Transform your voice pt 1 (sing better in 30 days challenge)

1. 01. What to Expect: Hello, welcome to class. All right. In part one of the scores, we're going to dwell on the practical of developing the chest voice. Developing the chest voice. The chest voice is your first voice, is your speaking voice is the foundation of your voice, or I can say the foundation of all registers. If the chest voice is not working, all the registers will be lacking. We are dealing practically on developing your chest voice. In part one, you're going to learn something about breathing, the vocal systems. You're going to learn about vocal registers, different types of registers. You're going to learn also how full affects your voice in part one, and you're going to develop your chest voice in part two. We go on to develop the mixed voice and the head voice. Of course, you're going to learn how to work on technical songs. All right, before you go, please do endeavor to check the lesson on feedback. This will ensure that you have full benefit of the entire course. 2. 03. Vocal system: Hello there. Welcome to class. In this lesson, I'll be speaking on the vocal system and their role in how sound is created. There basically three vocal systems. One, respiration, it describes how A is taking in and out of the body. Two phon, it describes what happens at the vocal fold. The to one is resonation is a space that the sound wave or the vibration from the vocal fold enters and has been altered by is like the tongue, the teeth, and of course, the shape of the mouth. Why is this important? A great single voice starts with the system of the voice working in unity. If any of this is lacking, it will resort to an imbalance in your voice. For example, why does your sound or your voice sound nezar is because of what is happening at the vocal tract. That the space from the vocal fold to your mouth, what's happening there describes the vocal tract. And you can also see it on your screen. Why do you voices, let's take two syllables. If you say with me and sustain the last part of it, sing right. The voice sounds a bit Nezar. Say it with me now tell me there's a difference Right. Between those two. But I can also make the all to sound more nezar by going all right and sound mones. What's happening? I elevated my tongue a bit. Tongue is one of the articulators. Because I elevated it, it tends to close the back of my throat and transfer the sound into the nasal cavity. All of this affected the outcome of the sound. Secondly, why do you experience vocal breaks? Vocal breaks could be as a result of either the vocal food is not coming together properly or that the applied to it is too much. When the vocal food is not coming together properly, it starts to leak. These are many more are problems that may result from one of these vocal systems working well. As we progress in the course, we're going to address all of these issues one after the other. Let me quickly put this as a bonus because this is one question that a lot of persons ask. Do food affect your voice? Is there a particular food you can take to improve your voice? Or is there a food or any food available that can spoil your voice, right? But if you understand the vocal system and how the voice works, the food that you eat do not go through your vocal food. The only thing that is allowed to go through your vocal food is air. Sometimes when water or food mistakenly goes into your wind pipe, right, it has to go out. You will not be comfortable. It has to go out. The only thing that goes through your wind pipe, through your vocal food, is air. There's also a part of your throat that is called your suffers. That's where the food goes into. You can see that on your screen. The food you eat do not directly affect your voice except you are allergic to those food, except it affects your body and then avoid those foods when we're drinking water. It doesn't go through the voice, it goes through the sofa goes, and then it circulates in our body. That's where we feel refreshed. Right. But directly it does not come into the voice. Here is my own advice to you. I would advise that you stay away from code water, and give yourself a good rest. Right? Because over use of the voice can also make your voice to go bad. All right. See you in the nest lesson. 3. 04. Breath control: Hi, welcome to your second lesson. In this lesson, you will learn about some of the myths about bread support. What is bread support and how to support your voice. What is bad support? Bread support or breath control is simply about how you feel your with air. And the gradual release of air is as simple as that is how you feel your lungs with a and the gradual release of that. How do you feel your lungs with a take in shallow breath or do you take in deep breath? By shallow breath, you breathe into your chest, so to speak, And then your shoulder tends to rise when you breathe in. Right. But with deep breath you breathe in. Your lungs spans your diaphragm descent and cage expands as well. Also, you will feel a little bulge in your stomach when you inhale or when you breathe in properly. One sign to show that you're taking in a shallow breath is when your shoulder rises as you inhale. Here is where it gets a bit tricky. The second part of