Vocal Advice

I remember that it didn’t hurt or anything it just took me lots of focus like it was required a lot of factors to make it work.  I wanted to ask you for tips about the whistle register, like how my throat should be like….for me to improve on this.  If possible would you mind giving me some warming up exercises??

Answer: You are at an age when puberty has produced most of its physical changes in a young woman.  Therefore, the fact that you have found the whistle register may be an indication of a future facility as a soprano – although your final classification is not something that should concern you at the moment.

By the way, in the literature the “whistle register” is also identified as flageolet, piccolo, flute or bell register.

As the top-most notes available in the human voice, the vocal muscles are pulled to their longest and thinnest position.  The sound is thin, small and whistle-like.  At sixteen you probably need to be careful not to overdo with exercises in this area of your voice.  The percentage of time spent as you sing, should be a very small one in the whistle register.

If you will close one of your hands into a fist and imagine that it is your favorite kind of apple, imagine now that you are going to fit the entire fruit into your mouth.  Well of course it can’t be done, however, as you make the attempt, you will experience the stretching of your mouth and lips to their widest possible aperture.  So, be aware that this kind of openness will help facilitate more freedom in this area of your range.

Now let’s do a couple of exercises that will help hear and feel how these high notes should be.  Imitate some light, high, laughter.  It may sound like “tittering” or it may feel as you laugh hilariously.  Get some of your girl friends to join you in this,  encouraging each other on to cast aside inhibitions and feel utterly abandoned in the laughter.

Another more musical exercise is this: once you have completed a normal vocal warm up, do some extension exercises on a 1-3-5-3-1 pattern on an open vowel (ah).  This should be fast moving – not slow.  You can experiment with singing this pattern legato or staccato to see which works best for you.  Sing this exercise beginning an octave above middle C and ascend by half-steps.  You may find that when your beginning note is F that your top note (5) will take on a shrill light sound.  The higher you ascend, the more notes in the exercise will sound this way.  Don’t worry if you have trouble tuning the highest notes perfectly at this time.  Do this exercise with a keyboard so that you can see where your highest notes are.  You should soon (in a few months) be able to vocalize up to G above high C – and higher if you are truly a light soprano.  Once you get to your boundary – return by half-steps to your lower range again.  Remember to sing this exercise with some abandon – not with careful, slow “control”.  This will begin the process of you learning how to negotiate the whistle register.

Again, just a reminder, don’t spend very much time up there.  Vocalize up there for four or five minutes every day doing these kinds of exercises, and be done.

If you find that you have increased facility in this, you can be certain that your choir director will have some specific notes that you (alone?) will be asked to sing on some pieces.  If you find that your discovery becomes fraught with tension, then stop making the attempt … and allow your voice to develop without it for a while.

Best wishes.

PS. By the way I have another blog post on warming up the voice.

I’m in chorus in high school and I love to sing.    Almost every year I do this solo & ensemble contest but my nerves never get any better.  For a little bit, before I go up to sing I don’t feel nervous at all but then once I start then the whole shaky voice and leg shaking starts.  In 6th grade and freshman year I got a 3rd.  Last year I got a 1st.  I’ve always been the type of person that is really insecure and no matter how many people say I sing well, I always doubt it.  It’s kind of hard to know who to believe when your own choir teacher says you’re not good enough for a solo and everyone else says you sing well.  So please help me with my nerves, the competition is in a week.  Thanks

Answer: Hi Esther,

Great question!

I’ve written another post on “dry mouth” nerves, so my answer will only serve to expand on that very slightly.

Nerves are normal.  What you described very well, 98% of the all performers also experience.  Part of the answer is to learn to balance the “adrenaline dump” with oxygen in your body.

You’ll recognize the feelings …  at a time very shortly before you are to perform your heart rate increases - anywhere from double to triple the normal speed.  (Adrenaline has been dumped into your blood stream.)  It’s important AT THAT TIME to breathe very deeply and slowly repeatedly.  This helps to accomplish two things: a) slow down the heart rate and b) increase the oxygen to your brain.  When the two are not in balance nerves tend to “take over” and “shaky voice” and “shaky legs” also known as “tetanic flutter” seem uncontrollable.

Nervousness isn’t going to go away - but you can get it under control - so that your nerves (the added adrenaline) actually serve to enhance the performance.

Go ahead and practice ahead of time what you are going to do when you feel the heart-rate rise - so that when the time comes, you’ll be doing something familiar and something you’re prepared to do.  (Sit tall, stand or walk and breathe deeply - slowly and fully - several times.)

