Paule

What is effective goal setting?

Fact: 90% of people that set exciting, substantial goals to improve important areas in their life fail miserably and quit on their dreams inside the first three months into their goal plan.

Fact: 10% of people from a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds, often coming from absolute poverty or struggling middle class families, set the same kinds of transformational, life-changing goals. They not only achieve their initial goals, but they then go on to exceed them and live a fuller, more satisfying life that is enriched in every way.

When you achieve substantial goals, you open the door to a brighter future for you and your family. Achieving your goals creates a bulletproof level of self confidence and boosts your belief in yourself. This helps you create a wealth of new personal and economic opportunities for you to pursue life on your own terms.

My background

During my formative years. I was bullied a lot at school; primary, intermediate and college. I suffered many insecurities about myself, both my self confidence and self esteem were flat-lined. I became determined to improve my character and develop personal courage and belief in myself so that I could feel better about my life.

Consequently I would set goals to learn and develop new skills to improve my life, but i would fail to achieve my goals. This happened a lot during my teenage years.

I started reading many books on the subject about how to improve personal performance and the power that your mind has over your body in regards to governing your level of mental focus and physical abilities. I became fascinated with the science of improving personal performance.

I began to observe my best friends and I realized that it wasn’t just me that was failing to achieve meaningful set goals. My friends were struggling and failing to achieve their meaningful set goals too.

A light bulb went off in my head because in that moment, I realized the real reason my friends and I failed to achieve our set goals was not because we were lacking the physical DNA to be successful or star performers, it’s because our varied goal setting methods were completely ineffective. We were all setting goals using our own methodologies and none of us really knew what we were doing.

This marked the turning point for me because i became determined to double my efforts to uncover the essential steps of effective goal setting.

It’s not enough to follow one or two steps of goal setting. You’ve got to know and follow all the steps of effective goal setting to the absolute letter if you want to achieve substantial goals. It’s all or its nothing! To quote from Karate Kid the movie, “Nature rule Daniel son, not mine”.

And to be honest, it became my biggest obsession in the days before the internet to visit libraries in my spare time and buy loads of books on the subject of mind power and goal setting.

The more I read, the more I understood that yes, the methodologies were by different authors, but the essential steps were always very similar. I also realised that by the time I had read my twentieth book on the subject, I was closing in on establishing the key list of effective goal setting steps that I needed to follow to supercharge my goal setting. Steps to get my mind, body and spirit in agreement to take bigger and bolder actions and achieve my life’s most ambitious goals.

I began rewriting my goals. This time, I followed all the steps i had learnt from my studies. Results began to happen! I stayed on track for longer and longer periods of time, and achieved goals I had otherwise felt were out of my reach. I still had goal failures but not nearly as often.

Now I knew that I was on the right path. I became positively obsessed with refining my effective goal setting process and wracked my brain to discover essential critical steps that were still missing from the methodologies that I had read, or the authors were hesitant to put into print.

I will spare you the ten thousand hours of research, study and leg work that I went through and simply say, “Eureka!” I discovered the missing steps that you must incorporate into effective goal setting to allow you to supercharge the effectiveness of your goal setting program.

What’s the difference between the 90% that consistently fail to achieve their goals, and the 10% that overachieve and go on to realise their wildest dreams?

The answer is that the successful ten percent of goal setters either discovered the secret techniques to effective goal setting, or someone taught them how to do it. It really is that simple.

Learn the secrets that the successful 10% of goal setters use from all walks of life to not only set powerful exciting goals, but also become energised to follow through and achieve your prize then you can positively transform every area of your life.

Fact: Successful people understand and appreciate that there is a tried and trusted formula for effective goal setting that requires a much deeper thought and action process than most people are willing to commit to. 

If you start setting half-arsed goals, just stop. You are wasting your time. A goal that is set half-arsed doesn’t even produce a half-arsed result. Instead, the act of goal setting becomes so mundane to your central nervous system that it fails to fire up your brain’s neurons and synapses. When that happens in life, you’ve hit motivational, inspirational and creative rock bottom!

Most people are too distracted by everyday goings on to realise and they keep digging deeper into the same old uninspired (soul crushing), negative thought and unhealthy reaction patterns. I salute the mavericks and the black sheep among us that harbor fresh dreams and ambitions. Those that aren’t afraid to strike out alone against a system that very rarely rewards individualistic thinking or maverick behaviors. The meek will never inherit the world (that’s just a great way to ensure that economic slaves are kept in line by their corporate overseers). The people that will inherit this new world (the decade of 2020) and beyond, will carve out their own niches by developing mastery in their chosen fields of excellence. Mastery of their musical instruments, singing, songwriting, developing a world class artist brand. As providers of unique, sought-after products and services. Cheers to the mavericks and black sheep the independent thinkers. You already know who you are.

So what’s stopping you from taking on the world and achieving your music mastery dreams?

Lack of self confidence, fear of failure and doubting your musical abilities, or perhaps you have a gap in your musical skill set where you haven’t quite got your playing skills to that level to take on the world?

If you are experiencing one, or all of the above performance road blocks, I can help you by teaching you the secrets of effective goal setting, 

Together, we can sharpen your alignment between your mind, body and spirit to supercharge your self confidence and become an unstoppable musical talent and realise your musical dreams.

I can help you learn to employ the correct steps for effective goal setting

Yes, you can go online and do the research yourself on YouTube or Google, but the odds are 99 thousand to one that you won’t find any one article or articles that include all the essential critical steps for effective goal setting in one place at one time. 

My RVR Effective Goal Setting programme is the culmination of 10,000 hours of goal setting and personal performance research (as it applies to musicians and creatives) condensed down into a KISS format (Keep It Simple Stupid). My programme is street-tested and it works.

By the time I was 25 years of age, I had already worked with my favourite hard rock artists and bands. I accomplished that particular dream inside of two weeks of been in Los Angeles, California. It blew my mind how easy it had been to achieve my initial music career goal by following the steps of effective goal setting and I quickly discovered the power that I had at my fingertips to make bold, audacious dreams come true.

Here’s the “No BS”: 90 percent of people fail to achieve substantial goals because they follow some of the basic steps of goal setting but aren’t aware of the critical steps that they need to take to turn wishy-washy goals into powerful, executive commands that recruit and capture the imagination of their entire mind, body and soul.

So if you find yourself making little or no progress towards achieving your life’s most exciting goals, it’s because your goal setting method (or lack of) is self-sabotaging your own progress.

I can literally save you days, weeks, months, years of performance frustration and put you on the shortest path to achieving your music performance and/or life goals. 

If you want to learn more about the correct methodology for effective goal setting, drop me a line.

Better singing everyone.

Paule
Diaphragm and vocal music performance training coach.

Singing is a highly athletic coordinated activity. 

Good singing is being able to sing seamlessly on pitch throughout the various registers of your voice with a consistent vocal tone and quality (while being able to choose the appropriate form of vocal expression and delivery style).  Good singing technique can be described as learning how to produce your singing voice with optimum efficiency and experiencing the least amount of tension and strain on your vocal cords and reducing demand on your singer’s breathing. 

Learning to sing correctly erases vocal cracks, wobbles or breaks in your sound. It requires the development of multiple fine motor skills that are capable of coordinating and operating smoothly at the same time, with minimal physical tampering or interference from the singer. 

