9 Biggest Lies about Singing
re-taught) EVERYTHING, in order to sing "properly."
Truth - You MAY be doing SOME things wrong, but if you can speak, you are
NOT doing everything wrong. When you speak, you are using the very same tools
you need to sing--no more, no less.
Most singers' difficulties come from getting away from their natural speaking
technique when they sing.
If you are less than satisfied with your singing, then it is very likely you're doing
something less effectively than it can be done. But stop and think a moment. HOW do you get rid of the difficulty?
There are several possibilities: 1) You are just no good at singing (many people
suspect this about themselves, but it's totally untrue as you will learn); 2) You are
not trying hard enough (many people assume this too, but you will find out that
trying "harder" only ADDS to your difficulty); 3) Singing is a special skill that you
have no useful knowledge about, so you must be prepared to spend lots of time
and money learning this totally foreign skill.
All these possibilities are common thoughts, but all wrong. Here's what you must
accept to make satisfactory progress improving your singing:
4) You have been using your "singing tools" all your life, but you may have been
"holding them wrong" while singing. It will be as easy as speaking, once you have
someone show you how to simply hold the "tools" correctly.
You use the same exact body parts and capabilities to sing as you do when you
speak! The problem often comes when someone tries to tell us how to sing and
they get us twisted up so that we STOP singing like we speak.
Let me illustrate this. Imagine that you've been using a hammer to flatten bottle
caps all your life. Then one day you need to drive some nails. You have doubts
about trying it. Then someone walks up and sees you trying to drive nails. He tells
you, "That's really noisy. Here, hold it like this" and he turns it around so that
you're striking the nails with the handle instead of the hammer's head.
It doesn't make so much noise now, so you think he must be right. You keep trying
but you make very little progress.
Then a carpenter comes along and says, "hey, buddy, you've got to hold it by the
handle if you want to drive the nail." You turn it back around and discover that you
can drive nails pretty fast now.
That's what singing should be like. When you learn how the voice was designed to
work (and you will learn a lot about it, over these next 9 emails), you should make amazing progress and singing should get much easier at the same time.
Big Lie #2 - If you can sing classical style, you can sing anything.
Truth - If you can sing classical, you may still have LOTS of trouble making a
"natural" sounding tone.
In fact, most of the classically-trained singers that end up coming to us, arrive
with great difficulties. They come with dissatisfaction and grief AFTER spending
a fortune on a classical music degree! I am still amazed at how similar their stories
are.
They start out with a simple love for music. Then they get into a choir at church or
school. They are told that they have great talent and they should not waste it. They
are told, "You need to go to college and...
Major in music...probably vocal performance." This seems like a great idea, because
they don't know a lot about singing--they just love to sing. So away they go and enroll.
They are told at university, "You have some talent, but you must be re-taught
EVERYTHING!" They find out that they have not been singing "properly" at all!
They may at first protest that they just want to be a good singer, not go on to the opera
stage.
The faculty members adjust their glasses further down their noses and say "If you can
sing classical, you can sing anything."
But the singer finds out AFTER 4 or 5 years of grueling study that they have been re-made
into a kind of singer that they don't even like!
OR, they learn to love classical singing, but find out that the classical field is so tiny that
their chances of making a living at it are tinier than winning the state lottery! They are left
to fend for themselves in a world in which they do not fit.
Most frustrating is that their range has usually stayed within a few notes of where it was
before they studied...about 2 octaves or less. The males sing up to a point and hit their
"break," a frustration which normally persists throughout their study.
The females, after years of study, have nothing but the mushy "head" tone with which to
express themselves. And this includes all the females that started studying so they could
make their way in the world of popular styles (country, r&b, pop, folk, etc.)
The tragedy--They don't sound honest enough for most audiences. So what do they do?
They quit singing and start teaching! And what do they teach their students? It normally
starts out something like, "If you can sing classical, you can..."
I LOVE classical singing, by the way. It's just that most singers do not start out wanting to
be classical singers. It just happens to be the most common type of teaching. It is
entrenched in most every University curriculum and it's a BIG money-maker for the
colleges.
So we've come up with a new thing to say to students: "If you can get your voice
to shift between registers easily, building that "bridge," you can sing classical and
anything else you like."
Is this really true?
Well, let me put it this way. Luciano Pavarotti was perhaps the most famous classical
singer in the world. He gained the nickname "King of the High C's" because he could sing
beautifully up to the C above middle C (referred to as the "male high C").