the definition is how you release air if breath support is extended breath or delayed a cell if the vocal fold is leaking, how can you manage or delay the breath needed? Breath support is not just the function of the breath, but also how the vocal fold responds to the supply of a. Let's take a balloon for instance. Blow in air into the baum, then release the mouth. What happens to the air? It rushes out. But what about if you stretch the mouth of the baum? There's a gradual release of the air, right? Breath support is not just the function of the breath, but also how the vocal fold responds to the air being supplied to it. Breath support is a balance of A and muzzle. By muzzle, we mean the vocal folds. Breath support is a balance of A and muscle. This is where vocal training comes in. Remember in lesson one, I talked about the vocal system working in unity to get the voice to balance. All right, let this be in your mind as you go through the entire course to breed correctly for singing the singer, please stand tall with the shoulder slightly back the chest up and out. The abdominal muscle relax and then easily breathe to the bottom of the lungs without excessive noise attached to the intake of air. Right. There should also be a slight expansion in the abdomen and the ribs as you sing, the abdomen should slowly come in onto the nest intake of breath. It's important not to grab anything. Remember to lose in just, you don't have to squeeze any part. Just be relaxed with it and just sing, okay. For optimal singing, a sense of muscular stress and the exaction of great force is neither necessary nor desirable. Let's do a simple particle. Put your hand on your stomach and breathe in as if you're sleeping through a straw. Gradually do it. Gradually feel your stomach expand, right? And watch out that your shoulder is not rising. When you feel that your field to capacity, stop, And then exhale a safe through a Z. Do it gradually until your lungs is empty. Make sure that your Ricky does not collapse until you're done, All right? If you are that person that your shoulder is still rising and your stomach is not bulging out as described. So you can take this step, lie on the flat surface and face up. Look for something a little bit heavy and put on your stomach, and then try to sing. Now, every time you breathe in that breath object, you put on your stomach a little bit up, right. And then it comes in gradually onto the nest intake of air. This exercise is simply for those persons that had trouble breathing deep. You can use this to learn breathing deep. After learning breathing deep while you're lying down, you can then stand up and repeat the same process and see if it's working as described. All right, see you in the nest lesson. 4. 05. Myth on Breathing: Hello. Let's talk about some of the myths you've heard about breath control. One, force your stomach in. No, breath support doesn't mean push or forcing your stomach in. Yes, your stomach go in as heal but it's not you or forcing that makes the support to be strong will make it to be there. Also people tell you push more air to get more power. Well, you will only end up in yelling, not getting more power. You will end up also in voice breaks because when you push lots of air, more than your vocal foot can handle, you experience vocal breaks or a strain. They will also tell you push more air to sing higher. Actually, you need less air to sink higher. Why? Because it will take lesser air for your vocal fold to vibrate at higher frequency wise. When you sing higher, your vocal fold is actually lighter. In other words, it has stretched to become thinner. You really don't need too much air to make it work, to make it vibrate, you actually need less. Fourthly, you need to feel your stomach to its maximal capacity for long phrases. When you bombard your throat or your voice with too much air, you actually lose it. Then you will keep it. You lose more than you keep, right? Because there's a lot of pressure right here. You're trying to keep, trying to keep all of those things because they have to go out, right? You're trying to keep all of those pressure then definitely you cannot handle it for long. You actually lose more then you think you will retain. Also for you to sing maybe long phrases. The vocal Ford has to come together and if the air be net, it is too great, it will fall apart. So you're setting up yourself for vocal breaks. If you need to strengthen your diaphragm to sing, you don't have to, you don't sink into your diaphragm. When you, in previous lesson I explained to you that you take in air. It goes through the vocal fold, right through the track, then to your lungs. Because your lungs expand, then you'll feel your rip cage band as well, and then it will tend to push your diaphragm downward. Do you have to strengthen? Nothing goes there. You don't have to strengthen your diaphragm. There's nothing like that or someone tell you sink from your diaphragm, there's nothing like that. But of course what many of them means is taking a deep breath. Right? I think that's what they mean when they say, strengthen your diaphragm or sink from your diaphragm. Take a deep breath. Not a shadow breath, right? Let it go down into your lungs, right where your diaphragm descends