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

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

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As a voice teacher I care about vocal health and singing the healthiest you can to preserve the life of your voice in whatever vocal calling of singing genre you have.  There is a fine line between a scream and a sing. I’ve actually heard that line crossed many times and each time I do it makes my own vocal chords cringe with muscular empathy for the person who does it.

Don’t get me wrong.  I love a good heavy medal voice, but one that it supported by muscles in the abdomen rather then one that is riding on raw vocal chords.  This doesn’t contain itself just to heavy medal.  I have heard many a tenor and soprano cross the line from sing to scream when going for a high note they are not supporting. Ouch.  Or someone who is to high out of their tessitura and ends up yelling a whole song.

It is actually a minor adjustment to go from sing to scream and that’s why the nuance of it can be so difficult to master especially when you are standing out there on stage.  It is simply taking the tension out of the chords and putting it low into your musculature for body support.

Let me explain to you technically what a scream does to your chords.  It takes them and just rubs them together in  an awful form of friction which is the opposite of how the vocal chords are intended to be used for good singing.

If you feel the scream in your throat then you are not supporting it and you ARE doing damage to your own voice.  The more you do it the more likely you are to develop vocal nodules which are essentially blisters that come up from too much friction on your vocal chords.  This can cause eventual permanent vocal damage if not treated properly with vocal rest, healthy vocalizing, and or yucky surgery.

Now, there is the question, how can you prevent the unsupported scream in a singing situation?  You need proper vocal support in your body.  The higher you go in the voice the lower that you need to be accessing muscle support from in your body.  So think of singing your higher notes with your feet or even from the “imaginary” roots in the ground under your feet.  Access the earth to get you through a tough passage.

When we are nervous our muscle support system can fall apart due to our shallow breathing.  You need to remember to breath and to breath low.  (My Voice Lessons To GO v.1 Vocalize and Breath has a long section of breathing exercises to help you master this).  What may have been beautiful singing in your house can completely go “screamy” in a performance with shallow unconnected breathing.  We see this happening a lot on the American Idol auditions.  People walking in saying I don’t know what happened I didn’t sound like that at home.  And it may be true, but no one cares.  You need to be able to deliver consistently no matter the audition or performance.

Some keep on singing instead of screaming tips:

If you are in a band:

Remember you have a microphone and an amp- so use it.  You should not have to be constantly screaming over your band to be heard, rather turn them down and turn yourself up so that there is a better balance. People want to hear your words no matter how good your guitarist is.  Give yourself a break by making this possible with the proper balance of amplification.

Don’t over rehearse the night before.  If you use up all of your healthy singing the night before and go to long you may inflame your chords a bit.  This will throw you off in your performance.  If your chords are a bit swollen it can throw off your whole technique which can push you to push or scream.- Not good.  I Iike to prevent a rehearsal the day before when possible so that the voice can remain fresh for the performance.  If it is not possible to prevent the rehearsal then mark your way through it.  Save the gusto for the performance.

Use moniters on stage.  Make sure you can hear yourself.  I think that this is a really important.  There is a strange phenomenon that occurs on stage when you are singing with other instruments or singers.  You don’t always here yourself in real time since acoustically the sound goes out and bounces back to your ears.  If possible, make sure there are monitors on stage that you can hear and only listen to them.

When singing unplugged:

If the acoustics are bad in a room don’t try and over compensate by over singing. Memorize the sensation of singing freely and do that no matter what the room does or does not give back to you.  People will hear your push as a push , if your do it, so don’t.

If your acoustic accompaniment is playing too loud, rather then try and sing over them give them a visual sign to hold back (in a friendly way).  Make sure when possible to do a sound check with them as well, not just rockand roll singers need this.  Every piano is different.  Every room creates a different acoustic experience. Check the balance before hand so that you are comfortable with what you are putting out there.

Remember that you audience will absorb the sound.  Literally.  Just like carpets and drapes do.   So filling a room with people will change your balance, don’t be thrown by it.  Still, sing naturally.