Most of our students, using very simple exercises, easily go to D, E, F ABOVE high C
within 3 or 4 lessons! It's not because Brett Manning is a genius. It's because Brett was
fortunate enough to find a mentor that passed along an entirely new and different method.
He learned a few exercises (and invented dozens more) that "trick" the voice into shifting gears at the right moment up the scale.
Big Lie #3 - It takes years of instruction and practice to develop a respectable
vocal range of almost 2 octaves (that covers only 24 notes on a piano keyboard).
Truth - The human voice was designed to cover well over 3 octaves
COMFORTABLY, just by "shifting gears." It can be learned in less than 2 hours--
and mastered and improved for the rest of your life.
Do you remember the line from the movie about the Watergate scandal of the
70's? It was "follow the money." What it meant was, if you find a white-collar
crime, and want to know who's behind it, see where the money flows.
Well, that's in order here. If you have a bunch of students who are paying your
school $20,000-$40,000 per year to learn singing, you better convince them that
they need you! You may want to tell them that they need you so much that it will
be YEARS before they are ready to leave your care.
I have become convinced that most university systems of teaching voice have
become just such an arrangement.
Now, if I was watching Brett Manning get satisfied University-trained singers in his
studio all the time, (and all they needed was a little "maintenance"). And if they were
all showing up saying that they had all the range they wanted, I'd feel totally differently.
(Brett does get one every now and then who had an exceptional teacher, using methods
other than pure classical, but it's way too rare!)
Let's face it. If you spend $20,000 a year on an education that fully equips you for the
life and career you want, you've found a bargain. But that's not what's happening in
most cases.
So they come in, tell us their story, and we start to work. As I've said, their stories are
mostly tragic. It's some version of "I spent all this money, now I can't get my voice to
do what I want."
Then there's normally a further complication: They are usually already teaching their
own students--the methods they learned--but they are plagued with their own vocal
troubles and a bunch of mixed feelings.
So Brett walks them through his "magic" exercises and bam they pop up past their
break and often add an octave or more to their range in just a couple lessons. If you
could be a fly on the wall (like I have), you'd see the same thing happen over and over.
It's like a healing service at a tent revival.
MANY of them burst into tears at that first lesson, out of control of their emotions,
because they never dreamed they'd do what they've just done.
The next thing that usually happens is a little bit of a panic. They have studied for so
many years trying to add ONE or TWO notes to their range. Then it hits that in 1 or 2
lessons they've gone to vocal territory that's completely new for them. That's
when it hits them, "I don't know how I got to this beautiful place in my voice?"
(the exercises work automatically, so they work even if you don't really know
how they worked). Then the panicked thought, "How can I find my way back
here tomorrow?"
Brett then reassures them that the exercises did it and that if they just do them
regularly, they will easily find their way back and BEYOND!
It usually takes less than 2 hours with these exercises to get past your break and
then you've got a lifetime of VERY satisfying performance while you study to
improve and perfect your natural tone.
After they mention the sense of wasted time and money a couple times, Brett
sometimes wryly asks if their university offered a money-back guarantee.
"Follow the money."
Big Lie #4 - You will need special instruction to learn how to breathe
correctly for singing.
Truth - You were born breathing correctly. You've continued to breathe.
You breathe in, and speak easily on a regular basis. YOU KNOW HOW
TO BREATHE ALREADY!
If you feel you are breathing ineffectively for singing, find a baby and
watch them breathe. They are doing it just like it needs to be done for
singing.
In fact, I can tell you how to check yourself, right now. Find a comfy
spot on the carpet and lie down with your back against the floor. Now, just
breathe normally in a relaxed manner. Feel your stomach with your hand
as you breathe.
Do you feel how your abdomen rises and falls with each breath? That's
how it was designed to work. As you breathe in, your abdomen moves
outward.
Now, do some singers breathe poorly for singing? Yes! But it's not
because they've missed out on any special instructions. It's because they
are trying some strange way of breathing only when they sing. Or maybe
they are getting nervous and trying TOO HARD. Or, they are thinking
more about breathing than about singing!
I personally have noticed myself getting short of breath in the middle of
singing or speaking in public. At that point, I realize I've been holding my
stomach in so I won't look fat!
So if you can get your mind off of breathing (or looking thin) and get back to
singing, your breath will normally regulate itself.
The only thing I say is this: If you notice that you are holding your stomach
in while breathing, just let it hang out. If your chest is rising when you breath
in, then you're probably holding your stomach in.
