the Vox Blog

The Controls 1: - It's all in the vowel!

2008-05-21T23:19:00.007+01:00

The term 'vowel' refers to a vocal sound which is not restricted or stopped in any way. In other words a vowel is a vocalisation which flows freely out of the mouth and can be sustained.

We learned in my last post about the need to make exactly the right shape inside the vocal tract to get a strong sound. It is difficult to express just how powerful (and how subtle) this effect is. In reality it is nothing short of a totally different sensation during singing. It is as tricky as whistling or playing the flute. When we first start to "get" the vowels, we hear a new sound we have never heard before... it kind of jumps out much louder and stronger without any more effort. In other words we have turned on ('enabled') an efficient amplifier which makes the voice stronger and better sounding.

(Note that for this to happen we need the vocal cords to be operating effectively... see next post!)

So hey this sound like "free stuff!" Well in many ways it is... we get a lot more sound for no more "push," just more precision. Next question of course is how to get some.

The good news is that it is neither magic, miracle or mystery. Just takes time to get it right and some guidance from someone who knows.

Lets go back to the beginnings: Remember that the function of the vocal tract is a result of human evolution. The making of sound predates symbolic speech by millenia. It is seldom that the process of evolution gets something really wrong... and this is true of the vocalisation process. It is certain that the vocal tract is "designed" to make the strongest possible sounds for the minimum possible effort. So just like a runner has to work to uncover the designed function of the running body, so a singer needs to dig away the covering layers of socially acquired speech patterns and mental presumptions which overlay natural vocal tract function.

Although there is no way you can learn this stuff from a blog, I will give you a few pointers in the right direction:

It all starts with neutrality. Remember the dented saxophone we met in the previous post? Well the way nearly all of us speak and/or sing is yer classic dented saxophone. All twisted out of shape, barely able to resonate.

So do this: Stand up straight. Do that little thing of pulling a "string" at the top of your head to get the posture really good. Then let your jaw float just naturally, a bit open. Stroke your fingers lightly down the sides of your face and then let your hans drop to your sides. Without changing a thing, take a small breath and make a small but strong pre-speech type sound like "huuh." Not a big woofy bark, nor a hard or nasty "hah," just a calm and unaffected sound made from a totally relaxed vocal tract.

So that sound (if you got it ... you may need a treacher's help, or refer to the reference sound on the website) is the core of how the singing voice works. Imagine a saxophone with lips and teeth on the front. It makes a continuous big stream of sound from the sax part, and the articulators on the front make the words.

The throat with the "uh"sound is like the sax, leaving the lips, tongue & teeth to make the words. So we need to say all the vowels with that uh throat. Try it. Re-find that relaxed place, get back to the "huuh" an then say huh-ah, huh-oo, huh-ee, huh-eh, all without leaving that open-throat huuh sound.

OK, again, not something you can really expect to learn from a description, but if you can understand the principle the you are already a long way towards getting in.

Watch out for the accompanying video examples.

Next time: - something about cord closure.

Pre-singing skills Part 2

2008-05-15T15:45:00.002+01:00

"Ah! "

What does that mean to you? How does it sound?

Hmm well of course it is just marks on your screen so doesn't sound like anything until you say it out loud. Depending on many factors including where you come from and how you are feeling right now you could choose to sound out that small two-letter symbol in any number of ways. I could try to be more specific and give you the example of a word, like for example "Father." Still, the same problems apply.

So who cares anyway?

Well if you are trying to sing well, you should care. Imagine for a moment you are not a singer but a saxophone player. You go out and spend two grand on the best sax you can afford, real world-class. Then you sling it in the back of the van with the PA speakers, and of course it picks up a few dents. But again, who cares, it'll play just fine bent out of shape... won't it? After all who knows why they make saxes that wierd shape, maybe just to look good, innit?

No it will not play right. The shape of a sax is largely what makes it sound the way it does. Even the smallest ding will have an adverse effect of the timbre, pitching, stability, and ability to hit the high notes. Sounds familar, right? Starting to figure where this is going?
Yes, it's all to do with the laws of acoustics, which we can't change. The body of the sax is the "resonator" which has a particular effect on the sound waves coming from the reed - something about "standing waves" "formants" "harmonic series" and so on. The end result of all this acoustics malarkey is the timbre we know and recognise as the saxophone.

