Whether you are a singer, performer, or public speaker, you need to exercise your voice. Vocalizing can help you to expand your vocal range and develop an evenness of tone. I recommend a lighthearted approach to vocal exercise, focused on increasing muscle awareness and muscle memory.
Many students run into trouble while vocalizing by squeezing or manipulating the throat in order to achieve a particular pitch. I call that “singing with determination.”
Instead, I teach my students to “sing with sensation”: I ask them to listen carefully to a pitch, relax the body, soften the heart area and the throat, initiate the sound at the level of the diaphragm, bypass the throat muscles, and feel the tone resonate through the bones of the face. Singing from sensation creates more mental and emotional space for the singer, much less tension, and the ability to experience more pleasure when you sing, as well as a deeper and more spontaneous connection to both the music and the audience.
After stretching the body, warming up the breath coordination, and loosening the tongue and the muscles of the face, you are ready to get the most out of your vocalizing. In the video above, I guide my students through two vocal exercises:
- Individual, Arbitrary Note Exercise: This exercise teaches to a singer’s body to initiate tone on the breath. It strengthens the diaphragm with each pitch. This exercise helps build vocal range without stressing the throat by reaching up or lowering down to achieve a desired pitch. Essentially, each pitch — whether high, medium, or low — is approached with the same relaxation, with focused energy followed by a release from the diaphragm. Please watch the video for a demonstration.
- Building Patterns and Working Through Vowels Exercise: Once you are comfortable finding individual pitches and touching on pitches in the extremes of your range, try creating patterns and combinations of notes to increase your ability to master phrases of music. As you do this, you can begin to feel the sensation of singing various vowel sounds in various patterns and combinations. Please watch the video for a demonstration.
I have touched on a few of the basics of vocalizing here. However, each singer is totally unique. These videos do not replace private lessons where a good teacher designs a specific program, outlining goals to meet the needs of the individual. Please contact me if you are interested in scheduling an individual session with me either online or in my studio in New York City.
