The normal vocalize consists of one pattern on a specific vowel repeated up and down the scale again and again.  They each concentrate on different areas such as freeing certain vowel sounds, extending range, creating agility in the voice, etc… And that is fabulous; please continue to do those…

Something that I have included over the years, (being a voice teacher who is comfortable at the piano keyboard), in my own warm ups and for my students is alternating the patterns of my vocalizes unpredictably throughout an exercise.  I find that I tend to do this in my warm up when I, or my students, are feeling stuck muscularly.

I have had a lot of success with this strategy of freeing the voice and sound, since the muscles are not sure what to prep, or create tension for.  The quick changing unpredicatable patterns help to sneak a way through some doors of resonance when a singer is feeling blocked.

Here is the link to a YouTube video I made showing you how to do this trick!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uyf2tSKfnUQ

Use it during your warm ups when you are struggling to break through to your freest singing voice.

Sing well!

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.

Check out my instructional videos on my YouTube Channel:

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I had to have an MRI recently (for my knee) and found myself with 50 minutes to do nothing. (This is a rare thing in my extremely hectic life). I couldn’t move for 50 whole minutes. Had no one to talk to, couldn’t surf the web. Nothing. It was kind of stressful at first. What was I going to do with myself for all of that nonconstructive time?

So I began to concentrate on my breathing. Deep, slow, low breaths while I lay there.  Since everything was so still around me, I had a lot of time to concentrate on exactly what was happening in every breath. From the first to the tenth breaths I completely opened up my breathing, accessing new, deep muscles and released just by concentrating on releasing and unlocking.   And it only took a couple of focused minutes.

Once I found that breath, I was able to access it each time easily.  But I had to make a conscious effort to find the breath in the first place.  I had been laying there a long while before I began this breathing thing, and my breath the whole time was extremely limited in resonance capacity because I hadn’t alerted the right muscles.

I highly recommend adding this to you daily routine. Do it in the morning before you are officially out of bed: 10 slow deep breaths. Concentrate on opening your back, and having your lower tummy raise naturally by the breath intake. These are not shallow breaths that raise the chest, maybe your first couple will be, but think low release and watch how quickly each breath becomes more engaged and connected to your abdominal wall, lower diaphragm, and back muscles. Once your belly is rising and your ribs are expanding you’ve found your proper breath.

To go further, I have a great set of breathing exercises on my first volume of Voice Lessons To Go Vocalize and Breath.  These are extremely thorough and a wonderful work out which I highly recommend beyond the morning breaths to develop stamina, support, and capacity.  But, the morning breaths are a great way for a singer to start their day, by making them aware of their breathing mechanism and setting a productive singing mind set.–of course I couldn’t just lay there for 50 minutes…:)

Ariella (temporarily on crutches, but still thinking about healthy singing!!)

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:

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Probably the number one topic I am asked about on the technique of singing has to do with bridging the chest voice to the head voice, hiding the break, and creating one voice.

Depending on your vocal style and your individual voice, you will tend to sing in either more  of your head voice or chest voice.  Head lends itself to more of a classical sound while chest is more pop.  Musical theater can land somewhere in the middle.  But no matter what, as a singer, you will be challenged to access the full pitch range that your larynx possesses.

The following exercise, that I have up on my YourTube channel, practices just this issue; taking your voice from the bottom to the top while evening out the break in the passaggio, between head and chest voices.

Add this vocal exercise to your daily regimen.

http://www.youtube.com/user/VoiceLessonsToGo?feature=mhum#p/a/u/0/NGqZmzX04O4

Smooth singing to you!

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.

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

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Last week, I posted and blogged about the importance of singing a quick moving vocalize in your warm-up.

Another type of exercise that you should consider adding to your regular warm up routine is one that works on sustained exposed singing.

A sustained singing warm-up is the type of exercise that you need to do slowly and properly.  Sing through this exercise smoothly and supported up to the high note and hold.  As you raise your pitch, go down in your body for maximum support.  Never feel that your larynx is rising for you to reach the higher notes; rather anchor down into your abdominal wall for support.

Here’s a link to the video I made for this sustained vocalize on YouTube:  Sing away to it !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocgTI1OF6xU

Sing well!