Loosely explained, these fine motor skills include:

1. Diaphragmatic breathing coordination (RVR singer’s breathing)

2. Vocal coordination

3. Anatomic coordination to provide correct singers breathing and airway support 

4. Auditory coordination (ear training to be able to follow melodies and sing on pitch)

5. Balance (singer’s anatomical support to offset rising stress and resolve escalating body tensions).

These fine motor skills are developed through the act of building new neural skill pathways in the brain. The rapid development of these fine motor skills is achieved by programming the new preferred physical coordination in your body and requires a great deal of effective rewiring your brain to make the new coordination feel comfortable and like second nature. You need to be able to bypass the old neural highway of unhealthy singing habits and connect to fresh, new neural highways in the brain that store the preferred healthy coordination that makes singing feel free and easy.

There is an art and a science to successfully building new neural skill highways in your brain. I have developed my own complete RVR NLP system of brain reprogramming with lots of cool RVR “Jedi Mind Tricks” that is designed to ensure that we accomplish the goal of reducing the time it takes you to develop your confident, natural performing voice.

That’s the physical part of singing covered. Then there is the mental side of aligning your mind’s focus to deliver an optimum performance from your vocal cords and your body.

The psychology of singing is a fascinating subject and plays a critical role in the ability to consistently perform at peak levels during your vocal performances. Henry Ford, widely credited with being the father of the modern automobile industry, was fond of saying, “Whether you think you can or whether you think you cant, you’re both right”. Meaning if you’re about to sing a high note and your thinking is not positively aligned with your desired vocal action, your body will say “Yes!” but your brain will say “No!”

The resulting messaging conflict will cause a crash in the chain of fine motor skill co-ordinations and will result in a vocal note that sounds choked off or will produce a wobble in your singing or screaming voice.

Any significant event in your life that caused you prolonged psychological or emotional discomfort can end up having a profound, negative effect on your central nervous system.  Trauma events are very powerful emotional or physical experiences where we might be too terrified to speak or take action, or feel that our life is at risk, and the resulting trauma has a powerful, lasting effect on our body’s physiology.

While receiving counseling for these types of trauma events can be very beneficial, the actual muscle memory of the trauma event can be stored in our body’s cells. We can still be carrying that trauma around with us. If that trauma is affecting our personal happiness or our ability to freely express our voice in song or speech, or makes us feel uncomfortable sharing our emotions with the people that we love the most then there are great benefits to taking further action to resolve the effect that the trauma is having on our body’s operating system.

Put simply, the memory of the trauma is literally burned into the lining of your cellular make up. The memories of powerful Trauma events get stored in the  Adenosine Triphosphate, or ATP. ATP is the main source of energy for most cellular processes in the human body. The muscle memory of intense traumas can be stored in the ATP of your cells.

The muscle memories of intensive traumas need to be addressed and cleaned out if you expect your mind and body to feel comfortable about singing or screaming freely and reaching new heights of vocal freedom. Physical or emotional trauma that relates to negative associations that we might have experienced in the formative years of our childhood development often creates psychological barriers or mental handbrakes that prevent us from been able to connect freely and easily to the full power and tonal qualities of our natural singing voice.

This is where you will need the expertise of an experienced vocal performance coach who understands how to effectively rewire your brain to create new positive, healthy associations in your mind that will result in higher levels of vocal performance and free you from the shackles of past trauma events.

These historic trauma events can create severe discomfort and impair your ability to feel good about singing with a wide open, free voice. Chances are if you cant use your voice freely or you feel that you are severely restricted with how your body lets you use or express your voice, then you are operating under the restrictive limitations of unresolved trauma.

Get in touch with me and let’s have a conversation about how we can help you to move forward and finally remove these shackles and performance handbrakes from your life.

Better singing everyone,

Paule, the RVR vocal performance coach.

I have been coaching & mentoring and developing singers and professional public speakers now, for over twenty years. I couldn’t begin to count the times, over those years when aspiring singers and professional speakers have walked through my doorway and immediately, started pouring their hearts out to me about how much they love to sing, or speak and how they want to make a living through their respective crafts. These people are full of desire to make significant vocal improvements, in respect to the way that there voice currently sounds and performs. Music to my ears right? I mean I love everything to do with vocal development and especially the part about helping my clients achieve their vocal goals!

These same clients speak to me with great conviction about their willingness, to move heaven and earth, to overcome their current vocal challenges and achieve their voice goals etc. In other-words they are saying all the right things, on day one of their Rapid Vocal Results, Vocal Diagnostic Session  i.e.  there’s a visible fire in their eyes and they carry themselves with purpose in both their manner and in their body language etc.

So why do 70% of my clients go on to achieve their vocal goals and usually exceed their own initial vocal growth expectations? Why do 30% of my clients start off with great enthusiasm and quickly loose interest in achieving their vocal development goals and drop out long before they have exhausted their true vocal potential?

In both cases it’s the same answer 70% of my singers and professional voice clients understand the importance of working closely with me to help them develop rock solid positive mindsets, that enthusiastically support achieving their vocal development and musical career goals. As a result these clients are now primed to soak up each and every vocal and diaphragmatic breathing co-ordination insight and instruction that i can share with them, and they go on to experience rapid vocal results!

30% of my singers and professional voice clients, are not willing to change or strengthen their mental out look! See they are happy to perform the physical vocal and breathing exercises and co-ordinations for a short time. But sadly they neglect to take the time to work with me to develop a rock solid positive mindset. Positive supportive mindsets would have helped them to stay the course, and would have significantly reduced the time it takes for these people, to achieve their vocal development and musical career goals. Instead they quit early and never discover their true performer voice.

Let me start off by saying that, the quitting epidemic in our society is wide spread it’s even an acceptable part of our culture.

Why do so many people quit or throw in the towel before they achieve their goals in life?

The answer is that we live in an age of instant gratification i.e. we want results and measurable improvements immediately, but many people aren’t prepared to work to get the outcomes they desire!

Successful people know that the 1st step to achieving any goal you set for yourself is to create the right positive supportive mindset (or state of mind). Its vitally important to get your mind on board before you can hope to achieve any significant goals and make dramatic improvements in your life.

Suppose your friend dared you to jump over a narrow creek. So you accept the dare and immediately create a short term goal for yourself to jump over a creek or river bed and land safely on the other-side. The distance you need to jump is a challenge, if you underestimate how much energy and vertical height you need when you make the leap you can wind up short and land in the river and get wet! Most people would take a moment before they jump to visually measure the distance with their eyes (that’s called calculating the odds for success) and give themselves some kind of quick momentary pep talk to convince themselves that they can indeed, take the necessary actions to make the jump and land safely on the other-side (that’s a example of mental priming) i.e. preparing your mind to achieve success. That’s stage one of building a supportive mindset to generate the right kind of mental and physical energy that’s required to help you achieve your short or long term goals!

Next they would make a mental note to themselves, about the physical actions they need to take in-order to execute the jump properly, (that’s called preparation & strategy ) It might go something like this you’d need to back up a few paces remove any debris or fallen branches out of your way and give yourself, a good run up in-order to be able to get up enough speed to make your jump and easily cross over the water and land safely on the other side.

The last step is the most critical factor in determining a successful outcome for our river jump.

