How to Sing with More Control - Your Voice is a Wind Instrument

[Music] hi guys i'm madeline harvey and thank you for hanging out with me today yeah it's gonna be a really great video so i thought we would take a look at the crazy notion of what it means to be a wind acoustic instrument as a singer we are wind acoustic instruments but a lot of times a lot of people don't really know what that means or they don't really know how to leverage that to really work for them so today we're going to get in there and we're going to explore it we're going to experience more range more pitch control more tone consistency more tone quality the list just goes on and on and on so let's just dive right into it shall we i want you to imagine that your range that consists of notes from here to there right each note is its own rung on a ladder meaning each note will be in a very different acoustic space and it's the breath that carries the vibrations into that space now that's kind of hard business because if you've ever played a wind instrument like when i was in sixth grade i played the flute for all of like two weeks and i was like this is not for me but it's like i had to focus a lot of air just to be able to create any sort of steady pitch and that's kind of where we're at we've got to be able to focus a nice consistent steady even flow of air in order to center and control our pitch and our tone now a lot of times what happens with singers is that they know that there are certain pockets or certain pitches in their range and they get a little worried about them because again they know that something is happening in their voice they can't quite control so they either double down and grab a hold of it reinforcing muscle tension or they just go ahead and flip into the next register they sort of jump over that acoustic space so what we're going to do today is a very very simple exercise that is designed to expose everything so having said that i want you to calm down it's okay but it is gonna get weird it is gonna get weird because the very idea that we're gonna expose things in your acoustics means that you're gonna find something that's gonna go a little wily it's gonna get a little wobbly and that's okay so we've got this this idea that your range is like a ladder and each note is a different rung of the ladder and we also know that there are certain rungs of that ladder that are broken that we just sort of jump over or they're weak so we're going to send the breath into those spaces and reinforce them we're going to strengthen them my favorite way to do this is what i call target practice we're just basically going to sigh and we're going to sigh on pitch and we're going to start kind of low mid low and then we're just going to move through just over over an octave we're not going to get crazy today we're just going to get into the exploring of it we're going to use a very neutral vowel h-u-h go ahead and say that with me on a side notice how you didn't have to move your throat your jaw or your tongue in order to create the sound you just moved only the air there's our objective only the air moves we don't have to distort or demand like we don't have to do any of that craziness we're just moving the air so that means that it's gonna kind of be a blah kind of tone an unfinished very neutral tone right so h-u-h we're gonna sigh and we're going to discover our resonating ladder now your resonant ladder might be different from mine you might notice that this note is in a very different spot in your body as it is in mine and that's okay that's the whole point of this discovery so i'm going to play this a i just want you to hear it now here's the big takeaway i don't want you to sing it ah i don't want you to assess it i don't mean to try to demonstrate your vocal quality i just want you to sigh it out as neutral and as free as possible okay we're going to do this three times the objective is to let the air tell you where it needs to go right you're not gonna put anything anywhere so here's your mantra observe but don't control observe but don't control just relax keep your jaw your tongue and the back of your throat nice and soft and just side again again next note different rung of the ladder totally different space so don't try to make this b-flat feel the same as the a it's going to be in a different spot [Music] okay again again [Music] all you're doing is exhaling you're not trying to protect the integrity of the tone or the quality of the pitch or any of that you're just going to sigh and in your sighing you're going to set in motion a steadiness of exhale that will center the pitch so if you notice that it's wobbling it could very easily be one of two things one is that we're on a rung of the ladder that might be a little unfamiliar for you or two there might be an inconsistency in the flow of your exhale which again is why we're doing it three times so we do it again and again and again it empowers the muscles that govern the breath process they learn how to stabilize okay it's just like doing yoga you're working the stabilizing muscles so here we go again huh okay [Music] again again again i also want to encourage you don't employ any vibrato keep the tone as straight as possible we want a nice even athletic steady flow of breath [Music] ah good now we're not again we're not trying to place the voice anywhere the big idea is that you stay calm you stay nice and still keep your jaw tongue and back of your throat nice and soft and let the air tell you where it needs to go okay i'm just here to remind us of that keep the breath going keep yourself silent [Music] ah ah good so far so good so far so good yeah very good so a flat i'm just gonna go ahead and tell on myself right there there's a little bit of my nemesis it's what i like to call the axis note it is the part in my range where my voice goes from being mouth dominant into a nose dominance hear that right so again the idea is not to ignore those rungs of the ladder the nose needs to play an equal part to your mouth and needs just as much conditioning it's like think of this as like conditioning as as your mouth spaces do so what we're going to do is we're going to bow the head a little bit this allows us to maintain our neutral throat meaning that throat doesn't need to go oh none of that doesn't have to move it doesn't have to start pulling at the tone neither does the jaw or the throat we're bowing the head to lessen the influence of those things and we're narrowing the throat which allows the breath to flow upward and into the nose in a much more manageable way so let's say we bow i can feel that i can get a little bit more focused to my tone when i bow it rather than just going right no that's not how it would normally play out but whenever there is an axis note that tends to be the most vulnerable the weakest singular pitch in the entire range because again that's the note that turns the voice over so we're going to bow the head and target practice aim your air into that spot now you're not placing your voice you're just letting the air what's the word i'm looking for pour into your face [Music] again [Music] again [Music] again again [Music] [Music] hey [Music] hmm [Music] hey [Music] hmm [Music] hey hey [Music] oh good now here's the idea the idea is that only the breath moves what that means is that the jaw's not moving the tongue is not moving the throat's not moving all those things are compensatory devices in this exercise that means they will try to overcompensate they will try to interfere with that column of breath and the whole point of today's exercise is to take everything away from your voice so that you can feel the steady flow of air that feels like a sigh as it goes into a very specific acoustic acoustic space now you can practice this with a song as well you can tell take let's say the first line or line by line of a song take the words out and sigh it extremely slow whatever you can do slow you can do fast and the idea is that this is going to reinforce the way that your breath focuses itself the way that the muscles that govern the breath focus the breath it will also reinforce an intelligence and intense muscle memory intelligence about your acoustic spaces and this is going to give you so much more range so much more power so much more spontaneity so much of everything that you want as a singer so don't move only the air moves huh keep it side keep it light and target practice that is the whole point of practice is in being consistent with your aim this is going to take you right into some kind of scary places in your range but don't be afraid have a spirit of adventure have a spirit of curiosity and be still and let the air tell you where it wants to go so there you have it guys i hope you've enjoyed today's video if you have please be sure to give it a thumbs up or click that subscribe button below i would love to see you here more often and if you have any questions about today's video please be sure to leave them in the comments portion of today's video i love y'all i'm so glad you're here thank you for hanging out with me and i will see you next time

Channel: Madeleine Harvey

Views: 53,168

Keywords: sing with control, control your sound, sing with power, sing on pitch, how to sing with more control, Madeleine harvey, singing lesson, singing technique, learn how to sing with, learn how to sing

Id: z2YGWp4TYO0

Length: 18min 47sec (1127 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 11 2020