So stop doing that and you've got your breathing back to "baby normal,"
which is what you want for singing. In my humble opinion, that's about all
the "studying" you need to do about breathing.
Much of classical training in the area of breathing is built on the strange
assumption that your breath should regulate your tone production. But
our method teaches that a singer should concentrate on tone production and
allow that to regulate their breath!
If that paragraph is confusing, it's not worth laboring over.
Just remember that if you are making your vocal cords come together and
produce a pleasing tone, your lungs and "diaphragm" will deliver just the
right amount of air! Work on the tone, the breath will take care of itself.
Big Lie #5 - you must develop a strong "falsetto" to sing very high notes.
Truth- Your voice will make several coordinations, none of which require a great degree of effort. There is the "chest" voice, the "head" voice, and
falsetto (sometimes confused with the head voice). Our technique would
also add what we call the "mix" voice, which is a mixture of chest and head
voices.
First, let's identify these voices.
Put your hand on your chest and say "AAAAh" in your regular speaking
voice. Do you feel the vibration of your chest against your hand?
This is called "chest voice" and it's what you naturally use when singing
lower notes. We call it the chest voice because much of the resonance
(sound waves becoming stronger by building upon one another) takes place
in the chest cavity in your lower range.
I guess I better explain "resonance" a little more.
It's pretty easy. Imagine the sound made by slapping your hand against a
boulder the size of a washing machine. That impact is like one vibration
of your vocal cords. Your hand against the boulder would make a fairly
tiny sound (more like a "snap" than anything).
Now imagine slapping the side of a real washing machine.
What sound comes from that? A big, giant BOOM! Why? "Because it's
hollow," I hear you say. But WHY does that make such a difference?
It's because the hollow space in the washing machine serves to amplify
the sound by "resonating" or vibrating, moving a larger volume of air
than the initial slap by itself would have moved.
Your vocal cords are only about half an inch long! They're stretched
across a little pipe the same diameter (half inch). If they were vibrating
out in open air, you'd have to put your ear right next to them to hear them
at all.
But they are part of a system that includes several resonating cavities.
The biggest is the chest. It's got the "boom" of the lower notes and it
can sound "explosive."
The cords make the air vibrate, and the chest amplifies that vibration.
Next voice--the "head" voice.
Why do they call it the head voice? I hear you saying "I bet it's because
it resonates in the head." Yep. You're right.
But we think of the head as a solid block most of the time, expect maybe
for the mouth. The truth is, there are hidden pockets of air in your head!
You see those 2 little nostrils and you think they are just pipes to the lungs.
But they lead to the "nasal cavity" behind your nose and your cheek bones.
And those cavities are quite large. Then there are also sinuses (around and
above your eyes).
Still another resonator is in the back of the throat, just above your vocal
cords.
As you sing higher, your vocal cords are designed to thin out (almost as if
you are changing from a thick guitar string to a thin one). When your vocal
cords "get thinner" like they are supposed to do, they throw the tone more
upward and forward into these resonators in your head.
Let's find that head voice tone right now.
Put your hand on top of your head. Now make the very happy sound: (very
high) "Wheeeeeee" like you're on a swing at the park. Did you feel your skull
vibrating under your hand?
Now if you put one hand on your chest and the other on your head and
alternate, "AAAAH" down low, and "weeeeee" up high, you'll feel the
difference in resonators.
Now for falsetto.
This is not really a "voice." It's more of a defense mechanism to keep you
from straining your vocal cords when you try to go too high in "chest" voice
and don't know how to shift gears into head voice. If you sing a very high,
light, airy tone, you won't feel much resonance anywhere.
This is because the cords are not really even coming together. Instead, they
are coming near to one another, then vibrating as air passes between them.
The airy sound is from all the air that escapes through the cords in this position.
In singing, you can use this "false voice" as a sound effect sometimes (to
communicate soft emotions). But you don't want to be limited to it.
The chief difference between "head" voice and falsetto is that in head voice,
your vocal cords are actually coming together and closing off some of their
vibrating length. The tiny space left to vibrate is what is used to make the tone.
When done right, it sounds clear and clean, and it's easier and takes less
breath than either chest voice or falsetto!
The fun (and the power) comes when you learn to mix the chest and head
voices so that they "fade" into one another, creating one long block of usable
range! It all sounds like just "your voice."
Big Lie #6 - Either you have talent, and thus CAN sing, or you don't have
talent, and can NOT sing.
