井上愛の日記

Big Lie #9 - To sing with power, especially up high, you need to exert a great deal of physical effort.

Truth - Your power does NOT come from more force applied. It comes from utilizing frequencies and airflow in the most efficient way. Archimedes said, "give me a long enough lever and I can move the earth itself." To get vocal power, one uses a figurative form of leverage.

When you produce tones in the upper registers the way your voice was designed, you will use LESS airflow and less force than you do on lower notes!

There are some simple exercises that automatically train your vocal cords to stop stretching and straining and start "zipping up" for the high notes. Then you will necessarily use less air to produce tone.

WHY? Because the little half inch space through which all the air flows when speaking and singing actually get's even smaller! So if the cords close off half their vibrating length, you should expect to use only half the air to produce tone.

The cords will actually close off even more length and shift into "whistle range" way up high (like Mariah Carey's signature sounds).

So with only half the airflow going through the cords, it should be even easier to sing a high note than lower notes. So why does it feel so difficult? Because many a singer tries to get 2nd gear results by staying in 1st gear!

If you don't train your cords to "zip up," you only have one other alternative to reaching higher notes--and that's stretching the vocal cord muscles tighter!

Now, what do you do to produce more power?

Once you have learned to easily move into the higher notes, you can apply more airflow as needed to produce more volume. It will feel like "leaning into the note." The key is to regularly do some exercises that keep you from venturing back into the "try harder to get louder" mindset.

And there's another way to increase the "size" of your sound!

It's called "formant." This is a lost vocal art that's coming back. It involves experimenting with the shape of the mouth and throat until you find a "resonating frequency" that causes the sound waves to actually double and sometimes TRIPLE one another!

To illustrate this, the next time you are in the shower, you can find the shower's "resonating frequency" by starting to sing "ooooh" down low and sliding slowly up in pitch until you reach a pitch that makes the shower seem to "fill" with the sound. 

Stop there and sing that pitch and you'll notice that the entire shower becomes part of your voice!

If you could change the dimensions of the shower, you could eventually get the same effect on all notes! Fortunately, you CAN change the shape of the inside of your mouth and throat and find THEIR "resonating frequency." This can cause a doubling of your vocal volume without any extra push whatsoever.

I hope you've learned a lot from this series. Be looking for your "Vocal Tips" newsletter from time to time, and don't forget to go check out what's new at singingsuccess.com

Keep singing,
Morgan Cryar

Big Lie #8 - Singing is just a skill, like law or accounting, and thus can be educated into someone.

Truth - Music, especially something as personal as singing, is more than a degree to earn. It is connected deeply to the soul and has the ability to move people on a deeper level than most other "mundane" things on earth.

This LIE has an opposite which is equally a LIE. There are actually 2 ditches to avoid beside the road! 

One tells you that singing is just a "skill people learn and a degree people earn!" It says that you just have to take the right courses and you can put the diploma on the wall and begin your "practice."

As far as I'm concerned, the established education system is to blame for this lie. 

What's strange is that, once the joy of singing has been beaten from the body of most singers who make it through the college program, they have little left to them except a teaching career of some sort. So to some degree, this is a "true" lie. You get your degree and then you can start your "practice" of teaching others to do what you did.

But if you desire to sing well, a degree will guarantee you absolutely nothing toward your goal.

To be fair, there is a ditch on the other side of the road also: It tells you that you shouldn't do any "study" at all. Just do it! Just sing! This normally comes from a fear of the other ditch. "They'll mess up my sound."

If I must fall into the ditch, this is the one I prefer. That's because I'm a "free spirit" who likes to float on inspiration. But this ditch is not the truth either. So you need to stay out of both ditches to make progress. 

You should indeed "just do it" and never stop (unless you have damaged your voice--then you need some vocal rest first). But you CAN learn how to improve and sharpen your abilities for the rest of your life.

The best illustration I can think of is this: Imagine I found a painter beside the road who was doing portraits. He was very good. But he only had 3 tubes of oil paint. A black, a white, and a brown. So I ask him why he didn't use more colors. He says "because I only have these three tubes of paint!"

Brett finds singers like this all the time. They say "This is all I've got!" He usually answers, "You have no idea what you've got." Then he proceeds to give them more colors to paint with, vocally speaking. 

He has no interest in forcing them to paint like Picasso or Rembrandt. He just wants them to have all the colors they desire. It's very exciting to watch.

I hope you stay out of the ditches and...

Keep singing,
Morgan Cryar

PS--If you'd like to see how some of this works, go the website and watch the free lesson here. 

Big Lie #7 - It takes great effort and the coordination of many varied muscles to sing correctly.

Big Lie #6 - Either you have talent, and thus CAN sing, or you don't have talent, and can NOT sing.

Truth - Since almost everyone can speak, and the speaking mechanism is the same as the singing mechanism, almost everyone can sing--and should, if they desire to!

This is a "non-technical" lie, but it has affected so many people that you wouldn't believe it. I meet singers all the time who have spent the better part of their lives wanting to sing, but believing this BIG LIE.

Of course, I know that NOT all people possess the same degree of singing talent. But the BIG LIE says "Give it up! You shouldn't sing because you're not...(fill in the name of any famous singer)."

My job brings me a unique perspective. You see, I've enjoyed some fame as a singer in the Contemporary Christian music field. And I know for a fact that many already famous singers still feel inadequate and yet we are singing despite those feelings!