You can’t be the judge.  What you hear on stage may not be what the audience hears.  Just because you are standing near an open piano that is blasting in your ear or a baritone who is resonating for days, it doesn’t mean that your voice is not pinging through to the last seat in the house.  Trust your voice and your training. Sing healthy and naturally no matter what.  Remember, if you push to be louder you will just sound pushed and throw of your technique.  Who knows, if you stick to your good technique the loud baritone may come across negatively as someone trying to sing over you.  Always give an honest performance of your own voice.

Certain music requires a certain amount of “scream”.  What you can do to sustain that is to balance it with healthy vocal work outside of that.  Use your scream only when necessary, don’t practice it in rehearsals- just save it for the performances, and for God’s Sake- SUPPORT YOUR VOICE WITH MORE THEN YOUR VOCAL CHORDS !  Your are singing because you love it.  SO think always about how to sustain your ability to do it well.

Sing well people!

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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Spring is here which means summer is coming.  May I, as a voice teacher, recommend getting yourself in a bathing suit and going for a swim?  Swimming is the most amazing workout you can get when it comes to targeting the needs of a singer, (OK Yoga is pretty close to it).  Singing opens up the back and develops your low breathing.  You build stamina in your breath and strength in all the right muscles to support a glowing free voice when you swim on a regular basis.

So start off slow, but get in the pool.  Try and do swim three times a week.  Change up your stroke since each one works on different parts of the back.  Back stroke is great at opening and expanding the chest while freestyle does the same for the back.  Breast stroke strengthens and widens the side of your rib cage and lower abdominals.  Couldn’t be better.

Your legs will get stronger which helps you to “grip to the earth” and connect your voice all the way down. Plus of course, swimming will make your body fabulous which will make you more confident on stage and more attractive to your audience!

The beauty of swimming is that the whole time you are strengthening you are also doing the most incredible breathing exercises.  (I emulate some of them on my first volume of Voice Lessons To Go- Vocalize and Breath).  Developing your breathing capacity will strengthen and lengthen your ability to hold notes and keep beautiful lines.  This will give you more control and power as a singer to convey your styling.

Also, swimming is a great body warm up in the morning before you do your singing vocal warm-ups.  After you swim and you go to sing you will find that all your muscles are already alert and working for you from your first note on.

I know it requires getting wet, time, showering after etc… but it is a great thing for your body as a whole and your voice.

I find when I am swimming laps, I often run through music in my head and practice my memorization of lines.  (There’s not much else to do while going back and forth in a pool ).

You will feel GREAT afterwards that’s a guarantee!

Give it a thought!   

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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I’ve blogged a lot about vocal health, how to take care of your voice, what to do if you are sick, when not to sing etc…  But then there is a certain reality, sometimes you have to sing anyway, whether your voice is healthy or not and that is what happened to Paige Miles, and due to that unlucky course of events, she has been voted off the show.  Unfortunately, everyone has short term memory in show business.

She started off the show strong with Simon Cowell telling her she had the best voice of the bunch.  Two weeks ago she got laryngitis.  Now just imagine this.  You are there for a chance of a lifetime and you laryngitis.  Under any other point in her life she would have been commanded to vocal rest by a doctor so that her chords could heal and recover properly.  This really takes a couple of weeks with laryngitis.

But, due to the circumstance she had to produce, this was her opportunity and moment, she had to sing. She probably was under doctors care and had some sort of steroid shot to get through her performance, (I’ve had to have that done).  I will tell you from personal experience, that it can get you through an important sing but you don’t get 100% out and it takes much longer to recover your voice long term then it would have without it.

Considering all that, I think she was able to do quite well last week.  But, unfortunately she paid for it with her voice this week.  It was so unstable and off.  Her poor chords sounded pretty fragile and abused.  They were just not “themselves”.

And sadly, she had to be judged anyway- “the show must go on”, as they say.  Everybody just judged her pitchy voice and was forgetting what they were going through.  Very sad for her.  It was just a stroke of bad luck, and sadly that happens in life.  You break your leg before a sports event, get sick on vacation, or laryngitis on American Idol- luck is just luck good or bad.

