Transcripts
1. Welcome & Introduction: Welcome to Discover Your Voice. I'm Juliana Riccardi, a singer, songwriter, and vocal coach. My teaching practice
was built on the mission to demystify
singing for my students, helping them problem solve using fine tuned awareness to free the voice in a fun and
collaborative environment. With a mind body approach, I take pride in empowering students to connect
with their instrument on a deeper level and adopt singing tools they
can use forever. Whether you have no experience and you're just curious
about learning, or you have a natural ability, but you're hitting some limits you'd like to work through. Or maybe you've taken a
lot of lessons before, but you still feel
there's more to learn. I'm here for you. I offer in
person and online sessions. I've been professionally
singing and performing for over 20 years. I've sung on many stages between New York, Nashville,
Los Angeles, recording my own music in professional studios
and developing my songwriting as an artist with features in billboard music country and vocal features in TV shows like Law and Order and Dear
Edward on Apple TV. Most importantly, I've
always been a student, and that's why I'm so
passionate about teaching in a clear and customized
way for each student. Each teacher taught me
their unique take on singing based on their
experiences and their schooling. But there were still
many answers left blank, and it prevented me from
developing my voice sooner. Today, I'll introduce you
to all of these concepts. Things like the
physiological nuances of breath and how our
muscles are involved, the interconnectedness
of our body parts to our singing voice, the releasing of jaw tension. Shaping your vowels through different parts
of your register, and how the mental intention and thoughts that we carry affect the placement
of our voice. Let's begin. Don't
forget to submit your reflections and exercise recordings within the
class project section. Here's a quick list of how
to prepare for this class. Please enjoy.
2. Lesson 1: Understanding and Owning the Parts of Your Instrument: Understanding and owning the
parts of your instrument. Let's discuss the basic parts of your instrument that we
can control and together, learn to relax and engage them. Our intercostal muscles. These are a part of
our lung housing and lie between our rib bones. They are often overlooked
by singers and too often skipped in the
discussion of breath. I love them. Connecting to
them and engaging them, we create more space
in the rib cage, more air in the lungs. If we are not creating more
airspace in this area, we are losing out on
a sustained breath, creating a more shallow sound. Feel your ribs, acknowledge
these muscles between them. Then work on connecting to them. Placing your hands at
the side of your ribs, gently pushing your hands apart on your inhale and
remaining open for your exhale. And now I'll drop.
This is an exercise, and it takes effort
and practice until your muscles are more
developed. I'll show you again. As you can see, there's a subtle expansion
from side to side, creating more space
in the lungs. It's an empowering feeling. And I've developed
coordination to stay open for a certain amount of time
before needing to relax. Again, there should
not be major tension, but in the beginning,
it will take effort, and you may feel some tension. So I recommend practicing
without any singing, just these repetitions
where you're engaging, connecting to these
intercostal muscles, expanding them out and in, out on the inhale, and
then relax on the exhale. When that's comfortable,
out on the inhale, exhale, keeping them
open, and then release. The diaphragm. Oh, this
mysterious diaphragm that we hear about all the time, breathe from your diaphragm. Well, actually, the
diaphragm is working automatically to help us breathe in and out without
thinking about it. This muscle is located
just belo the lungs, and it contracts
to draw air into the lungs and relaxes in
an arch to push air out. So how do we maximize
the diaphragm using singing without
directly controlling it? We connect to our diaphragm by connecting to our core
and our rib muscles, which affect how much the diaphragm moves air
in and out of our lungs. When our stomach muscles
are relaxed on an inhale and our rib cage is open and
expanded during phrases, our diaphragm is able to do
its job contracting downward, allowing for a full
inhale in the lungs. On the contrary, if
you are not expanding the rib cage or you're squeezing your
stomach on an inhale, you're making your
diaphragm's job harder, diminishing the volume of air in your lungs and the
quality of breath. You're also possibly
creating tension. Next up, our abdomen. Our stomach muscles and core should be relaxed on the inhale. We don't want to
push our stomach out forcefully to make
it look relaxed. Your upper stomach
should naturally rise on an inhale slowly making room as the diaphragm does its
natural and automatic work. A relaxed stomach allows the
diaphragm to move downward, creating that space
to draw air in. To help our exhale, we learn to connect
to our core to help release the air as a steady
and supported stream. How and why would we do this? We do this by engaging the core to maintain
that relaxed position. You're not crunching, you're not squeezing, but
you're stabilizing. This allows the air flow to come out at the pace that
we need it so we can continue a freeze
and not forcefully push air through or tighten
up and cause tension. This core engagement extends
the position of the inhale, slowing down the airflow to vibrate against the cords and create that beautiful phrase
that we want to sing. It's allowing the
diaphragm to slow down its job of pressing
air out of the lungs. Think of it as a stabilization. For example, first stand
really loose and relaxed. Now I want you to shift
your weight onto one leg. Immediately when I lift
1 ft off the floor, my core starts to engage. I feel my body stabilize, and that is what it's like
to stabilize the core during singing and to control the air flow
on your exhale. For example, if I
were to just stay relaxed and not put any
effort into my torso, my core, my ribs, it
will sound like this. Now, if I engage, again, relaxing upon inhale,
expanding my ribs, Uh suddenly I have power. I have resonance, I have
projection. I have control. Again, I didn't introduce
any major tension, but I'm intentionally engaging
my body to stabilize. I'm not letting go and
disconnecting from my muscles. I'm staying expanded
and allowing that pace of air against my
vocal cords to continue. Don't worry too much if this
feels confusing at first. As you develop
your awareness and your core strength and your
overall breath capacity, you will be able to
connect to this feeling. Our shoulders and neck are also very important
components of our instrument. Tension in these areas
