't "suck" it in!  As the air comes in, make sure you have a big space inside your mouth. 

Keep the back of your tongue down and your soft palate up.  Observe the feeling you have when you have created the correct opening inside your mouth. Do you feel your body automatically fill to the back, front, sides and very deep down. 

Repeat this 2-3 times then have a rest and breathe calmly for a minute or so and try again.  (You will be receiving quite a bit of oxygen doing this, and it is natural to feel any light headedness coming on, then stop. Wait a few minutes and try again.)  Don't consciously try to achieve what I have described but rather let it happen. Let the body do it for you in response to your thought.

The more you become aware of what happens, the more you become aware and confident in the fact that breathing is natural and your best bet as a singer is to use natural relaxed breath. When someone tells you that you must breathe "properly," then natural breathing is what they mean.

The very word "properly" is limiting because it may mean many different things to many of you. If the breath is manufactured it goes against every possible chance of releasing a controlled and relaxed open tone in the voice. Therefore, don't use the word to describe your breathing but simply come to know what relaxed breathing is, by observing it. When we "try" too hard to sing we use the throat, which interferes with the free movement of air (the breath). This has the effect of interrupting the connection.

Try this exercise:

• Lie on your back.
• Close your eyes and relax.
• Let your body sink into the floor.
• Let your eyes sink back as if falling to the back of your head as it rests on the floor. Breathe quite naturally and calmly. (No raising of shoulders and no tension around the jaw and neck area)
• Place the palms of your hands on your stomach about the level of the belly button.
• Be aware of how your body opens to the incoming breath at this point. 
• Now place the palms on the lower part of the rib cage and observe again the effect of the incoming breath and how your body opens to it.
• Now rest the palms of your hands on each side of the upper chest.
• Undertake the same observations.  (You can at this point place a heavy book such as a phone book on top of your diaphragm and watch it rise up and down with each intake of air)
• Finally rest your arms by your sides with the palms up. Let them lie a little away from your sides where they feel comfortable.
• Continue the relaxed breathing and this time without the use of the hands or phone book and observe the body fill with the incoming breath. Some of you will fill up quite well. Some may not notice a significant expansion. Both results are OK.
• Now repeat the exercise using the hands and then not using the hands. Then do the exercise sitting in a chair with your back against the back of the chair.
• Finally do the exercise standing up.

The object of the exercise is to let the body open so you can see (experience) and understand what your body is doing when it breathes normally. Even those who do not open very much will probably observe that they are opening more than they were before attempting these breathing exercises. 

When you stand you may find it more difficult to feel. Rotate between standing and sitting or lying. Soon you will become strong in your awareness when standing. This awareness will become a powerful tool for you and become a natural process in your everyday living. 

Breathe in – The air comes in and goes down deep into your diaphragm, you feel the air at the front, back and sides, then, bear down and hold to give you the support you need for singing.

2. SINGING:

Have fun with your vocal exercises. 

Enjoy them and do-not think of them as a daily chore.

If you feel any pain or strain at all when doing your exercises or singing then you are definitely doing something incorrectly. 

Please do-not continue with exercises if they are causing you pain. 

We can re-visit the exercises at a lesson to explore the problem.

Think of the smile being inside you as distinct from superficially on the face.  More like a happy emotion than a "produced" smile. The voice will ring more and the feeling will be easier.  Smiling raises the zigamatic muscles, which are externally visible, which in turn raises the soft palate to create a wide open space which allows the sound to come up from the diaphragm to produce a sound that is full and controlled. 

What you experience will become part of your knowledge which at first you will not be able to explain. Do it over and over again with awareness of the feeling and soon you will reach an understanding of how to allow this freedom to repeat itself rather than to make the sound happen.

Pay attention to how things “feel” more than how they sound.

Constriction and tightening suggests you are singing with the secondary vocal folds. When singing, the vocal chords must operate naturally and free from pushing by the secondary folds. i.e. buzz as a result of air passing through them, not from being pushed by muscular activity.

When your throat is tired, the vocal chords don't come together cleanly. To achieve the sound you are used to, you will feel the need to push the sound with the secondary vocal folds. This will exacerbate your tiredness when singing. When this happens it is time to take a day or two rest and depending on the level of tiredness, maybe no vocal use at all.

The air you have breathed in must pass back through the vocal chords. If you are letting too much air out of the mouth, the vocal chords will not get the right balance of breath pressure to buzz (vibrate) cleanly.

The thought for the exit of the sound needs to be more through the area around nasal passage, eyes and forehead.  When this happens, and you spontaneously make a sound, then you create pressure (leaning) between the diaphragm and up through the air canal and out. The vocal chords buzz naturally and the sound emits through the mouth around your top teeth instead of being pushed or forced out of the mouth.