Visualization is (the tool that all successful athletes and business people/ and movie and music stars, use to create a supportive mindset to reduce the time it takes them to achieve their life goals).  The act of seeing yourself achieve goals by using your imagination to create powerful mind movies see yourself in-advance already having achieved the goal your working on! I use various visualization exercises with my students to help them to immediately over come existing vocal challenges, the coaching results are outstanding.

In this example lets visualize ourselves making the river jump etc before we physically do it, see it going smoothly in our minds eye. We might repeat this visualization five or six times until our body, feels physically comfortable with the physical activity we are about to perform.

Visualization exercises will prime our body and mind to achieve our personal best!  Here’s how visualization works…When you learn how to make the visualization real enough (i.e. employ all of your natural senses during the activity or goal you want to see yourself achieving. imagine every sound every sensation of what your body would experience, hear see, and feel as you achieve your goal etc Because when you use all your senses during the visualization your brain can’t tell the difference between what’s real and what’s been visualized)! If you close your eyes when doing this exercise the visualization will be that much more effective and powerful. Visualize often enough and with a high level of emotional intensity your brain will think you can already achieve the things you set out to do)! (That’s stage two of creating a supportive mindset to generate the right kind of physical and mental energy and focus needed to achieve your goals).

Without a supportive mindset it’s much more difficult to align all your bodies’ senses and energies to achieve your most important goals.
There’s an old saying that where your mind goes your energy flows.

Henry Ford, (credited as been the father of the modern motor car industry) is famous for saying “whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t your right”!

Basically too many beginner and intermediate level singers or aspiring public speakers allow their minds to entertain negative thoughts that create self doubt. That’s why, before we go to learn any new skill including singing or professional speaking. We need to create a positive mindset, that will literally support higher levels of achievement! Work on strengthening your mind at the same time as you work on improving your vocal and breathing co-ordinations and singing muscles etc and your vocal progress will be much faster and smoother.

Creating a supportive state of mind is the key to experiencing higher levels of  performance.
So before you throw in the towel and give up on your dreams if you find it hard to stay motivated to achieve your voice goals.

Try these great exercises to build a positive state of mind that will help keep you fizzed up and excited and on track to unlocking your performer voice. 

If you’re like the 70% of my successful singers and aspiring professional speaking clients, that are already committed to achieving their voice goals and career ambitions. These same exercises will give you a massive shot in the arm of additional energy and motivation to dramatically increase your vocal growth and performer potential!

If you’re like the 30% of my clients that start off with great intentions and have a history of giving up before you reach your goals, the exercises below can develop the staying power you need to realise your vocal goals and ambitions.

1.    When you wake up in the morning the first thing you say in your mind is that “I am a good person I deserve to achieve my voice goals.  Now repeat that same sentence out loud  at least five times with enthusiasm and excitement!

2.    Write down your vocal development goals on a piece of paper or on your phone, tablet etc and speak each desired goal out loud each day in a clear positive enthusiastic voice. (Seeing and hearing your vocal goals on a daily basis creates a massive amount of emotional excitement and internal energy) Let’s use that to our advantage.

3.    Talk to your vocal coach and share any negative thoughts that might be impacting on your singing…. that way your coach can help you get over your case of “stinking thinking”. If your coaches response is “suck it up buddy” or similar line of advice then you need a new coach!

4.    If you struggle to get excited at the idea of doing vocal practice change your vocabulary! I.e. the phrases “home work” or “practice time” sound boring so instead make up your own unique name for your practice time. For example it’s time for me to get going with Paule’s vocal gym. (I’ve always loved the discipline of establishing daily practice routines). My personal best is 36 days in a row of “Paule’s vocal gym”! This included some marathon three hour vocal gym exercise sessions, ( don’t try that at home!) unless you really know what you’re doing! But that’s just my idea of a good time. Those marathon vocal gym sessions helped me to obtain a wealth of valuable insights, regarding innovative ideas and concepts to improve the effectiveness of both my coaching and development services and also provided me with a wealth of valuable insights about how the human voice functions, and how our central nervous system, diaphragm and vocal and breathing co-ordinations are naturally designed to work in harmony with each other to reach your full vocal potential! These incredible insights ive gained over the years from completing  these marathon vocal gym sessions became the basis for my unique Rapid Vocal Results coaching method.

5.    Diary your practice times…… it’s easy to skip anything that’s not scheduled into your calendar or diary….. Laptops phones and tablets are great because you can even set reminders to help you stay on track with practice.

6. Visualize your self achieving your goals. Use this exercise on a daily basis for a month to see how powerful this tool really is for fast tracking your vocal progress or career goals.

I can teach anyone to sing and significantly reduce the time it takes a singer or public speaker to achieve their true vocal potential. The unique coaching insights to dramatically transform your voice come from me …..

The desire the passion and commitment to experience Rapid Vocal Results, has to come from you! Your rate of vocal achievement is driven by your emotional energy and intensity levels. Your emotional energy can run low especially if you lead a busy life style (who doesn’t right)? So make sure to top up your emotional energy levels on a daily basis by following your six step plan (as out lined above) to create a positive mindset that supports top performance.

I work with all of my clients young and old to help them set realistic vocal development goals (i.e. to achieve anywhere from 50% of their natural vocal growth potential  (for casual singers)  through to a 100% of their natural vocal growth potential (for singers aspiring to make music a full time career, and or established touring artists that need to perform at their very best vocally night after night on the road or in the recording studio).

Regardless of the singers level of ambition. I work tirelessly, to help all of my clients achieve their vocal development and career goals, by providing ongoing performance and success mentoring. I share with each of my singers the power of goal setting, and visualization exercises and various other techniques that the world’s most successful athletes and business people/ and famous musicians and actors use on a daily basis to achieve unbelievable commercial and personal success.  

The simple six step programme I’ve shared with you,  will help you to develop a positive supportive mind set, this will pave the way for you to experience higher levels of vocal performance and improvement, the mindset programme can be applied to any kind of worthy goal or ambition that you want to achieve in life. Theirs no substitute for hard work in the vocal gym but if your mind and your body are aligned and working together on the same goal you will achieve Rapid Vocal Results in half the time!

The power of goal setting and developing a positive supported mind set is not for everyone …because it takes regular effort and a willingness to prepare for greatness.. But it can work wonders for anyone that is willing to make it a daily practice and that’s the no “Bull Shit” for this blog post.

Better singing everyone!

As a vocal conditioning and performance coach. I regularly receive inquiries from singers that have found that the theatrical vocal style they have developed is now restricting  their ability to sing other styles of music with full confidence.  

Many of these singers have become frustrated or concerned at been type cast ie as been only suited for musical theatre type rolls. Which is fine if you aspire to performing in Broadway type musicals.

But what many of these singers want to know is how to reduce the time it takes to learn how to transition a theatrical dramatic voice to become an all round singer capable of singing pop/ rock/ and beyond!

The question is a good one, and I will do my best to provide some tips and free advice to help you learn how to make the smooth transition from a theatrical dramatic voice to been capable of authentically singing other styles of popular music.

First lets understand the general differences of the three main vocal styles, ie Opera, Musical theatre and Popular music (Country-pop rock,blues, heavy metal metal) etc

Operatic voices:

Desirable operatic vocal characteristics differ greatly between male and female singers.

