Speech Level Singing and Voice Lessons

The Female Singer’s Chest Voice

12 22 09'

Written by Jane

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First of all what does that mean to sing or even speak in the chest voice? It simply means to sing with the vocal cords connected or touching from the low chest notes on up to the middle notes (like middle C, D, E, F and G).

When you sing connected versus singing breathy or airy, your vocal cords connect in the chest register and all the way up through the middle notes and then the head voice or head registers. When singing non-connected or breathy or airy, your vocal cords are not connecting to the best of their ability so that when you go up the scale to higher notes you could be singing falsetto instead.

It is valued among kids, preteens and even teens to sing more breathy in the chest area, since that’s the sound some of their favorite recording artists are making, especially pop artists. Michael Jackson made a good living off of singing and speaking breathy, even though it is proven that he did not have to sing that way, but did so for style and effect.

There are voice teachers whose students are encouraged to take their voices as low on a descending scale (from high notes to low notes) as possible in head voice and ignore the chest voice entirely. Others inform their students that the chest voice will come naturally in time when the voice is ready. It’s important for all you singers and future singers to know it really is not magical.

There are exercises that I and other speech level singing teachers know how to teach to encourage the vocal cords to touch, connect and stay connected so that your voice can beautifully mix the chest to the head voice. And people will think you are still singing higher notes in your chest voice merely because your vocal cords connected so well and consistently from the chest on up that your voice still conveys strength.

Some students catch on to these exercises very quickly and it hardly takes any time for them to change, and some students take longer. But it’s important to teach children through adults and not act like it doesn’t exist. The chest voice is the root of the voice and of singing. It is said that the difference between being a singer and those who sing is that the singer is able to sing from chest on up and down again with the vocal chords connected so as to produce a consistent sound.

Next blog will be a continuation of the Female Chest Voice subject.

Thanks, for reading. 

Jane Jenkins, A Vibrant Voice

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Speech Level Singing

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Health and Care of the Singer’s Voice

10 21 09'

Written by Jane

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I knew after writing my blog on Practicing, that this needed to be the next subject.  A dissertation could be written on this subject, but we don’t have time in this small blog, so i’ll touch on a few important principles.

The term vocal CORDS is often referred to as “vocal FOLDS”.  So here you may read cords and folds interchangeably.

LARYNX: Your larynx, like any other organ of your body, is composed of living tissue.  It is possible to abuse your voice without even realizing you are doing so.  Think of the radio foodshow host, Rachel Ray who spent all summer after having had surgery from a cyst on a vocal fold recovering; learning that what had contributed to the cyst growing was that she had poor posture, she talked incorrectly and not in her “speech level” voice.  She talked too high, with- out air support and raised her larynx intermittently.  She often talked and laughed with excessive volume, smiling and going up so high, she talked with tension.  A muscular “battle” took place between her vocal muscles (in the larynx) and the outer muscles.  It led to so much straining and hoarseness that a cyst formed on one vocal fold.

OTHER FACTORS: Many people (myself included through way too many years) imitate the voice or style of a recording artist they admire, and they try to sing in that person’s key, which may be all wrong for them. Their voice and development may not be able to handle what that recording artist is doing. Rock singers and oldies singers  think there audience will know if the key is lowered a half or a whole note and not enjoy the performance. I would be amazed if the audience payed that much attention and had the perfect pitch they’d need to tell the difference.

CORD SHOCK: Excessive coughing, sneezing, throat-clearing and starting your song or statement with a sudden burst of air can strain or even damage the delicate muscle tissue of your cords.

EMOTIONAL STRESS AND FATIGUE: When you are tired, your body is under emotional stress and your neuro-muscular system cannot function properly.  You run the risk of using the wrong singing muscles to assist you through your practicing.

VOCAL VACATION: This merely means to take a vocal rest, eliminating any talking or singing or humming.  Just vacate and yes, this means carrying around a notebook around your neck like Celine Dion and other singers do to communicate with her husband and others during these crucial times.

SOME CAUSES OF VOCAL ABUSE: Talking in a restaurant or bar that is too noisy or has bad acoustics. The “in” thing in some new places is to not install ceiling tiles.  Looks very SOHO but sounds like a very bad choir warming up with a mixture of sounds that you try to overcome by talking more loudly.

Whispering is just as abusive as yelling and can lead to vocal damage, also.  Also talking breathy and singing breathy is not good for your voice.

TAKING CARE OF YOUR VOICE:

* Good Posture, including not shaking your head to the beat of the music while you sing. You may need to have someone check out your posture while you speak or sing to see if your spine seems aligned.
* Drink water, keep your folds hydrated, especially with water.
* Reduce or eliminate caffeine, alcohol, and smoking intake. All of these dry you out, irritating the cords.
* Increase amount of sleep if appropriate.
* Warm up your vocal cords before you lecture or present, or before you sing songs.
* Restrict use of loud voice in windy, cold, or outdoor areas.  In windy, colder conditions, place a scarf around your neck.
* Hormone changes will affect the voice; take care of yourself when these are occurring.
* The environment affects the voice.  Dust, fumes, smog, smoke and other allergens should be kept to a minimum.

