Rapid Vocal Results

As a vocal coach I often receive inquiries from parents wanting to know what age their child should be before they start taking singing or vocal lessons?

As you can imagine this is a bit of a contentious subject at the best of times. Some singing tutors are more concerned with securing additional revenue, rather than actually looking after there young students welfare.

Here’s my two cents on the subject. I have been working as a singer performer and vocal coach for over twenty years now and this is the advice that I provide for parents who believe there child is going to be the next Mariah Carey or Justin Beiber.

Kids can learn to sing at any age, providing they are old enough to have developed the physical motor skills for singing. They also need to be able to have an attention span for at least thirty seconds at a time. Also its really helpful if they actually want to be a singer when they grow up.

The parent should always be welcome to observe the lesson, and to have a good understanding of what their child’s vocal home work is and even how to perform the exercises in a simplified format.

I normally recommend that parents wait until there child is at least 8-10 years of age before commencing any kind of structured voice coaching.

If your child is serious about been a singer and wants to develop there voice to its full DNA genetic potential (see my previous posts for more information on the role that DNA genetics has in pre-determining maximum vocal growth potential). I recommend 15-16 years old is a good age to embark on vocal strengthening and conditioning programmes for the voice.

There are still some key factors to take into consideration primarily, regarding the changes going on in the voice box, but a good vocal coach will understand how to gradually build up the intensity of the programmes to a safe manageable level to  produce rapid vocal results, while also continuing to safe guard the students voice from potential harm.

The earlier your child receives quality vocal coaching, mentoring and guidance, the sooner they can develop the correct techniques to properly support the development of their singing voice. The key benefit of early singing development is to reduce the time it takes to encourage the correct vocal muscle cordinations. By learning to develop the correct singing habits at an early age these singers can more easily avoid the pit falls associated with unhealthy singing habits that can form later on. 

But back to the subject at hand.

Children’s voices literally continue to grow and develop right up to the age of twenty. During this time the actual voice box will grow in size and so will the vocal chords, and the tendons and the ligaments and cartilages that make up their individual vocal anatomy.

Its important for the vocal coach, to have a thorough understanding of the safe way to develop a child’s singing voice, due to the very fragile nature of their vocal chords (children’s vocal chords, are small,  extremely thin  but very flexible from 3-12 years old) and  grow much thicker as they grow older and naturally retain flexability up to mid twenties). Children naturally experience large growth spurts through puberty and through out there teen age years. During these early years we want to avoid placing too greater strain on the developing chords and the vocal mechanisims that make up the voice!

This means that a good knowledgeable vocal coach, understands the importance of introducing vocal exercises that focus more on flexibility *during the formative years of a childs physical development) and encourages relaxed open released singing practices, rather than trying to race too early into vocal strengthening exercises. 

Yes I have heard of instances where young children have damaged their vocal chords because the voice coach was inexperienced and was encouraging his/ her young charges to use adult vocal strengthening programs.

The most important goal of any vocal lesson regardless of the age of the student is to have fun, and gain an increased confidence with there voice so singing becomes easier, adopting this approach is a sure fire recipe for achieving rapid vocal results! The #1 responsibility of the vocal coach is to safely grow the voice of the singer, at a pace that matches the singers own genetic potential for their unique vocal muscle growth and development!

Better singing everyone.

Hi everyone, this is a subject that is near and dear to my heart. Regardless of your level of singing experience whether you regulary perform on stage or have yet to sing in front of an audience. Singers can get tricked into falling into the trap of pushing too much air past the vocal chords when they sing or scream.

“If you want to sing higher or louder you need to push more air through the vocal chords” Right?

Wrong !

Actually its the opposite the higher we want to sing or scream, the more we need to find the correct technique for holding back the excessive unwanted air pressure so that the vocal chords are able to thin out and comfortably stretch to reach higher notes within our voice. 

Singers that pass unwanted excessive air past the vocal chords actually dry the vocal chords out very quickly and the additional excessive air pressure robs the vocal chords of there natural flexability, resulting in a voice that cracks or breaks into fallsetto, or you end up straining your chest voice because the vocal chords are forced to sing in a higher register than usual, using the wrong vocal set up.

How do you know if your passing excess air over your vocal chords, and thereby robbing your voice of additional available vocal range and power? 

Try this simple exercise using a comfortable singing note close to your speaking voice simply sing and hold the note for as long as you can, aim for 10-30 seconds.  Vocalise on a simple ahh sound (just like you would make if a doctor asked you to open your mouth for an examination).

Now listen to your voice dose the note your singing sound rich and warm or can you hear a lot of excess air passing over the chords? If your voice sounds weak or overly breathy its a sure bet that your letting too much air escape between your vocal chords when you sing.

Okay so my voice is breathy why should i reduce the amount of air that escapes through my chords when i sing? 

Excess air is the natural enemy of tone and prevents you from increasing your vocal range (ie singing higher requires flexible vocal chords). Excess air escaping past the chords is often the cause of crackly notes and vocal breaks, and will fatigue the voice very quickly.

Which leads me to my next point if we know its bad for us why do we continue to push excess air past the vocal chords and end up with a breathy weak tone or cracks in our vocal register?

Believe it or not your brain gets confused sometimes when we are singing, and often sends us the wrong message it dosent mean to sabatage us on purpose. Singing requires a great deal of muscular strength and correct body support and multiple vocal co-ordinations when these areas are working in harmony we produce a balanced voice. There are parts of the throat/ neck/ and upper body that we want to remain relaxed while we sing, and smaller micro muscles groups that we want to switch on to take up the strain and correctly create our singers support system. 

When the wrong parts ( major muscle body groups) are used incorrectly to support your singing the excessive tension these muscles produce have a detrimental effect on our singing voice. Essentially excessive muscular force creates resistance at the vocal chords, the voice then responds by pushing back just as hard in the opposite direction. As a result the vocal chords and voice mechanisim resist and stiffen up. The laranyx is no longer able to operate freely. As  singers we will feel greater levels of resistance at the vocal chords and it becomes more difficult for the vocal chords to stretch freely to reach the next note.Now suddenly, the brain gets confused and wants to help us overcome this additional vocal resistance. So the brain sends a message to the lungs that more air is needed to overcome the stiffness of the vocal chords. 

But the more air we pass over the vocal chords the more the vocal chords will stiffen up and resist the barrage of unwanted air. This produces unhealthy excessive tension on the vocal chords, legaments, and cartlidges that make up our vocal anatomy. In short singing this way for sustained periods of time is a sure recipe to damage the voice.

Okay so what can i do to help me thin the air that passes between my vocal chords and develop a much healthier way of singing?

Firstly understand anytime that your brain tells you to push to sing higher or strain to get more volume… What your brain actually meant to say, is  to release, let go of excessive tension on the voice, and relax the muscles in and around the throat so that your laranyx can move freely and operate smoothly.

To help you retrain your voice and resist the urge to push excess air past the chords sing at lower volumes initially to help encourage the release of unwanted muscular tension in the neck and throat. If you have to sing louder in order to sing higher then you are placing to much strain on your vocal chords and letting way to much air escape between your vocal folds.

If youve been singing at the top of your lungs for years, (belting) which means relying on the chest voice almost exclusively to reach your high notes. Or you can only reach your high notes at full volume and really strain to hit the top notes in a song. Its going to take time to retrain and balance your voice. Working with a vocal coach that really understands how to create the correct singing support system to reduce unwanted vocal tension can really help save your voice from a lifetime of over use. Learning how to thin the air when you sing will help you extend your range and improve your singing power.

Better singing everyone.

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!