I just wish they could have given her more credit and have been clearer about why her voice was not producing.  They gave her compassion for her voice when she sang well the week before with the laryngitis, but acted like there was no excuse this week, 1 week later.

People always support you when you do well through a tough period, but sometimes things are tough and you can’t do well.  I am frustrated that they don’t have someone on that panel standing up for the “voice”.  You’ll find that the “people in charge” just want you to sing well, no excuses, not even the excuse of laryngitus. Excuses, to them are problem people- no matter the circumstance, no matter how unfair.

This business is tough and can be pretty ugly sometimes.   Thank God the singing can be so satisfying to balance it out.   Get yourselves a good support team around you of family and friends.  Be strong Paige Miles you are very talented.

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

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The great great Belt singers!

Let’s take a moment and appreciate the great Belters out there.

To belt is to take your chest voice up into a higher range with out transitioning into head voice or your falsetto and projecting it out strong.  I love a great belt voice.  Not many people are naturally inclined to do good belt singing.  Here are a few examples of singers who are great at it:

Someone a lot of people don’t think of as a serious singer, but who was great and on Broadway in her day was Comedian Carol Burnett.  She is one of those great belters with a natural placement, who is not known for having a “pretty voice”, but rather a great powerhouse free sound:  About 45 seconds into the clip it gets really good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vugLimIj98g

Next is the Vocal Goddess Barbra Streisand.  This woman is a freak of nature ( I mean that in the best way).  Only a handful of people can attempt to sing like her- I’ll give Celine Dion a pass for that.  The end of this rocks “Don’t” from Funny Girl!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6E2Mooz_LA

Adina Menzel’s Defying Gravity from Wicked:  A great singer!  I can’t get the best clip from Youtube but here is the idea:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3g4ekwTd6Ig

The thing about belting is that not everyone can do it or is meant to.  A lot of people try and blow out there voice.  It is a gift you are born with just like an Opera singer is often born into their specialty.  These belters are not straining and are connected to their own sound.  A straining “want to be belter”, is a tough thing to listen to and terrible for one’s vocal chords.  Be very careful when belting.  Try and get guidance from a good voice teacher to master it.  The power does not come from the throat, rather the body and strength supporting the sound.

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

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Watching Idol last night – third episode of Hollywood week, I was inspired to write after watching Jessica Furney’s rejection from the judges along with her plea to them.  She had lost her voice from over singing during the group rehearsals and had to battle that throughout the competition.  As a result she pleaded with the judges to keep her saying that she didn’t have a fair opportunity to show herself since she was battling with her voice and it was not fair to compare her to others who weren’t dealing with that.

Well, whether I felt her plea to them was too dramatic or not, I do feel for her.  It is one thing to be rejected after showing your best performance, at least then you know they made a choice after seeing the best you.  But to have to perform sub par and then to be rejected leaves you filled with regret and frustration, if only they saw what I can really do…

I would imagine that if they were crazed about her from the beginning they would have found a way to keep her fighting vocal strain or not, but it still has got to be a harsh reality for her when she looks back at that group rehearsal and the strain “she allowed ” to be put onto her voice.

Did I say “she allowed” the strain to be put on her voice?  - (that’s pretty harsh Ariella Vaccarino the empathetic voice teacher that you are…)

Maybe it is harsh but it is true.  We need to protect ourselves as singers.  No one will do it for us, no one knows our limitations except us.  It is so important singers that you save the juice for the right moment. Like any athlete, we can only use our correct muscles for so long before we strain and thus compromise them.  Singing has its limitations, you as a good singer need to learn to feel them and to listen to them, no matter the circumstance.

“Marking“ is a term that we use when not singing out.  Some people are better at it than others.  Essentially you sing down the octave, or with half a voice, or speak gently in tempo to mark the vocals while learning the harmonies, dance moves, blocking, or trying to memorize lyrics. I am not referring to whispering which is very harsh on the voice, rather, gentle singing- no powerhouse sound.