Typically to be a successful male opera singer requires a broad deep resonating voice capable of extending the chest voice into the upper register with a minimum of mix or head voice added to the sound. The desirable characteristics for a female opera singer on the other hand is to develop a voice with bell like clarity where the high notes are mainly produced with maximum head resonance, primarily designed to ensure that the frequency range of both the male and female singers carries above  the orchestra to the back of the opera house accapela, (without microphones).

Musical theatre singers, are known for the dramatic often exaggerated manor in which they deliver a vocal line. There vocal delivery is adapted to match the broadway esque style of the music arrangement.

Typically Broadway songs are structured, written and arranged in a less than conversational style and the larger than life arrangements resemble a more modernised  version of an operatic performance.

Alternatively Pop, rock, blues, country singers etc tend to adopt a more laid back casual approach to their vocal delivery due to the more conversational song writing styles in these genres of music.

In essence there vocal styling is based on a conversational approach to singing, this style approach can be used to create raw, in your face vocal deliveries and performances  that allow the individual character of each singers voice to be easily heard and developed.

In popular music styles its the individual character of the singers voice that the audience is drawn towards and identify with. This is why we can have a number of personal fave singers in our record collections, because each singers voice has its own individual charm, from Bob Dylan to Bruce Springsteen- to Michael Jackson – Billy Joel or Elton John or Dave Grohl or from Whitney Houston to Mariah Carey, to Amy Winehouse to Beyonce etc these singers all understand how to make the most of their conversational singing style.

Vowel styling:

Another big difference between theatrical singing and conversational pop-rock vocal styles is how the singers in each genre approach there vowel shapes.

Opera singers tend to utilise the widest broadest purest vowel sounds and while they do employ subtle vowel modification to allow the voice to change registers the objective of a male opera singer is to retain a manly voice throughout his range. That’s why a male tenor opera singer dose not normally sing higher than a c5, because in order to sing higher they would have to modify the vowel sound further and in the process they would be forced to reduce the width and girth of their manly voice on the highest notes.

IE “Nessun dorma” performed by Luciano Pavarotti

In performance, the final “Vincerò!” features a sustained B4, followed by the final note, a sustained A4. One main difference between opera singers and musical theatre singers and of course pop singers is that typically a tenor opera singer is never required to sing anything higher than a mens high C (C5).

For female opera singers, the desired voice type is the soprano in particular the highest soprano voice is known as the coloratura soprano. Coloratura sopranos are capable of amazing superhuman feats. The voice is extremely agile, singing short passages that ascend as high as the 3rd F above middle C (and in a few cases even higher). A particularly fine example is Lucia in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor. 

Theatrical singers employ a broad vowel sound (closely mirroring operatic vowel sounds) in order to produce a larger more dramatic vocal tone. How-ever the larger and broader your vowel shapes become the more difficult it becomes to sing in an extended chest voice, ( ie refer back to  the previous Luciano Pavarotti example)

When a theatrical singer is required to sing higher notes up around mens a#4 or ladies C5 etc typically the singer will start to employ a lighter voice and utilise a combination of head voice or even falsetto to further extend their vocal range. This produces a vocal tone that is softer and while it is a desirable effect for musical theatre it typically sounds very out of place in a pop or rock performance etc.

Pop singers tend to approach there vowel sounds as though they were using there every day speaking voice, and only tend to broaden the vowel shape when they require a larger sound ie holding a power note. Pop/ rock/ country/blues/metal  singers enjoy all-most total freedom in regards as to how they approach there vocal production. The only standard rule of thumb been that regradless of how you approach your vocal production  remember to ensure that your extended voice ie your high notes need to retain a solid connected sound to your chest voice.

The vocal requirements for popular music singers can often be more challenging ie a rock or pop singer maybe called upon to scream or sing full vocal passages above a mens c5 or C6  for women.

How you go about forming your vowel sounds and where you choose to place or position your sounds in your throat (vocal placement), are largely down to what works best for the singer, and best compliments there natural vocal style.

Here is the two biggest challenges that most theatrical singers face when learning how to make the transition from musical theatre to singing pop or rock, country etc.

A. Learning how to approach singing in a more conversational style. This means that particular emphasis needs to be placed on how they form there vowels and consonant sounds. If the vowel sounds are pronounced to broadly the sound will end up splating as the singer ascends higher into his or her range. While this condition is true for every singing genre generally popular music arrangements span the largest vocal ranges of any singing genre. So its very important that pop rock and metal singers learn how to modify there vowels properly to maintain a connected tone over music that spans a vocal range sometimes as wide as 3 and 1/2 octaves.

B. Learning how to smoothly extend their upper register by using  vowel modifications to retain a conversational quality to their voice, while maintaining a solid connection or mix with their chest voice. The latter requires regular strengthening and conditioning of the vocal chords to safely load the desired amount of healthy tension to the chord so that the voice doesn’t flip over into a light theatrical heady voice.

Both skills can be learnt given enough time and patience.

Here’s an exercise that will help you make the transition from theatrical singing to pop singing much easier.

Learning how to develop these new kinds of vocal co-ordinations will not only improve your ability to authentically sing in popular music styles but also provide your theatrical voice with greater power and provide you with additional options and choices to improve your vocal dynamics.

1. Starting on a comfortable note closest to your speaking voice. Vocalise on a “hey”  sound  using your chest voice and progressively increase the pitch of the start note until you are just below the point in your voice where the voice wants to break or flip over into falsetto. Don’t yell aim to perform the exercise on 60% of your full volume potential. Remember to avoid sounding overly dramatic or stiff, keep the tone and style of your voice relaxed and conversational!

2. Cut back on the air that is passing over your vocal chords and aim to reduce the size and the width and the weight of the sound until you can comfortably extend your “hey” sound one or two notes past your previous break area. When you’ve sang as high as you can comfortably without straining then go down the scale again until you reach your start pitch and relax and try to sing one or two notes lower than your starting  pitch. Repeat the exercise again as often as appropriate and rest for twenty minutes in between practises.

This exercise will teach you how to safely extend your chest voice range over time without straining. A strong chest voice is very important if you want to sing popular music and is the required foundation for acquiring the vocal strength and flexibility to produce enough mass in the vocal chords so that your higher notes (in head voice have a mix of chest and head and sound fully formed).

As always if you think you would benefit from one on one coaching to help make this transition easier then get in touch via phone, email, carrier pigeon etc.

Better singing everyone.

This Rapid Vocal Results, blog addresses, the mechanics of how constrictor muscles work and how they can negatively impact on our vocal production. Very fitting for my first post for 2016, as it’s a big subject lots to tackle and its vital need to know info for every singer!

Regardless of your current level of singing ability, I am sure you will have experienced the frustration of going all out to sing a middle or high note with power and as you begin to produce the note or the scream you notice a feeling of tightness or squeezing in the back of the throat and correspondingly your voice simultaneously looses much of its dynamics, volume, tone etc and begins to sound small and choked off? If it has happened to you before on stage, or during a performance you will know exactly what I am describing and the negative effects it can have on your confidence as a performer.

That’s what happens when you use the big bulky muscles of the throat to support your vocal production. When you incorrectly sing this way , you’re going to automatically wake up the neighbours i.e. the “Constrictor muscles”.

