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

Need a professional opinion of your voice BEFORE your next audition, or just curious how you measure up in the singing world? Sign up for Vocal Assessment on my site- you send me a link or mp3 of your voice with your questions and I get back to you with a professional opinion right away.

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It is one thing to sing  your line to a piano part or to a CD.  Often when we sing to other music we are able to sing freer because we can loose our inhibitions somewhat in the accompaniment, but we can also be using the accompaniment as a crutch for our ear…

I was hit by this the other day when I was at a rehearsal for an upcoming concert of new music.  The piece I am singing is new to my voice and I have been learning it by playing the piano part of the voice out on the piano and singing to it.  Since the piece was so new I hadn’t had much time to look at the orchestration to see what everyone else was going to be playing while I was to be singing my line.

I really felt insecure on my part at the rehearsal.  My vocal line was no where to be heard except coming out of my mouth.  Nothing in the accompaniment played or really supported my part.  My part had been written like one of the instruments in the chamber ensemble, standing completely on its own like the flute, violin, or viola.

I hadn’t sung something like this in a while and honestly I had forgotten to prepare correctly for it.  Often I am singing to orchestration or piano accompaniment that is supporting my voice part, playing predictable chords underneath and giving me a real cushion to the melody.

I was able to pull off the rehearsal, but I was not secure on my line.  I immediately came home and “re-practiced” the piece singing out my lines acapella and playing the piano parts of the other instruments learning their cues. It was not a completely pitch centered line when I first started and I kept having to check my starting notes, but after a bit, I was prepared.

So don’t forget, not only should you learn your music with accompaniment,  you should turn off the accompaniment and sing through your lines making sure that you are secure on your intervals in your phrases and your starting notes on new ones.  This will give your line more beauty as you are more confident to sing them correctly without any sort of crutch.  (I forgot to head my own advice on this one, but I am glad I got through it so I can be prepared better next rehearsal, and hoping help you all avoid the same situation!)

A practiced singer is a professional one!

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

Want to find out what you need to work on before your next audition? Sign up for my Your Vocal Assessment, where you send me a link or mp3 to your voice with your questions and I get back to you with my professional feedback right away.

www.voicelessonstogo.com

You may find as a singer, you tend to favor a particular vowel in your daily singing warm up routine.  Such as Ahh, or eee.  There is probably one or two of the vowels that seems to work best freeing your voice up the fastest so you use it all the time to get your voice into that good spot.  I definitly know that I do that.  Even me  ”the big voice teacher” favors an ee vowel, there, I said it!

When I was younger I used to favor the “Ahh”, but over the years have turned to the trusty “ee”.  Well, even I should be careful with this.  I have been singing through my book of vocalizes, “Vocalize!” these past few weeks to prepare my voice for an upcoming concert, and I have been forcing myself to “face all the vowels”.

My third volume of Voice Lessons To Go entitled Pure vowels is a great resource for developing all your vowels seperately.  I have been singing through all the exercises in volume 3 from start to finish and I have noticed such an improvement on every vowel.  The first day, my favorite vowel, “ee”, was great, but I wasn’t pleased with the placement of my “ey” or “i”.  But i kept doing it everyday.  Working with the sound, mouth positioning, placement in my resonance playing with the forms of the vowels, adding a little “aww” in my “ahh”, and everyday I noticed I was getting better faster.

The only way to improve your weaker vowels is to work on them, not run from them.  Always start with speaking the vowel to help you find the natural speech point to work from.  You want your singing to sound natural like extended speech. Make sure you practice warming up your singing voice on all the different vowels regularly.  You never know when you may be standing in an audition and be asked to site read a new piece on an “ahh”.  If you haven’t worked your “ahh” out you could be really uncomfortable.

Also, if you are not used to practicing all your vowels.  Don’t start just before a performance.  Do your regular warm ups before you have to sing so that you don’t throw off your voice by trying something different.  The time to work on this is a normal warm up.  Remember, on all my CDs for Voice Lessons To GO, you can always try different vowels with the piano accompaniment for variety.

