How to sing with more power, Part 2 of 3 - Sing without strain

How to sing with more power
Part 1 of 3 -    • How to sing with more power, Part 1 of 3  
Part 2 of 3 - Sing high without strain
Part 3 of 3 -    • How to sing with more power, Part 3 o...  

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I’m Madeleine Harvey and thanks so much for hanging with me today. Welcome to how to sing with with more power part 2 - how to sing high without strain. I just want to take a quick second and review what we talked about in our first video, that way you can see how they build off of each other. In our first video, we explored the acoustics of vocal power. We learned that it is what naturally happens when your body is open and your breath is free and responsive. It’s the same as one of those law of physics. When movement is activated in your body, and there is no tension or tightness that is introduced, that movement gains momentum and becomes power. So with our video today, we’re going to go deep into the experience once again and we’re going to strengthen the muscles that govern the voice. This will give you more clarity, range and of course, power.

To begin, we’re going to increase our vocal power and decrease any strain at the same time. And the best way to feel this is to put your hand on your throat and get the sense that it is completely hollow inside.

Take a breath and feel what it feels like to yawn. Notice how the throat opens up in the back. Now that we have the sense of that, give me a nice low conversational note on a GAH sound. Holding the throat open with the yawn and using the GAH sound, give us both space and cord closure. Now, we may need to use our imagination here, but try the GAH sound again and feel that the low note comes to the very front of your throat. Almost like it is going to touch your fingers. Feel that? So if low notes feel like they go forward, where do high notes go? Directly behind it. This is what we are going to feel today. It works in the same way as a rubber band. One muscle engages the low note and another pulls against that, stretching backward. This creates a nice chord tension. So as you play with low notes and higher notes, feel that it moves forward and backwards.

So now we come to our exercise. We’re going to feel that rubber band feeling as we go from a slightly lower note to a slightly higher note. The intervals are very close together. This is going to give you excellent pitch control as well as flexibility. You want to feel that one note comes forward and the other note stretches backward. The quality of your sound in this video is a DIRECT reflection of the strength of your laryngeal muscles.

The exercises we are going to be doing today are meant to establish balance between strength and flexibility. By the end of today’s video, you’re going to have more clarity, more range and of course more power

As you pull those cords back, you may notice that your sound shakes. That means those muscles are getting stronger. Linger with that sensation. Give those muscles the opportunity to work here. But do not allow compensatory muscles to interfere.

DO NOT go louder as you go higher. You do not need to push your voice in order to go higher. Keep your volume the same level from one note to the next.