Transcripts
1. Increase Your Vocal Endurance Part 1: Hi guys. I'm
Madeleine Harvey and welcome to part one of
Build Vocal Endurance. This is a very exciting lesson. We're going to be working
with our voices and with our bodies in the same
way that an athlete trains. Our objective with
today's video is to build a higher degree
of lung capacity. That way we can manage a little bit more air
pressure when we sing. A couple of things that
you'll need to prepare for today's lesson Number
one is a small straw. I'm using the sing straw. Three millimeter diameter. So it's the middle straw. If you don't have sing
straw, it's no biggie. A regular juice
box straw will do. And if you don't have
that, that's okay. We can use our lips. But something else
that you will need is a relatively deep
cuff that's filled to about one third or 12 of
water and a nice long straw. We're going to be working
with straw phonation today to help build that lung
capacity and that pressure. Having said that, I just want to remind you that it doesn't matter if you're a
complete beginner or an industry professional. I want to encourage
you to come back to these exercises as
often as you need, to use these lessons
as a resource in your daily practice to build
those long lasting results. So why don't you
go ahead and grab the things that you need, and
I'll see you in a minute.
2. Lung Capacity Exercise: In order to understand
vocal endurance, we first have to
understand lung capacity. What does it do for our singing, and how can we get some of that? Well, in the short answer
is lung capacity is the lungs ability to concentrate a higher degree of air
pressure within the lungs as a singer in order to
have any endurance, consistency, control, power,
projection, et cetera. That is going to
depend entirely on your lungs ability
to contain pressure. You contain pressure
within the lungs and you let some of that air out
as a consistent stream. And that's what the process
of singing is all about. But we have to train
our lungs to be able to house this pressure
and we're going to do it incrementally
and gently. Okay, So the first exercise
that we're going to do today, and this would be a good time to grab up your small straw. Now if you don't have
it, not a big deal. We can use our lips. We're going to tone our lungs. Tone our lungs by
offering a steady, consistent inhale,
exhale, chal***ge. We're going to use our lips. If you're using your lips
in today's exercise, you're going to make them
as tight and small as you can as if you are slurping
a spaghetti noodle. But it's not a gentle slurp, it's a power slur like that. As power slurp, you can feel your rib cage along
the side and the back begin to really engage. Now the higher degree of
pressure you create like that, the more you will work
those inspiratory muscles, those inhale muscles go like that helps them
get a little bit more. That helps them be able to
activate that strength. Okay, so we're going to slurp our spaghetti noodle for
eight continuous counts. Then we're going to exhale full power for eight
continuous counts. We're going to do that cycle. Inhale eight counts, exhale eight counts,
inhale eight counts, exhale eight counts
for two whole minutes. Now, I just want
to encourage you, this is going to
be very hard and I want to forewarn you,
it's going to be very hard. If you're doing it right,
it'll be quite a chal***ge. Your lungs will start
to get very tired at around 30 seconds
to the minute marker. Of course, listen
to your body if you need to rest for a couple of seconds
before continuing on. By all means your
body does know best. But if you feel like
you can persist through that slight fatigue at the
32nd to a minute mark, you will discover that you have a whole other gear
in that lungs. In those lungs, you'll be
able to persist through that fatigue and really begin
to find your endurance. We're going to go
at 75 beats per minute on the metronome,
so that's how we'll count. And we're gonna go for
two whole minutes, so exhale first. Ready? Here we go. That. Oh, very good. Yes, yes, yes, my dears. Absolutely. This is such a good
exercise now, again, you don't necessarily
need the small, your lips will suffice. However, your lips might
get a little tired. But did you notice that when you pulled in full
power with this very, very small lip, it targets
those intercostals. It gets that lower part
of the lung opening. With authority?
