Posted in: Musicouching by terry56 on August 5th, 2010 | 1 Comment
Confused by varying vocal techniques?As a voice teacher for over seventeen years, I’ve had a lot of singers confide in me about their confusion on vocal technique. How are they supposed to know as novices of the voice what singing technique and voice teacher to study with?
I may be a bit of an odd bird in the vocal teaching profession with my views on this subject because I often find that I like many different types of singing, styles, genres, even techniques. I am confident in my own teaching ways but at the same time, I appreciate that every voice and singer are different, and different techniques and variations there upon work for different people.
All I care about it that the final outcome is healthy singing- the variations in which to get there are all interesting to me as well as inspirational.
There are many teachers that are extreme about their opinion on their own technique being the only option period. This can be a tough bit of brain washing on the novice singer who may not be getting the results they want from their training, but yet are afraid to try anything else that their current teachers may have told them is awful due to loyalty and fear.
Rather then looking at all these techniques as black and white, think of them in shades of gray. What works great for one voice and one body may not be good for you or vice-versa. You also may need to pull a few concepts from different sources to blend the perfect “technique cocktail” for your voice. Someone with a natural forward placement in sound may do much better with a certain teacher then a warm toned voiced person. TRUST YOUR INSTINCTS! You will never please everyone. The sooner you as a singer stand up for your voice and figure out what You Need for it, the less of a student and more of a professional you will become.
Here are 10 tips for evaluating your Vocal Technique:
1. If it hurts- its bad. (period) There is no “sing through the pain to get a result” in singing. If you are hurting your voice, you are putting undue pressure on muscles, which could be putting pressure on your vocal chords. This would not work for any athlete on any muscle. (There is a difference between pain and a challange, I am speaking of pain or strain- don’t do it).
2. Does it feel natural to you?- Beautiful singing should not be produced out of trickery. You have the voice, someone just may need to guide you on how to get it out beautifully and easily. Your singing voice should come out like a natural extension of your speaking voice, not strangely affected.
rajpillay August 9th, 2010 at 1:47 am
nice article.well written.