properly. But anything other than this, it's a myth. It doesn't mean a thing. Six, you may say, oh, I run out of air because I didn't take in enough air. That's a myth There, a lot of factors that may contribute to you running out of a. One, your vocal fold may not be properly closed. Two, you didn't take enough air or you took too much of a three, you are not taking air in the right places. You should take in air every time there is a pause in the song. So you don't know where to take in air. So you try to use one breath for a very long phrases when there's a place for you to take in air and then you run out of air and you say, oh, it's because I didn't take enough. The idea is because I didn't take enough. You want to try to fill your lungs with too much air, which also leads to more problems in solving one problem because you do not know the cause of the problem. You're zooming it, you're creating more problems for your voice. 5. 06. Vocal Technique 1: Hello everyone, and welcome to lesson Three, Vocal Technique. Here are some of the voice issues that you may be facing, and that's what we're going to address in this lesson. One vocal breaks, right? Oh, you cannot sing. Hi. Are you bring to sound weak or airy or in your chest voice? As soon as you start singing, you go. All right. You experience all of these. And also you experience of key, Despite ear training. Apart from ear training, voice training, lack of voice training, or lack of vocal development can also affect your ability to sing on pitch. So it's not just about the ear. Some people can hear the sound, but do not have the ability to produce that same sound with your vocal forward. All right, so we're going to address this and more as we progress now. What is vocal technique? When we say vocal, we refers to the human voice technique. Means a skillful or efficient way of doing or achieving something. Put it all together, it is a needed skill that enables a singer to freely express is or self with a voice in a way, a manner that preserved the voice for a long time career. Two things stands out from this definition. One is to freely express yourself when there's vocal break in your voice. You may be afraid because your mind is saying, oh, you're going to break. So you're going to break. So you're going to break soon, Right? You're not free. Your mind is clogged up with all distractions. Right? Oh, this is going to happen. Oh, I cannot sing the high note that I love to sing. Right. You're not freely expressing yourself or you are straining, there's pain in your throat. You're not expressing yourself freely. All right? And also the other part of the definition is to preserve your voice. Whatever you do, your technique should be able to preserve your voice. You don't want to freely express yourself. And at the end of the day, you sing one night and you take you two weeks to recover your voice. Good vocal technique will help you to reduce the possibility of vocal injury. I said reduce for a reason being that there may be other lifestyle choices that may affect your voice, Like alleges right? Code like alcohol like smoke, like over use of the voice, long time over use of the voice without resting. Right. Though good technique will help you preserve your voice, but there are certain things you shouldn't do, okay? So if all of these lifestyle choices are in place then and you have good vocal technique, you are set for a successful longtime career. 6. 07. Vocal Technique 2: What vocal technique cannot do. I want to clarify things so that you don't come to a point where you're trying to change your voice or to misinterpret what vocal technique really stands for. Technique cannot change the anatomy of your voice, but can only help you maximize the potential of your vocal instruments. I want this to sink into your head. Technique cannot change the anatomy of your voice, but can only help you maximize the potential of your vocal instrument. Every one of us have our own vocal instruments. Yes, it is the same process for sound production, but our instrument in Max is different. Some people's vocal cords are thicker than some. Some have lighter voice, some has deeper voice. But some voices are at the streams. Some may voice are lighter, may voice are darker or deeper. Same thing goes with the female voice. Your vocal instrument is your vocal instrument. Vocal technique cannot change your vocal instrument. It can only help you maximize the potential. Let's take some singers as example. If you're in Jura or in Africa, you know the singer semi. You'll know that our voice is very thin, thin. Now, compare our voice with that of Savage. Both fee, two different voice, two different beautiful instruments, right? Two different beautiful instruments. They are not the same. No matter the vocal technique that she does, she goes for it is not going to change the anatomy of a voice. That's our voice. It's not going to change it. She's a beautiful inso***t singer anyways. Why? Because technique will help our masimize potential of our instrument. A trumpet cannot sound like a sasophonerdu bass drum. Cannot sound like a tom drum, right? Or hand drum. They don't sound the same though you beat them, right? The sounds are produced by beating them, but they are not the same. Same thing with our voices. Or compare someone like Michael Jackson and Stephen Wonder. Yeah, they both light voices, but Michael's voice is more on the lighter side. Compare Stevie Wonder to that of Parvati, right? It's not to be compared, they're not same instrument. Appreciate your voice. Love it, pamper it, it's your instrument. Vocal technique will help you maximize the potential. What you do is find a voice coach that will help you maim the potential of your voice. And if anyone tell you, oh, I'm going to change your voice, be careful of that person. Your vocal instrument cannot be changed. It's your instrument. It cannot be changed. It can only be improved on. In other words, the potential of the voice can only be maximized. And that is what vocal technique stands for. 7. 