will affect our voice box, otherwise known as the larynx. It's important to be mindful of these areas and take a
moment before warm ups, before performances to
stretch and self massage. Pressing down on these
hard pressure points feels great holding 10 seconds, 20 seconds before
you're singing, especially after a busy
day, lots of talking, lots of computer work,
going all the way up onto the neck
and into the jaw, which we'll talk about next. Our jaw is so important. This was something
that was never really discussed
to me in lessons, and it's actually quite
shocking because most of our population suffers from TMJ and carries
tension in the jaw. It's a strong muscle and it's a big source
of vocal tension. It connects to the rest
of the instrument. A tight jaw will inhibit sound. It will affect acoustics on the inside of the mouth and
make singing difficult. Plus, it continues to create
that cycle of tension. I love to give my students
tools to release the jaw, and it's always
just a subtle shift that allows more sound to come out and tension to melt away. And I'll give you
examples of this. So I usually take a thumb
and an index finger, and I'm applying gentle weight. Now I'm not pushing back. I'm just pushing down. And really, I'm just letting the natural weight
of my hand do this. I'm not forcing it open, but there is a bit of a
weight, and it's releasing. So after you've done
lots of talking, like I'm doing here
in this video, I might start to
sing, and there's some tension. There's
some activity there. Lo if I apply this
pressure here, again, it's subtle
and it's light. Love L L I really helps release and
send that sound forward. Knowing when to do this, you can do it during recording. Obviously, you wouldn't
do this on stage, but you can do this
beforehand so that your jaw adopts that feeling on certain notes that are
giving you tension problems. This has been an invaluable
tool for me and my students. Since the jaw is directly
connected to your tongue, your neck, your throat muscles, including your voice
box, AKA, the larynx, any tension here is going
to affect the projection, the resonance, the
tone of your voice, and the ease at which we
reach some higher notes. We will need to open
more and release and create more space on
the inside of our mouth, and a tight jaw just makes
this pretty difficult. Learning to release jaw
tension is highly recommended, again, by self massaging, finding pressure points
either through the cheeks, releasing or behind the jaw line right below your ear lobe. If this feels good, if it does
not, please do not do it. I have a pressure point here. I release forward just a
bit to release my jaw. It looks funny, but
it feels great. I'm not holding the muscle. The muscle is now relaxed and my fingers
are doing the work. They are hitting a pressure
point and it feels great. Big difference. Nice
fluidity brightens you up. And if you're curious and unsure about releasing
jaw tension yourself, you can hire a massage
therapist who does work inside and outside of the mouth to release
jaw tension. I've done it, and
it's incredible. But again, a little
bit goes a long way before your warm
ups, before your gigs, highly recommend educating
yourself on this and getting your own fingers into these areas and see what feels good and what
feels right for you. The tongue. A stiff
and bundled tongue will impede on our
tone and resonance. Recognizing if your tongue is generally stiff or rigid
is the first step. On vowels, which I like to refer to as the sweet
spot of singing, where all the sound lies, our tongue should
stay relaxed and flexible rather than
scrunched and tight. The tongue will naturally lift and art on certain
vowels and consonants. So don't force it down. Avoid tightening the
tongue or rigidly forcing any one position
which will create immobility, and it will sound like
something's blocked up. It will also create tension
in the larynx or voice box. So tongue stretches are
great when warming up and intermittently between
singing and practice. Even at a gig between songs, I'll turn around with my back to the audience and do
a tongue stretch. You really want to feel
the back of the tongue. Again, this is a muscle. It's busy all day. It's
doing a lot of work pronouncing for us, so
we want to relax it. Uh Uh So sing in
front of the mirror, I always encourage
students to sing in front of the mirror and
gather information, what they're hearing,
what they're feeling, and what does that look
like in the mirror? You'll start to see if you have any tongue habits that
are inhibiting the sound. Maybe you're
sounding more nasal, maybe you're sounding like something's caught
in your throat. Most likely, it
could be the tongue. So you want to make sure
it's stretched and relaxed. Again, naturally,
it will arch and lift a bit for
consonants and vowels, obviously, but we don't want to ever have it all the way up the whole time or all
the way in the back. A lot of teachers
will talk about keeping the tip of your
tongue at your back teeth, and that's a good
starting point. But again, the tongue
does need to move. We just want to make
sure we notice when a certain word is sounding off. The pronunciations off,
it's sounding tight. Check out the tongue, give
it a stretch, and try again. Our lips and face. Loosening up your
face and lips only helps brighten the voice
and wake up your energy. So often students sing with a partially closed
mouth during lessons, trapping the sound in the throat and missing out on
projection and resonance. It's one of the
first things that we point our awareness
to and correct. Watch yourself in the mirror or on video and see,
Can you open more? Sometimes the opening is also on the inside of the mouth more than you see it on the outside. For example, we want to lift
our sound on a low note, or we're just sounding dull or the pitch is flattening out. You can engage your face, which will engage
your soft palate. So essentially the
roof of your mouth. And as you lift your cheeks, for example, the soft
palate will raise. You'll see it kind of
look like a smile. Now, it's not a wide
screechy smile like this, but it's a lifted
brightening smile. So, for example, if I do a dull, low happy birthday
Now I add my face. I add some engagement
and energy lifting in the cheeks and the eyes, and my soft palette
will also raise. Happy birthday. Happy birthday. Happy birthday really
helps me when I'm in that tres voice to lift up as
opposed to happy birthday. Happy birthday. It's also a stylistic choice. So it's good to have these
tools in your toolbox. If you're feeling like you're
falling flat on a pitch, uh Uh, I've corrected my pitch. If you feel like it's a little dull and very low
in your register, it helps brighten the sound. So, again, we have to
engage our whole being, including our face,
including our lips. Doing lip trill warm ups is a great way to
wake up the face, wake up resonance, and practice using your vocal
chords in a safe way. So that's a lip trill.
