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Hi everybody!
My name is Justin Stoney and I'm the founder of
New York Vocal Coaching here in New York City.
Welcome to episode 58 of Voice Lessons To The World.
The show where we want to help you guys as singers
by answering your questions from all over.
And I'll give you a chance to ask questions later
but our question for this week comes from
Aaron K. in Nashville, Tennessee.
And Aaron writes, "Dear Justin, I've heard that it's best to sing legato.
Is this true?"
Now that's a great great great question Erin.
Because legato is a prized skill for singers.
It's so, so important to be able to sing legato.
Whether you're doing classical or pop and rock
or anything in-between, legato is something
that we absolutely need.
So today I'm going to talk about legato
and what you can do to increase it in your voice,
and also give you an exercise later to work on it in your singing.
But first of all what is legato?
Legato is a musical term which means smooth or flowing.
So if I take a major scale on the piano
and play it legato, it sounds like this...
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Now compare that to staccato which is its opposite
which means a short and choppy sound like this...
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You totally hear the difference.
But it's one thing to be able to play
legato or staccato on an instrument.
But it's another thing with the voice.
While there's nothing wrong with staccato, that's great too.
But legato is so difficult.
There's so many benefits to the voice when we can sing legato.
First of all, getting technique over
into your songs is one of them.
I know a lot of you are studying and working hard
on your vocal technique exercises.
And maybe it's going great, you see that you're making
tons of improvement with your voice in technique.
But, it's not translating over into songs like you want.
One of the reasons why is it's missing some legato.
So that's one thing.
There's also if you have legato it will reduce
the squeeze or excessive compression that might
be in your voice.
You'll also have a more effortless sound.
You'll be able to sing longer phrases.
It's going to demand that your breath support,
you're holding of air back with the body,
is increased.
It's going to give you greater control over your voice overall.
And then finally legato singing tends to be more
beautiful than anything else.
So you're going to have a more beautiful sounding voice
if you can master your legato.
So you want all these things in your voice.
I'm sure you do.
So what I'm going to do right now is show you
some legato in a song.
And then we're going to do an exercise in a minute.
I'm going to take "Yesterday" by the Beatles
and show you how legato works in some songs.
So here we go...
♪ Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away ♪
♪ Now it looks as though they're here to stay ♪
♪ Oh I believe in yesterday ♪
♪ Why she had to go I don't know ♪
♪ She wouldn't say ♪
♪ I said something wrong now I long for yesterday ♪
So now that's a legato song it's very smooth,
the lines are long and it's graceful as the lines go on.
But what if I miss some of my legato?
What if I have a little legato problem?
What might happen is something like this...
♪ Why she had to go I don't know ♪
♪ She wouldn't say ♪
♪ I said something wrong now I long for yesterday ♪
Now you heard the difference?
I allowed myself to not have as good of legato.
How did I do it?
I let myself lock up on the consonants more
than I did the first time.
And that's the key thing that gets in the way of people's legato,
is locking on the consonants.
Take a listen again...
♪ Why she had to go I don't know ♪
♪ Had to go I don't know ♪
♪ Why she had to go I don't know ♪
So if I let myself be smooth through the consonants
and not lock on each one,
I get a greater legato line.
So you guys totally hear it in a song.
Legato versus getting locked up and interfering
with the legato line.
So now what I'm going to do is create a very mean
exercise for you where I give you some consonants
that we tend to lock up on,
and give you a chance to move smoothly through them.
This is going to give you a chance to practice being
legato in a very unfriendly situation.
So this exercise is crazy.
We're gonna Boh Goh Doh.
Boh Goh Doh.
And the B, the G, and the D are all things that we
tend to get locked on when we sing.
So it's going to be weird.
We're gonna do this...
♪ Boh - Goh - Doh ♪
With the tendency of course being...
♪ Boh - Goh - Doh ♪
And having all that [tension] in the consonant.
But you're gonna do...
♪ Boh - Goh - Doh ♪
And get those locked consonants to be smooth.
So guys are gonna be down here...
♪
Ladies up here...
♪ Boh - Goh - Doh ♪
And here we go together, legato...
♪ Boh - Goh - Doh ♪
So nice.
♪
Good.
♪
♪ Boh - Goh - Doh ♪
So good!
♪
Good.
♪
I love it.
♪ Boh - Goh - Doh ♪
Nice legato.
♪
That's it.
♪
Good.
♪ Boh - Goh - Doh ♪
Great.
♪
Good.
♪
That's it, hang in there!
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♪ Boh - Goh - Doh ♪
Good.
♪
Super nice.
♪
Cool.
♪ Boh - Goh - Doh ♪
Awesome.
♪
That's it!
♪ Boh - Goh - Doh ♪
Nice.
♪
Good for you!
♪
♪ Boh - Goh - Doh ♪
That's it.
♪
A few more!
♪ Boh - Goh - Doh ♪
Awesome.
♪
♪ Boh - Goh - Doh ♪
You got it.
♪
And last one...
♪ Boh - Goh - Doh ♪
♪
Awesome job.
So that was a challenge.
I know it's a tongue twister.
I know it's very easy to get locked up on stuff.
But that gives you a big old challenge for getting
legato through a tough situation.
So I think you guys see it the importance of legato
and some ways to navigate it in challenging setups.
And I know it's going to make a huge difference in your voice,
Aaron and all, if you master those legato skills in your technique exercises
and also in your song work.
So I hope that's been helpful for you guys today as singers.
If you've got questions that you'd like to see us answer on the show
you can send an email to Questions@VoiceLessonsToTheWorld.com
So we just encourage you don't lose the joy,
don't lose the passion,
get with a great voice teacher in your area [♪]
or if you guys are in the New York City area [♪]
or you want to Skype with one of our staff, [♪]
you can visit us at www.NewYorkVocalCoaching.com. [♪]
And I also encourage you to download our free app. [♪]
It's for iPad, iPhone, hopefully more in the future. [♪]
A lot of great resources, tips, articles, [♪]
great stuff to help you guys get to the next level [♪]
with your singing voice. [♪]
Or if you like these videos you can also visit [♪]
www.VoiceLessonsToTheWorld.com [♪]
I'm Justin Stoney. [♪]
We'll see you next time. [♪]
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