Waking up the constrictor muscles is not the best idea when you sing, because it automatically reduces the internal diameter of our throat and significantly reduces the size of the resonating spaces (think, various mini amphitheatres or sound board areas) inside our throat whose job it is to naturally amplify and add rich over tones  to our sounds when ever we vocalize.

Put simply; Incorrectly engaging the Constrictor muscles when we sing sets up a vicious circle where the outcomes are always going to be the same:

A. Decreased volume.  

B. Severely impaired or muted tone. The poor singer sounds like they are being strangled.

C. The brain will recognise this restriction as a blockage in our throat and will automatically send the singer a message to push more air to remove the blockage and that unwanted excess air has to be held back by the vocal chords who will forget immediately about their singing duties and instead will tense up to withstand a barrage of hurricane like wind blasting at our vocal cords.

I am sure that you will agree, that any or all of the above aggravating conditions are less than ideal for melodic vocal production! When any one or all of these conditions is present in a singers voice, it’s a sure sign that the constrictors muscles are been incorrectly engaged in the job of vocal production.

If your reading this post and find yourself identifying with this unhealthy vocal pattern, don’t worry it can be resolved and remedied with some simple exercises to retrain these pesky constrictors muscles to remain switched off while we sing.

Before we go any further and suggest a remedy to the above vocal problem. Lets first understand what the constrictor muscles are and more importantly the vital role they play in our everyday lives to ensure our survival.

What are constrictor muscles? Where are they located? Why do we have them?

In simplified terms the constrictor muscles can be found inside our pharynx. Because these constrictor muscles are much larger than the micro muscle groups that are responsible for producing all aspects of our pitch, tone, volume and vocal effects ie grit rasp etc. Singers often make the mistake of feeling a strong connection to these big muscles when they sing.

The pharynx is, one of the major components of the anatomy that makes up our neck. Best described as a fibro-muscular tube forming part of both the digestive and respiratory systems and also plays a major role in our speech and singing production.  The pharynx is divided into three major sections extending from the base of the skull to the cricoid cartilage of the oesophagus.

The nasopharynx, the oropharynx, and the hypopharynx (also known as the laryngopharynx) lie behind the cavities of the nasal passages, mouth, and larynx respectively. Various micro muscles support the function of the pharynx, and these muscles and nerves are continually sending tiny electrical impulses (communication signals) via both sensory and motor nerves connecting to our cervical spine.

Singers that have experienced problems with compression in the cervical vertebrae brought on through previous blunt force trauma episodes i.e. sports, car accidents, falls etc. Can find these blunt force traumas have negatively affected the healthy function of the nerve roots and the various blood vessels involved in regulating pharyngeal function this can have a big impact on the mechanics of a singers healthy vocal production. As both respiration and digestion are served by this area, serious problems can arise as a result of trauma to the neck, or degeneration and chronic dysfunction in the cervical spinal region. So if you’re a singer it’s really important to maintain your overall body health but especially back and neck function, and I definitely recommend that you include back and neck and laraynx stretches as part of your vocal warm up routine or back stage warm up pre gig.

The constrictor muscles and their location

There are six muscles which play a significant role in the function of the pharynx three of these muscles are circular and are constrictors, and three of these muscles are longitudinal (run lengthwise) in orientation and form an inner muscular ring. The three major muscles which constrict the pharynx are the superior pharyngeal constrictor (SC), the middle pharyngeal constrictor (MC), and the inferior pharyngeal constrictor (IC). The arrangement and position of these muscles has been compared to three stacked pots as they form a circular pattern one on top of the other.

Constrictor muscles are largely responsible for changing the shape and position of our throat to ensure food is correctly guided and moved to our oesophagus and later down to the stomach. In simple terms constrictor muscles ensure that,  food ends up in our stomach as opposed to in our wind pipe! The problem is these same muscles can wreak havoc on our singing voice if they are incorrectly used to support our vocal production.

The SC (superior pharyngeal constrictor) connects the lingula of the mandible (lower jaw bone) to the hamulus (hook-like end) of the medial pterygoid plate. The MC originates from the hyoid bone’s greater horn. The IC (inferior pharyngeal constrictor) is connected to the thyroid gland and nearby cartilage and continues along with the oesophagus. All three constrictors join in the middle to form the seam known as the pharyngeal raphe. There are gaps formed by these three muscles to allow for certain structures to pass through.

When we sing, we need to know that if we incorrectly squeeze on the big bulky muscles in our throat in an effort to falsely support our vocal production, we will automatically switch on and engage the series of constrictor muscles and it will be virtually impossible to maintain our desired and coveted open throat position for singing.

Please note creating and maintaining an open throat when we sing is the absolute key and cornerstone foundation to allow the voice to smoothly connect up between our chest and head voice etc. A closed throat chokes off our available vocal tone as well as our range.

Pharynx muscles can affect nerve function

This is important, if we incorrectly squeeze and rely on the big bulky muscles in our throat to reach higher pitches or to artificially increase the volume or tone of our voice we run the risk of squeezing or compressing our laryngeal nerves.

The internal laryngeal branch of the superior laryngeal nerve passes through a gap between the MC and IC (inferior pharyngeal constrictor) along with the superior laryngeal artery from the superior thyroid artery. Finally, below the IC, the inferior laryngeal nerve and the inferior laryngeal artery are granted passage through the muscle. Excessive stresses, strains, create inflammation, and can lead to dysfunction of the muscles in this region. This can have significant ramifications for nerve function and circulation both to the pharynx itself but also the larynx and the thyroid. Conversely, inflammation or dysfunction in either of the latter two structures can greatly affect pharyngeal function and severely restrict the healthy closures of our vocal chords.

There is never a good reason to apply excessive force or tension to your vocal chords because you run the risk of not only damaging the vocal chords themselves but also the nerves that carry out the communication signals to the chords, this can result in a number of extensive vocal ailments, that i won’t go into detail on right now but one of the worst is a partial vocal paralysis of the chord its self. This can be brought on by a number of conditions, including a trapped laryngeal nerve etc.

Tom Keifer from the eighties Rock Band Cinderella experienced a similar vocal condition to the one I have out lined here its can have a debilitating effect on the singing especially in the upper register, it can require expert surgery to remedy and can take years to recover even then most ear nose and throat surgeons will agree that a singer that has experienced a partial paralysis of the vocal cord will never regain 100% of their original vocal cord function.

While there are multiple contributors that can cause partial paraylis of the vocal cords, including viral damage, etc. Singers need to understand that we can help maintain the health of our voice and lessen the risk of experiencing a partial cord paraylis by ensuring that we learn to sing in a healthy way that dose not place excessive pressure on our laranygeal nerves.

Worst case scenario. A Partial paralysis of the vocal cord means that the micro muscles that are responsible for producing vocal cord mass and vocal cord closure are weakened and one side of the vocal chords operates less efficiently than the other and due to the partial paralysis one side of the cord is unable to handle the same work load as before, leaving the voice unbalanced and prone to vocal wobbles and speed bumps cracks in the note etc.

Vocal exercise to re-train the constrictors muscles to switch off

If you think that your incorrectly engaging your constrictor muscles when you sing and its preventing you from reaching the full potential of your singing voice try this simple exercise to turn them off.

 A. Starting on a low note four or five notes above your normal speaking voice vocalise on a lar sound, make sure you have  a wide smile and 3/4 dropped jaw and yawn into the sound.