So the spaces and shapes in the vocal tract do the same kind of thing to the sound waves coming from the vocal cords. And the exact way we say the vowel creates the shape of the resonator... which as we know should not be dented or twisted out of shape in any way. So a pure vowel = a pure sound, great timbre, accurate, stable pitch, and easy range.

Next time we will look at what we mean by pure vowels, how we find them, and how we use them in real-world singing to create eny style or sound.

Pre-singing skills

2008-05-08T15:07:00.002+01:00

In the course of my daily teaching, I wonder why some people "get it" and others don't. I don't mean being a great singer, (that's another issue). I'm talking about basic voice. Why do some people just go "Oh ok, if that's the right way to sing then I'll just do it that way"... and out comes this great voice. Meanwhile others struggle for a year or two to achieve the same thing.

Now the cynical among you may suspect that a working teacher may prefer students who come along every week for a year rather than those who need just a few lessons... but no, actually I for one would prefer to get fantastically quick results on core vocal issues, so that we can get on with the exciting part of building a great vocal performer.

And of course there are those who are in the grip of heavily ingrained bad vocal habits.. for these people there will always be a longer time-scale to undo and un-program the neuro-muscular responses they have built up. But even in this area, some work quicker than others.

So here's what I think:

There are several areas of skills/awareness on which good vocal performance depend. Among which are:

Lingual ability: simply, the ablity to do stuff with the mouth over & above habitual everyday speech.
Vowel flexibility: The ability to alter vowels, for example in "putting on" accents. More likely to be found in people who speak more than one language, as to do this you need to understand that vowels are not "fixed" but can vary according to circumstance.
Posture: The ability to stand and move in a relaxed way.
Breathing: The ability to voluntarily draw breath into the bottom pat of the lungs
Intention: The intention to make a strong sound. Note this is different from simply wishing for a strong voice. Strong voice = a feeling of being loud. Many people are not prepared for this. A teacher can show you how to get what you wish for. You need to wish for the right thing!
Accurate hearing: You need to be able to distinguish timbres within music... for example pick out one instrument in a busy musical mix. Or tell an oboe from a cor-anglais. The ear is the primary organ of singing.
Basic music knowledge: Many singers are held back because they feel that they don't know enough about singing or music. If you just understand counting and some basic stuff about keys & chords you will feel more "worthy" of taking the lead.

All of this leads me to believe that we at Voxbox should introduce a new "Foundation Skills workshop to address some of these issues in a specific way outside of the regular lessons and courses. Hmmm... watch this space!

Band Coaching at Voxbox

2007-06-21T02:17:00.000+01:00

New band project at Voxbox
Our neo-soul band project Camden Soul has "gone solo" and is now an independent band called Lady Soul. Catch them on www.myspace.com/ladysoul6

So time for a new in-house band project: I am just floating this as in idea to see how much interest comes back.

I know several students, and I am sure there are a few more, who are working on their instruments as well as on their singing. It seems to me there is a need for a rehearsal-band in which people can develop their skills and gain experience.

How it will work
Unlike in Camden Soul where I played keyboards, I would remain in a tutor role to help each person in the band with their technique and more especially with the whole process of working in an ensemble situation...

Getting a sound
Balancing in the mix
Dealing with equipment and monitoring
Working out parts
Rehearsal procedures
Band-leading
General instrumental & vocal instruction
Songs are chosen in turn by members, so there would be a variety of styles which would be a good thing for everyone. Some people may bring original material, some may bring covers.

The aim is not to create a performing band, but to train you into being confident and able in a band situation. You will need a basic playing ability on your instrument to start with. The group will suit songwriters puzzling about how to move forward with getting on-stage, singers who realise that their chances of getting in a band are much higher if they can play an instrument as well, and anyone trying to get in a band but needing some general experience and pointers about how it all works... or just wanting to improve their band skills. The best thing about Camden Soul was watching how rapidly people developed from students into real singers... so many of the ex-CS singers are now in bands, starting bands or otherwise working on a higher level.

The cost would be based on my standard lesson fee split between members of the group... £20 per 2 hour session seems about right.