The vocal chords will do their job well unless you interfere by pushing them from the throat area.  When you sing, think that the vocal chords don't come together but rather vibrate away from each other. This will help keep the secondary folds out of the way. The throat should feel easier and freer.

It may not be that you have a tongue problem. The stiffness may be secondary to something else. If so, then all the work in the world on your tongue will not help.

2.1 Simple exercise:

Before you start, imagine you have no bottom jaw.  It has been taken off its hinges and no longer is there.

Take your awareness to the front teeth of the upper jaw and the chambers inside your head above this area and forward. Breathe in as if taking a relaxed sigh or a yawn.  No movement in and around your shoulders and neck area.

Be aware of the incoming breath.  Wait until you feel the air or its presence rise into the head above the hard palate. Don't let yourself 'sound' until you feel the breath has risen to this area.  Imagine as you start to sound that the air inside you is releases out of your eyes and the bone cavity of the nose. As if your mouth is there.

2.2 Singing in the nose:

Whether it is good or bad to sing in the nose is not the way to think about this issue.

It is both good and bad.

The potential problem arises when we are told it is bad to have a nasal quality, we stay away from the nose. Wrong! 

It is very important to know that the tone or sound can and will change when the technique is developed and understood.

A singer who has been told not to sing in the nose takes a lot longer to appreciate what it is to sing in a forward position.

So, we can now resonate in the open nose?  If not, keep working at it.  If yes, then how do we let the words form (change) in the open nose?

3. WHAT ABOUT ARTICULATION AND DICTION:

Make your words understood; Diction is a very important part of singing. 

Some of today’s music such as rap music needs to be articulated, it would otherwise be difficult to understand.  We will be working through a series of articulation exercises to help you understand how the vowels are formed with the aid of consonants. 

These consonants will help the tongue fall to the correct place within your mouth so that the vowels flow freely and forward.  There are approximately twenty-four consonant sounds to cover.

Points To Remember:

• Keep shoulders, neck and jaw area relaxed and your jaw hanging from its hinges.

• Do-not raise your shoulders on intake of air

• Breathe in, down, out and hold – filling lungs and diaphragm with one breath!

• Feel the air fill up the front, sides and back of your diaphragm like an imaginary tyre around and above your waist.

• When doing your exercises please concentrate on what is happening to your breathing, your singing and the sounds you are making. 

• If you make a breathy noise when taking in air, it automatically means that your soft palate is down and the back of your tongue is up.  To avoid this, create a space inside your mouth as you do when yawning and you will make no noise, this will insure that your muscles are completely relaxed and ready to start working again with your next singing phrase. (Example -the Ya, Ya, Ya, Ya, exercise, CD 2 No 4.)  After you have created this space, you will sing this exercise without moving your jaw making the full and open vowel sound with the back of your tongue only.  If you do sing this exercise correctly, you will be amazed at the vowel sound you are able to create without moving your jaw!  The reason…..the space you have created inside your mouth has allowed this full sound to be formed and sent out into the world.

• With all exercises remember to keep your tongue very loose and relaxed.

• Soft palate is located at the back top end of your mouth just behind the hard palate; keep this raised with the back of your tongue relaxed. 

• All vowels are to be full - make them big and free flowing.

• Each vowel to be given value (small or large depending on the value of the notes you are singing), sustained, placed up, forward and out as though they are sitting on an imaginary ledge.

• You should feel no pain or strain when singing.

CD 1.  The Naw Exercises: - The word Naw is pronounced (‘noor’ as in ‘door’) Formed with the tongue coming up behind the top teeth to form the ‘N-aw’.

                                These are all done using your full voice – ‘speaking voice’ (Not your head voice or falsetto voice). The voice is placed very forward and up around your resonating area, which is located on either side of your nose.  Bringing your voice to this area will create a nasal sound that doesn’t sound very pleasant to the listening ear, but will insure that you have placed your voice correctly.  From there you will open up your sound to create a natural resonating sound (your own sound) that is free and open but placed in exactly the same area.

Remember to only go as high as it is comfortable with out any strain and especially with out any pain, if you keep exercising regularly you will extend the range of your full voice over time, giving you a stronger overall range that is free flowing.

CD 2.  Articulation Exercises: -

                                 These are sung using your complete range and by this I mean to use your full voice including your head or falsetto voice and blending both.

Remember, smiling will automatically raise those muscles located on both sides of your nose, allowing your notes to resonate and creating the space needed to form vowels from within your mouth.  Eventually your external smile will relax but your internal smile will remain.

Most of all - enjoy your vocal exercises!
 

Singing Teacher to the "Stars Of Today"

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