Vocal Music Advice

Jae: “Hello Dr. A, I want to ask for your opinion. Last Saturday, my uncle who was studying somewhere in Ohio, has heard me sing and has been told about my interest in singing. Now he said he bought me Brett Manning Singing Lessons CD’s. I’m so happy about it because they said it’s really a great help. Now, I want to ask you if Brett Manning is a really good vocal coach for me and if this lessons are really effective. Thank you Dr. A, you’re really a great help for me. Thank you so much and God bless!”

ANSWER: Jae,  I do not own “Brett Manning’s Singing Success” CD/DVD set although I have other similar audio tools.  So, I cannot speak to BM’s content specifically.  That said, ANY RECORDED VOICE-LESSON TEACHING TOOL should be considered supplemental and secondary in usefulness to one-on-one voice lessons with a qualified voice teacher.  Don’t kid yourself, anything (everything) that is advertised for purchase on the internet is a money-making scheme by the one trying to get rich on it.  That does not mean that it is not good or not useful, but it is also not an assurance of quality.  It is for this reason that those who sell such products get as many positive referrals as possible attracting traffic to their product.  So, proceed with care … and don’t be afraid to question what you read/hear/see.

Best wishes.

Hello! I was just wondering how long I might expect it will take me to rebuild a formerly strong voice.
I sang for many years as a part of my school choirs and as an actress in both school and community theatre. When it was time for college, however, I came up short on tuition and did not end up attending an academy for arts. Instead of striving, I settled for a private state university, majoring in psychology and writing, and (depressed… and relinquished my real outlet. Frustrated with my lack of efficacy as a performer, I believe I have let my abilities dwindle from disuse). I literally have not sung a single note in over two years. Let alone that, I have become utterly quiet and have spoken, in addition, very little over the course of the past two years.

Recently, I realized that my passion for arts-involvement is not something I can merely “get over” in greater quantities of time but rather a permanent part of myself that will merely continue to ache. I am looking into private vocal lessons; however, I am worried. I went from singing daily to a two-year hiatus. Is there ANY hope? And will it take years?

What can I expect to sound like? How long will it take before I sound like I used to? Will it ever be the same? Can I ever surpass my former level even, or are my previous abilities the best I could hope for at this point?
These are my many questions; I apologize but am hoping you can help me apprise what are the realistic parameters of my situation. Thank you so very much; I look forward to your advice.

Answer: Dear Lacey,

You’re only 20 … so there is DEFINITELY hope!  You can make a full recovery.  Be encouraged.

Having given you this encouragement, I should warn you that you need to start slow … and forget seeing a teacher for about 6 months.  Follow a regimen SOMETHING LIKE the following:

Weeks 1 – 3, Sometime shortly after you are fully awake (maybe after breakfast) find a favorite book or magazine, and read aloud for 15 minutes (not two hours!).  Your voice needs to get back to phonating!!  If your work place does not let you talk or interact, then read aloud again when you return home … and start calling your friends on the cell phone for 5-minute chats.  Start using your voice.  Do this EVERY DAY.  Hum your favorite songs around the apartment/house.

Weeks 4-6, Continue starting early in the day reading aloud.  At some point later in the day, vocalize (singing) for 15 minutes.  Your vocalizing can either be singing songs you know, humming, vocalizing tunes on open vowels or just vocal exercises like scales on all the primary vowels.  Do this EVERY DAY.  You have started to use your voice again, and it needs to feel comfortable and easy and not over-taxed.

Weeks 7-12, Read aloud for 15-minutes early in the day.  Later in the day (it can be evening), warm up your voice vocalizing easily and without strain for 15 minutes.  Follow this with 10 minutes of vocal rest, and then sing songs that are comfortable in your voice for another 15 minutes.

Weeks 13-16,

a) Read aloud for 15-minutes early in the day … be sure that it is interesting and that you find yourself becoming EXPRESSIVE … reading in a communicative manner.

b) It’s at this point that you should locate and join a well established community, church or synagogue choir that rehearses at least once a week.  Don’t be surprised if your voice feels tired after those first two or three rehearsals.

c) Vocalize for 20 minutes now on your warm ups, and begin to explore the parameters of your range again, as well as start using vocal exercises that demand some power and flexibility … say in your last 5 minutes of the 20-minute warm up.  Also, “play” with your voice … make animal sounds and sirens, and coos … and see what its capabilities are.