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.

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:

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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.

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:

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There are a few vital seconds at an audition that have nothing to do with your singing voice.  That is your entrance and introduction.  Often times there is room for a small bit of banter before you start to sing – make it count, really show up for it and shine.

American Idol is a great resource for watching the audition process. You will find that often you will like the person before they start singing and be rooting for them to be good if they have a good personality. – Remember the judges are feeling the same way.  If they like you, they will want you to be good.  Therefore, they may be a bit more forgiving and open to your audition.

There are very fine lines between impressions that a singer can give.  Confidence verses cocky.  Humble verses shameful. Fun verses loony.

You want to set a good positive lasting impression of yourself, but you can’t force or push it onto the judges.  They need to find and discover how great you are from your entrance and introduction.  So watch some auditions and learn the difference between things like; what is annoying and what is funny, or what is remarkable and what is forgettable.

Watch some singers and then see who sticks out in your mind both good and bad.  Learn from it.  It is such a fabulous resource.

You want to walk in and give the judges an honest look at the best you.

This is all before you open your mouth to sing…

Ahh the psychology behind singing!!!

Ariella Vaccarino (The voice teacher who spent many uncomfortable years auditioning too!)

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

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I was thrown into an improvisatory singing situation last week that I was not prepared for, or familiar with.

A friend of mine surprised a group of us last week with a drum circle.  We were all there to celebrate her birthday and she had hired these women to come in with lots of drums for us to play together. How neat…

It was of course very interesting.  I was enjoying being a part of this circle and looking forward to the leaders she hired running it, but they were not singers.  I guess in a drum circle it is the time in which to have someone lead chants and singing while everyone drums.

So my friend, the birthday girl, said to me in the middle of the beat, “You sing Ariella, you lead us”.  (Of course this opera-singing voice teacher was totally trained to pull out an American-Indian style chant to lead in front of 10 women hat she did not know, right…? ha ha)

So as I always try to sing when asked, I did, (not warmed up or prepared in any way).

It was very uncomfortable for me.  First of all I had to lead all these women in a “repeat after me type of thing”, so I started with some “tribally” chest voice sounds.  I was completely out of my element and extremely uncomfortable with the imposed improv.  Everyone was relieved that I was doing it (since no one else wanted to).  I personally had not improvised melody in front of people like that for MANY years and was quite jarred by the experience.

So then I stopped at some point and we kept on drumming.  I was hoping someone would take over, but no one did.  So we kept drumming and it became clear to me that I should continue with my leading.  This time, I dropped the whole repeat after me concept and went into my head voice where I am most comfortable and just improvised melody- still “a la” tribal/opera (if there is such a thing).

I really sang out, sang high, and improvised right in front of all these women.

Needless to say it was quite an experience for me.

Kind of horrible, but invigorating as well.

What was horrible about it was that I was not AT ALL in my comfort zone and felt a lot of pressure.  The improviser in me, who was quite free in her guitar playing high school days, was all pent up.  I knew I had the ability to really let go and have a spiritually freeing musical experience, but I had to fight a huge battle within myself to get through it and look casual doing so.

The invigorating thing about it was that I let go.  I felt like a linebacker running through the pack, but I did it.  I got that voice out and free.

I’m not sure if I felt sick, or charged after all of it.  But what I do know is that in music as singers, we don’t always have opportunities to be creative. (If you are writing your own songs for a band it is one thing), but if you are singing opera or musical theater, you cannot often just break out into your own melody on stage as you feel it.  It is really a wonderful thing to get to do when you are tapped into it on a regular basis.  It takes a lot of trust.

I invite you to try some improv for fun, or for some challenge.  It helps to free you no matter if you enjoy the process or not.  Whether it be singing or even acting.  I can only imagine how good it is for your brain to be “in the grey”, (as they used to call it in my comic, improv days).

And no matter what it will help you on stage, because unplanned things always happen.  And you need to react appropriately to them.

It was good for me in an awful way, that drum circle.

Ah, the life of a singer.

Ariella Vaccarino

Thank you for subscribing to my blogs!  I am working hard to bring you great content and free singing advice.  Please take a moment to spread the words via the social bookmarking links below to help me build my readership.  Thank you!