This is a tongue trill. So you can use both, but not everybody can do both. A lot of times people find
lip trills more easier, and the way to get to it if
it's very hard at first, is to place your fingers
gently on your cheek. So you're helping your
lips come together. Your cheeks are coming together. Boom. Because we all have different
faces and musculature. It's gonna depend on you, whether you need to do this,
or if you don't need it. It's not a forceful push.
But again, I'm supported. I'm using my stomach.
I'm using my core. I'm using my intercostal
muscles to create space. Mm I love the tongue ones. To me, they help
relax the tongue. Again, you don't want
to force the tongue too forward. It
should be relaxed. And now the vocal
cords located in our throat are part of the magical system
called the larynx, also known as the Voice Box. You can gently touch it on
the front of your throat. It is that ball that you feel. Inside is cartilage and
muscle and ligaments. And the larynx function is breathing and swallowing
and the added bonus of speaking and best of all sing specifically the
vocal folds made of muscle and ligaments open
wide for normal breathing. And in singing, create a seal against the air causing
sound vibration. So the air is flowing through
the seal against the cords. And depending on where
you are in your register, the vibrations will change, and the pair of muscles inside the larynx will also shift
to a different dominance, whether it's chest
voice or head voice. During chest voice, we have
more touching of the chords. It gives us more tone, more tone, more tone, more tone than when
we're in head voice, and there is less touching and more
stretching of the chords, still vibrating, of course, Oh. At the most basic level, it's crucial to understand
that airflow is pivotal against the vocal
faults to function properly. We don't want to dump
air out too quick, too big too soon, against the cords, causing a weakened breathy sound
and potential damage. And we don't want to restrict
the air causing a thin, squeezed sound, also potentially damaging and not enjoyable. Think of the air as
the ocean waves, and sound, your singing
is the surfboard. I'm very big on these images. They're very effective. So I want to feel
carried and supported. If I want to have a good
surfing experience, I want to feel like a math
atop and I'm riding the wave. I'm riding that airflow. I am not straining for it, and I'm not just crashing and giving it all
the way at the top. And this goes back to that interconnectedness of our body, our mind, all to our instrument. We need to engage and
stabilize in our torso, specifically expanding the ribs, stabilizing the core,
relaxing on the inhale, and not taking a giant breath, but an intentional
breath with the body. On exhale, on phonation,
not introducing tension, causing the larynx to pump
up through the throat, causing that squeeze sound or putting too much air out and
causing that breathy sound. So too much air out, not supported or stabilized
might sound like H too little air and
too much vocal tension, squeezing the larynx up Ah. That's quite whiny and shrieky and it's really
not useful or pleasant. It doesn't feel good. So connecting to what feels good and what doesn't is pivotal. The goal is a healthy, coordinated balance
of airflow and control to keep a stable
and controlled larynx. Now, if you touch it again, you'll see on a higher pitch, it gently raises, and on
low pitches, it goes lower. The goal over time is to
stabilize the larynx, having control of when
we want to lower it for a darker sound or when we want to brighten
up and bring it up. There's going to be some
movement, of course, but we never want to
reach and scream and yell causing the larynx to go
too far up into the throat, creating a lot of tension. Lastly, we're going to talk about our mentality
and our thoughts. This is often overlooked. Big time in singing. Singing is vulnerable,
it's personal, it's beautiful. It's magical. So it's normal to be nervous and to introduce
some tension holding back. I find that also students
want to control the sound. And again, that's
understandable. We're nervous that we might
crack or shake or warble, and we're not confident in the tone that we're putting
out in the beginning. So we might try to control. We might even be self conscious about how loud we are naturally, and we try to be quieter. But if you're doing this
with a basis of tension, stress and anxiety, your voice
is going to reflect that. So that's why it's so
important to create a relaxed environment and to
begin getting comfortable, unwinding and being vulnerable. So some thoughts
that are going to prohibit your sound
again are fear, anxiety, nerves, doubt, and that need to
control the outcome. The sessions with my students
are very low pressure. We are here to explore. It is a safe space. And if you don't
explore and let go, you're not finding
your true voice. If we're caught up too
much in imitation, we are blocking our potential. My goal is to help you
discover your true tone. And then when you want
to affect it, you can, but you should start
with the baseline of your true, pure tone. And knowing all of these
parts of your instrument, physical and mental are
going to help you get there, enabling
positive feelings, trust, letting go
during these exercises, flowing, believing that this is a process and it
doesn't happen overnight. Okay, so we've gone through the physical components
of your instrument. You should feel more empowered about how everything
is interconnected. Here are some
questions to reflect on after learning about
these components. How did each component feel? Did you notice any tension or trouble
coordinating anything? Were you able to
make subtle shifts, shifts in the body, shifts in the thoughts to help
release that tension? And do you have any
questions for me? If so, feel free to shoot me a message at discovervoic
singing.com. Throughout the singing process
of developing your voice, you will be able to
connect more to each part of your body and how it relates to the sound
that you're putting out, whether it be developing
strength in your rib cage so that you can expand
your intercostal muscles more effortlessly, learning to relax the core at the right time and
when to engage the core to sustain learning to stretch the
tongue at the right moments, really tuning in
to shoulder, neck, and jaw tension and learning the best ways to
release that for you.