By month 5, you should feel weird if you have not used your voice for a day.  Let the daily routine of reading aloud early in the day and singing later in the day be just that … a natural routine.  During this month, begin to resurrect one or two of the favorite songs you once learned for performances earlier … three or four years ago.  By now, you may well find that your voice has MORE capabilities than it did 3 years ago … and you may well be “itching” to find a reliable voice teacher with whom to study.  Work up two or three songs to the best of your ability so that during your first “audition” lesson, you can present to your teacher a fair representation of your current abilities.  Be sure that you have found a trustworthy voice teacher.

Lacey, you will likely face two dangers in this process of “returning to singing.”  The first will be attempting to do too much, too fast … getting yourself hoarse … and very discouraged.  The second danger will be to not make your “return journey” a routine.  This has to become a daily activity, something you enjoy, and something you get used to again.  A once-in-a-while practice marathon will only result in disappointment and discouragement.

Do I think you can regain what was lost?  Yes.  Start slow, then make it part of your daily lifestyle … you’ll be so glad to be singing again!

My suggested “regimen” is just that … something you CAN do, starting slowly (like an exercise program).  You should not think of my time line as something set in stone.  If you find that you can progress faster EASILY … then do what you are comfortable doing.  Likewise, if your voice and body indicate that you need longer, then take longer on each stage.  Remember, you’re returning to a life style and an art form you love.

Best wishes.

I’m 26.  I have been singing for a very long time and I am a vocal performance major in school.  I am classified as a soprano, however, I have not been able to sing above an E-flat6 without some kind of vocal strain.  Some days my D6′s sound better than others.  However, I remember practicing a D6 and C6 and the next day I was super sore.  In my voice lessons I usually vocalize up to a D6 or at least C6 and I am never sore and B-flat5 is a breeze.  I have a very low voice as well.  I can sing all the way down to a G3 sometimes lower. I feel like I need to be able to own an e6 to make it in the soprano world of operatic literature but I am so tired of trying to hit those higher notes.  I read Renee Fleming’s book and found out she did not have high notes either.  This gives me hope because she could not hit above the staff at all.  However, I don’t understand how to approach these high notes (especially the whistle register) I mean how can you tell when you have hit the top. They say true sopranos can’t hit low notes but Fleming has low and high notes as well as Mariah.  I think I might have just not learned enough technique yet but I don’t want to keep trying for these notes if I am never going to get them.

1. Answer: At 26 your voice is close to reaching its full physical maturity.  Inasmuch as you have had years of training but you are finding that the notes above “high C” are a strain, or cause soreness after practicing them – then your body is telling you that your best range is lower – as you say.  Vocalizing briefly up to D or E above high C is one thing.  Being able to use those notes in song literature is another.  But before I wipe the idea of the notes in “whistle register” out completely let me say just a word or two about that.

2. Not all women have the whistle register available to them.  So, you would not be unusual if you found “hanging around” up there to be a real source of strain.

3. Typically, sopranos who do move into the whistle register when vocalizing do so just to touch a note momentarily and descend again.  The sound is not big – it is small.  Don’t try to make a big sound in whistle register.  Sing these notes ‘by feel,’ listening only to tune the notes.  The vocal apparatus is at its most tense, and the vowel posture is what I call in “the apple bite” position; that is, the jaw and lips are at their most open.  Imagine fitting an entire apple into your mouth.  Well, of course you wouldn’t – and you also couldn’t.  But in the attempt you’d open your mouth – in every direction – as widely as possible.  This is typically necessary for notes in the whistle register.

4. Just because a singer doesn’t have notes such as E above high C doesn’t mean that she is not a soprano.  Only a very small percentage of literature requires notes higher than C6 – and most soprano literature doesn’t even require that.  The question I would ask is – in what part of your range are you most comfortable lingering?  If you are comfortable with the preponderance of soprano literature that fits your voice type in which the range ascends up to B-flat, B or C6 – then know that you are a soprano; just not one to be singing Mozart’s Queen of the Night.