Now, FACE ALL YOUR VOWELS SINGERS!

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

Need a professional opinion of your voice before your next audition?- Sign up for Vocal Assessment.  You send me a link or mp3 of your voice with your questions and I get right back to you with my Assessment!

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

Singing runs in music, (a group of notes on a vowel), can be tricky.  You encounter them a lot in both classical music and R & B.  The goal with a run is to make it sound effortless, have it be perfectly in tune, and create a smooth legato tying the notes all together to sound like 1 phrase.  Regarding the word legato, you want the singing to be smooth, not short and choppy.  You don’t want to hear each note being created rather a succession on notes all eliding together.

10 technical vocal tips to help you achieve a good run:

1. Take the run apart and play it repeatedly.  Play the run out on the piano or guitar if you can one note at a time. Really listen to the relationships between all the notes involved.  Are they all half steps?  Two half steps two whole steps? etc…

2. Put numbers to the run- if there are 6 notes in it sing each note with a number, ex. 123456.  (each note having its own number).

3. Break the run up into sections- if there are 12 notes in it, break them up in groups that naturally make sence according to the rythem it is written in.  So you may have 3 groups of 4, you can count these out as well 1234,1234,1234 instead of counting straight through to twelve.

4. Learn the end of the run first- Just like memorizing the last page of a song first, if you conquer the end of your run first, you will have more confidence as you go through it.

5. Practice your run on a staccato (short and choppy) vowel- Of course, your end goal is to sing your run legato, but breaking up the run into a staccato will help your muscle memory learn each pitch precisely so that when you sing through smoothly your pitch will be spot on for every note involved.  You want to sing it smooth not sloppy, using a staccato to practice it will help with that.

6. Separate the runs into little syllables such as bi di bi di be, or mi ni mi ni mi.  Adding the consonants in practice will also help you to solidify the correct pitches of the runs.  Sing with the consonants and then take them out and sing on the vowel.

7. Practice the run on different vowels.  -You may have a vowel you prefer such as ee or ahh, use which ever vowels you like and are comfortable with to learn your runs.  Each vowel will give a slightly different flavor to your run depending on how they resonate.  You can pull a little bit of oh into an ee, or ah into an i to create the best sound.

8. Listen to recordings of the runs- Some of us learn really well through ours ears.  If you have a good recording of your runs listen and learn.  Then envision yourself singing them just the same or better and do it.

9. Clap or stomp the rhythm of them out physically. This will help you to get the beat and rhythem into your body.

10. Do body motions to help create a phrase- bend your knees through the run, do large eight motions with your hands, bend at the waist and pick imaginary flowers off the ground. (sounds crazy but lots of singers do these odd things to distract their mind from concentrating on every note so that they may attain a freer result in the run.

Once you have done all of the above, remember to relax into the run and sing it smoothly.  Each note of the run needs to blossom and be beautiful with its own spin on it.  You need to be prepared with a good breath and make the run sound effortless.

Sing well!

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!

Confused by varying vocal techniques? - 10 tips to evaluating which vocal technique is right for you.

As a voice teacher for over seventeen years, I’ve had a lot of singers confide in me about their confusion on vocal technique.  How are they supposed to know as novices of the voice what singing technique and voice teacher to study with?

I may be a bit of an odd bird in the vocal teaching profession with my views on this subject, because I often find that I like many different types of singing, styles, genres, even techniques.  I may be solid on my own teaching ways but I appreciate that every voice and singer is different, and different techniques and variations there upon work for different people.

All I care about it that the final outcome is healthy singing- the variations in which to get there are all interesting to me as well as inspirational.  There are many teachers that are extreme about their opinion on their own technique being the only option period, which can be a tough bit of brain washing on the novice singer who may not be getting the results they want from their training, but yet are afraid to try anything else that their current teachers may have told them is awful.