Then, when it’s time to walk on stage, look confident and secure (you’ll be amazed how feelings of the same will follow) and you’ll also set your audience at ease.  Then enjoy expressing the song.

Best wishes to you!

Hi, I’m singing I Dreamed a Dream for my acting class final, and I have a really good voice, I really do, but my mouth always dries to the point where I can’t sing as well as I’d like to because I can’t hit the notes I want. I don’t think it’s a case of bad breathing or anything as much as it is nerves because I can sing fine at home, but it never happened to me until now. How can I stop this?

Answer: You hit it on the nose: dryness in the mouth is due to nerves. We sometimes refer to it as “cotton mouth.”  Performance nerves are things all performing singers have to reckon with.  Let me suggest a couple of things to help ‘keep things moist.’

1. Avoid caffeinated drinks just before singing, because they are mild diuretics - they actually help to ‘dry out’ membranes, affecting vocal cords that need to stay lubricated and saliva glands that need to provide moisture in the mouth.

2. Keep a bottle of water handy to swish around in your mouth just before singing.

3. Swish your tongue around the outside of your teeth and up by your upper gums to stimulate your saliva glands. This will add moisture to your mouth even in interludes between vocal phrases. Practice doing this first so you know what you’re up to.

4. Be sure you’ve breathed deeply and slowly several times when you feel the adrenaline kick in, so that your heart rate comes back down to a manageable tempo.

5. When you’re singing, “lose yourself” in the song, that is, express it from the heart. “Knock e’m dead.”  Thinking and expressing the song–instead of thinking of technique or your audience–will also help maintain normalcy in your mouth.

Hope you find this helps. Best wishes.

Whenever I try to go into high notes, it sounds just like my boy soprano voice except a little thicker and higher, is that a falsetto or head voice?, or anything?  (I’m 14 if it makes any difference)

Answer: Hi K_____, Yes, being 14 makes a heap of difference.

Also “yes” you’ve described falsetto, and the “thicker” sound is on account of the fact that your vocal cords have grown in size recently.  It would help to know the actual notes you’re singing when you get to your “high” notes now that your voice has changed.  I’m assuming that when you sing these high notes it’s without a lot of physical stress - they come fairly easily.

Not to worry Kalex, at 14 your voice is probably about as unstable as it will ever be.  As you get older your voice will get stronger and your range will grow and develop.  As you get closer to 20 (about college age) you’ll find that you can make some of the CLEAR tones that your easy low notes have higher up and you won’t have to “flip” or “switch” into falsetto.  Having said that, be aware that the high notes you’ve been accustomed to before the voice change will likely disappear almost entirely except by using falsetto.

“Head tone” is an extension of your strong male changed voice except it happens in the upper part of your range - and will be available to you in a few years.

In the meantime, sing easily.  Don’t demand too much from your voice and enjoy the changes and developments as they come.

Best wishes.

(I’m 15) I have trouble breathing every time I sing and because of that, every time a note is supposed to be sung and sustained long, I can’t hold the note because of my breathing.  Is there a way to improve my breathing when I sing?

Answer: Your question is a perceptive one.  At your age the problem may not be entirely with your breathing aparatus.

There are actually two components to the answer of your question.  One is respiration-related, and the other is phonation-related.  Breathing and making sound.  It will be helpful for you to learn to breathe for singing.  Make sure your posture is erect and your chest buoyant.  Breathe deeply so that the area around your waist is the part of you that expands the most.  Then learn to “stay expanded” and only release small amounts of air as needed for making clear tone.  To get the feel of this do the following exercise:

1) Inhale deeply, setting things up by dropping your jaw as if beginning a yawn,
2) sustain the breath in your body for a slow count of three – keeping your throat open,
3) sustain an “S” very softly, slowly metering out the air aiming to sustain the soft “hiss” for 30 – 60 seconds.  Maintain tall posture throughout the exercise.  Practice this repeatedly, daily.  This will help you learn what is involved for the body to breathe for singing.  Memorize these sensations and apply them when you sing.  Your upper chest should remain fairly still, “quiet” while your tummy area (epigastrium) in particular will stretch and expand on inhalation, and steadily contract on exhalation.  Place one hand just below your collar bones and the other just below your breast bone (sternum) for this exercise.  This is described in more detail in texts in vocal pedagogy and identified as “diaphragmatic-intercostal” breathing based on the use of the primary muscle groups involved.