With strength, yes. Feel very strong in the lungs. When you inhale that way, it's got to be very deliberate. It can't be passive, it's got to be with full power. Then exhale power
as you exhale that that contraction happens right at that diaphragmatic level, and it's a nice consistent push. We're not just like
pushing it all out, we are focusing that
air as it goes out. I encourage you to do
this exercise 2 minutes. 2 minutes. I encourage you to do this as
often as you can, especially if you are a speaker, professional singer, or
if you're in a show. You've got to keep
your lungs woke up, You've got to keep them awake, especially as you're
starting to sing. You're going to be very
dramatic with your voice. Your lungs have to be on
board with that so that they can concentrate
that air pressure. Encourage you to do this
several times a day, maybe two or three times a day, 2 minutes, 2 minutes. The 2 minutes there, just consistently remind your
lungs to stay pressurized, stay awake, stay
strong and toned. Remember, we're
treating our lungs like athletes treat
their muscles because that's our
engine that makes the voice do amazing
things. Wonderful. Now that you have an
understanding of lung capacity, let's take this and put
this to some exercises.
3. Bubble Cup Ningle Note Exercise: Now that your lungs
are nice and fired up, they are ready to go. Let's dive right into
straw phonation. Now, you might have heard
these words before, but I want to get into
the nitty gritty of what straw phonation
actually is. What is it actively
doing for the voice? And why is it really
important to build endurance? Well, the important
word is pressure. That's what today's
lesson is all about. As a matter of fact, that's
what singing is all about. If you can house pressure, then you can use that pressure
to generate tone power, projection strength, all
those wonderful things. Freedom, all the wonderful
things that we want. We're mimicking the
process of creating sound, but we're using the bubble cup as both training
wheels on a bicycle. It's going to help support the singing process and it also ankle weights
to the runner. It both makes it
easier and it makes it harder easier because we come to rely entirely on the breath as we are blowing
bubbles and creating sound. As we're blowing these bubbles, we rely entirely on the breath to be the
vehicle for the sound. Harder, because we have sound has to go
through the straw, and it also has to travel
through the depth of the water. That's called resistance. The lungs will get accustomed
to pushing through, so to speak, a certain
amount of resistance. That's why we want to
look at this as training. I really want you
to imagine that this is akin to the ankle
weights on the runner. If you are a runner and
you got so accustomed to working with ankle weights
as you were jogging, what would happen when you
take those ankle weights off? You would fly and it
would feel a lot easier. We're using this cup today
as a mimic of that process. Training our lungs to
be able to through that water as a habitual thing. Cool. What we're going
to do is we're going to blow a middle. Now we're going to treat
this as a little meditative, starting right
here at Middle Sea and we're just going
to see if we can blow a consistent amount of middle through the
water. Here we go. Read. Yeah. Yeah. Good. Now, that's relatively
hard depending on how much water my water is
about right right there, and my lungs definitely feel the impact of that
depth of water. I've got to push the air through
that depth consistently. There's your
consistent generation of those bubbles and then
the voice follow suit. I want you to imagine
that as you are working with these notes that your voice
doesn't begin here. It doesn't begin here, but this is where the
imagination comes in. I want you to imagine that it begins at the end of the straw. The very end of the straw, because that's where
you will experience the release of the voice. Okay, let's start down here. No, I changed mind.