My band-playing & instrumental teaching
I am a pro-standard guitar player and have had many guitar students over the years. I am particularly focussed on building practical band-playing guitar skills in the quickest possible way, and have a great system for teaching in this way. I can also turn my hand to bass guitar too if need be. I currently have one guitar student and one bass student.

Although not much of a pianist, I have a good knowledge of stage & studio keyboard playing and synth programming.

I started my musical life as a drummer for several years and although rusty as a player can coach drumming in ensemble.

Weekly sessions would be on Sundays, probably 4 - 6 subject to discussion among interested parties.

If any of you are interested in meeting weekly in a tutored rehearsal band situation, let me know.

Leon Berrangé
Voxbox

Training the voice Pt 1

2007-06-04T19:49:00.000+01:00

Vocal function

If you don't understand some of the terms used in this article, first read the article "Glossary & Terms " (Coming soon!)

To achieve good voice, the singer needs to achieve the following 5 goals:

Ensure strong cord closure in chest voice
Maintain cord closure through all the bridges
Create a clear, vertically oriented resonant space in the pharynx.
Maintain the resonant space unaffected through all the bridges
Ensure that the resonant space is always perfectly tuned to the pitch being produced by the cords.

Some people do some or all of the above naturally, without thinking about it. Lucky few! By far the majority of people have to work hard to master these techniques.

Conventional singing teachers will simply work with the voice that the singer walks in with, and tailor repertoire to suit. They may try to improve general vocal fitness, but will very rarely try to modify basic vocal function.

SLS teachers take a quite different approach. We constantly analyse and improve vocal function to move towards the five goals set out above.

The tools we use are very specific and affect the function of the muscles of the vocal tract at the basic neuro-muscular level, to obtain the ideal air-muscle balance. At the same time we work on the vowels to perfect resonance.

The next article in this series is in the form of an audio file, so that you can hear examples and try some simple exercises yourself.

The best way to find out more is of course to tale a lesson with a SLS teacher.

Bad Voice?

2007-05-06T02:34:00.000+01:00

Sometimes people point out that some people who sing "wrong" have managed to build successful careers. Well yes of course... Talent as a singer should not be confused with good voice production, and there are many abused voices making good livings for their owners. In many of these instances, the very style of the abuse is what the public go for. Very often it is the aura of vulerability that a cracked broken or strained sound gives to a singer that appeals.

Thre are a few caveats:

Abused voices are often unhealthy and prone to infection & strain-related problems
Without good technique it can be hard for singers to sing high or low notes comfortably, if at all
To achieve wide ranging and versatile expression the singer needs access to a variety of tones and dynamic levels, which are usually only gained by in-depth technical work.

Singing Voice Part 1 - What's "good" singing?

2007-04-19T00:12:00.000+01:00

Let's be clear on the distiction between good voice and good singing. Anyone can learn to use their vice correctly, and end up with a great sound. But not everyone can carry a song well... That is a matter of personality and that indefinable X-factor.

So with a voice teacher you are working on you voice. Sure a good voice teacherf will address some performance issues, but will be mainly concerned to improve vocal function.

Now that we have distinguished between voice and singing skills, we can again ask "What's good voice?"

First a word about what good voice is NOT: it is not a style or a sound, a limitation or a loss of individuality.

Good voice enables:

A large vocal range compassing around 3 octaves
An even, clear sound over the whole vocal range, with no gaps, breaks or changes of quality.
The ability to sing from very quiet to very lound at any point in the range, with clear, even sustain and vibrato as desired.
The ability to use a wide variety of timbres from hard to soft evenly throughout the range.
A voice that is healthy and easily produced allowing the singer to undertake extended rehearsal and performance without strain.

Digital Music Revolution

2007-01-20T23:46:00.000Z

I just found a new music site where musicians can sell their wares and public can browse and discover. Check out http://amiestreet.com. What's different is the way music is priced... according to demand. It's free to register so anyone can browse.

When songs are first posted they are available to download at no cost. This rises with demand for the track, up to a theoretical 98 US cents per track... 1c less than a track off iTunes or Napster. Smart idea number 1. Smart idea number 2 deals with the way on most similar sites, there is such a huge selection of material, it is difficult for anything to rise to the top and make any money. Amiestreet have tried to solve this problem by an incentivised recommendation system. If youREC a track and it gets popular, you get rewarded...albeit with credit to spend on the site, not money. So the game is to successfully predict what people will like and buy. You get to be allowed to REC tracks by spending on the site.