Truth - Since almost everyone can speak, and the speaking mechanism is the
same as the singing mechanism, almost everyone can sing--and should, if they
desire to!
This is a "non-technical" lie, but it has affected so many people that you
wouldn't believe it. I meet singers all the time who have spent the better part
of their lives wanting to sing, but believing this BIG LIE.
Of course, I know that NOT all people possess the same degree of singing
talent. But the BIG LIE says "Give it up! You shouldn't sing because you're
not...(fill in the name of any famous singer)."
My job brings me a unique perspective. You see, I've enjoyed some fame as a
singer in the Contemporary Christian music field. And I know for a fact that
many already famous singers still feel inadequate and yet we are singing
despite those feelings!
I remember telling Brett Manning some time after he had helped me so much,
"I always felt like a fake...like any minute, they'd realize I had no real talent."
So if you have the dream to sing (or play an instrument), and have a little time
to give to it, you can become quite good at it. I personally know several who
have gone so far as to make an income from it--in their later life!
If you do the right exercises, you can get your voice into shape far more
quickly than you think. There a couple of pitfalls that must be addressed
though:
Pitfall #1: You think you're too old.
This is so far from true and yet so commonly believed. Just think of the
singers you like to listen to. Are any of them near your age? Most people
say "Yeah. How'd you know?" Because everybody says that. You're about
the age of many of your favorites.
Pitfall #2: You packed away your dreams and you haven't taken them out lately.
Well, it's time. Think of all you've accomplished that you DIDN'T like!
Don't you think you could accomplish something that you DO like? If you
long to sing, you can be taught to find your voice and let it go do its thing.
Pitfall #3: You're intimidated by other singers you know.
My answer to this is that you have no idea how wonderful it is on the other
side of that wall of fear until you push through it. The only question is
how much fun you allow yourself to have in the process. Get yourself
some "secret weapon" instruction and watch people's reaction when
your voice cuts loose!
Big Lie #7 - It takes great effort and the coordination of many varied
muscles to sing correctly.
Truth - If you are having difficulties right now, chances are, you actually
have TOO MANY muscles trying to help! Singing "as designed" is easier
than doing it wrong, and gives you more satisfying results.
A large part of the "difficulty" most people experience in their singing starts
inside their own brains. Don't get me wrong. It's not ALL in their brains,
but it usually starts there. They trick themselves out. It usually happens like
this:
A singer gets hold of a song they like and it has one of those high notes that
sounds very impressive on the radio. That high note is part of the reason they
bought the song to try and sing. They put it on and start to sing along and as
they approach the big moment, they realize that they are approaching the end
of their range!
What do they do then? They make a choice.
Possibility #1: They "go for it," pulling up their chest voice and just blasting
through it. Of course if it's not too far above their break point, they either
make it and feel pain, or they don't make it and falsetto kicks in (usually
embarrassing them).
Possibility #2: It's right on the edge of their break and they make it but they
are never sure they'll make it the next time. They always feel insecure about it.
So...the next time rolls around
They try the song again, and as they approach the note that's supposed to
make them feel great, a strange dread and fear kicks in. They begin to "work
up to it" in their mind.
Their neck begins to show veins. The muscles under the chin jump in to help
also. (I've had students tell me that their entire neck and back hurts after
singing!) They may even begin to breathe irregularly, reducing oxygen supply
to the areas that need it.
So here they are in a wrestling match with their own bodies, wondering
why singing is so "hard."
The truth is, by the time their minds tell them how hard it is to hit this high
note, they've enlisted every muscle in the region to "help" and all those
muscles jump on board. The trouble is--it causes more strain and can even
do damage to the tiny muscles that actually make the sound.
Part of what Brett Manning has to teach singers caught in this trap, involves
some exercises to dis-engage all those external muscles so they get out of the
voice's way.
To show you what I mean, try one of Brett's simple exercises here:
Start on a comfortable note and sing "la, la, la" up the scale until you get
just past the limit of "comfortable" and then return down the scale.
Now place the flat of your thumb under your chin and press upward
VERY slightly. Sing the same scale again and chances are, you'll feel the
muscles under your chin start to press your thumb downward. These muscles
are NOT needed for singing, and in fact they only add to your strain.
This time go up the scale and try to consciously keep those muscles from
pressing against your thumb. You may not be able to get them to relax
without doing some of the other exercises in Brett's program to get the
strain off your vocal cords. But most likely you WILL be able to do this,
and you'll notice that your voice enjoys this new sensation.
