I attended a level 1 training conference with Jeanie Lovetri last summer. I felt very aligned with her philosophy on how to teach singing. I learned a lot, and was reminded about how important our body and mind is when we sing. The ability to sing with freedom from tension in the body, is the ability … Read more
Speech level singing can get a bad rap these days. For me, having my first lesson with a SLS instructor over 10 years ago, was true validation. Two main things happened for me: 1. I finally had a coach who was working my entire range at one time. Two and a half octave scales, going … Read more
Hi Jeff, Thanks for writing. Yes, a mixed voice definitely resonates in the throat. If you put your finger on your larynx, you will feel it vibrate. However, the chest voice alone resonates in the throat as well….and this is not mixing….so beware. The true test for mixing is having ability to ascend and descend … Read more
My last post was about the tongue and how it can get in the way when you are singing. When you let your tongue hang out over your bottom lip, it cannot interfere with the back of your throat and stop you from mixing. This is a great way to exercise your voice, although you … Read more
Most singers want to know how their favourite singers get their sound…in other words, how they sing so well. We all want to understand the voices of Steve Perry, Celine Dion, Kelly Clarkson, Adam Lambert. The list goes on and on. It’s a complex question with a complex answer, but one thing is true with … Read more
What I’ve always loved about “speech-level” singing is the impact it has on the singer’s chest voice, especially for the ladies. When we sing low notes, it’s relatively easy to use thick folds, and in general we “thin out” as we ascend higher in pitch. The ability to control the thickness of the cords at … Read more
So now that you are “belly breathing” we need to take you into the sensation of breath support. This is a biggy. What is actually happening is the muscles all around your body (back, ribs, stomach) are engaging to “hold back”, “suspend” and control your breath. Again, this can be very tricky because I don’t … Read more
Most of you have heard of “sing from the diaphragm” or diaphragmatic breathing during the singing. Basically this simply means that the ideal way to control your breath is to engage the diaphragm more fully. Well, we can’t simply tell our diaphragms to work harder, or better, or more efficiently. This usually just causes the … Read more
Breath support is such an interesting feeling. When you tap into the exactness of this coordination with your body, your ability to sing better can explode. The ability to control your voice is what we are talking about here. The ability to manage volume changes, vibrato variations, and change tonal colors are under this umbrella … Read more