3. Lesson 2: Preparing the Body, Mind and Environment for Singing: Now that we have an
understanding of our instrument, let's
review preparation. Relaxing and preparing both you and your environment for singing is very important to increase your level of presence,
intention, and mindset. You'll get better
results compared to just diving in after you've
been working all day, chatting on the phone, online meetings, running errands body
really needs to honor singing as a different process than our day to day speech. Although there are
some overlapping concepts like breathing, like relaxing,
releasing tension, it matters even more so
when you're singing. Create a calm environment
for you to practice. The space should be quiet and comfortable for you
to relax and sing in. You should not feel self conscious about
singing out loud. So maybe that means
you're running the air conditioner or you have a white noise machine
on the background. Maybe you need to
let your roommate or your partner know, Hey, I'm going to be
behind closed doors for an hour. I'm
going to be singing. I don't want to bother you. You might want to
put headphones in. If that's going to make you
feel more comfortable, do it. If you're feeling
insecure during practice, it's going to come out, and you're not going to
get the best results. You need to be comfortable and confident this is
your time to explore. Next up, we need
to relax our mind and our body now that we're
in a comfortable setting. There's a couple of
ways you can start, and you may have
your own stretching or meditation routine, and I highly recommend at least a few minutes
of beginning that way. What I like to do in sessions is either have my
students lay on a yoga mat on their backs
or doing a fold overhang. So I'm basically
folding over my torso, allowing my arms and my
neck to be taken with gravity so that the vertebrae
is releasing any tension, and I'm releasing my mouth, I'm releasing my jaw,
allowing everything to drop. The stomach is slowly relaxing. I'm taking inhales, in and
out with the mouth open. I'm not sucking air in. I'm allowing the breath
to happen naturally, and closing your eyes
does really help, so feel free to do that. Remember, you're separating yourself
from whatever you were doing before singing and
we're honoring this process, loosening up and creating more
fluidity and less tension. So, for example, I'm
going to fold over here, and you won't see me now. So go ahead and fold over. I want you to feel
like a rag doll and begin with deep breaths. The important thing
here is that we are releasing to gravity.
We're not stiff. Our arms can be hanging or we
can be clasping our elbows, whatever feels most comfortable. You may sway side to side, and you're really releasing
your neck vertebrae, allowing gravity to just
pull you towards the Earth. Deep breaths, allowing
the abdomen to rise. Notice anything that's tight, release your jaw,
release the mouth, continue with your breaths. And when you're ready,
you can come on up. And after maybe five, six, even seven of these, you slowly want to roll up. That feels great.
Feel a lot looser. You might want to
roll the neck. Okay. You should be feeling more relaxed and a little bit looser. Now I'm going to
stretch the side body, and I'm doing this because it's waking up my
intercostal muscles, my obliques, even maybe
a tight hip flexor. So my knees are a little bit
more than hip with apart, and I'm reaching over and really feeling that
side body stretch. This is relaxing, but
it's also energizing. I'm waking up and connecting to those intercostal muscles that remember we spoke about
before are so important. And we're switching sides. The more oxygen we get to
our muscles, the better. Great. And now we're moving up to the shoulders
and the neck. Do you feel any tension? Probably do. Most
of my students do. This is a common place
to carry tension, so I like to either place my index finger or
thumb onto any pressure points onto any knots
and really allow the pressure to remain
on those spots. It feels really, really good. You might want to also give yourself a little
bit of a massage, sort of kneading at those knots, kneading at any tension. And I can feel that radiate through the neck,
loosening the neck, finding any stiff neck
muscles as well and using pressure and
kneading to release that. All the while we're
relaxing our breath. Notice how you're feeling. Notice if you're carrying
tension in your legs now. Bend the knees, stay
relaxed, and keep breathing. Just some stretches
from side to side, lowering the shoulder,
elongating the neck. This also helps so much. Again, don't be stiff and tight, while you're stretching.
You want to relax. You want to think about the muscles that we're focused on. Loosen them up. Do
what your body wants. You'll feel the urge to make
movements to stay still, and when to switch sides
slowly, relaxing the shoulder. I'm now moving up into my jaw, which we talked about earlier
in the component section. So if you have a tight jaw, you can begin massaging
through the cheeks. You can also move behind the jaw line right
under the ear lobe and find a pressure point by gently pushing forward
on the jaw line. I'm opening, I'm releasing. Soon as I release my jaw, it looks like I have a
little bit of an underbite, but it feels very, very good. I feel the air
immediately go in. So follow the tension,
really tune into it. Massage through it,
press through it. If this is too painful, in an uncomfortable
way, please stop. You can always go
to a professional. There are fabulous
massage therapists who are trained to put on a glove and go inside
your mouth and really release all that
mouth and jaw tension, which is so beneficial
for singing. I highly recommend that if you're not comfortable
doing it yourself. But simply releasing,
feeling that release, dropping the jaw,
you're going to sound like you don't have
proper pronunciation. That's okay. For a moment, if massaging and pressure
points don't feel good, just learn to release it. You might put a little
weight on the jaw line. And feel the air coming
through the mouth and out. Next up is the tongue. We must stretch the tongue, as we talked about earlier. So you're going to do
this in your warm up, and you're going to do this intermittently after
you've done a lot of lyrical phrases to help
release tension because, again, the tongue does
connect to the larynx, right? So any tension in
the larynx near the vocal folds, we
want to eliminate. Ah. So you'll do that a
few times and you want to feel the back of the
tongue, really stretching. So it's a little
uncomfortable at first, but it feels great and it already helps brighten
up your tone. So we've done some stretching. We've loosened the neck, the shoulders,
relaxing the stomach, taking inhales and working on any pressure
points that we need, focus on the jaw, the tongue. And now, if you'd like, you can do jumping jacks or arm circles just to
get the heart rate up before we begin
our next exercise, which is learning the
proper breath setup. So it might look
like big circles. And again, you're always finding that rhythm in the
breath, never holding it. And all of this
preparation allows you to tune in to your breath. And all the while reminding yourself to leave
the mouth open. So you don't want to
constantly be closing your mouth just to breathe
through your nose. In singing, we're
going to have to allow air to come
through the mouth, as well. So keep that in mind.