Let's start middle. We'll go 4-5 We're going to do this incrementally and we're going to do it meditatively, so that means about 15
counts per each note. So we'll bubble and count to 15, breathe bubble, count to 15, breathe bubble and count to 15. What we're attempting
to do with this, even though it's very simple, is we're doing a lot of things. One is we are feeling a nice
supported push at the onset. Remember, it's about restoring the voice to the
vehicle of the breath. So you're using your breath as they get up and
go for the voice. So you're not pinching, you're not squeezing, you're not using any of
these muscles here. You are initiating that
pressure in the lungs, pushing it through that straw,
generating those bubbles. And you're doing consistently, so that way your
body remembers it. Remembers it has like a muscle memory about
what that feels like. Just check the
depth of my water. There we go. There we go. All right, we ready to go? Start at that middle scene. I will count us out. Ready. That's a long time, isn't it? It sure. Is it? Sure is. So you feel that contraction coming from the
diaphragm and you feel the lungs continuously contain that pressure because they
have to generate that bubble. Good. It should be a little tiring. And this is such a good
practice because it reinforces that no matter how tired you
are because of that sustain, you're staying here as
a means of the support. You're not over correcting or overcompensating
and squeezing. Here we go. Okay, good. Remember, don't be concentrated at how high the note is, really. Use that breath to push through the straw at
the onset of the sound, So it should feel like your
voice begins at the release. At the end of the
straw, we go breath. Oh yeah. Last one. Excel***t. Can you hear this fuller, natural projection of sound? Yes, yes, of course. Our bodies have
gotten accustomed to anticipating the depth of
the water, and as such, we've had to build a higher
degree of lung capacity, the ability to contain that pressure as we're
focusing the air outward. Fantastic job. You ready
to do this on your own?
4. Bubble Cup Single Note Practice: Okay guys, we're ready to do
this exercise on our own. Instead of starting at four, middle C, we're going to go a little bit lower
and start at three. Now we're still
going to go to five, but we just have a little bit of those lower notes that
we can account for too. You want to really go to a happy place on an
exercise like this, be more meditative about it. It's all about the experience. You want your body to have an interior memory for what
this balance feels like. Here we are starting at three. Breath, breath, breath. A, a, a blow, blow, boo. Good. Oh good breath, blow almost the Breathe, blow, breathe. Blood, breeze, blood breeze, blow. Last one, brief blow and rest. Good job. Very good job.
5. Bubble Cup Arpeggio Exercise: You guys are doing great work. Really, really great work. I want to encourage you to keep staying with
our bubble cup. We're going to continue our
work with the bubble cup now. Now I just want to remind, because there's
so many benefits, so many to just blowing bubbles, it's a little bit
harder than it looks. The deeper your water, the more pressure it takes to generate a nice
consistent bubble. But I want to also, before we
get into our next exercise, talk about why blowing into a bubble cup is also
therapeutic for the voice. A second ago I said it
was training wheels on a bicycle and ankle
weights to the runner. Let's talk about training
wheels on a bicycle. The whole point of having training wheels is
so that the rider can learn the equilibrium of being up, right, just being up. Once those training
wheels are off, we do this thing, this magie, that's very similar to what we're
doing with the bubble cup. We have three main
substructures of the voice. We have breath, the
breath mechanism, which is the power generator. Then we have the voice box, what creates the vibrations. And then we have the amplifier, the resonating system
when we are bubbling. All three of these substructures
are a complete balance. Complete balance. I just want to remind
us of that fact is we're continuing our
work with the bubble cup. It's simple, simple. But just because it's
simple doesn't mean it's not highly sophisticated. We're going to continue
our bubble work now. We did single pitch onsets. This teaches your
body to lean into the onset using the
breath as that mechanism. We're going to take this a step further now we're going
to do our peggio. Our peggio are what
happens when you break a cord down into
individual notes. That's our peggio. So we're going to blow into
our bubble cup. We have low, middle,
high note, right? The bubble cup doesn't
necessarily understand low, high. It just understands
consistent pressure. Nice and consistent. As we go to our higher note, we have to continuously push
down into the bubble cup. This is very important
for power on high notes. As you go to higher
and higher notes, you're going to be
pushing down with your air pressure
instead of trying to squeeze those muscles up. But we'll cross that
bridge when we come to it. So here we go. We've
got our first. I want to try to
hold the bubble cup first and also play
piano. So here we go. We're going to go that slow, friends, we're going
to go that slow. It should hurt. Oh, it should hurt so good in the
middle of the body. Remember we want to
tune those lungs like an athlete tunes the muscles
or tones, the muscles. So we want to feel
consistent pressure as we go from each note. We don't want to just go, that's kind of sporadic pressure. We're going to go nice and slow, keeping each note nice and even. Okay, here we go. I love you so much.