Muzos/bands get 70% of their sales... after an initial 5 bucks off the top for setup fees.

Smart thinking from the designer of the business model. Could that be win-win-win?

So what about the site and content? Site is well designed, easy to figure out, good nav, well thought out genres (unlike the pathetic MySpace genres!) and quite deeply layered. There's a lot of stuff about an awful lot of people, and you can dig in quite far. I followed a REC and got to Jets Overhead,

Any good? Well, like much unsigned material, competent but kinda generic. Did I spend any money:?.... uh, naaah. Will I go back? Sure.

PS a further visit turned up Ilana, a UK soul artist. Check out her MySpace

Harmony Vocal Singing

2007-01-20T23:37:00.000Z

I have been reviewing the recordings of tonight's Camden Soul rehearsal, and just thinking about how to improve the blend between the harmony voices in the backing vocal ensemble. I started thinking about how to best describe the specific way that backing singers have to synchronise to get that perfect blend. It is so much more than the matter pitching well. All the singers (and there are around 16 in Camden Soul) also need to be approaching the styling of each song in exactly the same way... this means addressing the matters of both voice quality as well as vowel type.

Voice quality depends on the air-muscle balance and how we implement that. We can talk about how edgy we sing, and how loud we sing: these are two separate dimensions of the dynamic. You could label them the quiet-to-loud axis and the soft-to-edgy axis. So the four extremes would be a quiet soft voice, a quiet edgy voice, a loud soft voice and a loud edgy voice. Every situation needs an agreed choice of (and ability to deliver!) style of phonation throughout the group. Of course we must always stay balanced, and know where that centre is, so that we can learn to bend it without breaking it....

In general backing harmony vocal work you are dealing with a wide variety of songs, and each will carry a certain style... not so much a reference to genre as a to the way language and sound are used. The singer is always faced with a variety of vowel choices for every word, and the choices made are a strong factor in the overall styling. The sound of the vowel that comes out from the ensemble can only sound right stylistically of everyone is making the same choicess. Describing vowel stylings is tricky... we can think of them almost like fonts on a computer, complete sets of sounds that have a common character. Like "small and precise," or "deep gospel," or "push-out soul." ?. Makes sense to me.... .

Anyway great rehearsal tonight, even got a dynamite live recording of Rocksteady from it... band was cooking, Naomi nailed the lead vocal and the rest of the singers had their hands up in the air.... Carol's new song sounded great, and Asya's Pull of the Sea, having been gigged a bit already, is settling in really nice. The girls have got their moves better, and the three new singers seem to be working out well. So a great set of gigs coming up... new original material plus looking forward to being at the wonderful Clapham Grand again. (And the Bedford, and the Miller, and Kings Head... see the Camden Soul site for details)

Top SLS instructor visiting in October

2005-07-22T01:23:00.000+01:00

As most of you know, training of teachers withing the Speech Level organisation is done by the "Instructor Management Team." IMT member Greg Enriquez is coming over in October... there will be workshops and lessons available at discount rates for our students.

He will be here in the 2 weeks just before the party, spending some time up north and some in London.

Watch the notice boards for bookings details.

Party Party Party

2005-07-21T02:01:00.000+01:00

Subject to final confirmation (mainly, we have to check the major sporting fixtures!) the next Performance Party will be 29th October.

Start selecting a song NOW! Let's make this the best yet.

Monday..

2005-07-15T01:22:00.000+01:00

This is to those of you coming along to the Harmony Group on next Monday for the first time:

We are not doing formal auditions, but working through some harmony material, and bouncing some lead vocals around the group.

This coming Monday we will be playing around with two songs: Aretha's "Don't Play That Song" and Stevie Wonder's "As".

Lyrics can be found here on the CSC website http://www.1-voice.co.uk/repertoire.htm.

You will get the most out of the evening if you get to know the songs a bit beforehand. We will probably also re-visit "Natural Woman" which we did this Monday past.

See you on Monday ,

First Post

2005-07-13T02:18:00.000+01:00

Here we go with the next new thing! All the Voxbox newsletters and suchlike will go out on this blog and we will be putting out daily singing tips, song reviews and analysis, and more.