REMEDIES THAT DON’T WORK:

Sprays, lozenges, hot tea, honey/lemon preparations. they don’t help you sing better.  Citrus is acidic and drying so orange or tomato juice is not recommended, nor is lemonade.

Whew, this is a long, long blog.  I hope you have found it helpful.  If I left anything out, let me know so I can include it in another piece somewhere.  I can imagine I didn’t cover everything here.  If you take issue with anything or find it offensive, check it out with a vocal doctor or a vocal institute. There is a wonderful institute in Denver, Colorado and another in New York.

Jane

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Less is More!

10 21 09'

Written by Jane

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Less is more! What does this idea have to do with singing? Is this true? Is more air on high notes necessary? Answer: NO.

The Key is this: The higher you sing the less air you should use. When you reduce the amount of air that you send up from the lungs to your cords you make it possible for the muscles outside of the vocal cords to NOT do anything for the singing; to stay relaxed and uninvolved. The condition that makes you engage the outer muscles is use of too much air. Therefore, only use the amount of air you need for your vocal cords to handle the vocal exercises and songs.

Now, how does this apply to rock singers who need to sing raspy, growly, or screamy? Raspy & growly are a style, but if you scream you Will engage the outer muscles. So if you are a consistent performer, over a period of time, who knows when, your voice will most likely be damaged. Because you are singing consistently with the outer muscles and you are lifting your larynx rather regularly.

Voice Lessons are a process, referred to as similar to an athletic endeavor. You take the time to go through the steps to learn about your voice and listen to your self, feeling the way it is different when singing correctly and what is different when singing incorrectly. Even with rock singers, Less is More, while practicing and building excellent technique so you can add the style and genre you want later in combination with your good technique.

Thanks again for reading my blog, and look for more info on good singing technique next time.

Jane

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What to Expect in Your First Lesson

09 22 09'

Written by Jane

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What to expect in a first lesson with me:

It’s always good to know what to expect for your money before those well earned and valued dollars are spent. In the first lesson with me I will conduct a voice evaluation.  I will ask you a few questions and then see what is going on with your voice.  The evaluation isn’t a big challenge, but it tells me a lot about any vocal issues you may have going on.

After the evaluation, I will ask you how it felt to get through the vocal transitions and tell you what I’m noticing.  Then I’ll let you know what we need to do to fix these issues, and proceed to do just that.  I am not saying everyone’s vocal issue gets fixed the very 1st lesson, but there are some people where that does happen.

Expect to learn a lot about your voice and why it does what it does in making adjustments to get to the higher notes and sometimes the adjustments you make to get to lower notes.  I involve you every step of the way to understand what’s  going  on in your body so that you will be able to sing correctly.   Voice anatomy is interesting and it’s good for me as the instructor to know what’s going on at all times so I can use a Speech Level Singing Tool to help you adjust and fix the problems.

Typical vocal issues encountered in the 1st lesson:

The Flip: some singers sing fine in chest voice and as they move on up the range they “flip” into a falsetto. You can feel and hear when that happens.  The voice cracks and you widen the vowel as you feel the awkwardness of this bridge or transition and then it flips and an inconsistent sound is made while singing higher notes, much lighter without depth.

Pull Chest: Some singers sing fine in the chest and as they move up the range they feel that “bridge or break” or transition beginning to occur, don’t want to feel it or let it happen, so sing louder and put more pressure on the note while widening the mouth a lot.

They will feel the voice getting stuck and not be able to go further without singing forced and loud and then the voice just stops.

No Chest: Some singers sing so breathy in the chest register that there is no basis for which to go up the range without just staying breathy.  Unless the teacher knows the correct exercises to fix this problem, they will remain breathy or airy in the bottom notes while going up and also when coming back down in a song or when singing scales.

Mixed: Some singers find it easy to mix. When you sing in the chest and you let yourself go into the head voice easily with no cracks , no pull chest, no flips and no breathyness, you are Mixing. You mix when your chest resonation easily gives way into the head voice (very limited definition provided here).

These conditions must exist for singing to be called Mixed:  The larynx needs to be stable (at speech level), as it is when conversing in a moderate tone.  The vocal cords or folds, as they are sometimes called, need to be closing/vibrating. And you need to sing in a relaxed posture without trying to help the note in any way.

Seth Riggs (www.SethRiggs.com) who started Speech Level Singing International, says that perhaps the best way to describe SLS is,”An absolute refusal to help the pitch for low notes or high notes.” As an instructor, I will work with you on not thinking of those notes going up so much as how to use the vowel.  The vowel is what you will concentrate on in every lesson.

In summary, the purpose of SLS training for all students, according to Seth Riggs, is to induce and maintain a healthy, naturally produced and relaxed vocal production through the use of “Tools” which create:
*  Balanced registration and connection between chest, mid and upper registers.
*  Seamless negotiation of the bridges of the voice
*  Appropriate vocal cord closure (not over compressed or under-compressed), and
*  A relaxed, low and stable larynx.

The Speech Level instructor goes through years of specialized learning and long hours studying so we can teach other singers how to sing the best without wasting time making mistakes. Look for our local Training for students and those curious of Speech Level Singing, in Austin Texas on Nov. 5th, 6th and 7th, 2009.