I'm here for you, I'm rooting for you. Here we go. Oh, a good to remember the high note. You have to push down
through the bubble cup to get that high note.
Here we go, right here. Good, Stay focused on your brea. Only thing I want you
to think about is blowing those
bubbles. Here we go. Good. Who is hard to hold
the cup in bubble at the same time He? Oh, my arm is getting
a little tired. Good. Just focus, blow, blow, blow that air through
and get the F sharp. It's not about it being high. Your voice doesn't really understand high as not on
an exercise like this, your voice completely
gets his down. Because it has to build
a higher degree of pressure to push
through that straw, to generate those
consistent bubbles as you sing that F sharp. Let's do a couple more as
I get my grip right here. Good. Can you hear how immediately that is the equiva***t of what we were just doing through
the bubble cup? Same volume in everything, your body gets accustomed
to dealing with, that kind of interior pressure
and thus anticipates it. Wonderful job guys, ready to try this exercise
on your own.
6. Bubble Cup Arpeggio Practice: Okay guys, you are on your own. Remember, blow do for
those high notes. Keep the pressure as
consistent as possible throughout the entire
musical phrase. Here we go. Keep it nice and say
blow down for the hind. Lean in with your breath. He. B, yeah, drop out if it's too high, just focus on the bird. I s is slow on the return. Stay focused on the birth. Use those at muscles. Keep the pressure consistent. Keep it nice and
slow over a balance. Pressure on each note, he give an eye and deliver. Good job.
7. Bubble Cup Octave Exercise: All right, our last exercise in today's lesson is a full octave. So if you've noticed
that we've been gradually increasing the
intervals, you would be good. We started out on a
single pitch intonation. We wanted to encourage
the breath to lean forward with equal
balanced pressure. Then we increased
that interval by introducing an entire arpeggio. Now we're going to go for the entire octave, nice and slow. Now the point of this,
there's a couple of things that I want to
draw special merit to, or want to build the merit of. One is endurance. It's a lower impact stress, but it's over a long, long period of time. What we want to do is
increase that lung capacity, thereby increasing
our endurance. Our body is not getting as tired as it used to, or even if it is. What we want to train the
body to do is to not default back into old
compensatory habits. We want the body to stay focused on keeping that diaphragm
nice and engaged, and keeping those
three substructures as balanced as we can, even though we're getting tired. Now that we've
incorporated the eight, which completes the octave, I want you to focus on blowing. If that's the big takeaway
from today, so be it. I want you to associate
high notes equal through the straw that your
voice is a release that happens at the
end of the straw. We're going to go nice and slow. I had to change my straw, had a hole in my straw
harder than it needed to be. All right, here we go. We're going to go very good. This little torturous
exercise because it's not so much about going up. Although that is wonderful, it really is more about do not let your voice relax
until you are finished. Manage the pressure
all the way through. Finish strong. So they say a lot of
times this is very, very difficult for singers just because it's
the way body is. Body wants to hurry
up and relax. So if we go up, up, it's like, yes, I did
it and now I'm done. The diaphragm stops pressurizing
the air in the lungs, and then suddenly we fall
out of balance anteriorly. And then we get into trouble. The voice gets a little
wobbly as we go down. We want to train the body to stay present, stay
leaning forward, stay pressurized
all the way through every single pitch gets the
perfect amount of pressure. Okay? You got all that. You got to remember all that. It's okay if you don't, you
can always watch it again. So here we go,
ready, breathe the Yeah, Get your body
to the point of like, oh God, I feel it in my back. I feel so tired. Good. That's where you
want to really finish. Strong tone and tune those
muscles. Here we go. Oh. Oh, Oh, yes. Teach that diaphragm.
