Hey guys, welcome back again to Ken Tamplin Vocal Academy, Where the PROOF is in the Singing!
Today we’re going to be discussing how not to sing with a froggy sound. How not to sound
like this when we sing. And I want to say a couple of things that are very, very important
first. Now, anyone can raise their hand to be a vocal coach, and there’s a lot of conflicting
information out there, especially on YouTube. So how can you tell what information is legit,
and what isn’t? The only way to really tell is to ask yourself two very important questions:
First, does the vocal coach that’s giving the information Sing? Demonstrate a Lot of
Styles of Singing? And do they Sing Well? Can they Prove Out their Method?
Do they have students that sing, and sing well? So it’s not just the coach singing,
but do they display students that sing, and sing well? That’s the only true way you’ll
be able to identify, or test whether or not the information that they’re giving you
isn't something that they just got from someone else’s course and they're redistributing it,
or they read it from some textbook somewhere… But do they really have an understanding how
to teach you? Because if they can’t do it themselves, and they show no students doing
it, they certainly can’t teach you how to do it correctly.
Here at Ken Tamplin Vocal Academy, we have over 300 videos of myself and several dozen
students singing, and singing well, proving out what we teach.
With that said, we’re going to talk about frogginess, or how to get rid of the froggy
sound in our throat.
Now, there’s several laryngeal positions, the position of the larynx, and there's
positions of the pharynx. Now I’m not going to go through all of these, but I want to
give you a couple of really cool, quick tips. Now, I personally like to start people out
with a lowered laryngeal position. What does that mean? I’ll explain in a second. Ultimately,
we actually do want to be in a neutral position, and again, here’s some conflicting information
on the Internet: that you should ALWAYS sing in a neutral state. Well, sometimes that’s
true, but sometimes it’s not, and I’m gonna demonstrate what I mean in a minute. But,
in order to be able to train a person that has a froggy tone to their voice, or a propensity,
or tendency to sing with a froggy tone, that usually happens as we start to go up, or ascend
in a scale or a passage. Let me show you. So if we did a typical triad on an AH vowel,
Lah, Ah, Ah, AH, Ah, Ah, Ahhhh. You may start with a lowered larynx position, laryngeal position, and it
may even go into a neutral larynx position. But what happens is as you go up into a scale,
you force into the throat, and you force the sound. So, Lahhhhhhhhhhhhh! You have this
froggy, you know, strictured sound. Well, what we do is we train the larynx to stay
in a lowered state, not a neutral state, a lowered state, and once we’ve mastered that
state, then we can relax that state into a neutral state, to get it to relax, because
we have full, total control over it. So I’ll start with the guys first, and ladies,
I’ll get to you second, in your registration. Guys, train the throat to go “AH!” Like
the Doctor wants to see your tonsils. Ah! Lah!
Lah, Ah, Ah, AH, Ah, Ah, Ahhhh. Force that throat to stay open and low. Ah! Ah! Ah! Like
the Doctor wants to see your tonsils. Lah, Ah, Ah, AH, Ah, Ah, Ahhhh
Lah, Ah, Ah, AH, Ah, Ah, Ahhhh Lah, Ah, Ah, AH, Ah, Ah, Ahhhh
Did you notice that my tongue has dropped to the base of the jaw and I’m creating
the maximum amount of space in the back of the throat as possible? Well, I’m forcing
the larynx to stay in a lowered position. Now, here’s what it would sound like in
neutral state, after we’ve mastered that… We would go: Lah, Ah, Ah, AH, Ah, Ah, Ahhhh
So it’s not ah, it’s AH, more like “Uh” , like “love”… Ahhhh!
Lah, Ah, Ah, AH, Ah, Ah, Ahhhh Lah, Ah, Ah, AH, Ah, Ah, Ahhhh
so ladies, for you, it would sound something like this: La ah ah UH… Hear that? UH kind
of sound in the throat? So, you are going to want to, again, work towards lowering what
I call the sound board, or your laryngeal position.
Lah, Ah, Ah, AH, Ah, Ah, Ahhhh Lah, Ah, Ah, AH, Ah, Ah, Ahhhh
Lah, Ah, Ah, AH, Ah, Ah, Ahhhh You want to really drop this, the floorboard,
or the sound board of that, and train it lower, and then eventually you are going to allow
it to go into a relaxed state. This is an awesome trick, and an awesome tip
to help keep you from a froggy or raised laryngeal position.
So, if you like what you heard, please LIKE and SUBSCRIBE to my videos, and we have more
videos coming your way, here at Ken Tamplin Vocal Academy. Peace. Out.