4. Lesson 3: Breath Set Up: That we've prepared
our environment and we've relaxed into our body, clearing our thoughts, we're going to do our
breath setup exercise. This is the foundation
of great singing. So I call it the breath
setup. You have two options. You can continue on the mat, getting a rhythm of breath, relaxing. B is on the mat. Your feet are on the mat with
your knee slightly bent. That should relieve any
lower back tension. One hand on the abdomen, allowing it to naturally
rise on an inhale. And move naturally
on the exhale. So you can begin doing that. And then when it's
time to work on the intercostal muscles,
you'll stand up. So for those standing, your
feet are under your hips, Your knees are slightly bent, so you feel grounded,
really ground yourself. Your feet are flat. Your heels and the balls of your
feet are on the ground. I want you to close your eyes. Release the jaw. Allow
air to come in naturally. One hand on the belly. Find a rhythm of breath. Remember, you want your
mouth relaxed and open, and we don't want to force
the abdomen to do anything. It should relax,
and in relaxing, you should feel it
gently expanding, moving out of the way
of the diaphragm, drawing air into the lungs. Remember, as you're breathing, you want to let tension go. So notice where you feel it. Allow it to melt away. Draw your attention there. Release your day. Ah. Great. When you're ready, if you were on your mat, I
want you to stand up. So now that we're
standing, we're going to activate our
intercostal muscles. So we talked about
this a little bit when reviewing the components
of our instrument. This is one of my favorite
components, our rib cage. So in between our rib
bones, we have muscles. They are called
intercostal muscles, and they help your
rib cage expand. There's a degree of this
happening automatically, but in singing,
we really want to tune in and expand further. So I have my hands on my
sides. I can feel the ribs. And I'm taking an inhale again with the same
relaxed rhythm. But you can see my hands
pushed apart a little bit. Show you again here. So you're going to take
a few breaths like this. At first, if you feel
tight, that's normal. If you've never coordinated
and connected to these muscles before,
I would expect that. So your practice on your own would be to do ten
repetitions a day, breathing in for three
and out for three. And on the inhale, you are expanding and pushing
your hands apart. Belly relaxed, jaw relaxed. Great work. One more time. You want to make sure
your shoulders are not lifting and you're not
creating tension in your neck. It's all about the torso. Again, this may take a
lot of effort for some. If this is the first
time that you're really connecting to your intercostal
muscles, that's okay. Think of it as a workout. You're going to build up
coordination over time, ten repetitions a day, 3 seconds inhale,
3 seconds exhale. And as you're inhaling, you are seeing a subtle shift in your torso. Your
ribs are expanding. When we're singing, it
shouldn't create tension. So during the practice
is when you are really developing that coordination
and that strength, and then when it's time to sing, you're going to split
the difference. It's not going to be oh, I really got to hold it
and create that tension. I don't want you to
have that tension. But as you develop
that coordination and strength, it
won't feel tense. It'll be really easy to h
sing with my open ribs, as opposed to singing
without my open ribs. A lot more projection,
a lot more power. So again, expanding
and engaging to our intercostal muscles is so pivotal in the breath setup. It's going to really
help carry your voice. Remember, the air is the wave and the
ocean and your voice, your sound is the surfboard. We want to feel
full and supported. So you should feel your
whole torso engaging, even down to the back as the
lungs do go into our back. Our sides are expanding, our stomachs expanding
on the inhale. Even our lower back
may feel an opening. These are great indicators
that you are in the right direction for
a healthy breath setup. Don't want you to
engage tension. Again, in the beginning, it may take effort,
and it should. Singing takes
effort. It is work. But you'll get to the
point where it's more effortless when you
develop this coordination. There is a possibility that you are even in the practice and the warming up that you are squeezing too hard and you
are creating a tension. So I would come down
a little bit on that. Come down a couple of notches. So you feel a little
bit of an expansion, but not one that's
creating too much tension. So now we're going to talk
about air resistance. So after the inhale, we did speak about
engaging the core when we discussed the
components of the voice. So there is a bit of engagement when we are
singing a longer phrase, when we want more power and
just in general to support the diaphragm and its work
so that we're not just puffing out air immediately
after an inhale. So what I like to do
for this is think about your exhale on a sound. Like You are a sailboat, and you have five to
6 seconds left of wind from Mother Nature to
get your sailboat to shore. So I want you to mentally
think about that. That's the goal. That
is what's happening. We have five to 6
seconds of wind left, and then we're safe to shore. Otherwise, we are lost at sea. So I want you to imagine that. Given what we've
already discussed, our knees are slightly
bent under our hips. Hand might be on the belly. One hand might be on the ribs. But now on the exhale, I'm
sshing for five to 6 seconds. And what I'm doing is engaging. So once I've relaxed my
stomach on the inhale and it's probably naturally done its movement where
it's risen a bit, I'm going to stabilize. And if you need a reminder of what stabilizing your
core feels like, it is not a sit up. It's not a crunch. You're not getting ready to be
punched in the stomach. I don't want you
to be that tight. But if you stand on one leg, gently lift the opposite leg
off the floor and balance, you will feel a
little stabilization. That is the feeling. It's an engagement.
