Sing Without Straining: 10 Exercises to Eliminate Tension and Free Your Voice

what up guys it's your boy matt from ramsayvoice.com and i cannot wait to talk i've been waiting to make this video for so so long and i have no idea why because it's super super important we're going to talk about learning to sing without strain and what i'm gonna give you is i'm gonna give you my absolute best vocal exercises to get rid of strain for good are you ready okay let's get started now you're gonna get three huge things out of our lesson today number one you're going to learn exactly what vocal strain is and how to avoid it number two you're going to look at the very surprising places where a vocal strain tends to hide and i'm sure that they're going to surprise you and three i'm going to give you ten count them one two three four five six seven eight nine ten exercises and my best exercises to help you eliminate strain in your voice today now before we jump in you know what you gotta do you gotta smash that like button gotta comment with the next video that you wanna see me do hit subscribe and turn on notifications for this channel and if you want to eliminate strain for good and get all these exercises plus a ton more a ton more check out my complete singing course master your voice click the link to get on the wait list so vocal strain is really really difficult to get rid of and why is that well because as singers and as students of singing we're always trying to get the most out of our singing voice and these days with fantastic singers like sam smith adele john legend freddie mercury we're always looking to push the limits of what is possible with our singing voice and anytime that you're pushing your voice to do something that it doesn't like or doesn't come naturally to it you get some vocal strain as a result that's why any time that you're trying to expand your vocal range at first your high notes and your lowest notes are probably going to be a little bit strainy at first so vocal strain is not necessarily like this terrible thing that's just like going to absolutely wreck or ruin your voice sometimes it's a sign that you're doing the things that you need to be doing that you are stretching your voice however it is absolutely best to get rid of it as soon as possible as often as possible why because yeah you can sing up to a high a now hey but it's pretty straining and it sounds pretty bad however if you were to eliminate that focal strain ah then all of a sudden you would have this beautiful voice that you can do so just understand that when you're first starting to expand your vocal range you can't expect all of your top notes and your lowest notes to sound amazing at first that comes with more time but these exercises will help you get there now when we were first starting off i promised you that i was going to tell you exactly what vocal strain is and here's my definition vocal strain is any time the muscles outside of the vocal cords outside of the voice box get involved with your singing you can think of like if you've ever been on a project with other people and it's like everybody has their assigned role everybody has their part that they need to play in doing this presentation and it's like one guy's just slacking off well what's gonna happen everybody else is going to jump in and try to help that guy finish their work so that everybody can do the presentation that way nobody gets punished well the vocal cords work in kind of the same way if things are feeling a little bit unstable in my voice and my vocal cords are not able to like hit the note that i'm asking them to hit then i get vocal strain i get all these extra muscles in my voice outside of my vocal chords that get involved to help me make it and that's just because you know it wants you to hit the note so if i'm trying to sing [Music] but i just can't get into it i might start start tensing up these muscles in order to squeeze my vocal cords together in order to make the sound so that is what vocal strain is anytime that you're using the muscles outside of your vocal cords now i do want to point out that singing without strain is in ideal it is an absolute in a perfect world we would all sing without strain however that's not necessarily the truth of the matter because any time that you are using a muscle there is going to be some tension that's involved in using that muscle however there's a difference between using a little bit of tension or the minimum required amount of tension and just just like moving everything in my entire body in order to like lift a weight or tensing up every uh muscle in my throat and in my neck in order to hit a note so keep an eye out for that and these exercises are going to help you now i'm going to give you 10 fantastic exercises to eliminate vocal tension now the first place that i want to start off with is probably one of the easiest and that's because vocal tension often hangs out outside of the voice itself outside of the vocal cords for instance like if i'm singing and i'm you know slouching or if i'm pulling things too far back that's a very very easy way to add tension to my voice and even though it seems like oh yeah well you're just you know arching your back or something like that instead actually you know that is going to impact the way that my voice sounds so the first place that i want you to get started in eliminating strain in your singing is to keep a tall posture the way that i want you to get started off with the tall posture is making sure that your