The second part of the answer to your question is that you will need to cultivate the ability to produce very clear ringing tone – not breathy tone.  When excess air escapes, so does the breath.  This is a function of your voice (vocal cords) – and it helps to “think” clear tone too.  Your ability to produce very clear tone (efficient phonation) is in part dependent upon your age.  Since you’re in your mid-teens – you may need to allow yourself time (a few months or years) for your voice to mature, while you sing without trying through tension to sound like one who has a mature voice.  If you were in your twenties or older, you should be able to produce a clear ringing tone without unnecessary tension.

Having said all this, you need to know that your best progress will be while studying with a qualified and competent voice teacher.  Best wishes to you.

I have a very bad sore throat these days. . . But I can’t stop singing!!  What can I do?!  Is it harmful?

Answer: A “bad sore throat” indicates infection and swelling.  The throat often functions as the body’s “barometer” telling you that your body is fighting infection.

I empathize with your desire to keep singing.  However, while you have a sore throat it is advisable to stop singing.  Infection and soreness in the throat is about an inch from the vocal cords.  When you continue to sing - exercising the cords, blood flows to the surface of the cords - just like it does to your face when you exercise vigorously (you get flushed in the face).  It is then that the cords are most susceptible to becoming infected with the same germ that is causing soreness in your throat.  So, singing while having a sore throat is tantamount to inviting the infection to your voice.  When this happens you end up with “laryngitis” (temporary vocal cord paralysis) - at which time you lose part or all of your voice - until you allow your body to deal with the infection and recover fully.  Continuing to try to sing under those conditions can lead to lasting damage.

Also, it is good to know that the throat has relatively few pain nerve endings - unlike our hands and fingers. (This is the reason why some folk seem to be able to drink piping hot tea without realizing that it is burning their throat.)  So, when we feel pain in our throat - we need to pay attention.

My advice is that you take a break from singing - talking and especially whispering while you have a bad sore throat.  Recovery depends on how severe the infection is and how strong your immune system is.  When you recover, your voice will be the stronger for having left it alone during the days of throat infection.

Now, to help the process of recovery, drink lots of clear fluids (water, apple juice, and cran-anything juices), take lots of vitamin C every day, Echinacea - and if you can, garlic too.  These things will help flush the toxins from your system as well as aid your own immune system to beat the bug.  Besides this, get more than your usual hours of night’s sleep.

If you want to be able to sing do all you can to get well.

Best wishes.

PS. A word of caution:  If you are in the habit of sucking on lozenges, using throat spray or taking analgesics that simply numb the throat area temporarily - and at the same time continue to use your voice while you’re sick, you do not help the process of recovery.  Analgesics dry out the helpful glands that produce the necessary mucous lubrication for your vocal cords.  And, you only mask the pain (and injury) temporarily and do nothing for your body’s ability to fight the infection.  Avoid using your voice and work on a full recovery.

I sing for a local band in Goa - India.    But I want to make it big worldwide?  I don’t know what to do.    Are there any institutes that I can/should join in India or maybe UK that will train me and do recordings?

Answer: Allow me to offer you some suggestions, although they may not be what you want to hear.

1.  Continue to make a name for yourself in Goa.  You’ve gotten the right start.

2.  Gather up enough savings to pay for a recording to be made.  Start with just 1,000 CDs (and/or DVDs) and sell them locally first.  They should be available for purchase at the place you perform.  If/when those are sold, use the profits for a reprinting and order/sell more.

3.  Post a video of yourself performing with the band on YouTube.com, or MySpace.  This is free world-wide publicity - and you’ll get some honest responses to your performing.

4.  Don’t stop training.  Become a better singer and performer.  Find a trustworthy teacher and commit yourself to healthy singing habits.
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Answer: Hi Jameson,

Good question!  There are good reasons for what you feel.  As a voice teacher who often records the lessons of his students, I run into the same thing frequently with my students.

As singers, we hear but a fraction of the sound we produce coming to us from the “outside.”  Sound from our larynx (voice box) travels instantly through our Eustachian tubes directly to our ears (inside us), plus the vibrations and sounds travel through both bone structure and muscle tissue to our ears.  So, much of the sound we hear from ourselves comes to our perception from the INSIDE.  Therefore, a significantly smaller fraction of the whole is what we hear “bouncing off the walls of the room” in which we’re singing and comes to us from the outside.