So let's try that. And if it all is too
much information, focus back to sailboat, getting to shore in
five to 6 seconds. Not sooner, not more than that. So we are maintaining, learning to control the air
flow out. I'll demonstrate. And those might have
been slower seconds. That's the idea. So I want you to practice
this three, five times, maybe even seven times until you start to
feel that engagement, you feel like you are
controlling your airflow out. That is the key to
singing, right? If we have a long phrase, I'm certainly not
just doing nothing. I'm certainly not just
being a rag doll. Through that phrase,
through that note. I am engaged, and that is where the key
of singing comes in. I'd like to also reiterate when we expand our
intercostal muscles, we don't want to
collapse right away. The same way we start to engage the core and remain
in a stable position, we want to stabilize the
intercostal muscles as well. And that's where that
coordination and strength development
will come in over time if you're practicing your ten repetitions a
day for the rib muscles. And I'm going to show
you the difference between collapsing too soon after we've inhaled and staying
open and expanded. So I just demonstrated with the exercise,
stabilizing my core. At the same time, I was
also keeping my ribs open. But I'm going to show
you more specifically, focus on the ribs now. So an example of
me collapsing too soon after I've done
this really great setup for the inhale, I let go. You're going to hear
that in the sound. Uh I let go not only of my rib muscles, but I also just totally
relax the stomach. I just let go. That's great
if we're not singing, but it's not helpful
if we want to sing a phrase, we
need to support. So here's the opposite way. I'm going to keep my posture. I'm going to keep
my positioning. I'm going to keep the
expanded feeling, both in the core
and in my rib cage. Oh Easy peasy. Again, once you develop
that coordination, you are going to
feel that fluidity. So your homework is ten repetitions of simply engaging the rib
muscles on the inhale, 3 seconds in, 3 seconds out, regular breaths
through the mouth. Watch yourself in the mirror. It is so educational to do that or videotape
and watch back. Really feel that effort
and that expansion. At the same time, you are
relaxing on the inhale, your stomach's gently rising,
not forcefully rising. And our jaws released. We're making sure we're
allowing air to go in. You're also making
sure you're not holding before your exhale.
That creates tension. So it's in O. Then you're doing your exercise, learning to stabilize
and control air flow. So we're aiming for
five to 6 seconds. And again, if you need that reminder of what
does it feel like to stabilize my core,
stand on one leg. That leg should
be slightly bent, and the other leg is just gently a few inches off the floor
and you're balancing. Everything's staying expanded
and stable and engaged. So you want to try
that exercise, at least three, probably five. If you can do seven
times, I would love that. Build up to ten times. And that is the foundation
of a great breath setup. Now let's add a vowel sound and apply it to our breath setup. One I like to start
with is M. Mm. Brings the sound
forward to the front, and that is where
we want the sound to be as opposed to
backward in the throat. And a is a nice neutral vowel. You don't want to be too wide, and you don't need to be
too long on this one. M M. For most women, you can start around middle C or you can go a few
half steps below. For men, you can go
down to C three. So this shouldn't be in a break place of your
voice where you know for sure that you're uncoordinated and
it's a little shaky. This should just be
in a comfortable upper chest area not too low. I'll demonstrate applying
my breath setup. So on middle C or if you
need to do the octave lower, C three on the keyboard. M is the note. I'm engaging. Mh So, what did I do? I relaxed on the inhale. I expanded my ribs
on the inhale, and then I stabilized
for the note. I kept my mouth open, and I took the air in
through the mouth, as well. I felt space inside the mouth. And I set my intention forward. And that's why you see
my hand doing this. This is a great tool.
Telling you if you can connect your mind to your
voice, it will go a long way. So if I collapse too soon, I'm going to get a sound like My Whoa, big difference, right? The hand didn't save me there. My And in doing this, you feel that sensation,
that support. You are the ocean wave.
You're carrying that sound. So stay with it. What
does it feel like? Can you release your jaw?
Do you feel tension there? Are you maybe squeezing too much somewhere in the torso and
you need to loosen up? Stabilizing does not
mean ultra tension. It means we're engaged. So
let's try that together. We'll take a three second
inhale with the mouth open, engaging our body, as we've
learned in the breath setup. And then as soon as you are full, you're coming out, right? We're not pausing. Right after the inhale to create tension, we're going in and then out. And please use your hand if that helps you, take
this down forward. So remember, we're going
to do regular inhale in, regular inhale out, then
a three second inhale, activating the
intercostal muscles, inhaling from the stomach, and then stabilizing on M. I'm going to do
it on middle C, which is C four on the keyboard. Ma Great. What did you notice? Did you
shift your jaw in any way? Did you open a little more? Did you just send your
intention forward, finding a point across the room or out the window to
shoot your sound to? Try all of those things and
see how that helps improve. Check in with your body, maybe you were squeezing
your core too much, maybe you dropped your ribs. So go through a
checklist in your mind. Again, it's a lot
of information. The more you practice,
the more you'll get it. So you want to do
this about five times each time really tune in. Are you resting on the Mmm. That gives you that
front brightness, that forward
placement, and you're jumping open on
that vowel sound. Can you open more? Can you release the jaw? Not adding any tension? Are you expanding? Are
you deflating too soon? Are you forgetting to
stabilize after the inhale? These are all things to
slowly get in touch with. Be patient, focus on
one thing at a time, until you can start to
multitask in your mind. And again, enjoy the
sound. Don't hold back. If you're holding back and
you're nervous about volume, you're going to
hear that, and it's going to sound strained. Congratulations. You've
already learned a lot. It is the foundation. It's going to make your voice healthy, confident,
more resonant. It's going to give you more
projection and more tone. Trust me, start to
apply your presence, your awareness, and develop these muscles and stabilization. It's going to make a
world of a difference. If I don't connect to
my body and I haven't developed this coordination
and this stabilization, I'm going to have
somewhat of a thin voice, a breathy voice,
a strained voice. I want you to find
your pure tone, and this is precisely
the way to start.