feet are about the same width as your hips and if you do that you'll notice that your hips your feet and your shoulders are all in one line and keep your chest comfortably lifted not like too far back definitely not slouching i probably see a lot more slouching than i see this pulled back but you do want to keep this comfortably tall and the dancers and stuff that i teach like they get this intuitively it's like they're like actually keeping things super super tall so if at first you feel like you're slouching a lot or your feet are too far apart they're too close all these things are going to impact the other muscle areas in your body and that in turn is going to impact your singing voice i'm also going to turn to my side so that you can see the way that this is supposed to look my feet are shoulder width apart they're at my same width of my hips and of my shoulders and at the same time my chest is comfortably lifted and i'm keeping my gaze forward oftentimes people will lift their neck back or they'll push it forward in order to sing a note however you want to keep this gaze totally forward so that it doesn't matter whether you're singing an uh or everything's right ahead of you now that you're standing with the tall posture i want to show you another big source of tension and that is actually breathing in the wrong place earlier i was mentioning how some people would lift their shoulders when they sing instead we actually want to make sure that as we're breathing in it's just our stomach that it's expanding so it's not even necessarily like our our back or our shoulders or anything's coming down or we're raising our chest instead we just want to make sure that the stomach is coming out and this is called singing from the diaphragm and what this is going to look like is when i inhale my stomach expands and as i exhale my stomach contracts that's all there is to it notice that i didn't raise my shoulders and what's going to happen there is if i raise my shoulders that's going to add some more attention to my voice ah it just sounds different from ah you can just hear that there's a lot less of that kind of strainy pinchy kind of sound in there so if that's a problem for you that is a super easy way to fix it so i want to give you a fantastic exercise that will really really start to relax some of the tension in your voice so if you see that your shoulders are fine you're breathing from the right place your posture is good but you're still singing like really really tense then this is a great exercise for you it's just called the octave and a half lip trill so what we're going to do is we're going to just let our lips flop together like as we sing in an octave and a half scale and in case you haven't heard the octave and a half scale it's just going to be like this good and you can break that down into triplets if it makes more sense to you like a triple triple triple triple it done now what we're going to do is we're going to flop our lips together as we sing that scale and again this is going to help you prevent from to your top notes instead you're just going to [Music] up to your top notes so let's try that with guys down here no tension no strain [Music] i'm just allowing it up there [Music] notice that on none of them did i [Music] and try to push with my voice instead i just just allowed them to ladies let's do the same thing starting right here [Music] i'm just allowing it i'm gonna practice out a little bit every day and you'll be amazed at how the tension just goes right out of your voice now before we jump into the exercises i want to tell you the most common places that you're going to find tension in your singing voice and it isn't always inside of the vocal cords themselves actually oftentimes you'll find that tension impacts outside of the voice box outside of the larynx but a couple of the most common places starting from in going towards out is going to be your tongue now your tongue itself oftentimes you'll reach for notes by actually reaching your tongue forward or pulling it too far back so ah precision either way you're adding a little bit of tension because rather than saying ah where my tongue is relaxed just like i'm saying awesome instead of ah keeping my tongue too far forward or keeping it too far back one easy way that you can kind of feel for this tension is just place your thumb underneath your chin and swallow now you'll notice and you can probably even see it like i have this like little divot that happens when i swallow there it is right there and what that is is that's kind of the root of the tongue is called the digastric muscle and that is pushing down on my finger now as you're singing you want to make sure that at no point is your tongue getting too involved with that and you're actually wanting to see that there's nothing moving underneath your jaw at all as you're doing that so for instance we can just make sure that we're doing that same thing on an um like you're saying rung like rung so just say rung and hold the ng at the end like and what you're gonna feel for is just to make sure that your tongue isn't getting too involved so it's bad there's no tension at all and let's do that on an octave and a half scale so it'd be kind of like an [Music] i can't play it and sing it at the same time so i want you to feel underneath your chin as we do it [Music] you don't want to feel anything let's do the same thing here and again on none of those are you feeling it's just [Music] you practice that a little bit every day oh my god you will