5. On the other hand, if you find literature that uses a lower tessitura – songs where the preponderance of notes hang in the mid or lower part of your range – more comfortable to sing, then it might be wise for you to explore mezzo-soprano literature.  Mezzo-sopranos typically have a very wide range – but stamina for remaining high they’d agree is not theirs.  Mezzos can “zing” high Cs – but they don’t want to stay up there.  If this reflects where you are, you’d be wise to choose literature that is more comfortable on your voice.  You’ll save your voice in the process as well as give yourself a longer and happier singing career.

Based on what you’ve told me, I think you fit one of the scenarios described in my answer – paragraphs 4 or 5.

I hope this has been helpful.  Best wishes to you.

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 on what we hear of ourselves as we sing and that is our impression – 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.

When singing, how can you open your throat?

Answer: Hi Crystal,

My guess is that “open your throat” is the dictum of someone who is coaching you in voice.  I know when I was a teenager a vocal coach said something off-the-wall to me that made no sense to me – until years later when more data “explained” everything.

“Opening the throat” is what enriches, warms and amplifies the sound produced by the vocal cords, and it doesn’t need to be a mystery to you.  Let me see if I can help.

You can find what it FEELS like to open your throat by doing the following three things.

1) Pretend that you’ve just opened the door into your home and you’re SURPRISED by an old friend you haven’t seen in two years.  You automatically “gasp” in surprise.  Go ahead and do the “surprised gasp”.  Now, do it again and see if you can hold that feeling. Then, keeping that feeling, say “Hi! how are you!?”

2) Again, using your imagination, pretend that you’re holding your favorite flower (perhaps a rose) in your hand and you’re taking in the wonderful perfumed scent with a deep breath.  Go ahead and pretend that you’re smelling that rose.  Notice what happened to your jaw and throat when you did that!

3) This time, still using your imagination, think of yourself in a meeting being lectured by your principal – and you suddenly feel the need to yawn.  Of course you don’t want to make it obvious, you submerge it instead.  Now, go ahead and “BEGIN A YAWN”.  See if you can stop there without going all the way into the yawn.  If you can learn what it feels like to only BEGIN A YAWN – memorize what that feels like.

I should tell you that there are teachers that will go into a great amount of detail differentiating between the three examples praising one and warning against the others.

Nevertheless, it will be evident that in each case you’ll notice that your jaw drops downward (and your voice box does too slightly), your throat expands slightly and if you inhale with your mouth open the air feels cool in the back of the throat and the air goes in you easily and quietly.  THAT FEELING – of the jaw dropped down and the throat slightly expanded is what is known as the “open throat.”

It may take some practice and getting used to before you can reproduce it without always ending up yawning.  The full yawn is TOO OPEN and TOO STRENUOUS – and that’s not what you need to get to. Memorize the feeling of “the beginning of a yawn” or “smelling a rose” and start making sound without being critical of what you hear.  You may think of the sound as being “bigger” “more mature” “dramatic”, etc.

Learning to do this may not come instantly, but, with practice you can become very comfortable with it and allow ALL YOUR SINGING to come through this “open throat” feeling.  Listen to and watch Stephen Costello, tenor, and Jessye Norman, mezzo-soprano (among a host of wonderful singers).

To help your jaw get used to dropping open freely, you may want to add an exercise like “Yah-oo, Wah-oo” purposely allowing your jaw to “fall open” freely.

Now, having said all this that sounds positive toward the idea of the “open throat” I must issue a warning. There is a very real danger of artificially opening and/or over opening the pharyngeal space creating unwanted tension, a darkened tone and even a compromised resonance that lacks brilliance of the singer’s formant.  The concept of the open throat does not extend to expanded tension, but rather easy “relaxed” openness that maintains freedom of movement.  It is at this point that sound is enriched, amplified into a timbre listeners greatly appreciate.

I hope this helps.  Best wishes.

I’ve drunk honey water to loosen my voice and I’ve done sirens but I can’t seem to feel like it’s working.    Give me some ideas please?