See www.speechlevelsinging.com for a list of global trainings.  When the word Austin is red, you can click on it and register for the event.  you can get a private lesson with Dean Kaelin, who sends many kids to Americal Idol, including runner up season before last, David Archuleta.

Meanwhile, email me for a lesson so you can get your vocal evaluation.

Thanks for reading my blogs, Jane.

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Building Vocal Strength

09 04 09'

Written by Jane

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I write this because many students want to have a couple voice lesson then be able to sing loud after that. My advice is to not be concerned with building a strong voice right away. Your ability to increase your volume will occur after the coordination of your vocal muscles has been established. At some point (see future blogs on this subject), your vocal cords (folds) will be coordinated enough to sing more loudly. Until then, sing only with as much volume as you are able to stay at “speech level” as you sing through your entire range.

In learning to sing right, you have to condition your muscles external to the vocal cords not to be involved in the singing. To produce tone over a period of time your vocal cords will develop their own strength, allowing you to sing with more volume without any assistance from those outer muscles. You will be able to feel it when you get to that point. It feels very different when we DO use the outer muscles. It feels like there is effort; like we have to do something to reach a note (high or low). And it feels relaxed when we just use our vocal cords, it feels so effortless we often think, that can’t be all there is to singing. It’s got to be harder than that!

Signing off for now. Be sure to read more blogs about how you get to this effortless style. I’ll write a building block of ideas on this subject.  Meanwhile, email or call me for a voice lesson and you’ll see what I mean,  Jane

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Practicing Tips

09 04 09'

Written by Jane

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Hi everyone, I think I’m going to like blogging. It’s an easy way to talk about singing but I can also address some of the questions I have received through the years on this blog.

Today I want to talk about PRACTICING. During the lessons I record on a Tascam DR-1  digital recorder that looks like an mp3 and also doubles as one. You can bring or buy from me (only $10.00) a 2 GB flat SD memory card. I record on these, hand it back to you for you to practice the exercises or vowel modification we worked on in the lesson. You can use it on your computer, clicking on “play” on Windows Media. You can also download the lesson into your computer and/or you can burn a c.d. from the lesson.

It’s not how much you practice; it’s HOW you practice. But if you are a performer, you should practice as much as you perform, maybe even more. Why? Because singing in performance is not the same thing as practicing.

Definition of Performance: This is the culmination of the conditioning you have done for your voice, just as you would condition for athletics. You must place huge demands on your voice on stage. Regular vocal practice keeps your voice ready by practicing coordination. Any diversion of correct vocal technique can be corrected and worked on while you are practicing. If you are not a performer, you can practice once a day if you have the time to focus on what you are doing, but if you want to only practice 3 times a week, that is okay, too.

When should you NOT practice? If you are very tired, haven’t had enough sleep, or practicing incorrect vocal hygiene, but also if you have a sore throat and just coming down with anything that could make you too tired to focus well on the technique you are supposed to be doing.  Then it’s time to lay off the practice until you get enough rest, eat right, and so forth.

Looks like I need to write a blog on Vocal Hygiene.  That will be coming soon. thanks for reading this blog ; I hope it helps all of you.

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First Post: Introduction to Speech Level Singing

09 04 09'

Written by Jane

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Hello and welcome to my blog. This is my first post! It’s about Speech Level Singing. I have a more detailed article about it here: Speech Level Singing. I hope I can offer useful information that is written so that it is understandable and not too academic. I chose this subject for my first one because I want to convey the essence of Speech Level Singing, the method developed by Seth Riggs.

When you speak in a comfortable voice this is your ideal vocal condition with which to sing. What is happening is that your larynx (a man’s Adam’s apple or a bump in the throat for a girl/woman) is resting or stable in what you could call a “speech-level” position.  If you learn to sing and maintain your tone in this comfortable “speech-level”  manner nothing will feel different in your throat or mouth.  Both your tone and your words will feel natural and sound natural. Seth Riggs did a lot of research to perfect this understanding.

The correct way to sing is “speech-level,” the wrong way to sing is either reaching for high notes or putting the chin down for those low notes.   Try this:  Say “here kitty, kitty, kitty” in a real high pitched sound while having your open hand on the bump at the throat. Notice, does that bump go up?   It probably does, but try it so you can feel what i mean. Many famous singers have said that Seth Riggs’ methods have transformed their performances, starting with this insight.

If you can tell  the larynx goes up, then you are feeling what happens to the larynx when “reaching” for a high note.

Now say  “here kitty, kitty, kitty”  in an unusually low voice. You might feel that the larynx goes down a bit from the initial position.

Hopefully this has helped to understand a bit more what it means to sing at speech level. Speech Level Singing does not mean “sing like you speak.” Speech Level Singing is more than that, such as keeping a stable larynx.

Hope you get something from this blog. There will be more to follow on all types of subjects.

Signing off for now,

Jane Jenkins,
Certified Speech Level Singing Instructor
www.Voice-Lesson.com
San Antonio, Texas

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Speech Level Singing

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