hey chris liepe here with guest marc martel thank you for being here my
pleasure and we're talking about how you sing lots of really challenging songs
and are able to sing them all the way through and really well yep and you don't get tired
if we want to go even deeper with you particularly on these topics right what should we do often
starts with evoke a good vocal warm-up which you can get uh it's called mark martell's vocal
warm-up so that your voice doesn't bite the dust and you can join that free course by clicking the
link below okay so how do you last a long time singing even before a vocal warm-up for me it's
so important for me to be in shape um to make sure that i'm getting enough cardio and core
is cardio and core is the main thing that i focus on when i'm working out i try to work out
three to four times a week if i can um and it's just a lot of i don't what's it called light
hit training what did you call it uh interval training interval training um circuit training
circuit training go for a run every now and then um because to sing difficult songs you
just your body needs that energy to to pull from that's just something that i hold as even more
important honestly than a good vocal warm-up is that consistency and being in tune with your body
and being consistently in shape especially when i'm performing the music of queen it's so physical
um you can't just stand in one place behind a microphone when you're singing that kind of music
and so i need to know that i've my body can do what it what it needs to do on stage and you
mentioned earlier that you're not a big fan of like weight training as much as you are
yeah uh consistent moderate level cardio stuff what i do some weight training i do
like lightweight training i i my goal is not to get big muscles but just to be to stay lean
and to have good cardio capacity lots of breath in my lungs when i need it for big long notes
um and uh to to make sure that that my legs can carry me in various positions and uh i'm
up and down and i'm often even running on stage and and running and singing as you know is no
easy task yeah you're training for a sport yeah absolutely absolutely it's very physical it's
very aerobic and athletic one thing i look look for in my training is uh to prepare myself for
the need for sudden bursts of energy like sometimes i go for a run and i'll do like
a run walk thing like where i walk for a minute and then i'll sprint for a minute because that is
essentially what it's like to be on stage you're not going hard the whole time you do a slow song
and then you do a fast song and you need to be able to have those momentary bursts of energy to
meet the song where it takes you so examining your overall cardio health muscular health and
being able to tap into that kind of training and use it on stage that's a big thing for you yeah
what about in the actual performance in in how you plan out your your your lines your songs your
vocal energy yeah because that's a finite resource with every song especially on stage in the studio
it's a different different story you can you can punch in you can cut you can take breaks
absolutely as long as you want day-long breaks if you want but on stage you really gotta pick
your your moments and really analyze the songs that you're singing and pick the the moments that
even in the record if people know a recording of a song that is super intense the whole way through
when you're performing it live you probably don't need to be intense all the way through and there's
certain you know maybe a couple special wow moments where you know that people are going to be
waiting for you to hit that one the way that they know it and so you pick your moments you call it
vocal budget vocal budgeting there you go the prime example for me is actually tony bennett i
got to see tony bennett a couple years ago and the guy is almost every song the formula seems to be
kind of keep it at like you know 30 to 60 percent for most of the song and then
right near the end the last chorus he goes for broke and it's just it's just um an exaggerated
example of what i mean when it's your vocal you're budgeting that vocal you don't need
to be going for broke for the whole song but you don't often have that luxury when you're singing
freddy songs all the way through i mean singing a tony bennett song he builds that in how how do you
do that in the midst of having to sing a song that does have notes all the way through right
thankfully um there are many in my particular case there are many recordings and videos
floating around of freddie mercury changing the melodies to his voice and occasionally
i'll dip into a lower on a note that is recorded originally higher but still make that that note
sing part of the character exactly and so you're you're building in moments throughout a song and
even throughout a set where you can sort of catch your breath in the middle of the song
so that you can save up for that one money note or a couple money notes within the song
right and so modifying that melody maybe even uh going up into head voice for a minute when
you would in the recording normally like peg it in a massive chest voice thing yep you're making
those decisions right surrounding it with with uh these big glorious moments so the audience really
doesn't notice also because you're so involved that's right and what you're doing is yeah
it's part of the show exactly the people are as much looking at what you're doing with your body
than what they're hearing from your voice and i'll give you a specific example in the song radio gaga
uh i believe it's the pre-chorus you had your time you had the power you've yet to have
your finest hour now i think that happens three times in the song if i'm not mistaken and i will
usually give them that range of that passage at least once in the song and most of the time at
least one of them i'll do lower i'll do you had your time you have the power you've yet to have
so that gives me a good five to ten seconds of a vocal break instead of tiring myself out
even more and if i'm feeling extra tired that day i'll do two of them at the lower pitch so you can
you can still have fun with a note that people are expecting to be higher but make
it interesting lower so it really boils down to listening to your body in the moment yeah and
almost being your mind is one step ahead of your your physical voice so if you if you're feeling
like okay in the context of what's coming you can you can really you know spend your energy on that
note maybe you will but it's learning that balance and that's what gets you through these songs
and personally i don't like changing the melody like i want to be as close to what people want
to hear as possible because i'm a people pleaser i guess um and i i remember the first time that
brian may came to one of our shows after the show he said he's like wow you you really went
for all those high notes didn't you i'm like yeah i don't i don't like to i don't like to
give people less than i think that they want from me but it's nice to build in those little
escape routes inside of a song so how often do you get done with a performance like that and go
maybe i push myself a little too much i hope i can get through i mean does that happen
it happens yeah especially in a string of shows usually if it's one or two shows back to back
i i'm at the point now where i've done the music enough where i know that i can do it pretty much
as hard as i want and still be okay if i know i've got a break after the second show and that's vocal
training yeah absolutely yeah you you build up to that um that's just that just comes with a lot
of singing the very last thing that you have this is something that you've been doing more recently
um managing your airflow better like this this is the thing that yeah uh has helped
you work up to that uh ability to really go what looks like all out but it's not really
all out right over the last year and a half i've really figured out how to use compression to my
my advantage and not tiring myself so much i'm straining less i've got i've still got grit and
rasp in my voice so you're balancing the air and in with the use of compression you actually
appear and even sound more intense that's the thing but you're using you're actually using
less air you're using more pressure yeah i'm conserving my energy but still managing to get
a more pleasing raspy less kind of annoying sort of uh rasp out and it's actually in
in the work that we've done this week your voice when you're when you're really doing
that is actually quieter so you can see it's like right you're conserving yet you also
sound more uh more pleasingly aggressive it's a really neat really neat uh give us an example
uh even just like one note of how you know going all out on a note versus using
subtle compression right and then using a little bit more compression to get that rasp somebody
and i think before i learned how to do that that way it was more like somebody
now that's an exaggeration but it was more towards that but you can see the
you can see that you're like blowing more air and you can see tension in your face like you look
more pained yeah instead of free absolutely you're still holding back air you're still compressing
on that first one yeah really well but it's it's a cleaner higher placed right compression
it's more pure sounding and honestly it it comes across as more energetic because
of your countenance yeah and because your voice sounds more agile i look more relaxed
and it's it's small adjustments really like what those two things i gave you that was
the second one was definitely an exaggeration i didn't sing quite like that sure but just
figuring out how to just make a little adjustment in where i placed my rasp has helped a huge
ton that's awesome we talk a lot more about that in your journey with that in our course that we've
done together if you want to go even deeper with mark click that link below it all starts with
how you warm up yeah join his free warm-up course what's it called again mark martell's vocal warm
up so that you your voice doesn't bite the dust i almost got it awesome we'll see you for more