Dec 2019 – I will start blogging about this soon. Articles will include: onsets (glottal, breathy, creaky voice, balanced) release (how to end notes well) laryngeal setup and laryngeal modes (1, 2, & 3) – for opera, pop, belt, rock, crooning, falsetto etc semi-occluded vocal tract (SOVT) exercises demystifying chest voice, head voice, and mix
Connecting (making sound) Read More »
Download a PDF version of this article. Many singers find it easier to sing a tune on single vowel sound, rather than singing actual song words. Adding consonants to a vocal line can be a real problem – the musical line suffers, singers find themselves running out of breath much more quickly, their throats get
Singing Consonants – 9 useful Principles Read More »
Download a one-page PDF of this article. Vowels and vowel sounds are not the same thing. In the English alphabet, there are 5 vowels: A, E, I, O, U. However there are many more vowel sounds. This document deals with vowel sounds. The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) maps all the language sounds the human voice
Vowel sounds and mouth positions Read More »
This is the third in the blog series Singing as Storytelling. There are many big name singers doing cover versions of the classic hits. It’s easy money, because the songs are already well known favourites, and the singers already have a fan base who are prepared to buy whatever the singer records, and attend whatever
‘Mr Bojangles’ (Singing as storytelling 3) Read More »
This is the second in the blog series Singing as Storytelling. The majority of singers – famous ones as well as amateurs – work hard to produce a stylish and technically excellent performance in terms of musical delivery, whatever the genre. However, it is rare to find a singer who genuinely delivers the lyric in
‘Cry Me A River’ (Singing as storytelling 2) Read More »
Jule Styne (writer of ‘Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend’, ‘Three Coins in a Fountain’, and ‘Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!’) famously said: “A song without words is just a piece of music.” The singer’s job is to make sure those words both be heard, and also be understood. That’s not just
Misheard lyrics and mondegreens Read More »
This blog post is all about resonance, and how singers manipulate it to their advantage. I recently discovered these fabulous videos on YouTube showing people singing inside an MRI scanner, meaning that we can see what is happening inside their mouth and throat when they are singing. The singers have done wonderfully, considering they had
Understanding resonance with MRI scans Read More »
This is the first of a series of blog posts that I am calling Singing as Storytelling. When I was starting out as a singer, my first singing teacher told me: “If you’re lucky, the people who listen to you will say, ‘What a great voice!’, and ‘What a great musician!’. And if you’re really
‘Over the Rainbow’ (Singing as Storytelling 1) Read More »
After a performance, we may go through a whole range of feelings. We need to allow those to subside before we do any serious evaluation of our performance. We should assume that we will experience one or all of … Elation Depression Apathy Disorientation Aggression or irritability (towards ourselves or others) … over the next
Taking a step back after a performance Read More »
Everyday breathing in Everyday breathing out Singers breathing in Singers breathing out Breathing for singing is an extremely important topic, and there are many subtleties to learn about it. So we are going to work on it step by step. However, once we have worked through the various ideas, I hope that it will have
Breathing for singers is different from normal breathing (Breathing 1) Read More »