Then while maintaining all three actions simultaneously ie the smile and the yawn and the lar sound simply let your voice slide down again back to the original pitch of your speaking voice.

Observe as you descend in pitch were you able to maintain your lar sound with your 3/4 dropped jaw yawn? If you found that the back of your throat was closing as you slid down in pitch. Simply add more yawn and combine it with your lar sound until you can complete the exercise while maintaining your open throat position.

Then proceed to start on the next highest comfortable pitch and repeat the exercise over again. It takes time to retrain the constrictor muscles to remain switched off when we sing. Be patient it takes time to re train this type of unhealthy vocal habit.

For best results i recommend that you use a piano or guitar or similar musical instrument to accurately produce your starting pitch for each vocal slide. If you don’t have access to a music instrument like the above, there are lots of free software piano programmes online that you can use to help to make these exercises fun and enjoyable.

If you are having difficulty getting your constrictor muscles to behave and think you would benefit from one on coaching to reduce the time it takes to train the correct habits and vocal co-ordinations your welcome to contact me, via phone or email.

Better singing everyone.

Paule,

Conditioning and Performance Coach.

Hi everyone as a vocal conditioning and performance coach. I get to work with a lot of great singers of all ages and levels of ability. From absolute beginners to established recording artists and touring performers.

One question that seems to come up regularly among my new students and also with new aspiring artists, is:

How can I learn how to deliver a more powerful or electrifying , show stopping vocal performance? I want my audience to really sit up and connect strongly to my music.

The top singers from any musical genre, have the ability to simply make you believe and feel every word that they sing. These kinds of singers enjoy career longevity, ie they sell more records and book sold out tours. They also enjoy massive loyal fan bases that offset shallow -short lived fickle trends in music!

Chances are you can still recall where you were and what you were doing , when you first discovered that special singer or artist that seemed to reach right into your soul and connect so powerfully with you ,that they made you want to run out and buy there album or single straight away?

As a Singer. Thats the power of learning how to connect deeply to your emotions and allowing the emotions to seep into your vocal performance, ( put simply the vocal chords are an incredibly expressive instrument) capable of conveying not only a melodic message but also an emotional message to your audience. 

When singers learn how to tap into there emotions and use them as a performance tool.They are capable of deliverying a performance that not only sounds good but can capture the audiences collective hearts and imaginations!

If you’ve been following my previous blog’s then you will know that there are multiple components to master, in order to be able to deliver an authentic, electrifying, or compelling vocal performance. Regardless of your particular chosen music genre the vocal techniques and perfomance methodology are the same! 

Check out my previous blog’s to gain a good understanding of how the voice works including tips on how to make you a better singer.

1. Vocal Mechanics
First and foremost a singer needs to learn the correct vocal techniques to allow the vocal chords to vibrate freely when they sing on any pitch in there vocal range. This also requires a good understanding of how to engage your diaphragm to support your singing voice, to ensure that when you sing, that your using the correct minimum tension on the vocal chords balanced with the minimum amount of air passed over the chords so that the voice can resonate freely.

Typically if your a beginning singer and have had no previous singing tuition, most of my students learn to dramatically improve these two cordinations in the first 6-8 weeks of coaching.

Okay now that we’ve addressed the importance for the basic mechanics of the voice to be able operate freely and naturally.

We can move on to the 2nd component of how to learn to deliver powerful compelling vocal performances.

2. Becoming a method singer (Learning how to colour the voice with real emotions).
Put simply; great singers (share a lot in common with great actors). Both are entertainers, both draw on there ability to portray the full range of human emotions to deliver a compelling heartfelt performance. Both singers and actors have to allow themselves to become emotionally vulnerable, in front of an audience in order to deliver an authentic performance!

 To become a great singer we need to be able to draw on our full range of human emotions and
learn how to colour the voice with these emotions when we perform so that the audience is not just hearing our words they are literally feeling the corresponding emotions through our voice!

How- to tip for singers to improve there ability to convey emotions through there voice.

A. Never try to manufacture an emotion, when you sing.
ie if your singing a song that is sad try to let the sadness creep into your voice, (draw on your own past experiences)  and experiment with how much emotion you can add at the vocal chords with out over loading there ability to operate freely.

B. Use this exercise to experiment with all of your emotions, ie happy, sad, angry, excited, scared  etc. A good singer needs to be able to access the full range of there emotions.

C. Find a balance point that allows you to convey the desired emotion through your voice and still allow the vocal chords to operate freely and efficiently. This is important if you add too much emotion in your voice your central nervous system will believe you are feeling what you are telling your brain to feel and the vocal chords will respond accordingly.

This is not so good if you are over doing a sad emotion because you might trick your central nervous system into crying for real which will disrupt not only your vocal chords but also your breathing, this kind of excessive emotional overload will actually cause your vocal chords to loose there vocal coordination and prevent your voice from singing freely.

The same goes if your singing heavy rock . Dont over do the angry emotions etc.
(remember we want to add just enough of that authentic emotion) so the vocal chords transmit a healthy kind of angry energy and sound but we must avoid intentionally, exerting  excessive tension on the vocal chords because the voice will loose all ability to maintain its melodic edge.

The above exercise is really valuable to help you discover the just right amount of emotion you can add to your voice and still maintain your vocal freedom and vocal control. Introducing the right amount of balanced emotion to your voice has one additional performance benefit it actually stimulates and energises the vocal chords to become more flexible and your chords can produce additional vocal effects, that the audience can feel as much as they hear!

Method acting definition.

noun
a technique of acting in which an actor aspires to complete emotional identification with a part, based on the system evolved by Stanislavsky and brought into prominence in the US in the 1930s. Method acting was developed by Elia Kazan and Lee Strasberg in particular, and is associated with actors such as Marlon Brando and Dustin Hoffman, etc.

Once you get really good at been able to call up your emotions to colour your voice you will begin to discover a whole new range of subtle variations that you can introduce into your vocal tone.  In other words you will have discovered new tonal colours that you can incorporate into your singing voice to improve your story telling capabilities and allow you to make stronger connections with your audiences.

As always if you think you need help to draw on your emotions while singing, or if your not sure if your doing the exercise correctly? Your welcome to email me, or call me with your questions.

Some singers will find this exercise easier to do than others. That’s because every singer is different we all have different vocal challenges that we need to over come in order to be able to sing and express ourselves freely.

Better Singing everyone.
paule@rapidvocalresults.com

As an experienced vocal conditioning coach and artist development coach, I  often work with singers of all ages and music styles to help these students to develop there performing voice so that they can successfully compete in singing competitions. 

In fact over the years I’ve worked with and coached singers from NZ Idol and XFactor New Zealand. 

Now this article is not intended to go into great detail on every nuance of how to train and prepare to deliver a winning vocal performance for a singing competition. That would take too long. For those that are interested I provide a full artist coaching and development service, called “Audition King”. More details here https://www.rapidvocalresults.com/#!singing-audition-tuition/ctul

Essentially the Audition King service is a highly comprehensive Artist development programme that includes helping you to select audition songs that complement your natural vocal style and your vocal strengths. The singer receives expert performance coaching tips and guidance as we work line by line through the audition songs to ensure the best possible vocal delivery. The Audition King programme, also focuses on providing you with the tools required to become a professional level entertainer, including microphone handling techniques and how to set up eq mix on a vocal channel, how to act on stage, how to be yourself during the audition, how to exude the right kind of confidence to catch the judges eye etc.