This is what you need to do in a situation when you are repeating a song to get through a rehearsal. Especially when you have a lot of important solo singing coming up.  I am not saying you should be marking your chior rehearsals.  If you are rehearsing to work on the sound then by all means sing.  But, when a performance is pending you have to be protective and only give when the judges are listening.

I am sure that was a hard thing to do for the singers during group rehearsals on American Idol- they want to be impressing everyone around them, make their mark, stand out to be filmed etc… but, like Jessica Furley, they needed to weigh the whole week of singing- not just the moment of singing.

As a professional singer, you need to learn how to “mark”, but like everything, it takes practice.  If you don’t do it right you could strain your voice.  So practice it every once in a while by singing light, half voiced, with no pressure on any muscles when learning or going through your own music.

I feel for Jessica Furney because she will never have peace in her mind that she was rejected for a fair reason-”if only they knew what I could really do...”  That will play in her mind for a long time- a really horrible feeling that I am sure most of us performers have had.  Hopefully she will find a way to take the experience as a positive for all her exposer and be dignified about the results.

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

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Just a quick reminder to all my football fans out there.  If you are interested in singing, then you need to think about protecting your voice.  That means all the time, even during your favorite Super Bowl party.  And if by any chance you actually have tickets to the event, amazing, but you are in triple vocal danger from the average party goer.

In general if you are at a super bowl party, just watch the screaming.  Make sure you are supporting your voice at all times from your diaphragm even during the craziest play.

Yelling or talking over a crowd to be heard is really one of the worst things you can do for your voice.  It completely knocks your voice out of wack and swells your chords.  Don’t try and yell over people to be heard.  Either wait for a quiet moment to speak, or speak at a normal volume closer to someone, instead of across the room.  Also, seriously, why not warm up your voice,  www.voicelessonstogo.com, before you go so that you are in a good spot vocally when you get there.

This advice is even more important if you have a singing gig coming up.  Your voice will recover from the event within a few days, but if you have some big singing to do afterwards, you could start the beginings of a bad problem.  If your chords are swollen and you sing on them you will use your throat muscles more than normally and create more swelling, maybe even vocal noduals.  So be careful.

Support with your voice when you show your team support singers!

A friendly reminder from:

Ariella Vaccarino- creator of of Voice Lessons To Go (singing lessons on Cd), and author of Vocalize!

www.voicelessonstogo.com

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As an American woman, I come from a group of people who speak a language with “lazy lips”.  I mean no critisism to my people when I say this, it is just a fact.    In general, Americans barely use their lips to aid in pronunciation when speaking.  Think about the French.  When you watch them speak their lips (mainly referring to the upper) are moving like crazy back and forth between their oohs like a little pucker, probably part of the reason we find the French irresistable when they do speak to us.

What they are doing is engaging the muscles on their upper lip to create a good diction.  As a result they develop the upper part of their musculature in their mouth and face.  Americans just don’t have this.  So as a singing exercise on your next vocal warmup, www.voicelessonstogo.com (my singing lessons CDs), I ask you to engage your upper lip.  Use it to come forward for your “ooh”.  This is a resource of strenth in your face that will help you in creating a rounder more flushed out sound in your vowels and ultimately your voice, giving more definition to each individual trait of each individual vowel.  I also find that it helps to get the sound out more “in front of your face”, and out of your throat.

Start off by exaggerating the whole process.  Sing though the exercises in a mirror and make sure your lips are moving to create the vowels.   Each vowel should have its own particular look.  Mimick the french in some fake french speak and see how it feels and looks.  Then try and transfer that same feeling into English.  Take note of each vowel and its shape in the mirror.  Find the shape in your face that creates the ultimate sounding version of each vowel.  Then put it into your Vocal exercises.  Exaggerate your lips at first singing a Vocalize that uses more than one vowel so that you can practice changing from one vowel to the other. This should really wake up your face and engage the musculature in your sound production.