I remember telling Brett Manning some time after he had helped me so much, "I always felt like a fake...like any minute, they'd realize I had no real talent."

So if you have the dream to sing (or play an instrument), and have a little time to give to it, you can become quite good at it. I personally know several who have gone so far as to make an income from it--in their later life!

If you do the right exercises, you can get your voice into shape far more quickly than you think. There a couple of pitfalls that must be addressed though:

Pitfall #1: You think you're too old.

This is so far from true and yet so commonly believed. Just think of the singers you like to listen to. Are any of them near your age? Most people say "Yeah. How'd you now?" Because everybody says that. You're about the age of many of your favorites.

Pitfall #2: You packed away your dreams and you haven't taken them out lately.

Well, it's time. Think of all you've accomplished that you DIDN'T like! Don't you think you could accomplish something that you DO like? If you long to sing, you can be taught to find your voice and let it go do its thing.

Pitfall #3: You're intimidated by other singers you know.

My answer to this is that you have no idea how wonderful it is on the other side of that wall of fear until you push through it. The only question is how much fun you allow yourself to have in the process. Get yourself some "secret weapon" instruction and watch people's reaction when your voice cuts loose! Check Brett's program out here.

I hope you will always, always, always...

Keep singing,
Morgan Cryar

PS--There's another lie that you'll hear about next time--It has to do with how hard you need to work at this.


Singing Success Inc
801 18TH Ave South
Nashville, TN
37203
US

Big Lie #5 - You must develop a strong "falsetto" to sing very high notes.

Truth - Your voice will make several coordinations, none of which require a great degree of effort. There is the "chest" voice, the "head" voice, and falsetto (sometimes confused with the head voice). Our technique would also add what we call the "mix" voice, which is a mixture of chest and head voices.

First, let's identify these voices.

Put your hand on your chest and say "AAAAh" in your regular speaking voice. Do you feel the vibration of your chest against your hand?

This is called "chest voice" and it's what you naturally use when singing lower notes. We call it the chest voice because much of the resonance (sound waves becoming stronger by building upon one another) takes place in the chest cavity in your lower range.

I guess I better explain "resonance" a little more.

It's pretty easy. Imagine the sound made by slapping your hand against a boulder the size of a washing machine. That impact is like one vibration of your vocal cords. Your hand against the boulder would make a fairly tiny sound (more like a "snap" than anything).

Now imagine slapping the side of a real washing machine.

What sound comes from that? A big, giant BOOM! Why? "Because it's hollow," I hear you say. But WHY does that make such a difference?

It's because the hollow space in the washing machine serves to amplify the sound by "resonating" or vibrating, moving a larger volume of air than the initial slap by itself would have moved.

Your vocal cords are only about half an inch long! They're stretched across a little pipe the same diameter (half inch). If they were vibrating out in open air, you'd have to put your ear right next to them to hear them at all.

But they are part of a system that includes several resonating cavities. The biggest is the chest. It's got the "boom" of the lower notes and it can sound "explosive."

The cords make the air vibrate, and the chest amplifies that vibration.

Next voice--the "head" voice.

Why do they call it the head voice? I hear you saying "I bet it's because it resonates in the head." Yep. You're right.

But we think of the head as a solid block most of the time, expect maybe for the mouth. The truth is, there are hidden pockets of air in your head! You see those 2 little nostrils and you think they are just pipes to the lungs. But they lead to the "nasal cavity" behind your nose and your cheek bones. And those cavities are quite large. Then there are also sinuses (around and above your eyes).

Still another resonator is in the back of the throat, just above your vocal cords.

As you sing higher, your vocal cords are designed to thin out (almost as if you are changing from a thick guitar string to a thin one). When your vocal cords "get thinner" like they are supposed to do, they throw the tone more upward and forward into these resonators in your head.

Let's find that head voice tone right now.

Put your hand on top of your head. Now make the very happy sound: (very high) Wheeeeeee" like you're on a swing at the park. Did you feel your skull vibrating under your hand?

Now if you put one hand on your chest and the other on your head and alternate, "AAAAH" down low, and "weeeeee" up high, you'll feel the difference in resonators.

Now for falsetto.

This is not really a "voice." It's more of a defense mechanism to keep you from straining your vocal cords when you try to go too high in "chest" voice and don't know how to shift gears into head voice. If you sing a very high, light, airy tone, you won't feel much resonation anywhere.

This is because the cords are not really even coming together. Instead, they are coming near to one another, then vibrating as air passes between them. The airy sound is from all the air that escapes through the cords in this position.

In singing, you can use this "false voice" as a sound effect sometimes (to communicate soft emotions). But you don't want to be limited to it.

The chief difference between "head" voice and falsetto is that in head voice, your vocal cords are actually coming together and closing off some of their vibrating length. The tiny space left to vibrate is what is used to make the tone.

When done right, it sounds clear and clean, and it's easier and takes less breath than either chest voice or falsetto!

The fun (and the power) comes when you learn to mix the chest and head voices so that they "fade" into one another, creating one long block of usable range! It all sounds like just "your voice."

That is the power of Brett Manning's Singing Success Vocal Program. It uses simple, easy exercises to train your head and chest voices to mix in the middle ranges...thus erasing the "break." It's effective and it's guaranteed: Click here to check it out.

Next time, I'll tell you about the most debilitating lie that a singer can ever believe.

Keep singing,
Morgan Cryar


Singing Success Inc
801 18TH Ave South
Nashville, TN
37203
US