Regardless of whether your looking to compete in a karaoke singing competition (down at your local bar), or whether your auditioning for a local band or whether you dream of competing with the nations best talent, to win a lucrative recording contract, like the prizes offered on a nationally televised talent show. There are ten main areas that you should focus on to help you deliver the very best performance you are capable of here’s a quick overview.

1. Song choice 

Before you do anything else making the right song choice for your voice is critical!

Select a song that fits the natural style of your voice. IE. If your voice is naturally low, then choose a song that show cases the strength you have in your low register.  If your voice is naturally high then the same strategy applies.

Try to follow the 80/20 rule.

Select a song that sits in the strongest part of your vocal register 80% of the time. It dose not make sense to choose a song that is too big for your current level of singing skill.

Tip don’t choose a ballad just because you think a slow song is easier to sing, often its the slower songs that require the most breath support and vocal consistency to deliver a show stopping performance.

2. Sing only what you know well.

Too often singers will listen to a song on the radio and think because they can hum a long to the song (or because they can sing it softly under there breath) that they can sing it just as easily in full voice during a real performance.

This is not always the case the only way to ensure you can deliver a great performance is to put the time in and practice the song at proper performance volume (ie in full voice) until the process of singing that song has become ingrained into your muscle memory. (This is why its much easier to sing your old favourite songs, because they almost sing themselves (muscle memory is developed) compared to the difficulty singers experience when they try to sing a new song for the first time in front of an audience.

3. Good singers even the professionals will only perform songs that they know they are capable of singing. Remember you can not fake vocal strength you either have it or you don’t. I’ve seen singers make inappropriate song choices (because its there favourite artist) and choose a song that’s obviously way to big for there voice! The result is that the singer delivers a bad performance and can even be traumatised by the experience! This kind of negative experience  can really knock your singing confidence and may take a long time to recover from!

4. Don’t forget to breathe through out your performance (it sounds obvious) but at all costs avoid holding your breath during guitar solos and music interludes, holding your breath while you wait for the vocal line to come back in is a sure fire recipe for a vocal melt down, this could take the form of poor timing missed lines, a break or crack in register or both. Learning how to breathe from the diaphragm is the only way to ensure that you correctly produce the right kind of air compression required to support your singing voice through out a performance.

5. Staying on pitch

Most beginner and intermediate level singers I’ve worked with initially require some work to develop a good sense of relative pitch. If your not sure whether you have any pitch problems then chances are you are not listening and paying close enough attention to your vocal production. 

If your not familiar with the term “relative pitch” refer to the link near the top of the page and read my blog article dedicated to that particular subject.

Training tip to improve your relative pitch: 

I recommend that you record yourself singing along to a backing track, using a smart phone app or a digital recording app like garage band etc  You can find  free backing tracks of your favourite popular songs on you tube etc. On playback pay close attention to your vocal recording and its ability to stay in tune with the main chords of the song. Ie dose your voice clearly follow the melody line of the song? Improving your awareness of “Relative Pitch” starts here.

6. How’s your acting skills?

Its not enough to just be a great singer these days, if you want to win over the crowd and the judges you need to become a confident performer. This is where body language comes into play. I’ve performed in front of large audiences, and on television and to be honest I still get the odd case of butterfly’s before show time!

But the trick is to use that nervous energy to your advantage. What dose your performing body language say about you? Are you happy to be there on the big stage and putting the audience at ease with your sense of confidence and control. Or are you unintentionally sending signs of discomfort and distress like you’d rather be any where but here?

Performing tip:

Like the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, develop a habit of practising your singing and performance moves in front of the mirror. Or even better set up a video camera and record your rehearsals. 

Pay particular attention to your body language and if you look stiff and uncomfortable while your singing chances are your voice will sound stiff and uncomfortable too!

7. Memorising lyrics

You can have the greatest voice but if you flub your lines then your going to score low points in any audition. A few years ago I was called up to sing for New Zealand’s only Van Halen tribute band called “5150” I had to learn and memorise 18 songs in six weeks! It was a major under taking and on the night it all came together bar one!. (Having breathed a big sigh of relief having nailed all of the challenging songs and never putting a foot wrong). We launched into Ice cream man and I realised as my vocal cue came up I had forgotten the first line in the opening verse and had to get my guitarist to provide me with a verbal reminder) Oh well no bodies perfect!

A. Write out your lyrics

B. Recite them as a poem or a story

C. Try and create pictures of the most exciting part of each lyric line in your head. These pictures will help you recall each passage.

D. Repetition listen to the song over and over again and speak the lyrics or sing them softly until you’ve created a muscle memory of how the song goes.

There’s nothing worse than been half way through a song and forgetting the lyrics!

8. Pre gig nerves (butterfly’s) 

Everybody has had them it can range from a slight flutter in the stomach right up to full on stomach cramps (at the extreme end of things).

A case of the Butterflys before stepping out on stage is natural. But its important to deal with them the right way to minimise the impact they have on your ability to deliver a strong vocal performance.

Performance tip: Breathe deeply and gently release all the pent up air from your lungs using a continuous sssssss sound.

Stretching can help most yoga stretches are very beneficial for singers.

I teach my students a modified form of these stretches called “singers yoga” The purpose of singers yoga is to help maintain a stress free environment in the areas of the body that are especially important for proper vocal production!

9. Rhythm  

Developing a strong sense of rhythm is super important for a singer because like every other player in a band we need to be able to count bars and measures to ensure we start our vocal lines on time and finish on time. No audience or judge wants to hear a great voice that’s out of time with the rest of the band.

Once again most beginner and intermediate singers require some work to improve there ability to count time. Its much easier to sing along with a karaoke backing track relying on the highlighted cues to keep you in time with the song, it becomes much harder and more challenging compared to counting time and memorising instrument cues when you perform with a live band (to ensure your singing in time with a band)!

10. Developing a confident performance mindset 

Henry Ford said it best “whether you think you can or whether you think you cant, your right”!

Visualise the positives of delivering a great confident performance. Obsessing over a difficult part of the song for too long actually increases your anxiety levels and increases the probability that something will go wrong!

Performance tip:

Develop a simple mantra for your self that you can repeat over and over again, at times of stress to help increase your confidence and reduce pre gig nerves here’s some examples:

I feel good and I sound good and if I give my best performance tonight I will be happy!

This is my time to shine I’ve done the hard work now lets go out there and have fun!

If you have a big audition coming up or your entering a singing talent competition follow the above tips and remember there are two things you absolutely cant fake on the night!

1. Muscle memory know your songs inside and out. 

2. Vocal Strength (put in the time to strengthen and condition your voice)

If you would like to learn more about any of the topics we’ve discussed today or have a private discussion inregards to the challenges you experience with developing your performing voice then, send me an email or give me a call.

Better singing everyone.

paule@rapidvocalresults.com

Building a powerhouse connected singing voice.

I’m a vocal coach that specialises in working with singers to help them strengthen and condition there voice to improve not only there singing technique but also their vocal power and (tone) and of course range.

I thought I would share with you a golden rule that beginner, intermediate ,even professionals singers often forget or neglect to follow, that can really help to reduce the time it takes to develop or maintain a powerhouse singing voice.