Big Lie #8 - Singing is just a skill, like law or accounting, and thus
can be educated into someone.
Truth - Music, especially something as personal as singing, is more than
a degree to earn. It is connected deeply to the soul and has the ability to
move people on a deeper level than most other "mundane" things on earth.
This LIE has an opposite which is equally a LIE. There are actually 2
ditches to avoid beside the road!
One tells you that singing is just a "skill people learn and a degree people
earn!" It says that you just have to take the right courses and you can put
the diploma on the wall and begin your "practice."
As far as I'm concerned, the established education system is to blame for
this lie.
What's strange is that, once the joy of singing has been beaten from the body
of most singers who make it through the college program, they have little
left to them except a teaching career of some sort. So to some degree, this
is a "true" lie. You get your degree and then you can start your "practice"
of teaching others to do what you did.
But if you desire to sing well, a degree will guarantee you absolutely nothing
toward your goal.
To be fair, there is a ditch on the other side of the road also: It tells you that
you shouldn't do any "study" at all. Just do it! Just sing! This normally comes
from a fear of the other ditch. "They'll mess up my sound."
If I must fall into the ditch, this is the one I prefer. That's because I'm a "free
spirit" who likes to float on inspiration. But this ditch is not the truth either.
So you need to stay out of both ditches to make progress.
You should indeed "just do it" and never stop (unless you have damaged
your voice--then you need some vocal rest first). But you CAN learn how
to improve and sharpen your abilities for the rest of your life.
The best illustration I can think of is this: Imagine I found a painter beside
the road who was doing portraits. He was very good. But he only had 3 tubes
of oil paint. A black, a white, and a brown. So I ask him why he didn't use
more colors. He says "because I only have these three tubes of paint!"
Brett finds singers like this all the time. They say "This is all I've got!" He usually
answers, "You have no idea what you've got." Then he proceeds to give them
more colors to paint with, vocally speaking.
He has no interest in forcing them to paint like Picasso or Rembrandt. He
just wants them to have all the colors they desire. It's very exciting to watch.
Big Lie #9 - To sing with power, especially up high, you need to exert
a great deal of physical effort.
Truth - Your power does NOT come from more force applied. It comes
from utilizing frequencies and airflow in the most efficient way. Archimedes
said, "give me a long enough lever and I can move the earth itself." To get
vocal power, one uses a figurative form of leverage.
When you produce tones in the upper registers the way your voice was
designed, you will use LESS airflow and less force than you do on lower
notes!
There are some simple exercises that automatically train your vocal cords
to stop stretching and straining and start "zipping up" for the high notes.
Then you will necessarily use less air to produce tone.
WHY? Because the little half inch space through which all the air flows
when speaking and singing actually get's even smaller! So if the cords
close off half their vibrating length, you should expect to use only half the
air to produce tone.
The cords will actually close off even more length and shift into "whistle
range" way up high (like Mariah Carey's signature sounds).
So with only half the airflow going through the cords, it should be even
easier to sing a high note than lower notes. So why does it feel so difficult?
Because many a singer tries to get 2nd gear results by staying in 1st gear!
If you don't train your cords to "zip up," you only have one other alternative
to reaching higher notes--and that's stretching the vocal cord muscles tighter!
Now, what do you do to produce more power?
Once you have learned to easily move into the higher notes, you can apply
more airflow as needed to produce more volume. It will feel like "leaning
into the note." The key is to regularly do some exercises that keep you from
venturing back into the "try harder to get louder" mindset.
And there's another way to increase the "size" of your sound!
It's called "formant." This is a lost vocal art that's coming back. It involves
experimenting with the shape of the mouth and throat until you find a
"resonating frequency" that causes the sound waves to actually double and
sometimes TRIPLE one another!
To illustrate this, the next time you are in the shower, you can find the
shower's "resonating frequency" by starting to sing "ooooh" down low and
sliding slowly up in pitch until you reach a pitch that makes the shower
seem to "fill" with the sound.
Stop there and sing that pitch and you'll notice that the entire shower
becomes part of your voice!
If you could change the dimensions of the shower, you could eventually
get the same effect on all notes! Fortunately, you CAN change the shape
of the inside of your mouth and throat and find THEIR "resonating frequency."
This can cause a doubling of your vocal volume without any extra push
whatsoever.
Originally published November 14, 2010.