be so amazed at how much better your voice sounds great job guys so now that you're feeling for any tongue tension down here you did it on an exercise which is very neutral there's nothing really going on back there you're just your soft palate is lowered so everything's going into your nose however your tongue is just totally chill but let's try an exercise that actually uses a little bit more tongue action and again try to keep everything relaxed under here so we're just going to do that on an octave and a half gee ghee like you're saying the word geese so like and again try to keep everything feeling super relaxed under here you'll probably feel a little bit of a push from that muscle under your tongue on each of the g's but you want to make sure that by the time you get to each of the ease that everything is relaxed in general you don't want to feel a lot of you don't want to feel it frozen into place you want to feel it pretty bouncy and loose like [Music] guys let's start here no tension [Music] great job ladies let's do the same thing here [Music] and notice for any tension that you feel under there again it should just feel really really mushy and soft there shouldn't be any of that strain or tension involved in there at this point you may have found that when you're feeling underneath here and you're trying to keep everything relaxed it's really easy to flip into your falsetto like for instance like if i'm feeling underneath here and there's no tension at all i may feel like it's like well i didn't feel any tension so everything turned out great well yeah but you also didn't sing in your mixed voice you also didn't transition up to the top part of your voice with a full sound instead what i want to help you do now is i want to help you learn how to reclaim that mixed voice while still keeping everything relaxed so in this particular case i'm going to show you an exercise that uses a really funny sound but still keeps everything in the larynx really relaxed and isolated to just the vocal cords on the inside so what we're going to do is we're going to do an octave repeat scale on no but i want you to sing the no with a little bit of craw it's like you're real sad or kind of sobby kind of like a no no no no no no no no no no guys join me here no no no no no no no no no and what that cry sound is going to do it's going to keep everything from getting super tight so no no no no no no no no no let's do that here no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no ladies let's do the same thing right here no no no no no no no no no no no great job now that you guys have found what it's like to sing with a little bit of that cry feeling that no no no that o vowel sometimes causes a little bit of strain on its own and it just really depends on the singer so i want to make sure to give you another exercise that is going to for sure relax a little bit of that tension so we're going to start in the same place but we're just going to change that o vowel to an uh so we're going to sing na like nut like nut nut nut nut so my voice starting with the guys we can be right here no no still sad no no sad [Music] ladies let's do the same thing right here [Music] another common place that you'll find tension in your voice is your larynx position and so rather than even thinking about necessarily like what's going on inside of the voice box think about what's going on on the outside of the voice box if my voice box is super high then i'm going to sound really tight and really strainy alternatively if my voice box is too low i'm pushing everything down and i'm engaging a lot of muscles that again aren't super good at helping me sing better instead i'm actually manipulating my voice so that it's too far down and that's a problem as well you also want to make sure that there's not too much tension in your neck if you see some of these strap muscles like the scm the sternocleidomastoid muscle getting engaged whenever i'm trying to sing something that's not what you want you also will see that some people carry a little bit of tension in their shoulders like they'll sing like this or or they're slouching too much if that's going to impact the sound additionally what your chest is doing too far forward too far back and you could even look at what the abs are doing you even can feel what your abs are doing as you're singing if i'm clenching my abs super tight as i sing in ah you're going to be able to hear that that's tense person where everything's relaxed now that we've looked at our posture and our breathing it's time to actually start looking at some vocal exercises that are going to help you sing without tension because so far we've been kind of discussing things that are outside but still impacting the inside of the voice however it's always very easy sometimes to sing with too much chest voice or too much head voice or something like that that's going to add a little bit more attention to the inside of your voice for our last vocal exercise and what i mean by vocal is just like the last scale that i'm going to have you sing along with right now i wanted to look at something very specific to what your larynx is doing and at a certain point you may feel that even though you can get that no that your larynx is still a little bit high and again the larynx is a big source of tension for a lot of singers so learning how to relax that can be super super helpful for that reason i'm going to show you one of my favorite exercises for releasing a little bit of the laryngeal tension in