Now I am in no way suggesting that you be making strange faces when singing through a song, just engage your upper lip.  Getting to that point though, after years of “lazy English speak”, may take some strange faces in the mirror to find it during your singing warm-ups!

Now think French and go use your upper lip!

written by:  Ariella Vaccarino creator of Voice Lessons To Go- singing lessons on CD, and author of Vocalize!

Need a professional ear to assess your Voice?-  sign up for a Vocal Assessment on my site www.voicelessonstogo.com- you send me your voice and questions, and I get back to you with my assessment and advice within the week!

www.voicelessonstogo.com

The Importance of being a physically fit singer.

While you all know the importance of healthy singing warm ups like Voice Lessons TO GO, and building stamina vocally in a regular practice schedule for your singing, it is also important to keep our bodies in good physical shape as singers.  This is for a variety of reasons:

1. The obvious, you will look better and be more attractive to people you want to be hiring, casting and booking you.  This will also give you more confidence when you step out in front of people which we could all use to get us through performing.

2. The stronger you are in your body the more stamina you will have as a singer.  The stronger your legs are to support your abdominal muscles which support your laryngal muscles, the freer your vocal mechanism will be to create beautiful flowing sounds without strain, or fatigue.

3.  You never know what you may be asked to do while singing on stage, whether it be dancing, walking around a set (up and down stairs), jumping around in a band etc…  The stronger, and healthier you are as a person the easier you will find it to do these things as a singer. – I saw The Pussy Cat Dolls in concert and was absolutely amazed at the shape they were in.  They were practically doing cardio aerobics the whole concert in their damce moves as they sang and never once did they sound out of breath.  There are few singers that can claim that.  Whether you like their music or not, the fact that these women were not lipsinking and still singing well through all of there moves was crazy amazing.

4. Breath Control-  Doing cardio such as swimming, increases your breathing stamina which is so important in good singing.  In other words as you increase your breath support you will be able to sustain notes and phrases longer.  Taking less breaths during phrases will give you more control over your choices in singing lines and will make you sound more professional. (another reason not to smoke as a singer)

So think about it this year as you follow through with your new years resolutions.  If you are serious about singing, here is one more reason to tend to your physical body and get in shape.  Your breath support will thank you!!

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

www.voicelessonstogo.com

New Years Resolution:  Start a regular singing warm up regiment with Voice Lessons To Go!

Hello singers!  We all can get into those slumps by the end of the year with ourselves, whether it be our exercise, good eating, organization, or even our — regular singing routine.

Well, here I am, to give you a friendly singing teachers nudge to get you back into a great healthy singing routine just in time for new years.  If you follow this regularly, you should be humming sweetly very soon!

As I always blog, teach, and talk about, being a good singer is akin to being a good athlete.  Your healthy singing voice is contingent on the correct muscles in your body being in shape to support your larynx so that your voice can sail freely through the air without any undue stress on your vocal chords from incorrect muscle use.  Finding the path to the perfect support system in your singing is a daily task and can easily be thrown off without proper attention.   The key to maintaining healthy proper singing is a good healthy vocal warm up done regularly.

Voice Lessons TO GO www.voicelessonstogo.com offers you four of those healthy singing warm-ups on CD for your use anytime, anywhere.  So there is no excuse!!

How to start back in on a healthy Your practice schedule:

Remember, if your practice regiment has been shut down for a bit, you need to ease back into a regular singing schedule to protect your voice- just like you would re-enter any sport.  Start slow, warm-up (vocalize) every time before you sing.  You can add a little bit more to your range, practice time, and challange as your stamina naturally increases.

NEVER PUSH OR STRAIN THE VOICE.

You can alter my four cds; Vocalize and Breath, Do Re Mi Ear and Pitch Training, Pure Vowels, or Stamina to vary your warm-ups on different days, or work with one at a time for a few weeks until you feel you have some mastery.   Now get to that ipod, piano, or stereo and start singing!

written by:

Ariella Vaccarino- creator of Voice Lessons TO GO (singing lessons on CD), and author of Vocalize!