THE VOICE CONNECTION
SOUND OFF

Welcome to The Voice Connection Sound Off; a forum for users of books like Raise Your Voice, Melody to Madness, The Ultimate Breathing Workout, and Unleash Your Creative Mindset, as well as a place for Vendera Vocal Academy members to interact.

This message board was created so that singers could come together and "sound off" to help support each other during vocal development and the creative process of unleashing the creative spark that occurs when writing and producing music. Currently, myself and vocal coaches Ben Valen, Ray West, and Ryan Wall are here to respond periodicially to your questions, with new vocal coaches coming soon. But, feel free to help each other too:)

This board is here for you to ask questions about my and my fellow coach's books, videos, and MP3 programs, as well as offer others help with our vocal techniques. You may also post videos of yourself and your band to share your music and ask for critiques.

Please refrain from negative comments, profanities, spamming, and inappropriate criticisms of vocal methodologies, vocal coaches, and singers. All negative posts will be deleted and subject to banning without question. I will not respond to negative posts, because, as Mark Twain once said, “Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.” With that said, positive criticism is welcome because that is how you'll grow as a singer during the training process.


The Voice Connection - Sound Off
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Right here Adam!

Okay, I am posting here, because I want to get in more detail than I can on Facebook :-)

You break into falsetto because you do not have the coordination to keep the fold together as you ascend in pitch - you will gain these with RYV IF - BIG IF - you perform the exercises correctly.

Ultimate Vocal Warm Up + VSR
You can download Jaime's Ultimate Vocal Warm Up for free on his site - it may even be with the freebie files when you logged into the members area- I don't remember. The VSR is the breathing and stretching excercises that begins on page 205. Vocalize while you stretch and mentally "disconnect" your sound production from any other tensions - isolate it in your mind. He starts off with Hums - which are great for feeling out resonance, one of Jaime's colleagues, Brett Manning, mentions that "You never see anyone walking down the street, humming with trouble and tension - they are simply humming" It's helpful to make sure your tongue is flat and relaxed, touching the back of your front, bottom teeth, and just laying there like it's asleep. Keep the hum in your mouth, don't let it drop into your throat - if you have to go lower, roll the sound out of your mouth, let the sound get stuck in your lips - and keep the weight of the sound pressure off your nice and connected folds that are producing a crisp tone. Remember to stay relaxed, we don't want a stiff, tight, staccato Hmm, Hmm, Hmm, etc - one nice continuous Hmmmmmmm - but controlled so we don't release all our air like and untied balloon. Then you get into lip bubbles and such - he explains it all.

Falsetto Slides
READ THE INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY!!! YES, this is called a Falsetto Slide - but it is not a true, breathy - open glottis falsetto (read the section on falsetto, Chapter 5, Understanding Falsetto)It is a light, connected phonation. This is where Chapter 2 - Vocal Focus and Palate placement REALLY comes into play. Remember this as you place your sound - The folds have depth as well as height and width. The thin layer of cartilage that actually produces the sound sits on the top, on the ridge of "vocal canyon". And air moves upward like lava in a lava lamp, moving the depth of the fold out of the way as it rises. If you try to think about just touching the tops of the canyon together, so that the rest of the "rock" as away for the air to pass, then you will get a purer, thinner tone - that resonates and becomes beautifully full as it travels through your throat, into the pharyngeal resonator where it hits your palate, and then fills the mouth resonator with sound. Remember the "Voice as a triangle" on page 68 - as you want to add more "depth" to the tone, add more depth of fold. Some vowels will also incorporate darker color and depth naturally without effort. Just remember LIGHT, CONNECTED phonation. USE the audio files in the members area - mimic the tones, feel it create the resonance/sound pressure up in the top, back of your mouth, where your palate makes a cup, then flow like water out of your mouth. Feel the nice vibrant, solid tone coming from your folds - not a forced tone, but an allowed tone. This exercise is done on Yah and oo-oo-oo because of the vowel shapes, one is wide/heavy, one is narrow/light so you learn how to manage the two extremes. (A note on vowels - in singing they are more than just the well known spoken vowels, some research on phonetic vowels may help you to understand how they interact with resonators).

Transcending Tones:
Everyone's favorite (LOL, not) These start you out in a nice, open glottis falsetto - then we bring the glottis together for a connected tone similar to the falsetto slide (Open glottis = falsetto, connected glottis = singing, connected glottis plus optimized resonance via support and breath control = full voice) - and then begin to grow the sound adding breath support and fold depth as the tone dictates - follow the resonance, let it guide you forward. Resist the urge to shout, or allow your yelling muscles to engage - we just want to turn up the slider on the fullness of our voice. KEEP A SINGLE PITCH - this is the hardest part of the exercise, as we naturally want to ascend as tone grows. Let the volume swell as you increase support It's really a lot simpler than most of us make it out to be - and really works your fold compression and breath support balance. As always - everything is focused toward and bouncing off the palate

Sirens:
Just relaxed, sliding octave scales. Again, follow the resonance, follow the buzz, let it guide you - support the tone, let it slide forward and back like water at the beach, ebb and flow, forward and back, in and out. Keep the tone connected and vibrant, almost crisp with perfect compression - not too heavy, not to light, JUST enough for the pitch and tone to resonate. More intention makes it louder, not more force - this is where the power push comes in, it adds intent - or kinetic energy, and while maintaining proper support and resonance, it will increase volume and velocity without engaging the shouting muscles. Again - keep it focused into and bouncing off the palate.

Like I said on FB, make mental notes when things feel good. Make mental notes as you speak throughout the day as well, where you place certain words, where certain vowels place themselves - syllable by syllable, so you can work WITH your natural voice, and not against it. More often than not, a little will go a long way. If you are naturally a very chesty, or heavy chord speaker, then it will take some time to get the "fine motor skills" of using the fold for singing. Don't give up - lighten up. Think silly opera or choir boy. Many people even suggest bending over to help with highs - so I sing while I clean, lots of bending over, you get to feel how it effects your tone and resonance.

There's a full 7 week program outline on page 255 and the VERY IMPORTANT 7 Point System on page 261

U CAN DU EET!

Re: Right here Adam!

Thank you Diane. I'm very grateful for the amount of effort and detail you've gone into. Amazing!

Re: Right here Adam!

That's some seriously good summarization.
Quick question. Been doing the ultimate vocal warm up for some time now, and I do get the crazy buzz with the hums...but it kinda disappears when I move into higher registers and transition to the falsetto equivalent for humming.
Is this natural or do I need to consciously try to maintain the buzz no matter how high I go?

Thanks~~

Re: Right here Adam!

Hahaha, now see, Diane, this post is awesome and soooo much better suited here than on FB. At least in the RYV member's section, you are dealing with singers who are really studying RYV. And BTW- I'll get with you soon for that Skype session I owe you:)