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Hello everyone. Singers often roll there eyes at me when i give them scale exercises to sing for homework. In fact most singers regardless of whether they are a beginner or advanced or anywhere in between seem to have an aversion to spending their practice time singing scales, usually they prefer to sing songs by their favourite artists or their own original material.

“Singing scales is boring!” they say or, “It’s just not very sexy!” Without exception when I explain to my students the multiple benefits they gain vocally from singing their scales, suddenly scales become a staple part of their vocal practice routine.

Let me explain. Singing is a highly muscular activity it requires a great deal of physical coordination, strength, and vocal flexibility to be able to sing higher or lower than your comfortable speaking voice.

Regularly vocalising scale exercises, is the equivalent of taking your vocal cords and the micro muscle groups that are really responsible for creating your pitch, volume and tone to the gym before giving them a well balanced workout (henceforth we will refer to these types of vocal exercises as your “Vocal Gym”).

Scales are a great way to work the full length of the vocal cords, gradually increasing the cords’ flexibility to safely stretch. They also help condition your cords to hold higher amounts of exertion (desired tension) on the vocal cord to sing higher notes. Most singers start vocal training to learn how to extend their range to sing higher.  The higher you sing, the stronger your low notes need to be to anchor your voice. Its important to build equal strength in your lower register to provide the voice with the strength and support it needs to thin down at the cords and reach your high notes.

Scales should always start on a pitch that is closest to your comfortable speaking voice, and gradually raise (ascend) the scale so that each note will be higher than the last. Advanced scales can cover anywhere from 1 to 3 octaves per pattern. Typically I introduce my singers to a graded programme where they might start on a five note scale ascending and descending exercise and as their voice develops the scales become more challenging and include multiple registers within the voice.

As you sing higher, in effect you are increasing the resistance on the vocal cords which is very much like adding more weight to the bar on the bench press, hence our Vocal Gym analogy!

Just like you do in any other form of resistance training as you get stronger you add more weight to create more resistance against the muscle to encourage it to grow stronger. Put simply, the voice is a muscle (actually made up of smaller micro muscle groups including vocal cords, tendons, ligaments and cartilages) that are responsible for creating pitch, volume, tone, etc. These micro-muscle groups are tricky to work out. Vocalising on scales helps us to cover every note within our range and provides us with an ability to target challenge areas i.e. breaks or cracks in the voice, or helps you to strengthen up the bridges in our voice (the areas where our voice transitions in tone and moves between chest voice into head voice and in higher registers into mixed voice or reinforced falsetto for screaming). Scales are the most effective way to strengthen the in-between notes (the bridge areas) and rapidly improve your vocal strength and range overall.

Summarised here is the list of benefits you get from regularly vocalising over scales. Please let me know if I’ve missed anything!

1. Ear training
2. Strengthening and resistance training for the vocal chords
3. Increased Flexability for vocal chords
4. Strengthening diaphragmatic muscles for correct breathing support
5. Vocal muscle growth – through gradually increasing the resistance applied to our vocal chords and micro muscles the chords will grow bigger and be able to handle increased volumes of vibration and higher pitches.
6. Improves our ability as singers to create and improvise vocal runs etc.
7. Improves our rhythm and our ability to take quick breaths in between tricky vocal lines

I could go on, but i think you’ve got the idea… So how do you feel about including scales as part of your vocal routine now?

In a future blog, we will spend time talking about how to create a balanced vocal exercise routine. But for now, a good rule of thumb is to warm up and spend half your session vocalising on scales and spend the other half of the session singing along to backing tracks, Karaoke videos or to the radio, etc. Always remember not to sing higher than you can safely and comfortably. If you feel pain or discomfort in the throat often a tickle in the throat, stop and lower your pitch and your volume.

Hi everyone, welcome to the Rapid Vocal Results blog page. Here you will find great ideas and tips to both improve your understanding of how the voice really works, and of course how to reduce the time it takes to develop your performing voice.

This is the first of a series of posts designed to give you better information on how to improve your singing voice.

Now, I have to warn you in advance that this is a “No BS” zone. I will be telling it like it really is in an effort to cut through all the myths and misunderstandings out there about what good singing is and what you can do to reduce the time it takes to grow your singing voice.

It’s always good to start at the very beginning and address the first question that people have about singing. Which is, “Can anyone really learn to sing?” 

The answer is yes! Everyone can learn to improve their vocal abilities, but not every voice is capable of matching their favourite artist’s high notes or power notes. 

Confused?

Let me explain. Your maximum vocal potential is decided at birth through the combination of your mum’s and your dad’s DNA (the genetic traits that are responsible for deciding hair colour, body shape and overall muscle tone, etc.).

Often singers are performing far below their own genetic potential, but that’s for another blog post.

How does my family’s DNA affect my voice?

Famous singers like Beyonce, Whitney Houston, James Brown, Alex Rose and Steven Tyler all have one thing in common. They have vocal cords that are naturally thicker and longer than the average person’s. This would have made their vocal progress and development a lot easier! In fact, when you see your favourite star hitting their higher notes, the reason they make it look so easy comes down to the enormous strength they have developed in their singing muscles.

Here’s a quick lesson on vocal anatomy and the mechanics of how the voice works.

A singer’s range and the strength of their voice is determined by the vocal cord’s ability to stretch out and to thin down. Put simply, the higher you want to sing, the more the vocal cords need to be able stretch and thin down to make the desired pitch.

Singers that are born with thicker vocal cords than the average person have an immediate advantage in been able to sing higher and stronger. This is because the vocal cords have more to work with as they thin down and retain quality sound.

We will cover the mechanics of singing in more detail in later posts and this will also include the role of the various tendons, ligaments and cartilages that work together to anchor the voice. Vocal cords rely on these things to remain stable as they thin down to reach higher notes.

But back to the topic at hand. The first step in learning to sing is to have a vocal coach diagnose your voice to determine the size, thickness, and the length of your vocal cords. They can do this by having the you, the singer, perform specific singing exercises. Provided the coach knows what to listen out for, they should be able to tell you whether your vocal cords are smaller or larger than average, as well as whether you have above or below average length in your vocal cords.

This is important because the more mass you have in your vocal cords, generally speaking, the more the vocal cords are able to resist excess air. This makes it easier for the cords to thin down and switch between chest voice, mixed voice, head voice and reinforced falsetto registers. If your vocal cords are below average in size or mass, you will need to work harder to develop the initial muscular strength, conditioning and flexibility to be able to thin your vocal cords down, hold back excess air and sing higher than your comfortable speaking voice.

The importance of a vocal diagnosis

The diagnostic session is invaluable to the student and the coach because everybody’s voice is different. There are no two vocal cords and vocal anatomies that are exactly the same. In this instance a coach’s job is to understand and diagnose the voices of their students and design a custom made programme to help them balance the various areas of their voice. Vocal cords need to be gradually conditioned and strengthened to be able to operate under greater levels of healthy exertion.

Everyone can learn to sing and improve their vocal abilities. At RVR, my job is to help each singer to understand their genetic vocal potential and develop a customised programme to help each singer reach their singing voice’s natural full potential. This programme should also include exercises to discover their own unique singing voice. After all, it would be a boring world if everybody sounded the same as their favourite singer, wouldn’t it?

If you’re interested in taking the first step to discover your unique singing voice or discover your genetic vocal potential, a vocal diagnostic session could be right for you. Contact me now to chat about this. A Rapid Vocal Results diagnostic session is a unique offering that forms the beginning of your very own RVR journey.

Better information leads to better singing!