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!)

I just finished teaching a full day of students.  Today I had a few Group Sing classes which are composed of a lot of young little singers full of energy and very important things to say (so cute).  The classes are in the late afternoons and sometimes after I teach them, my voice hurts.

Yes, me the voice teacher, creator of Voice Lessons To Go, can strain her voice from time to time too .

On the other hand, my voice does not hurt when I properly warm-up before the teaching begins, even if I sing hours before.

I can’t tell you the difference it makes between warming-up my own voice before I teach the class and teaching the class on a cold voice.  When I warm my voice up in the morning, it is set up to speak correctly for the whole day.  Whether I am teaching groups of 5 year olds or speaking on the telephone.

At the end of a working day, when I have properly warmed- up my voice feels good, when I haven’t it feels tired and out of whack.  Sometimes this vocal fatigue can lead into the next day as well, messing up a singing day.  The more often I have a tired voice day, the longer it takes to recover.  When your voice is fatigued from an event and then you have sing on it you can cause damage- something none of us want.

Sometimes, even I forget, or do not make the time, to warm-up in the morning, and I pay the price for it.  I think teaching groups of people is one of the hardest things on your voice, especially when they can be a chatty bunch.  I taught in a classroom for many years and found the same thing to be true; I needed to warm-up my voice to get through the class without over-taxing my vocal chords.

Look at it as a positive, the more often you warm-up and train your singing voice, the better shape it will be in for everything as well as singing.

Your singing warm-up will be of great benefit to your speaking voice. Remember they use the same larynx, chords, and muscle support to use them correctly.  If you are going to be speaking, do yourself a favor and vocalize beforehand.

Ariella Vaccarino

Thank you for subscribing to my blogs!  I am working hard to bring you great content and free singing advice.  Please take a moment to spread the words via the social bookmarking links below to help me build my readership.  Thank you!

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:

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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

Thank you for subscribing to my blogs!  I am working hard to bring you great content and free singing advice.  Please take a moment to spread the words via the social book marking links below to help me build my readership.  Thank you!

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!)

It is so easy for us when we are feeling yucky, to speak poorly.  Our throats hurt, we are congested, our chords might be a bit swollen,  so it really feels so natural for us to speak “heavy and sick sounding”.  I say nay!

When you are sick you need to make the opposite effort with your speaking voice than what feels natural.  Don’t let your voice give in to the sick,  ”lazy speak” that you would like to do.  Force yourself rather to speak “over” the cold, gently, and without any pushing, pressing, or sitting on the vocal chords.  Keep everything light in your sound.

The reason to do this is for a speedier recovery once you start feeling better.  The more you push down into that sick sound, the further you will swell those vocal chords creating an even longer amount of time until your voice is working sweetly for you again.

I am not saying that you can prevent yourself from sounding sick when you are sick, just don’t play into it and add onto it.  Keep your voice in a “healthy-speak” mode even if you have tissues stuffed in your nose.

And if it is hard for you to speak correctly, then really try to minimize your speaking until your voice improves.

The more you speak on swollen chords, the longer they will take to heal.

This blog is being written by me 3 days in to a cold.  I caught myself day one speaking with a really sick sound.  It gets more sympathy of course, and I felt terrible so I was inclined to speak awfully.  I realized I was doing it and was easily able to make a shift to speak in a higher, lighter spot.  I sounded healthier instantly and helped minimize the damage.

This particular cold has not gone into my voice, and I am pretty sure that by tomorrow I will be back up and running vocally.  If I had not shifted my speaking on that first day of being sick, my voice certainly would be feeling the effects for at least a few more days.

You  can not prevent hoarseness every time you are sick, but sometimes… you can .

This is something that we have to remind ourselves to do.  You never know when you are going to get that singing opportunity, so you must always be thinking about how you can cut down on your singing downtime, even if it only saves you a day.  That could be the day when you get called for a great recording, or audition!

Here’s to your health!

Ariella Vaccarino

Thank you for subscribing to my blogs!  I am working hard to bring you great content and free singing advice.  Please take a moment to spread the words via the social book marking links below to help me build my readership.  Thank you!

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!)