08. Bridging the Voice: Hi, In previous lesson, the subject was all about vocal technique. This time, we'll be talking about bridging the voice, which is an extension of vocal technique. We cannot talk about vocal technique and talk about bridging, because bridging is actually the technique that I teach, bridging the voice. Now, it may sound a bit strange, but don't worry, you get Clara picture of it. A bridging involves the transitioning from one vocal register to another. And you're asking, what is a register? A vocal register is a group of node that shares similar sounds. Group of nodes that shares similar sound. Vocal register is more like the gear of a car. Now there's get one, get two, get three, and get four, right? The motion of the car will determine what gear to use. Now same thing with the voice. The voice has to change gear as you sing higher. As you sing lower. Just put that in your mind. But this change of gear must be seamless. It must be seamless as you move from one part of the voice to another part of the voice, it must be seamless. The technique that we teach it is about bridging that seamless transition from one part of the voice to another part of the voice. Vocal registers, there are three basic registers, but I just want to give you all the registers that people talk about. Registers like the vocal fry, M zero. It's regarded as a vocal register. You hear registers like chest voice. The M one is your speaking voice. It resonates on the chair, is loud and it's for low notes. It's your strength voice. Remember I told you that a car changes girl being is on motion. Your chest voice is on girl one, so to speak. And it's for your low note. It has to change girl as it goes higher. Now you see the mixed voice. The Is voice is a b***d of the chest and the head voice. It helps you to pass through the bridges of your voice. Now let's go to the force voice. Now some persons will say fort voice, head voice are same. Really. I do not think that we should have trouble with terminologies because sometimes they confuse the mind, right? For you as a singer, just be concerned about the sound that you make. The chest voice as head voice, as mixed voice, right? There's vocal fry at the end of the day. It's not the terminology that gets you to sing. It's what you've mastered, what you've trained your Moses to do that gets you to sing. All right. So these are just for you to have knowledge. It's a light voice, head voice resonate on the forehead or the back of the head. It's for your high nose. So you get a change gear as you go higher, it's your flexibility voice. Lastly, we have the whistle register, the M three. I don't know if that's whistle, but something. All right. But basically you have three registers. One, the chest voice, two, the mixed voice, and the to one the head voice. Right now, if someone tell you, okay, what is the mixed voice? How does it sound? Right? There's no one particular sound for mixed voice, it all depends on the degree of the chest voice or head voice involved in the sound. All right, let's move on. 8. Ex 1 Female (All voice types): Hello, so here is the instruction. Exercise one and exercise two are for all voices, whether your chest voice is working properly or it's not. All right, so listen to the examples and along the scale, 123-21-2321 9. Ex 1 Male (All voice types): Hello, so here is the instruction. Exercise one and exercise two are for all voices, whether your chest voice is working properly or it's not. All right, so listen to the examples and along the scale, 123-21-2321 10. Ex 2 Female (All voice types): Hello, so here is the instruction. Exercise one and exercise two are for all voices, whether your chest voice is working properly or it's not. All right, so listen to the examples and sing along the scale. Mamma, mamma 11. Ex 2 Male (All voice types): Hello, here is the instruction, exercise one. Exercise two are for all voices, whether your chest voice is working properly or it's not. All right, so listen to the examples and sing along the scale. Mmmmmm. 