Cuno is right. The advice about going back for LaBrie voice ahs worked for 99% of the singers I've shown.But, as you know, we are physical, mental instruments. So what works for one person might not necessarily wirk for another. I get hundreds of questions via email, where people are like "but, Jaime, it is so much easier if I adjust this or that." Well, that's right. People must realize that I am not needed along every step of the way. If changing an adjustment to suit your voice works better than the basic groundwork I've layed, then you must take it upon yourself to make that change. As long as it doesn't hurt, you are fine. Also, funny you should mention Tell No Tales, because Harnell and I talked last week on the phone and I believe we were discussing the day he recorded that exact song ;)

JV

So how did you learn how to manipulate your vocal tract so much and what kinds fo exercises did you work on to do it? Were you studying with Badiene at the time or someone else? Who? Thanks! :)

Denis

Believe it or not, I actually taught myself how to do a lot of this stuff. Badiene helped out with some things, but a lot I just discovered on my own by imitating the tone of other singers and trying to apply all the science behind the voice to my singing. I had wierd lessons with Badiene. We didn't work on my voice much, lol. Instead, I would bring in clips of other singers and ask her to show me how they approached the note. She would explain it to me and show it to me in her own voice. She would show me different sounds side by side so that I could hear the difference. She would say "it's this one, not that one", and show me what she meant. She knows how to manipulate the vocal tract very well. Although she doesn't describe things in a technical manner using the scientific terms, she still knows how to do it. She showed me just how easy it was to go back and forth between different coordinations and the different properties each had. I just applied the science to it to figure out what I was actually doing in ways that I could remember.

Other singers (whether amateur of professional) are your best friends right now. Listen to as many singers and as many styles of music as you can. Note the similarities and differences between singers. Listen to the tones they use, and see if you can imitate. Listen to their vowels and in what ranges they use particular vowels and tonal colors. Compare your voice to theirs. That's how I ended up learning so much about my own voice and other people's voices. It didn't matter to me if it was a male or female singing, I would copy them. By copying sounds, you'll come to know all the different ways you can move the muscles in your throat and how these different movements will modify the sound. I actually figured out how to get my high notes by copying female belters in their upper ranges. I figured out low notes by listening to Josh Groban and opera singers. I figured out the middle by listening to certain opera singers and some female belters like Whitney Houston and Celine Dion and people that just in general sing well. I figured out how to power into my falsetto by imitating the way Badiene does her high B. Everything I know how to do, I learned through imitation and/or experimentation. Once you can copy sounds, you should play around with them to see exactly how much you can modify the sound -- meaning how much you can make it darker or brighter without losing the general quality. That will include raising the larynx, lowering the larynx, opening the mouth more as in a smile, keeping the corners of the mouth more relaxed, puckering the lips, etc. As you play around with sounds, you will notice some things leads to constriction and other things lead to interesting colors that you may not have thought of before.