Answer: Warming up the voice is like any other warm-up exercise before a vigorous workout. I am stunned to occasionally hear a high-ranking gifted singer who then becomes a voice teacher that disputes this fact.  (Fortunately, they are a VERY small minority.)  If you are a sprinter or a distance runner, so that you don’t injure muscles, you warm up with preliminary exercises.  This conditions the body and the muscles for what is to follow and protects you from debilitating self-injury.  The principle is no different for vigorous use of the vocal cords — singing.  So, your question is an excellent one.  You start slow and add intensity bit by bit until you’re ready to do the “real thing” (sing your songs).  You need to set aside anywhere from 10-20 minutes for this before you sing every day.  There are a few singers—a very few singers—who do not personally feel the need to warm up (one of my teachers was like that, but he had the good sense not to espouse “no warm-ups are necessary”).

1.  You’re going to begin vocalizing (singing) where it is easy in your range – usually comfortably low – but not to the extreme.  Pick your beginning note and ascend three steps and descend again while singing on EEEE [i] and AY [e] using this pattern 1-2-3-2-1-2-3-2-1-2-3-2-1.  Every time you descend down to your beginning note, change the vowel.  Also alternate between ooo [u] and eee [i].  Like this

1-2-3-2-1-2-3-2-1-2-3-2-1
E——–AY——–E——–AY

Every time you repeat this small figure, raise the first note a half  step – so that as you repeat you are singing higher and higher.  Continue to do this until you begin to feel tension and strain, or, the notes don’t come, then turn the corner and descend by step until you are singing your lowest comfortable notes.  Be sure that your jaw is loose and open and the sound you make is as clear as possible.

2.  You’re going to do this kind of thing again, but this time the musical figure will go up 5 steps and return down again.  (1-2-3-4-5-4-3-2-1) Alternate the OO [u] and EE [i] vowels in this figure.

1 2 3 4 5 4 3 2 1 2 3 4 5 4 3 2 1
oo——E——oo——E——oo

Always begin comfortably low.  (We’re all different, so, for example, if you’re a tenor and your teacher is a bass, your comfortably low starting note is going to be a good bit higher than his would be.)  Each figure should be sung with as clear tone as you can make, one note connected to the next smoothly, don’t separate them.  Again, work your way up the range step by step and back down again.

3.  A third exercise might be this one: Sing the phrase “Oh how I love– to sing” on the arpeggio 1 3 5 8 5 3 1.  This spans an entire octave.

1——3—5—–8—-5—3—–1.
Oh    how     I      love_   to   sing.  (“love” has two notes)

Always begin comfortably low.  Sing clearly maintaining a loose open jaw, connecting each word and note smoothly.  Each initial repetition should be a half step higher than the previous one, until you reach your upper range limits, at which time you need to head back down by half-steps until you reach your lowest comfortable notes.

4.  This can then be followed by more vocal exercises that require flexibility, larger range and power.  But in this way – using your voice first with short-range phrases ascending and descending in your range, then with wider range phrases you “warm up” your voice.  After about 15 minutes of doing this, you should feel more ready to do some normal energetic singing.

What I’ve described is fairly standard.  Once you begin studying with a voice teacher, s/he may devise specific exercises that are particularly suited to you.  Until then, work through this, and if you have further questions, don’t be afraid to ask.

Best wishes.

Yesterday I figured out that I have the whistle register (Hit B6). And now, I want to know how to maintain it, and how to make it less forced. I do not want to damage this gift.

How can I practice in the whistle register, right now it hurts even when I hit the lowest note in the register? Should I drink lots of cold water after practice? Should I drink lots of warm water during practice? Honey?

Lastly, I know your supposed to cool down your voice after singing, how would I cool it down after whistle?

Answer: Dear Friend,

It is not my wish to burst your bubble – but to speak the truth with compassion.

Women with high voices–like coloratura sopranos, and small children have the capability for the “whistle” register. The occurrence of this register in the human voice usually begins around C – two octaves above middle C, and ascends higher. If you indeed have the capability of singing and vocalizing in the whistle register you are most likely either a female with a naturally high voice, or a boy or girl well prior to puberty.

Men with changed voices do not naturally possess the capability of having or using the whistle register. In scientific study the whistle register was difficult to film because the epiglottis closes down over the larynx and the resonating chamber assumes its smallest dimensions. Early voice scientists indicated that the vocal folds actually puckered like lips to form a whistle, however, more recent study indicates that the vocal ligaments adduct (close) except at one end through which the “whistle” is produced.