Stay committed. Stay contracted. Focus your breath forward as if you're generating
a forward mom, no matter what, do not squeeze to compensate for what you feel is a loss of air
pressure in the lungs. Here we go. Oh, yeah. Yes, my goodness, gracious. Want to really feel
that your lungs get so accustomed to this pressure
that they're encountering by bubbling those bubbles
that when we let go, it's as if we are runners
with the ankle weights on. We fly, there's a
natural release from the voice from the body. Keep going. If it's too high, drop out and join back in when it feels a little bit
more comfortable. And don't mind mal, she's my little security
system for the house, he's keeping an
eye on everybody. Ooh, ooh, I messed up on that one. Let's try to Yeah. Make it as hard as you can
for yourself, within reason. But if you feel like you can
go a little bit further, you just want to see
where your limit is to how long you can go As your
endurance, Slow it down. Slow it down, I'm gonna try to hang on.
Let's try that. Be again, totally pooped out
there. That's okay. It's a long high phrase. Let's finish up at six. Yes, yes. Nice and slow. On the return, you want to
keep it, keep it deliberate, keep it consistent,
keep it engaged until you are finished
with the phrase. Good, That was
awesome work, guys. Congratulations on C six, ready to try it on your own?
8. Bubble Cup Octave Practice: All right, here we go. Last exercise of the lesson. Be very deliberate, be as concentrated on the air
pressure as you can. From start all the
way to finish. See if you can keep
the pressure as balanced as possible.
All the way through. Given a train, he keep it. No one going. Ok, I finished strong, push down for the, I drop out of its Hi, stay connected to the Abs. Think down. God, keep breathing.
Keep bubbling. Good job. Good, keep that bubble. Nice
and consistent. Oh, stay on top of the voice. Stay with me. Stay
with me. Finish straw. So each no pressurized is there good? Good job.
9. Summary: All right guys, you've
finished strong. Today was a really good workout. So thank you so much for staying with me from start all
the way to finish. I want to encourage
you to come back to this module as often
as you need to. We all get a little
lazy around the middle. We all need to use
it or lose it. So consider this going to
the gym for your voice. There are three big
takeaways that I want you to remember in
your practice with today's lesson
number one, lean in. You can do that physically, but I want you to lean
in with your breath. As you're practicing
those single intonations, remember to feel that
it is your breath. It is the vehicle of the
breath that moves the voice, even at the very first note. We want to build that in as
a muscle memory, lean in, feel as if your voice happens at the end of the straw experience the release of the voice
at the end of the straw. Number two, think down
on those high notes. There is no longer, from this point on in
your vocal development, thinking up is up. We
don't want to do that. We understand that as we need to go to a high
note through the straw, we need to generate more air
pressure. How do we do that? We push down. So that's one of
the other benefits of working with a bubble cup. It trains your body
to associate that. What you need from that
high note is down. So think down,
that's number two. Number three, go slop. We want to tire you out. We want to kick your
butt, so to speak. We want to reinforce that
no matter how tired we are, we're going to stay with it. We're going to finish strong, We're going to continue to use those diaphragmatic muscles to maintain balance in those three substructures
of the voice. We don't want to
fall right back into some squeezy habitual responses just because we feel like
we're running out of breath. We want to train
that muscle response that no matter what happens, we are staying supported. So number one, lean in, number two, think down. And number three, go
slow. It doesn't matter. Doesn't matter if you're an industry pro or if
you're a complete beginner. We all need workouts like this. Imagine it's going to the gym. You're going to use it or
you're going to lose it. But thank you so much guys for
hanging out with me today. Feel free to come back
to this module as often as you need
to for practice. Another thing I
would suggest before we get off here is take your bubble cup and bubble any song that you're working on
through the bubble cup. Do this generously before you even begin to open
up to sing it. Normal, you want your body to
understand that it needs to be able to push through that water in order to experience the
release of the voice. Remember, it's as if it is
ankle weights to the runner. Bubble your song. Include
your bubble cup in your song. Work as well. Thank you again for
hanging out with me. I love you so much. I'm
so glad you're here. Thank you for including
me in your vocal journey. Remember to check back for
part two of Build vocal endurance and I will
see you next time by.
Madeleine Harvey, Vocal Coach