Here’s the clincher that we as singers have to reckon with: we don’t hear ourselves the way everyone else hears us!  Guess how everyone else hears us? …  They hear us the same way a good recording of ourselves reveals.  The kicker is that since we never (or rarely) get exposed to how we sound to the world, when we hear ourselves recorded, our very frequent response is: “Oh no! That’s not me is it!?”

Part of our struggle is that over the years, all we know about our own sound is what we ourselves hear while singing.  This means that when we strive to make “beautiful and expressive” sound we’ve arrived at our aesthetic judgments based almost entirely as we hear ourselves and our impressions of ourselves - which is NOT how others hear us.

In the process of studying voice, student singers quite literally have to relearn how they listen - and re-educate themselves as to what “good sound” is - because on first exposure they often think of it as “ugly” “harsh” “edgy” etc.  You may not be studying voice, but you’ve experienced what many voice students experience when they hear themselves recorded.

If others like what they hear when you sing - you have a lot going for you - but your ears may still need to be “educated” as to the “real” sound coming out.

I hope this has been helpful.  Best wishes.

I can sing a high G and a low G, 2 octaves lower.   How do I write that in musical form, as in D4 or C2.  I don’t understand what those numbers mean.  I want to know how to write all the notes I can sing in that form so I can find out what roles I can play/sing.  For example, in order to play a certain character, you need to be able to sing g4-F3.  How do I know what notes they mean?

Answer: I’m afraid that a quick reference to (dare I say it, Wikipedia and) the Harvard Dictionary of Music will show that middle C is either named C4 in the American system or, as Harvard puts it, “there is no uniform practice.”

Therefore, I’d discourage you from using the letter/number system to find your range.  Sorry, I don’t mean to burst your bubble on this.  It would be best for you to become familiar with the western musical notation using the “treble and bass clef,” then also find where middle C is on a piano and orient yourself around that.

In general terms, Middle C (usually very close to the middle of a full piano 88-note keyboard) is usually close to the highest notes for a bass singer and close to the lowest notes of a soprano singer.

If you’re a guy with a changed voice, G to G would presumably place you in the baritone voice classification.  If you’re a lady, G to G would place you in the alto to mezzo-soprano range at the moment.

Not knowing your age and therefore not knowing the stage of your approximate vocal development, what I’ve identified as your voice classification is a guess based on normal range-classifications of changed voices.  If you are in your teens or around 20, your vocal development is still very much “in progress” and your range may continue to grow in either direction.

Anyway, if you’re looking at musical theater for example, look for “baritone” or “mezzo-soprano” roles (depending on whether you’re a guy or gal).

Best wishes to you.

. . . provided there’s a lesson a week, and I practice daily?

Answer: I think I know what you mean.  You are not suggesting that youngsters are incapable, because of their age, of having a good singing voice.  But once the voice has changed in puberty, how long…

First let’s establish what “normal” is since I may take exception to what another voice teacher refers to as normal.  While some children as young as 7 and 8 take private lessons, the advantage to private lessons NORMALLY begins when a girl’s and boy’s voice has undergone its adolescent change.  Therefore, a girl may normally begin voice lessons productively at about 16 or 17, and a guy is usually closer to 18 (a freshman in college).

Second: To have a “good singing voice” means that the instrument already has good potential and that the “raw material” to eventually produce a fine musician singer is present.  It is possible for a naturally gifted singer to have the raw material and not take any voice lessons at all and still have a good singing voice.  However, I’m going to assume that you mean “and also knows how to use it and wants to develop it professionally” implied in your question since you use the word “develop”.

During the next four or so years (past the ages named above), the voice in each gender is going through its biggest phase of development.  In fact, the voice continues to mature for several years in each case.  It is during these first four or five years that vocal lessons help the young singer to establish good singing habits: ways of listening, habits for respiration and breath support, production of tone, articulation, etc. - until a settled reliable technique is established.

Assuming the best: that there is a competent voice teacher and a diligent voice student, by age 20 - 21 the young singer will NORMALLY have developed a good singing voice - one s/he can count on that is resonant, expressive and pleasant to listen to.

Many professional singers retain for decades the same voice teacher with whom they developed and come back to him/her for an occasional “refresher” lesson when things temporarily don’t seem to be working well.

Four years - minimum - is normal depending on the goals of the singer.  Singers who go on beyond their college career to graduate school obviously continue to study, and as often as not, with a new teacher (meaning, with a teacher they’ve never studied with before).  However, if a solid foundation has been procured during the college years, they can spend the greater portion of their time learning repertoire, rather than on “how to sing”.

I hope this sheds some light on your question.