VocalQuarters
… with renowned voice coach Diana Yampolsky
Eating cheese, bending your knees and breathing through your nose are some of the methods the Toronto-based vocal specialist recommends in her latest VocalQuarters column to make progress as a vocal student that much harder.
As a world-renowned vocal coach, voice repair specialist, and author, there are few things Diana Yampolsky doesn’t know about the human voice and how to get it to perform at its peak.
Having helped a myriad of stars achieve their vocal potential, including Our Lady Peace singer Raine Maida (US Top 10, Canada No.1), Canadian Idol winner Brian Melo (Canada Gold), singer-songwriter Anjulie (US Dance No.1), and recent Interscope signee Cindy Gomez, she is on hand to help you too whatever your ability! According to Ms. Yampolsky, while 25% of a singer’s performance is grounded in talent, 75% relies on coaching.
… and work harder at doing it
by Diana Yampolsky
“Myth #1 - everyone knows it takes years of arduous work to become even a moderately good singer”
In order to vent a little of my frustration regarding some of the popular myths about learning how to sing properly I have decided to have a little fun, whilst also sharing some of the insights I've gained over the years.
Since everyone knows it takes years of arduous work to become even a moderately good singer (myth #1), this time I’m rejecting the fast, easy and natural way and going along with this popular rule of thought. This way I can highlight the ways by which people can work harder and take longer in achieving that greater vocal performance.
Drop the Jaw
The first point is ensuring your jaw is dropped while singing - a little is good but more is better – as this traps the sound in the throat. In preventing the sound from lifting off the larynx to the upper palate, passing through the four main vocal chambers, and outward, you will struggle to achieve anything close to your maximum vocal power.
Sing From the Diaphragm
The second, and equally important, point is to sing from your diaphragm and push your stomach out. This prevents the upper diaphragm from expanding fully and therefore limits your air supply and increases the likelihood you'll run out of oxygen, depending on the length of the note or phrase you're singing.
An excellent way to train yourself for this is to lie on the floor, find yourself a nice thick book to place on your abdomen - the phone book works great – and then ‘pump paper’ up and down until you can stick out that stomach to a degree where a punch wouldn't even phase you. By doing this you'll be sure that the upper diaphragm will never open fully.
Sing With Your Speaking Voice
Next, you should try singing with your speaking voice. Sing each syllable of your lyrics using your vocal cords. This will help to avoid lifting the sound off of the vocal cords, bouncing the sound off the upper palate (‘opening’ the syllable) and projecting the properly structured sound outward. This would only produce a round apple shaped sound inside the mouth and help make the sound ‘singable’, which is hardly very desirable. Incidentally this is also why people with accents tend to lose them while singing. More about this in future articles.
Breathe Through the Nose
While we're on the subject of the shape of things, be sure to only breathe through the nose because it tends to make the shape inside the mouth more elongated or banana-like and the sound more nasal. Great eh?!
Sing With the Jaw and Mouth Alone
Another way to create more work for yourself singing is to ensure that, as far as your head goes, you only sing with your jaw and mouth. This prohibits the use of your facial muscles and reduces the likelihood of any resonance in those nasty head cavities occurring, which would result in your sound being amplified, reflected off the upper palate and projected outward to the audience.
Tilt Back the Head
Tilting the head back is important since it directs the trajectory of the sound away from the audience. This is particularly important when performing as part of a band because not only does it mean you will have to put more energy into getting the sound out to the audience but you will also be directing some of the sound back behind you - very useful in helping discourage any of your band members from developing a ‘natural’ singing voice.
Bend Your Knees
Bending your knees is a great technique for limiting your power as a singer. Since sound is a physical thing, by bending your knees you change the ratios relating to your height, and so the trajectory of the sound will cover much less distance - which is what you want, right?
Eat Dairy Products
Another key issue is diet. One of the single most important causes of throat problems with singing is mucous. Sound can't lift off of thin air, it lifts off the vocal chords. Dancers don't dance on carpet, they dance on hardwood floors so they can get a proper lift. In the same way, you can prevent a really sharp ‘lift’ with each and every note you're singing by having lots of mucous and phlegm on your cords and in your system.
The best foods to eat to achieve this are animal products especially beef, pork, milk, eggs and cheese, although any kind of dairy products will do a great job on their own. Foods to avoid would be mucous burning foods and herbs – with cayenne topping the list - or fresh fruit and vegetables, grains, legumes and anything else whole and unprocessed that doesn't have a face.
Sing Scales
One of the best ways to practice not becoming a singer that I know of is to sing scales. If you look even superficially at the songs you're singing, you'll see that they are composed of a certain finite number of specific combinations of sounds, durations and pitch. Singing scales has nothing whatsoever to do with developing yourself to be able to vocally anticipate these in any song.
So sing lots of scales and don't worry, no one either in Russia (my teachers were the best available) or here in the west has ever shown me any connection between scales and training the voice to do what's needed to sing properly. So there's no danger of you becoming accomplished fast with this approach.
Finally, be sure to spend time working each of these exercises individually and never collectively because even the thought of integrating or harmonising the various aspects of your singing might slow you down in your efforts to slow down your singing progress - and that would never do.
Please note: This article is meant to be a humourous essay on the all too frequent use of various incorrect vocal techniques. As the disclaimer often goes: do not try this at home!
Besides writing a regular column for HitQuarters, Diana Yampolsky is available for a special Q&A session to answer any specialist questions you might have about vocal performance, technique, care etc. Please send any questions to Diana here
Read On ...
* Vocal Parts – Vocal Assembly
… and how that contributes to total vocal performance
* Vocal Science - Flight to the Universe
* Vocal Insurance – Secure Your Investment!
* The Technical Elements of Vocal Style
* Psychology of Performance - Pavlovian Conditioning
* Vocal Speaking - The Cutting Edge
* Introductory Interview with Diana Yampolsky