12. Ex 3 Female (Airy,heady,low larynx ): Hi. Exercise three to exercise five are for those with every chest voice. Those who forces their larin down or tightens their voice should only focus on Exercise 1.2 for exercise three. It's a gaege with a cry. All right, Not gage. Want to other cry. It will help you to drop your Ln a bit or to stabilize your larin, and also helps with the abduction of the vocal pods. 13. Ex 3 Male (Airy, heady, low larynx ): Hi. Exercise three to exercise five are for those with every chest voice. Those who forces their lying down or tightens their voice should only focus on exercise 1.2 for exercise three. It's a gage with a cry. All right. Not gage. Want other cry? It will help you to drop your Ln a bit or to stabilize your larin and also helps with the adoption of the vocal pods. 14. Ex 4 Female (Airy, heady voices): Hi. Okay. Like I said before, this exercise is for those with airy chest voice. Go, go, go. Do this with a bit of aggression. But be careful that the 0 is not widened. Your vow is not widened. Don't go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go. Oh, oh, oh. Should remain. Oh, oh, oh, it shouldn't go. So be careful as you do this exercise with a beat of aggression. Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go. 15. Ex 4 Male (Airy, heady voices): Hi. Okay. Like I said before, this exercise is for those with airy chest voice. Go, go, go. Do this with a bit of aggression. But be careful that the 0 is not widened. Your vow is not widened. Don't go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go. Oh, Oh, oh. Should remain. Oh, oh, oh, it shouldn't go. So be careful as you do this exercise with a beat of aggression. Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go. 16. Ex 5 Female (Airy, heady voices): Exercise five? No, no, no. Do this with a bit of aggression. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. 17. Ex 5 Male (Airy, heady voices): Exercise five. No, no. Do this with a bit of aggression. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. 18. 09. Working on songs: What is the purpose of voice training if you can sing a song properly? Hi, in this lesson, I'll be teaching you how to address some issues that may arise in singing a song. Singing a song is more chal***ging than doing exercises because exercise is more like teaching a child the 26 letters of the English alphabet, BCD. Singing a song is more like using these 26 letters to form millions and billions of words. But learning the 26 letters set up the foundation for forming oder words. In the same way, exercises helps the singer to set up the voice in the most efficient way for singing. While exercises are limited to just one or two syllables or vowels, a song has many consonants and vowels, and this makes it more complicated. The good news is that if the voice is well coordinated, exercises working on song is much more easier. So here are the ways to resolve difficulties in any song. One, change the key. If you're doing a karaoke, that is a song by other persons, recorded by other persons, don't feel pressured to do the song in the original key. Look for your own key, sometimes you may have to lower it, sometimes you may have to increase it. Try a bunch of keys and see the one that fits your voice, helps you to express yourself more. If it is your own original song, try a couple of keys and find the one that sits where with your voice. Also, for the fact that a particular key was good for you when you sang a song doesn't mean that key will be good for all songs. Every time you want to sing a song, you want to find the key that is right for that song. You want to be in a place where you have some lows and some highs, so that in case you're trying to improvise, you have room below and above your range if you feel like your voices talk on the lower register. So the good chances you should increase, if you feel that you're not having weight in your sound, a good chance is you should decrease it. You lower the key when it feels like you don't have that bottom that chest makes or that chest coordination lower the key. If you feel that your stock, and not necessarily because it's high, but you just feel stock, it therefore means that maybe you are more in your lower registers instead of you trying to manage it, increase the key. I hope this is helpful for you. Another thing you can do is vocal substitution. Yes, vocal substitution. Use that your favorite exercise, that exercise that has worked for you, that every time you do it, your voice is free. Take that exercise and substitute the lyrics of the song that you're doing with the exercise. Let's say for instance, happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. I'm having difficulties with the song, so what do I do? I know that the last time I did the exercises, mama was better for me, right? So I go to mama, mama, mom. Right? Then when I feel that it's good or in a good place, I cannot go back to my lyrics. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. You understand? So this is what is called vocal substitution. 19. 10. Feedback: Hello. As you go through discourse, it is very important that you get feedback. It is not about just practicing, it's about practicing, right? So you need a system that we ensure that you're doing the practice right. So that is why we've put in place a feedback system where you can do recordings and send to a voice coach or send to a community. And then a voice coach will listen to it and give you feedback. In view of this, I have put in place two ways to get a feedback on your exercises or your recordings, and also to take questions that you may have concerning the course. One is our Whatsapp community. In this community, you will have access to a voice coach and other students. You can ask questions, send your recordings, learn and be motivated by other participating students for a monthly subscription fee. You can also get feedback through private lessons. You can decide to have a one on one private lesson with me on Skype for a fee. Any of the above is interesting to you. Send me a message on Sing Promise Academy at Gm.com as you can see on your screen. All right, see you in class. 