Musicality World

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You have to walk before you can run. In the world of singing, this translates to being able to hold one note before attempting to sing your favourite opera. We’re going to give you a simple yet very effective exercise to get you started and lay down the foundation for learning to pitch and sing in tune.

Listen to the episode:

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Links and Resources

• Learning to Sing in Tune, with George Bevan
• Music@Monkton
• The SingTrue app
• The Choir Who Can’t Sing, by George Bevan
• 11 Tips to Help the “Tone Deaf” Sing in Tune

Transcript

Today we’re going to talk about finding “your note”. This is an exercise which George Bevan from the Music@Monkton blog developed, to help people who think they can’t sing to take their first steps to becoming a capable and confident singer. We talked about it in our recent interview here on the podcast.

If you’ve ever worried that you can’t sing at all, or you have a friend who’s convinced they’re tone deaf, the exercise I’m going to explain will be really useful for you.

I first spoke to George a few years back when we were developing SingTrue, our interactive app to help you learn to sing. I was so impressed by his approach we implemented his idea of “Finding Your Note” as one of the first exercises inside the app – and since then almost half a million people have used it to find their note and take their first step to singing.

It is a simple exercise – but it’s powerful.

When somebody joins Musical U and tells us they can’t sing in tune, we explain that there are two possible causes. The first is the voice – do you have basic vocal control, to make your voice produce the pitch you want it to. And the second is the ears – are you clearly hearing the pitch you’re aiming for, and accurately hearing whether your singing is on target or not.

This “Find Your Note” exercise tackles just the voice part: being able to sing just one note and hold its pitch. There’s more to come after, in terms of matching pitch to a note you heard, and having good vocal control to move between pitches accurately. Those are things we having training modules for inside Musical U. But none of that’s any use if you’re convinced you can’t sing a note!

The trouble is that most people jump ahead about seven steps. They immediately try to sing a song, maybe in the car or at karaoke night, and they’re surprised and disappointed when all the pitches don’t come out right!

That’s kind of crazy. First you need to be able to sing one note. Then you need to learn how to sing other notes and control your voice well as you move between them. Then you can worry about verses and choruses and lyrics and everything else!

George’s exercise is built on a key insight: we actually all have some degree of vocal control, whether we know it or not. As you listen to me talking right now, my voice is going up and down in pitch, as part of how I convey meaning with my words. My voice is moving through part of my vocal range, and it’s producing the different pitches that my brain intends.

So clearly we do all have a foundation for singing. Otherwise we would all talk like robots.

Unfortunately most people’s experience of checking if they can sing is to be played a note, often on piano, and then be asked to sing that back. That seems simple enough, but even that is actually skipping a couple of steps!

George spins that around. Instead of hearing a specific note and trying to sing it, he begins by having the student sing – and then tells them what that note is!

Now we can’t do this exercise fully right here because unfortunately podcasts aren’t interactive! But I’m going to talk you through it and tell you how to do it in full.

The goal of this exercise is to find just one pitch that you can comfortably sing. We’re going to call this “Your Note”. And you’ll know that whatever happens, singing Your Note will always feel easy and comfortable.

Here it goes. I’m going to ask you to sing “ahhhh” – on whatever pitch comes out. We know you can do it because you can speak. It’s like being at the dentist: “say ahh”.

So relax. Take a breath. And just sing a pitch, whatever note comes out.

How did it go?

With the SingTrue app you automatically now get told the name of that note. If you’re doing this exercise with a musical friend they can use an instrument and their ear to identify the note you just sang. Or you can also use a digital instrument tuner or a tuner app on your phone to identify the note.

Were you too nervous to sing? Try this instead: you remember the robot?

First say “Hi, my name is Jeff” (or whatever your name is).

Now say it in a monotone voice like a robot and hold the last word: “Hi my name is Jeeeeeeefff”.

That last sound you made was a note.

In my case “Jeeeeeeefff” was an F#.

Unfortunately in a podcast I can’t tell you the name of the note *you* sang – but rest assured, it was a note! And you can use the methods I just mentioned to find its name.

From there, you can try singing another note, a bit higher or lower. And we can start to build on that with, developing your ability to match pitch and have vocal control. You’ve sung one note, there’s no reason you can’t sing many more, all in tune. In the SingTrue app and our training modules inside Musical U we build on this, to producing a clear and steady pitch, and then beginning to match the pitch you sing to be the same as a specific pitch you hear. There’s lots of visual feedback to show you if you’re getting it right or wrong, and exercises for your ears to help you develop that side of things.

Sometimes people get a bit hung up, so I want to clarify: “Your Note” isn’t set in stone! While we name it like that, it’s entirely possible that if you do the exercise again tomorrow you’ll get a slightly different note. But we have put a pin in the range of all possible pitches and found that yes, you can sing a note that’s about this pitch. It’s not a defining characteristic of you forever more – just a strong starting point.

Naturally George also has a much more fully-developed process he uses in person with students. But personally I just love this initial exercise: to show you that if you can talk, you can sing. At least one note!

From there it’s a matter of building up your ability step-by-step. Singing isn’t all or nothing! Just because you can’t yet sing a whole song totally in tune it doesn’t mean you can’t sing.

If you’ve just gone through this “Find Your Note” exercise with me then you know you can sing one note. And there can be many more to follow.

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The post About Finding Your Note appeared first on Musical U.

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Because vocal instruction was going on long before researchers had the ability to look at what was going on anatomically, not everything passed down from teacher to teacher over the years has been accurate. As a result, vocalists have been particularly susceptible to misconceptions and fear mongering about vocal health.