5. Lesson 4: Trill Warm Ups: Lip trill or a tongue trill. It's a great way to warm up before going into
vowel warm ups. It creates an ideal scenario for your range because you're not articulating consonants and introducing tension with
the tongue and the jaw. So I highly recommend
that you begin practicing lip trills
or tongue trills, or both, as I like to do. So to do a lip trill, you are vibrating
your lips together. They should be somewhat moist. And if you need help, you can place gently your
fingers on your cheeks, pushing your lips
together a bit. So I take an inhale b Or
without if you don't need it. This is going to allow you to do somewhat of a siren sound. Bow Blah Again, you want to connect
to your breath the sama we always
have been doing, and you want to send
the sound forward. You might feel
tickles in the nose, which I know I do right now. It's getting a little tickly, and it's waking up my
sinuses, waking up the face, which is great for the voice, especially since we
spend most of the time talking in our chest voice
and tiring out the chords. So doing these trills really helps us access that
upper part of our voice, that brightness, that energy. It also really helps when
you're trying to get a higher note or an interval
that's up in your range. Before doing it with the vowel, I highly recommend
doing the interval, whatever that melody
is with a trill. So let's give it a try. The tongue trill has the tip of your tongue in between
your teeth gently. Again, this is all
gentle pressure. Mm. Wow. Oh. So do what works for you. Sometimes students like
to start with lip trills. As they go higher,
they'll do tongue trills. You don't want to
push the tongue too forward and create
tension in the back. It's relax. It's just
the tip in the front. And you want to hear
sound. You don't want to hear just that. You
are making sounds. So think about mini mouse. Wherever you are in your range, this is sure to help brighten your voice and warm
you up in a safe way. Now, I've played this two
times in a row each interval to give you a choice
of whether you want to rest or continue on. Other intervals, we can
do perfect thifsO five. Major triads, adding one, three and five together. We can then add the
octave in at the top. One, three, five,
eight, eight, eight. Then challenge ourselves to
come back down one, three, five, eight, eight,
eight, five, three, one. We can play with
smaller melodies, one, three, four, three, one. Students really like
the sound of that. If you don't have a keyboard, there are many
resources for you. But I highly recommend
investing in any keyboard. It can be one that doesn't have internal speakers and
hooks up to your computer, just so you have that reference. And little by little, that helps develop
your ear training and basic music theory, which is super
important for singers.
6. Lesson 5: Vowel Shaping, Warm Up, Navigating Register mp4: Congratulations on getting
through another exercise. We're now going to
talk about vowels. Up until this point,
you've been introduced to so many wonderful
fundamentals of singing. You learned body and mind
relaxation techniques and how to prepare
to sing and warm up. You learned about
the components of the voice and how
they work together and the importance of presence and awareness of
your instrument. I cannot stress that enough. You learned how tension causes singing issues and where
to find that tension. You also learned a full
body and mind breath setup. You learned a healthy and brightening warm
up using trills. Now, let's put it
all together by applying these methods
towards singing vowels. That is the sweet
spot of singing. We will learn some
basics on how to manipulate vowel shapes
to maximize fluidity, a consistent sound, and to navigate different
registers of your voice, chest, head, mix,
low, middle, high. So we're going to start with
a neutral vowel, again, M, and you're going to apply
your breath setup technique, your intention, and
your relaxation. So you're engaged, but
you're also relaxed. We shake off any
tension that we have. We stretch our tongue, and
we do some neck rolls. If you'd like to do a fold
over stretch, please do so. If you want to get on
your mat, please do so. Take a moment to recalibrate. Relax and engage. Middle C is a nice place
to start for most women. You can do an octave
below for men. We don't want it to sound
too grovey and too low, a nice, comfortable
middle chest area. So let's see how fluid, open and forward we can get that vowel placement on M.
Remembering our breath set up? Ma a nice round feeling. I'm beginning to feel
the inside of my mouth, and I want you to
do the same thing. I want you to now widen that ma and feel the difference
when we go a little wide, like, M, the difference and the strain that
we might bring on. M. It's a little brattier. It doesn't necessarily
feel good or bad, depending on the
note that you're on, but it's going to make things difficult as we go
up in our range. So we want to learn how
to round these vowels. So instead of M M
and as we go higher, M Instead of M which
creates some strain. So I want you to think about the feeling of these vowel shapes. If I were to describe
them to you, the difference would
be a wide vowel versus a vertical
or rounded vowel. It sometimes as evident by
the lips and the mouth. M M. And sometimes it's more
of an inner feeling using the raised palette on the inside as we
would in a yawn. To help darken any
elongated vowel, especially as we move up. Often in the lower register when we're feeling
a little dull, we do like to brighten it
up and it can be helpful. I've used my cheek lift with a little eye surprise that helps me raise the palette
and brighten the sound. Now, when you're able to
master all the vowel shapes, you can mix and mingle with
the style that you want. You may want a brighter sound. You may want a darker
sound, brighter. Ah, darker. Uh I prefer to mix
in the darker. It's a little more moody. It's a little smoother
in certain places. And especially on higher notes, I definitely want to think
longer rather than wider. I want to think more round. We are as opposed to we are. It's a little more speech like, a little more theater like. But when we're going from a low to mid to high range,
I want consistency. And as I round, I get more of a consistent
voice from low to high. Same thing with me or C S instead of SG a little
rounder as opposed to wider. Again, if you need
to brighten up, you can brighten up by
widening the vowel. Maybe you're a little
low. It's a little gunky and you want
to lift the sound. But in general, learn to
feel on the inside of your mouth and to
think a rounder vowel, a more neutral vowel, especially as you're
raising in your range. For example, I'll sing