20. 02. Class project : The purpose of this session, apart from asking you asking questions and answering your questions. Yeah, thank you. Apart from answering your questions, I just also want to share with you how to work on songs right now. If you check the course, there's no much details on how to work on songs. For instance, maybe you're working on your chest voice and you want to work on songs. Of course, I gave thecal background on how to do that, but there is a practical part of that, how to walk on song. Now, I said in the last part of the course that working on song, you can change the key, you can do vocal substitution, and you can do vowel modification for chest voice. Two things you can do is you want to change the key. If you're doing a song and you want more power in your voice, change the key. Another thing you can do is vocal substitution. What do we mean by vocal substitution? We simply mean taking the exercises you're doing, replace the lyrics with that exercise. For instance, happy birthday. Happy birthday. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday. Happy bird birth to you. That's the lyrics of the song and that's the pitch you want to sing on. And it's all of the notice within our choice. This is for guys. All right. Now substitute it with any exercise for me. Let me go now, remember, don't go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go. If you do that, you're doing wrong. All right? Go, right. Vocal substitution, like I said before, is you taking an exercise, Any exercise, any syllables like gem, substitute it with lyrics, right? Substitute the lyrics with that exercise. That's what it means. Vocal substitution substitutes of a song with an exercise like gem go. All right. Now I said avoid sliding into a light voice, especially when you are doing this exercise or the song. All right? You don't want to go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go. You're doing it wrong. You want to keep it strong. You want to keep it like you're talking. It should be go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go. All the quality should be the same. Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go. For some of you, for some of you, you might have to be more aggressive depending on where you are in terms of how you use your chest quality. All right, for ladies, you want to go to the key, right? The former keys for the guys. Happy birthday, happy birthday, Happy birthday, Happy birthday to you. The same thing. You go, go, go go, or any exercise or you do me right for you. If you're working on chess voice. I think go feels better because of the G. It has that clot closure and sometimes you can do the tongue out exercise. Now do it on the staccato, this how you work on the song, when you get all the qualities right, then you can go back to the lyrics of the song. Happy birthday to choice. How do you know you're in chest voice? How do I talk? How am I singing happy birthday? I'm singing happy day, happy birthday. I'm talking happy birthday. Same quality. Take this exercise to the end. Maintain same quality to the end. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday. Happy birthday. Happy day to you. You don't want to go happy. The idea to stay true to that, chest equality, don't go. Something's wrong, you're pulling. Take note of the vow. Anything that makes avoided bird change in the vowel, avoid that extremes. I know you're likely to want to spread as you go to that high note on, I think the top, that's the top of your chest voice. A bird. Bird. Bad. Nope, bird. No. Add some, go P bird, Go P bird. Keep the quality. The same is he understood. All right, so let's go to another song. Amazing Grace. Same key for the May you want to start on the F sharp? Mazing grace. A sweet, the sound that save over. Like me, I want Los Found was blind. I see Again, you can do vocal substitution. Mom, mom to the end of it. Now also avoid the extremes. When you go to the top of your chest. Voice like me. Like me. Like me. Hey, no, go like me. Same quality. It feels like you're talking on page. This is how to work on songs, right? So these are exercises for you to try two songs for you to try. Pi Birthday, Amazing Grace. The May key is the shop, the Sound, the female. You can use this key, the B major. Grace. Sweet Sound That safe, like me, me, me, no, me, go, go. Amazing. Graze, sweeter. Sound Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, No, go, go, go, no, go. Keep that quality. Go, go, right. Me, go, go, go, go, no, go. No Forcett. It's always at this stream that you want to go overboard, but when you feel that oh, is still going overboard, like maybe keep it me, right, keep it. The vow is keep it me. Whatever society works best for you, you can use it. So it's called vocal substitution.