In music literature a very small percentage of songs require or ask for notes in the whistle register. One of the most well known pieces to require it is an aria sung by the Queen of the Night, in Mozart’s “The Magic Flute.”

Now, you speak of “having found” that you have the whistle register – as though it is gold and something to cultivate. However, it takes a great deal of vocal tension to produce (in a woman’s voice) and therefore should never attempt to sound big, loud or heavy – but as it comes with least tension, light and flute-like. Should one spend a lot of time vocalizing up there? No, with the possible exception of coloratura sopranos.

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What’s the difference between a head voice and a chest voice?  When I sing I either sing from my chest or switch to my throat for higher notes.

Answer: Hello Alexis,

This is a very broad subject and answering it fully in this space will be impossible to do justice to it.  Still, let me see if I can help you understand something of the subject about which you question, using easily-understood terms – because the language of “voice teaching” can be vague, conceptual and unscientific very often.

As you know, we have the ONE instrument – our voice – but which involves our entire body’s cooperative coordination. That said, you’ve obviously been introduced to the idea of “chest voice” and “head voice.”  You probably already associate “chest voice” with an area of notes that lie low in your range, and you probably associate “head voice” with an area of notes that lie high in pitch in your voice.

Perhaps one of the main reasons for using the terms “head” and “chest” is that, often, associated with singing the “low” and “high” notes, there are vibrations, buzzy feelings, a singer can become aware of and feel.  When singing low notes in a strong sound, one can often become aware of vibrations in the throat, neck, and collar-bone area, thus the designation “chest voice.”  When singing high notes in a strong sound, one can often become aware of vibrations (buzzy feelings) somewhere in the head and face (often referred to as the “mask”).  Becoming aware of these feelings is good.

Now, obviously the quality of sound in the low notes and the quality of the sound in the high notes are quite different.  One may sound “masculine” or “brusque” and the other “hooty” or “penetrating”.  But what the trained singer learns to do is to sing throughout his/her range so that the quality of sound is consistent and seamless with no sudden changes of color.

One of the things that singers learn to do is to “bring down” some of the “heady feelings” to the area of their low notes, and to some degree “take up” some of the strong “feelings” of the lower notes to their upper range.  But all of this is done in balance – and with the oversight of a well trained voice teacher.
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Ok, so I did something really stupid.  I was practicing/experimenting with belting high notes…really really high notes. I don’t remember it hurting, I remember coughing after I did it.  The next morning, I woke up with a little tightness in my throat, thought it was just morning vocal stuff, did a little warm up before I went to sing at my job.  But the sounds were weaker, and I realized something might have been wrong.  People tell me I don’t sound hoarse, but I know that I do sound weaker when I talk.  When I swallow, I feel like I’m swallowing lumps, but it doesn’t hurt to talk or swallow.  I am so scared I may have done permanent vocal damage, since I depend on my voice for my job.  It’s been about 5 days and things haven’t seemed to get better.  Have I done any permanent damage? I am so scared.  My teacher said to go on vocal rest.

Answer: Pay attention to your teacher who said, “Go on total vocal rest.”

Drink lots of warm liquids, stay away from cold drafts if you can and wear a scarf.  If it doesn’t clear up in a few days you should go to a Ear, Nose, and Throat Doctor just to be safe.

Sounds like you probably just strained yourself, and your cords are swollen.  Definitely don’t sing (especially belting) if you can help it over the next few days.

I very much appreciate your honesty and humility in confessing what you did.  You are undoubtedly learning that belting for a prolonged period of time under the best of circumstances is not good for the voice also.

The throat area has comparatively few — in fact very few pain-registering nerve endings, unlike the hands and fingers.  So it is possible to do damage to the throat (voice) and not be aware of it.  The tightness in your throat, the weaker sound and the “lump” that you feel when you swallow are the body’s signs [like waving red flags!] that you need to pay attention and give your voice complete vocal rest for several days.  Rather than continuing to vocalize and resume a ‘normal’ singing routine, I’d advise taking a complete vocal rest until — in another week or so — phonation (making sound) is easy and clear.  Continuing to try to force your voice to produce the sound you’re used to hearing under these circumstances could indeed result in long-term damage.  The short time of complete silence will allow you a dependable long-term future, versus the opposite.
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