I am inspired.  Jacob Lusk from American Idol sings soooo good.  What is so great about him?  You may be listening and know how his voice makes you feel, but technically, why is he so good?

Simply put, he sings in the perfect “pocket”.

As a voice teacher, I can tell you that what he is doing is anchoring his voice to the bottom of his range (which is fabulously low) and stretching up from there.  He never loses that anchor, and that is why his voice is so thrilling.   You do not lose the bottom of his sounds, even in a high note.  And as he goes higher, rather than reaching or lifting up in his larynx and body, he just stays grounded and opens up more doors of resonance and sound.

Jacob Lusk knows how to access his sound using his body and he does not get in the way of it.

It is like we are born with trap doors in front of all our resonating areas.  When we sing we are constantly doing vocalizes and visualizations to unlock and remove these doors to free our sound.  You cannot push through these doors or you will encounter muscular tension.

The resonators are in different places, your chest- the back of your head and neck, the front of you face near your eyes, and the top of your head to name a few.

Jacob Lusk has the ability to hold on to an open chest resonation as he opens more and more doors of resonance as the pitch rises.

As a human being who’s just listening to him sing,  I hear that he opens his mouth, gets out of the way and just lets the music flow through him.  Some may say, “divinely”.  He is in the raw, which is so exciting to listen to and travel the vocal journey with.  His voice rides a wave of free sound.

Here’s the link to hear his performance of “A House is Not a Home”

http://www.americanidol.com/videos/season_10/performances/jacob_lusk_a_house_is_not_a_home/

Just lovely.  You sing it Jacob Lusk!

Ariella Vaccarino

Written by Ariella Vaccarino creator of  Voice Lessons To Go (singing lessons on CD) and author of  Vocalize!

Want a professional opinion of how you sound?  Sign up for my Vocal Assessment. Then send me a link or mp3 of you singing (audio/or audio visual) with your questions and I will get back to you with my feedback right away.

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It just takes one note.  One glimpse into what can be…

As a voice teacher it is my job to “unlock what you bestow within your larynx”… a pretty intense responsibility.

Sometimes being a voice teacher is like mining for gold.  Some students come to me and their voices are out and obvious, they just need polishing, refining etc…  And sometimes I have students who walk in with their voices literally all covered up by muscle tension and I have to peel back the layers of tension to get to their “real voice”.

I like to call these students my onions, (the whole peeling the layers back to get to the source thing ).

And just sometimes, I find a gem in that onion (larynx) that is incredible .

I am inspired to write this by a new student that I have been working with.  We started off with her vocalizng with me and it did not go well, her sound was not coming out, it was so held, forced,and pushed.

Then she picked up her guitar and sang me a song…

I have my students  do this for me, especially my new ones, because vocalizing can be so foreign and may not reflect their “true singing voice” at first since they don’t know how to connect to it.

So, she began to sing me a song, and boom this gorgeous, and I mean incredible sounding note came out of her.  Most of the rest of the song was held  and tight, but every once and a while she would release an incredible sound.  I would say- 10% of the song showed off her talent.

But that is enough for me, one great note.  If I can hear it once, it doesn’t matter what it took to get there, I know that I will have enought to build a whole voice off. By finding what worked on that note and recreating it over and over through proper vocal exercises and building it out like a wall one brick, (or note), at a time soon a full voice can be strewn together.

For me as a voice teacher it is a very exciting to find that one note in a student.  It is like “Aha” the challange is upon you.

The single note is like a door to the voice.  If you can find your way in though it, then you can find your way in again, and for a longer path each time.

Her second lesson all ready was a huge improvement because I knew just where to take her right from the beginning, and we began building and stretching upon that healthy resonate tone.

She was so thrilled to be able to have more control over recreating a great sound.  Sometimes, it just takes one break through to change the whole voice.

It was a satisfying teaching experience that hour, needless to say.  Mid-lesson I had to break a moment to take notes for this future blog- a bit “crazy mad- scientist ” of me I know, but you never know when the inspiration will come.  Thank you Brandy for the inspiration, here’s to releasing all of your sound.

So, the good news is if you can find an incredible sound somewhere in your voice, that means you HAVE a voice in there worth spending the time and effort to develop.

Happy peeling!

Ariella Vaccarino

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written by Ariella Vaccarino creator of  Voice Lessons To Go(singing lessons on CD) and author of  Vocalize!

Want a professional opinion of how you sound?  Sign up for my Vocal Assessment. Then send me a link or mp3 of you singing (audio/or audio visual) with your questions and I will get back to you with my feedback right away.

Check out my instructional videos on my YOUTUBE Channel:

http://www.youtube.com/voicelessonstogo

Listen to my Weekly Podcasts on Itunes:

My Itunes Podcast

Friend me on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/voicelessonstogo

Follow me on twitter:

http://www.twitter.com/voicelessons2go (I love a good retweet!)