If you don’t follow this golden rule be warned the consequences will catch up with your voice sooner or later! This can really impact on your ability to build a powerful rock metal, or pop singing voice. Even worse your voice could actually loose its power and the strongest part of your natural voice your (chest voice) will begin to break down which will make it harder for you to connect your chest and head voice into one long powerful connected register.

This one tip will literally save you days weeks months even years of vocal frustration, because when you go to scream or belt out high notes (there is no way to fake vocal strength, you either have it or you don’t)!

Let me start off by pointing out the obvious, not everyone that wants to become a singer is born with big thick vocal chords that can support a big sound. If your lucky enough to be born with big thick chords and you want to be a singer then good for you.

Providing you receive some form of correct vocal training and coaching early on to learn how to safely strengthen, and condition your voice your vocal growth and progress can be very rapid and assured. 

However if your dream is to be a singer and you were born with a weak voice and or under-developed vocal chord strength. Then singing even an easy song can be a real challenge and you will struggle to sound good or stay on pitch.

How do you know if you fall into this category of singers?

1. Your voice probably cracks or wobbles in pitch when you sing higher or lower than your natural speaking voice range. 

2. You sound good singing the lower notes of a song but cant hit the high notes without using falsetto (and it just doesn’t sound right).

3. Your voice lacks that radio friendly tone and can sound thin airy and breathy or unfocused.

4. You struggle to hear your voice over a band or even when accompanied by a piano or acoustic guitar.

5. Your voice blows out quickly and becomes tired after 1 to three songs and you loose the ability to hit high notes the voice suddenly disappears altogether in that part of your range.

6. Voice lacks power when you sing and you have to strain to make a bigger sound.

If you found yourself nodding and identifying with any of the above check points.

Don’t give up, if you really want to become a singer and your dream is to have a career in music you can!!! It just means that initially you will have to put more effort into strengthening and conditioning these under-developed singing muscles.

First of all everyone’s voice is different no two sets of vocal chords are exactly the same size or length,  and of course the resonating spaces in singers also differ greatly in size and dimensions, ie throat, pharynx, windpipe, jaw shape,  sinus head cavities, upper chest resonating spaces etc. 

If you want to learn about the various elements that combine to determine and influence the unique identity of a singers sound. Refer to my earlier blog article:

Home

If your new to singing and have a weak voice that cant hit the high notes or suffer from any of the vocal challenges I listed above. Then you can really do yourself a favour by following the #1 golden rule to reduce the time it takes to develop a powerhouse voice. 

Spend at least 15-20 minutes of each vocal exercise session on exercises to develop and strengthen your low notes and upper notes of your chest register. 

Sing or hum a simple scale ie a major scale DO, RE, ME, FA, SO, LA, TE, DO, on all of the vowels ie, lar, la, ee, o, u.

Start the exercise on your lowest comfortable speaking note, and repeat each scale position ten times, before moving on to start the scale a semitone higher than your original starting note. Only move on to a higher scale position when you can sing all the notes in the scale without wobbling and your voice is able to stay connected and there are no breaks or cracks. Once you can do this correctly, then continue up to the next highest starting postion and so on. Only sing as high as you can and still remain connected!

If your voice breaks into falsetto then stop and start the exercise again lower down the scale where you can stay connected! 

(If your not sure what a scale is and not sure how to perform this exercise properly) I highly recommend taking a lesson or two to learn how to develop your voice safely and correctly. If you don’t do the exercise correctly you can expect little or no progress and lots of frustration!

Be patient don’t rush through these exercises they are the foundation for making you into a stronger singer! (if you want to scream or belt out high notes) with power then you need to strengthen and condition your chest voice to properly promote a fully connected vocal sound. Otherwise you will find it next to impossible to connect your chest voice and head voice into one long seamless register).

There are no short cuts (for singers with weak chest voices to be able to connect up the chest to the head voice correctly)! If you avoid strengthening up your chest voice your high notes will flick over into falsetto every time!

Alternatively, If your an experienced or professional singer that is experiencing loss of power in your chest register or your finding the gap is growing wider between your chest and head register the solution to remedy the vocal weakness is going to be the same. Follow the #1golden rule for building and maintaining a powerhouse voice. 

Sirens are a highly effective exercise for reducing the gap between chest and head and helping to maintain and build the strength of the connection between both the chest and head voice.

Once again if your not sure how to perform a siren safel and correctly i recomend taking a lesson to learn how to get the best results from this exercise.

Note if your a singer with a naturally strong low chest voice, and you are having problems developing the conection between your chest and  head voice register, I will cover this topic separately in an up coming blog.

Put simply if you want to develop robust power in your voice and produce more tone and weight into your higher notes and screams then you need to remember to build your voice from the ground up. Strengthen up your chest register and spend time working on specific exercises designed to safely stretch and extend the range of your chest voice. The higher you can sing in chest the easier it becomes to connect into a solid head voice. Once you’ve built this connection you can begin to really strengthen up the power of your head voice screams.

Singers with big powerful voices that produce warm rich tone even into there highest notes, ie Steven Tyler (Aerosmith), Sebastian Bach (ex Skid Row) Axl Rose (Guns N Roses) or Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters) Melissa Etheridge or Bonnie Tyler and Beyonce Knowles, etc have one thing in common with each other. All of these singers were either born with strong chest registers or they trained to condition and build the strength in the lower, middle and upper chest notes first.

The mechanics of how high notes in head voice are produced. 

In order to sing higher notes above your natural chest voice range . Your vocal chords will begin to thin out so that they can stretch and create higher pitches ( known as head voice). Singers with powerful rock voices are able to scream and take more of a full bodied sound through into their higher notes, because they have taken the time to build up the strength and the mass of the vocal chords in the lower and middle and upper chest register. As the vocal chords begin to thin out the added size and thickness or (mass of the vocal chords) are able to thin down and still have enough mass to produce a fuller sound. 

Reminder use it or loose it!

Singers that ignore the development of there lower registers will end up with a big problem later on. 

Firstly low notes will lack power, and will have little or no resonance (warmth), this means the voice will sound breathy weak and wobbly (no singer wants that)!

Secondly, high notes will sound thin (because the required muscle mass of the vocal chords will be lacking) and when the chords thin down to produce your head voice screams the result will be a shrill tone that nobody will want to listen too.

Many professional singers as they get older develop noticeable weaknesses in there upper chest register because they neglect to maintain the strength of this part of there voice, they create a bad habit where they begin connecting into there head voice at a lower place in there range. IE Sebastian Bach from Skid Row and Rob Halford from Judas Priest begin to develop noticeable problems in connecting there upper chest voice to there head voices, if you don’t maintain the strength of the upper chest register you will begin to notice that the place where you would normally connect into your head voice becomes a lot harder to get too.

The answer is simple if you want to develop a powerhouse voice and take a bigger fuller sound into your high notes and metal screams then remember to spend sometime during your vocal exercise sessions to strengthen and extend the range of your chest voice. Not only will you develop a powerful mid range voice. This will also help you build a solid connection into your head voice and establish a powerful connected tone from your lowest note right through to your highest note just like the pros do!

Better singing everyone.

If you want to learn more about the topic we covered or discuss your voice with me email:  paule@rapidvocalresults.com