Vocal technique is the way in which you produce your sound.  There are different schools of thoughts and teachings on the “ultimate technique”.  Some push out the diaphragm and lock, others try and hold the larynx down, some want you to sing through a ‘honk’ ( a nasal resonator), others build off of a belt or head voice, some teachers tell you to do sit ups to strengthen your support, while others think sit ups will lock in your muscles and hold in your sound, some people like a dark sound, or a warm sound, others only want to hear a bright voice that pokes out at you like a pin, sometimes people use covered vowels to attain vocal beauty throwing away diction for the sake of sound while others do the opposite for the sake of diction.

It is all very overwhelming, and no matter what you choose to do, there will probably always be someone out there judging your technique and thinking you could be singing better if you studied with them or their teacher.  It is actually a real bummer that singers are put through all this pressure to make the correct decisions for their technique and teacher, it really can effect their own future in singing.  If you are studying voice in a college and you do not get put with “the right vocal teacher”, you can often times miss out opportunities ( I’ve seen it happen).  ”Well, how do I handle this and what choices do I make?”, you may be asking.

Rather then look at all these techniques as black and white, think of them in shades of gray.  What works great for one voice and one body may not be good for you or vice-versa.  You also may need to pull a few concepts from different sources to blend the perfect “technique cocktail” for your voice.

Someone with a natural forward placement in sound may do much better with a certain teacher then a warm toned voiced person.  TRUST YOUR INSTINCTS!  You will never please everyone.  The sooner you as a singer stand up for your voice and figure out what You Need for it, the less of a student and more of a professional you will become.

Here are 10 tips for evaluating your Vocal Technique:

1. If it hurts- its bad.  (period)  There is no “sing through the pain to get a result” in singing.  If you are hurting your voice, you are putting undue pressure on muscles, which could be putting pressure on your vocal chords.  This would not work for any athlete on any muscle. (There is a difference between pain and a challange, I am speaking of pain or strain- don’t do it).

2.  Does it feel natural to you?-  Beautiful singing should not be produced out of trickery.  You have the voice, someone just may need to guide you on how to get it out beautifully and easily.  Your singing voice should come out like a natural extension of your speaking voice, not strangely affected.

3.  Does you technique make sense to your brain? – Many teachers and techniques are explained differently;  some teachers are perceptual-  ”imagine your voice is free like leaves in the wind”, others have a number system-  ”I need you to turn on 4, and 7 hold back 3 (referring to different areas of resonating”, others clinical- refering to specific muscles by name in the body, while others teach by vocal example.  They can all great for certain people.  Make sure which ever technique you are in speaks and rings true to your brain.

4. Is your stamina improving?-  Can you sing a bit more everyday, challenging (not straining or hurting yourself) further with positive results?  Are your correct muscles strengthening to support your larynx which should feel free as it releases sound?  Are you tired by the end of a song, a few songs, or the end of a performance?  Do you find that you are ready to sing the next day or do you need a day of vocal rest in between?  As the student of singing you need to learn how to monitor your own progress or regress.

5. Is your range extending? – The stronger and freer you become in singing, meaning that you are using the correct support system physically through muscles in your body to protect your larynx from any vocal strain, the easier the next quality note down or up should become.  You will never be able to sing the whole keyboard but a good 1 1/2 ultimately to 2 octaves would be fabulous.

6. Are you getting good feedback?- Do people like what they hear?  Are you being complimented in your vocal improvement or singing beauty by others? Are you being asked to sing more often?  Getting more roles, gigs?  (Step outside your parents and teacher for an accurate call on this one).

7.  Do you like what you hear? – Are you playing back recordings of yourself and liking your sound? Are you surprising yourself by new things that you can sing, or lines that you can add beauty to?

8.  Are you better than when you started?-Did this technique, teacher do anything for you?  Has the money and time been well spent?  Do you feel on your way to your goal?

9.  Do you feel more confident?-  Are you finding that you are volunteering to be heard more often or are you still hiding that voice out?

10. Do you feel in control of your voice?-  This is your voice.  Not your teacher or techniques voice.  You would not have it without your own vocal chords in there and remember that. Your technique should only help you to be in charge of your own sound.  Your technique should give you the tools to control what comes out when you go to sing.  If it is still unpredictable, your technique is not working for you.

Sing well people!!

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 myVocal 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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