this particular case we're going to pretend that we're kind of yawning so if you pretend to yawn you can try this right now with me so it's like oh you'll notice that my larynx drops a lot and that's because as your larynx drops your vocal cords open allowing in a maximum amount of air for when you're yawning but instead of actually yawning right now what i want you to do is i want you to pretend to yawn on an exercise so what we're going to do is we're going to go back to our octave and a half trusty scale we're going to do that on mam mam like you're saying the word mother but kind of yawning and what you can do is as we sing this you can actually feel gently feel your larynx between your thumb and your first finger do not squeeze do not press you're just feeling what it's doing and as you sing the scale try to make sure that it's staying really relaxed so like in my voice be kind of like a mama mama yeah sure it travels a little bit it moves up a little bit or down a little bit but in general it's staying pretty still really um words too yawning chances are as you sing upwards some of that yawning feeling is actually going to help you relax those top notes so unfortunately i can't feel my larynx and play with both hands at the same time but for you right now just go ahead and feel this and really keep it kind of yawning so like guys mum great job ladies let's do the same thing right here [Music] mum [Music] fantastic work everybody make sure that your larynx is just staying really balanced really relaxed as you're doing each one of those now i want to show you one of my favorite tricks for eliminating vocal strain eliminating straining when you're singing an actual song so one thing that i see a lot of beginning singers do is they'll make a mistake and that whenever they sing up to a higher note in their voice they'll tend to spread the vowel really wide and as they go wider the problem is that the larynx and some of these other neck muscles get tense so like let's say that i'm trying to sing line i'm in love it's like any time i have to go up to that g note it's like things start feeling really really tight and instead i can't help it it just starts training so one of the things that i want you to try in your own saying it doesn't matter whether you're singing that elliot smith song or any song you can try this on nearly anything what i want you to try is actually narrowing the vowel slightly so versus instead think girl go like your english and see how i've changed it from a girl to go whereas my lips are slightly extended and things are just a little bit more narrow so a girl and all of a sudden my voice stays together now you don't necessarily want to end up singing it go that way that would sound maybe a little too trained or a little too proper but eventually once you find that note without without straining then you can actually go back to the way that it's supposed to sound of a girl girl just like i'm speaking it and again you can try this on anything so your workflow is find the note that you're straining on that you're going wide on and actually go to a narrower vowel than the original one so this is the original vowel earl earl earl and i want to i'm actually going to change the earl into an of a girl and that's actually going to help my voice focus that note so much better and eliminate all of that extra strain the last exercise that i want to give you in terms of avoiding vocal strain is more of kind of like a mental attitude to your high notes odds are whenever you're singing higher notes you'll probably feel the temptation and stretch up to those top notes but rather than spreading the mouth wide and getting your neck really tense raising your larynx and all this stuff instead i want you to just imagine that you're on top of the note already so i want you to anticipate being on top of that note so rather than and push up to it instead think that you're on top of it nine times out of ten just that small mental shift will really make it so much easier to be on pitch on the note for one but also without straining because i'm basically singing an e and pushing that e into the f sharp instead i'm actually on top of the note guys i hope you found all these exercises super helpful remember learning to sing without straining takes a bit of time it's not a one size fits all or one trick pony it really takes time and effort and practice a little bit every day to get rid of that strain in your voice but with all these exercises i've no doubt that you can start to do that guys if you found this video helpful make sure to click like comment with the next song or the next kind of video that you want to see me do also make sure to subscribe and turn on notifications for this channel or if you want to jump in and start improving your singing voice and sing without strain today check out my complete singing course master your voice the links in the description

Channel: Ramsey Voice Studio

Views: 15,248

Rating: 4.975831 out of 5

Keywords: Matt ramsey, ramsey voice studio, straining, tension, singing straining, singing without strain, singing tension, singing without tension, how to sing without tension, open throat singing technique, tongue placement for singing, throat tension, tension free, relax, high notes, how to not strain your voice, vocal strain, vocal strain from singing, voice strain high notes, voice straining when singing, sing high notes without straining, strain free singing

Id: euX4KS85pjw

Length: 24min 25sec (1465 seconds)

Published: Tue May 26 2020