A Nutshell

At the end of a solid four-hour teaching stretch, I had reached a point that torturers must refer to as ‘saturation’. When I asked my student why he thought his voice got louder after singing a song ten or so times? (loudness seemed to be his singular goal) he just shrugged his shoulders and offered the guess that he was “warmed up?’. Aaaaaaargh!

His answer is correct. But, I felt like he didn’t realize how he achieved the volume and control he so desired.

At this point (due to the repetition of the day’s content and the sleeplessness from a gig the night before) I was willing to confess all that I knew – in a nutshell. “OK already! This is how your voice works and this is how it all fits together”. If it were as random and simple as – the more you sing, the stronger your voice gets, then, obviously what I’d been bangin’ on about for the last few months wasn’t getting through. Put as simply as I could, this is what I said.

The mother of all singing exercises and the foundation stone upon which all other exercises are built is: a slow release ‘ssssss’ sound. In this simple breathing exercise, you make a long, slow exhale on ‘ssssssss’, last as long and as quietly as you can.

This breathing exercise builds strength in the support muscles for singing (belly / lower back) and reminds us how little breath and effort is required to sustain and stabilize the gentle sound of the ‘ssss’. That’s all you need to sing – no more, no less. Everything else – including volume – is based on this.

If this were the ‘mother’ of all singing exercises, then it would be The Great Grandmother from which we are all descended.

Her daughter (your Grandmother), or the ‘next generation’ singing exercise is: releasing the sound onto a low hum on ‘ng’ (similarly held as long as you can). I do this exercise while stretching, to register where the sound gently sits in my forehead. Regardless of what crazy yoga stretches I am doing with the rest of my body, I feel the source of the sound as tucked away safely in my head – balanced, protected and self-sustaining. Sympathetically, I can also register the other cavities in my body (chest, mouth, belly) that resonate with the sound. It’s easy and feels effortless.

Theory has it that I can last as long as I did on the ‘sssss’ sound on the ‘ng’ also. But, in reality, we tend to want to use more air and thereby, we cannot last as long. It’s fun to sing long held ‘ng’ notes in the bath. The surrounding hard surfaces and the water amplify the ‘ng’, producing a “Look Ma! no hands” sensation as if you’d just discovered how to ride a bike for the first time.

The next generation (The Mother), is releasing the sound onto a vowel (‘e’ is an easy one), and lasting as long as possible. When we do this, we have to make sure that the Number 1 saboteur of sound ‘a tight throat’ doesn’t get in the way. To unblock and open the throat, start silently giggling, then, keep the throat open. It’ll feel like you’ve opened up a huge amount of space in the back of your mouth and neck. You may also see the Adam’s apple drop down and forwards. That’s good!

Contrast three gear shifts in your throat during this exercise to check that your throat really is open on the last gear shift. Start by tightening it (1), then making your throat really relaxed and tired (2), then giggle (3) (see how little time you can spend on the ‘tight’ and tired’ phases). If your throat is opened with the silent giggle, then it will feel like you can hold the note forever.

Finally, there is a ‘dynamic control’ exercise that slowly crescendos then decrescendos a note called ‘Swelling tone’. Because Great Grandmother was the ‘sssss’, Grandma was ‘ng’ and the open throated ‘eeeee’ was your mother, then that makes ‘Swelling tone’ YOUR exercise. This is great because it is your discretion and control that will prove how long, and evenly, you take to get louder then quieter based on the strength you’ve developed from practicing the previous exercises.

On the word ‘kah’, start the sound as quietly as possible, then, swell the note using open-ness, twang and resonance (NOT PUSH!). Then, halfway through, slowly get quieter by sucking the air inwards and using twang for dynamic control (rather than just giving up because you’ve run out of breath, or using more breath to soften the sound).

The image for ‘Swelling Tone’ is of the sound being a pin prick of light in pitch black backdrop, gradually getting brighter and brighter until it’s like high beam headlights, then, slowly fading back to black.

It’s not the amount of singing you do that gives you dynamic control, rather, good technique builds on solid breathing foundations, then builds the skills of good placement, opening the throat, then working twang and open-ness on-top of those strong foundations. These concepts are all related.