Myth 1: You Should Sing From Your Diaphragm

I can’t tell you how many students come in who’ve been told by “experts” that their voice isn’t working well because they aren’t singing from their diaphragm. Unfortunately, this doesn’t mean what the experts think it does.

The Facts:

This weird direction is based on a number of useful vocal tools, but here’s why it doesn’t really mean anything. The diaphragm is a dome-like sheet of muscle that attaches to the bottom part of your thorax, or chest cavity, and is mostly an involuntary muscle. When you inhale, your diaphragm will contract and flatten, making room for air to rush into your lungs. When you exhale, your diaphragm will rise and dome again. Let me say that another way. No matter how you control your air, and no matter how you sing, your diaphragm will always (mostly unconsciously) be doing work.

Many people believe that your diaphragm is located in some vague spot in your belly and that you can “sing from your diaphragm” by jamming your belly out on your inhalation. Others believe that sucking in your stomach as you sing your note is the way to make the magic happen.

It isn’t wrong to say that you should be using breath control and that your belly should be moving, but even these aren’t very helpful instructions. When you inhale during singing, you typically want to allow your ribcage to open and your belly to relax. On your exhalation, you want to hold back some air and keep your ribcage open, so that your diaphragm rises more slowly. This way, you’ll get a more powerful, clear-toned sound instead of one muffled by air. Don’t worry: you don’t even need to know where or what your diaphragm is to make this happen.

Myth 2: Your Larynx Should Remain Low or Neutral at All Times

I believed this one for years because I got Speech Level Singing training as a teenager. You’ll often hear that there’s a specific position your larynx, or voice box, should remain in. Sometimes it’s low, sometimes neutral. Rarely do you hear anyone say it should stay in a high position.

The Facts:

Your larynx should be allowed to move around freely when you sing. For the extremes of your high range, even if you’re singing opera, your larynx needs to rise a little bit, and for the extremes of your low range, your larynx needs to fall a little bit. Learning to move your larynx around is important for stylistic purposes as well. While a mostly low larynx might be perfect for opera, it would sound absurd in a performance of “American Idiot”. And while a mostly high larynx is great for alternative rock, you don’t want to show up for your Met audition with that tone.

Allowing your larynx to move around is perfectly healthy, as long as you’re well supported and your false vocal folds remain unconstricted.

Myth 3: If You’re a Female Vocalist Who Can’t Sing High, You Are an Alto (or Contralto)

This one tends to be propagated mainly by choir directors. There are more sopranos than altos if we’re categorizing singers according to the Fach system, but directors will (understandably) find it more expedient to simply put everyone who isn’t comfortable with high notes in the alto section to help fill it out.

The Facts:

If you can’t sing high, there’s a very good chance you’re a soprano who hasn’t had much vocal training on high notes. Fach has to do with vocal weight and color as much as it has to do with high notes. High notes are something you can learn to hit by working on breath control and learning to thin out your vocal folds. So while it isn’t inaccurate to say you’re in the alto section in your choir, it’s important to note that you may be perfectly capable of singing soprano vocal literature once you train your voice in that direction.

Myth 4: If You Sing Classical (or SLS, or Any One Technique or Genre) You Can Sing Anything

I hear this one a lot. “You should start with classical training, and then you’ll be able to sing the music you love in a healthier way.” Or more recently, “You can apply Speech Level Singing to any type of music.”

The Facts:

Well, yes, you can apply classical voice or SLS to any style of music. But then you’ll sound like an SLS singer (usually characterized by a lovely clear-toned mixed voice without much edge) or a classical singer (usually characterized by a lower larynx and a more head-voice dominant sound in women) trying to sing rock.

Don’t get me wrong: there are very important crossovers. Pitch, great support, and breath control technique, along with vocal health musts like false fold retraction, are important in most styles you’d want to sing. But if you want to be a pop singer, you should focus heavily on learning to sing pop music, along with all the ins and outs of pop stylization. If you want to sing Disney or contemporary musical theatre, like Jason Robert Brown, SLS is a fantastic way to go. And if you want to sing opera and other forms of classical music, then by all means, focus on classical training.

Myth 5: Vocal Damage is Always due to Poor Technique

There’s something about vocal training that leads to a strange form of Puritanism. When a great athlete gets injured, the public doesn’t immediately start preaching about his or her poor technique and training.

But vocal injuries tend to be met with Internet comment sections full of sanctimonious musings on what things would look like “if only Adele had used healthy technique!” or “learned to use her diaphragm!” or (weirdly) “stopped using vocal fry!” Listening to the peanut gallery, you almost get a sense that a lot of people vindictively feel that the singer got what she deserved.

The Facts:

Look, don’t get me wrong. Unhealthy vocal technique can and does lead to vocal injuries. In fact, if Adele had been gently crooning all her songs instead of belting night after night on tour, it’s likely her voice would have held up longer (and also that fewer people would be listening to her, but that’s a whole different argument). In any case, it’s not that simple.

There are a wide variety of factors that lead to vocal injuries – particularly singing on tour night after night, regardless of your health and energy level. Singing when you’re stressed, when you’re worn out, when you haven’t gotten enough sleep or had enough water, and particularly when you have a preexisting vocal condition, like a bacterial infection you’re trying to fight off, can lead to trauma. While your technique might be fairly solid at the beginning of a tour, exhaustion and wear from illness and constant use can lead to over-pushing and tension.

Be a Vocal Mythbuster

The vocal world is full of misinformation. In fact, this post contains just a few of many myths that have been passed down from voice teacher to voice teacher over the years.

Molly Webb is a well respected and sought-after vocal teacher who runs a nonprofit music school based in Southern California and maintains a music blog. She’s about to launch an instructional video series on singing and a low-cost subscription service that will allow people all over the world to get quick feedback and pointers on their singing.

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