one of my own songs. W but you'll see So find a phrase in a
song that you like that uses different vowels
and study that phrase. What are wide vowels that
exist in that phrase? Sing them wide. See
how that feels. Then round them,
neutralize them. And if you're
hitting a high note, even elongate them more. So, again, a good
example would be, instead of me I can say M. Instead of M, M. For small closed vowels
like oh and, again, we want to think more
circular or even square, and we use our lips to
create more length. Ooh, ooh, ooh. Instead of Ooh, ooh. Soon as I add a pucker and I'm stretching
the vocal track, shape, that is helping
those types of vowels. So there's lots of
fun tricks here. We have our chess voice,
which is where we're speaking most of the day. Then
you have your head voice. Oh, I'm starting to mix. Oh Oh there's still a
front feeling here, a brightness, but
it's not a wideness. Bringing that light
airy bright head voice, Oh, down a bit. Oh helps my chest voice lift as opposed to going too
wide all the way through. H a lot harder, less natural because I'm fighting against
what the larynx, what the chords
really want to do and the upper notes of
everybody's voice. And obviously, there's a degree. We all have different ranges. But in general, we're gonna hit a point where we need to
tap into that head voice. And the way to tap into that
head voice is thinking, not to pull up from where you
are when you're speaking, where you're in your
low velvety notes. I don't want you to
pull up there and yell. I want you to shift and
think about the resonance going instead of
here into your face. And the mm helps us. It's a buzz through
the nose. Mmm. Mm. We're using
different mechanisms. The cords are still vibrating,
but they're stretched now. They're longer and
thinner. They're not making as much contact, so it's not as tonal. Mmm. Mm. Even hooting like
an owl can help. Whoo, whoo, whoo. On a higher note, right? You're
reaching for a high note. And again, you are supported. We're never straining,
like, Oh, Oh, oh, no. Let go. Woo hoo, whoo. And go light when you're first trying to
find the sensation. It's often a little more
challenging for men who tend to have a
longer chest range. They have more notes that
sit in their chest voice, and they're not really using those higher notes during
speech that women tend to do. So be patient. Women tend to have a
smaller chess voice, and then there's a mix
and more head voice. So you want to feel those
different sensations, and just getting in touch with them is going to
be so important. And knowing and feeling, Okay, I'm leaving
that chess place. I'm leaving that
tonal velvety place. I'm starting to mix. And now I'm really breaking and I'm hitting a different
part of my voice. And it's higher, higher. Then he so it's bridging that, and you will feel breaks in
between when you're doing your vowel exercises on those intervals that we
did with the trills. Take the same exercise
and apply these vowels, and you're going to feel
some parts are more shaky. And that's where you really want to connect to the breath, shift the vowel to a more round or more
long space and shape. Okay, so now we're going to
apply the ma the open vowel, given everything we
just discussed on a major third interval,
just like the trills. Get ready with your breath set up and your forward intension. M m Mama releasing my jaw, feeling the inside
of my mouth grow. Mama feeling a little bit of
a mix shift here. Push less. Mama. Shifting now, using
some light head airiness. Mama. Don't reach,
don't squeeze. Ma Mama. Some notes might feel weaker.
They're transitioning. Mm. Don't push. Don't squeeze. Mama. Really light enough? Elongate those vowels, right? Mama. Breath supporting. Mama. Mama Mama. Do you want to say light? Mama. Light and long. Mm. So there's no tension there. I'm surrendering to my head
voice to biologically, physiologically, where my voice needs to go in
these high pitches. And the air pressure is increased as we go up and
pitch, so please open. Allow that space, allow that ceiling on the inside
of your mouth to grow, that soft palate to lift a bit. Think about elongating
your vowels. You don't want to push up. Like Mama. Mama. Mm.
7. Recap & Vocal Care Tips: I want to congratulate you again for sticking through this. There's a lot of fundamentals, and obviously there's a
lot more vowel shapes. And once you start
learning a song, you're introducing
consonants and longer phrases and
lots of lyrics, emotions, performance,
but I cannot stress this enough that you need to have the
breath underneath you. You need to have
these fundamentals. Think of them as the single
notes on a keyboard. When you put it all together, you have the full 88 keys. But if you're missing a
key, you're incomplete. You need to work step by step. If you can do this
proper breath support, proper placement, sending
the sound forward, being able to feel where
you are in your register, manipulating those
vowels as needed, that's going to go a long way. Jumping into a song right away is going to introduce
a lot of obstacles. So take these exercises and work on them and apply them to
a song phrase by phrase, even word by word
where you need to. The slow way is the fast way, and the fast way
is the slow way. If you rush through it, you're
bound to find challenges, get stuck, and even
hurt your voice. So as we wrap up, I want
to talk about vocal care. Remember, patience,
rest, hydration, not pushing. We
never want to push. That's a great indicator
that something's off. We've either disconnected
from our breath, we are not allowing our
head voice to shift. We're fighting that feeling, that lightness, that
mini mouseness, that hootiness that
we need to feel where that place
exists. Don't push. If you push, you're
really forcing your cords against
a lot of tension, and you can damage
them that way. So tuning in to your awareness is going
to help you avoid injury. Avoid acidic food
and dairy food, coffee, anything
dehydrating, as well. Sometimes carbonated drinks are not good on the vocal chords. So if you're getting
ready to warm up, practice, or do a gig, please avoid those things. Even if you just did 10 minutes
a day, I would be happy. You can build up to 20, then 30, and eventually 45 minutes of a warm up and singing a song. I am so honored to have
been with you here for this introduction to Discover Your Voice
Singing fundamental. Again, I'm Juliana Riccardi, and I hope to hear from
you with any questions. And if you'd like
to take lessons online or in person,
I'm here to help. He. The only thing to
do now is where you want to go is all you need to know get up there
and please enjoy the ride 'cause you rattle time rattle t at time you'll see
Juliana Riccardi, Vocal Coach, Artist & Performer
