- Do you hate the sound
of your singing voice? You're not alone. There are so many people who
cringe whenever they hear their own voice played
back on a recording. And some people don't even
like hearing their voice when they talk, let alone sing. If this is you, and you'd
like to become a little more comfortable with the
sound of your own voice, then keep watching because
by the end of this video you'll have experienced your
voice in a whole new way. I know you're gonna love it! (upbeat music) - [Woman] Sound check. Check one, check two. - G'day there, my name is Dr Dan, welcome
back to Voice Essentials, the channel where everybody sings. But for some of you, the idea
that everybody sings rings as a mistruth because for some people, the very thought of hearing
their own voice conjures up feelings of inadequacy,
embarrassment, and downright fear. But it doesn't need to be like that. Trust me when I say, you
can learn to love, yes love, the sound of your own voice! Now, that's a big claim. I mean Love sits at the opposite end of the spectrum to hate, right? So how do we swing your pendulum from one extreme to the other? Well, it all starts with
a little bit of knowledge and some simple vocal activities, both of which I'm gonna
give you in this video. First comes the knowledge. You may not realize it, but you uniquely hear yourself. So no one else hears
you like you hear you. When you create sound
for speech or singing, your larynx produces a
sound that then travels along the vocal tract,
out through the mouth or out through the nasal cavity. Typically, with any type
of spoken or sung phrase, it'll be a combination of both. When your sound passes your
lips and/or your nostrils, it enters the big bad
world where it bounces off the surfaces that it encounters. When someone hears you, they
hear a sound that is both direct from your lips to their ears, as well sound that is reverberating off the surrounding surfaces. You hear that too, but
your experience is made entirely different because,
in addition to your ears hearing your sound externally,
you also hear and perceive your voice internally. Your experience is the combination
of ears, both externally and internally through the Eustachian tube as well as the reverberance
of bone conduction. But it doesn't end there,
because not only do you hear your sound differently to everyone else, you also feel your sound. For some, speaking and singing
have a beautiful sensation of ease and freedom, while
for others, the voice feels tight, and strained and sometimes even painful unfortunately if
your voice feels undesirable, then you're less likely to be comfortable with the aural
characteristics of your sound. In fact, one of the most
effective ways that we can learn to manage and mould our sound
into a more desirable acoustic is to hone in on this physical feedback. Richard Miller, one of the most
influential singing teachers during the later part of
the 20th century writes, "One of the ways the sounds of singing" "can be monitored by the performer", "is through experiencing
sympathetic vibration". "When the spectral balance is complete", "a singer is aware of sensations" "in bony structures of the
head that are quite different" "from those of imbalanced phonation". "Once an association with ideal
sound has been established", "these proprioceptive sensations" "become dependable
indicators of tonal balance". So, the key here, as described
by Miller, is to develop a balanced phonation. And that's what we're gonna do together with these practical exercises
I've got for you to try. Each one is designed to
help you explore your sound and the different acoustic values that your anatomy is capable of. To start with, let's first examine the three primary vowel shapes E. Ah. Ooh. Each of the primary vowels, what are sometimes referred
to as corner vowels, positions the voice differently, giving three distinct acoustic values. Now, say each individual vowel
followed by your own name, but be sure to place the
production of your name into the position of the preceding vowel. So mine would sound like this. E, Daniel. Ah, Daniel. Ooh, Daniel. You should be able to hear a difference between each of them. Do it again, and this time, pay attention to how your voice feels on each one. E. E, Daniel. Ah, Daniel. Ooh, Daniel. For me, the best sensation lies somewhere between the E, and ah position. E, ah, Daniel. Daniel. Play around with it and see
which vowel position feels best. You might also like to record
yourself using a smartphone or some other recording device. Remember, the sound will be
different to what you hear inside your own head, so
withhold your judgment and do your best to
listen to the differences between each of the vowel
shapes and positions. I've got one more activity
that will help you to discover a new-found
love for your voice, but before we look at it
together, take a quick moment to hit the thumbs-up button
if you're already starting to love your voice that little bit more. I think one of the most
significant concerns for people is thinking that
their voice sounds thin, whinny and nasally. I know that I struggled with
an overly nasalized voice for many of my teenage years, and it wasn't until I was
in my 20s that I discovered the secret to removing my nasality. Actually, it's simple enough,
if you want less nasality in your sound, you need to make sure less of your sound is travelling
through the nasal cavity. Truth be told, it's impossible
to completely remove nasality from your sound, because
sounds like M, N and NG, ah, are all 100% nasalized, but
we can learn to position our voice differently,
which in turn should give us a reduction of those overly
bright colors in the tone for those sounds that don't
need to be overtly nasal. Before we do the activity,
let's just clarify one thing. Sometimes, what people think
is nasality is actually a denasalized sound. In Odyssey of the Voice,
Jean Abitbol writes, "If you have a cold you sound nasal", "in fact, you will be sounding denasal", "the use of the word nasal should be kept" "for the existence of
resonance, not its absence". So, with that clarification in place, say the word, go, allowing
your lips to move forward as the word runs into the vowel. Go. Go. I want you to be aware of
the rear of your tongue rising to the soft palate
which is the soft meaty part in the back of the roof of the mouth. It raises for the Gah, and then drops away for the O. Go. Go. Now that you're aware of
the soft palate and the role that it plays in determining
whether the voice is nasalized or not let's do an activity
from my exercise CD, Dr Dan's Voice Essentials. The activity is taken from
track six, which I usually use for the development of twang,
but today I just want you to use it to become
aware of the difference between the nasal resonance of the NG and the oral resonance of the vowels. Let me show you. (gentle music) ♪ Sing ♪ ♪ Ungh ♪ ♪ Ing ♪ ♪ Ing ♪ ♪ Ing ♪ ♪ Oh ♪ (vocalizing and mumbling) I'd also encourage you to break the exercise down into individual segments of an NG followed by a single vowel. And when you do so, play
around with your mouth shapes and experiment with the different sounds. (gentle music) ♪ Sing ♪ ♪ Ah ♪ ♪ Sing ♪ ♪ Eh ♪ ♪ Sing ♪ ♪ Eh ♪ Well, that's a really forward one. ♪ Sing ♪ ♪ Eh ♪ ♪ Sing ♪ ♪ Oh ♪ ♪ Sing ♪ ♪ Ooh ♪ The activities we've
covered today are designed to help you explore your
sound and the different ways your vocal tract can manipulate the sound. It's one thing to say you hate your voice, but there are things you can
do to mould and move your sound more towards what you personally
feel comfortable with. And hopefully, I've been
able to give you some tools to start that journey. If you're looking for
more practical exercises that will help to improve your
voice and develop your sound, then take a moment to
watch a few of the videos in this playlist, right here. I think you'd find that they
really help you to cement your new-found love for your
unique and incredible sound. I hope to see you in the next video. I'm Dr Dan, sing well.
