♬
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 37 of Voice Lessons To The World.
The show where we want to help you guys as singers
by answering your questions from all over the world.
And I'll give you a chance to ask questions later.
But our question for this week comes from Christa A. in Manila, Philippines.
And Christa writes, "Dear Justin, my voice teacher says I should
avoid glottals at all costs and never do that.
It will hurt my voice if I do.
Is this true?"
Thank you very much for that awesome question, Christa.
Because a glottal is something that is very feared in the land of voice.
People are afraid to do it, people approach gottals with trepidation
and are worried because of what they've been told.
That a glottal sound is going to hurt them, is going to ruin their voice
so they can never speak or sing ever again.
So today we're going to talk about what is a glottal?
And is it really a friend or a foe?
Now first of all, what is it.
A glottal sound is called "glottal" because the vocal cords
are called the "glottis"- are also known as the glottis.
And if you look in here with a camera and a scope
you see a kind of V shape with the vocal cords.
And they shut like this.
And when you breathe they go [demonstrates], and then I go [demonstrates].
And what I get is a kind of glottal, it's a click of my cords.
If I say the word "uh oh", I have that clicking sound of "uh oh".
Now what happens is a muscle called the interarytenoids-
you guys don't need to know that but it's kind of fun-
the interarytenoids, the muscle between the vocal cords, shuts them.
When they open, another muscle called the posterior cricoarytenoids (whoa)
opens them up and then the interarytenoids shut them back.
And then if I have again, "Uh oh" I get that click.
Now, that's what it is.
So you probably have heard the sound.
Every time you hear an i, a, e, i, o, oo.
I'm getting the [glottal] on the a, e, i, o, oo.
All of that has the glottal stop, it's called the "glottal stop" sometimes,
before you hear the sound.
So, that's what it is.
Now why do people say that the glottal is
such a bad thing?
I will admit that that's one of the more athletic things
that one could do with their voice, right?
You're shutting the body of the vocal cords from the back.
So you're getting quite a bit of compression.
you're really pressing the vocal cords together.
Now if you have an injured voice, if you have nodes,
if you have polyps, if you have a fatigued or raspy voice,
if you're sick, if you're just very very tired vocally,
probably a glottal, you can see why that wouldn't be
such a good idea.
Slapping the vocal cords shut, not always such a great thing.
But the problem is people have gotten overly fearful of this sound.
When it actually is a part of our natural speech.
But, you know, many medical voice doctors as well as speech therapists,
will recommend not doing a lot of that glottalage
when you are vocally fatigued, and we should follow their advice
because again it is very athletic.
But now, what I was saying about why it shouldn't be feared.
It's a natural part of your speaking voice.
If I say, "Uh oh, I spilled my ice cream,"
in one sentence I've done four glottals.
"Uh oh, I spilled my ice cream."
If I can't glottal that means I can never spill my ice cream
ever again without completely destroying my voice.
I need to be able to do glottals to communicate properly
in pretty much any language.
If you listen to almost any language there's going
to be glottals in it.
Even when I say, "Any language."
I would have to say, "Hany language" if I wanted to avoid that glottal.
Or I'd have to say, "Huh-hoh, hi spilled my hice cream."
If I wanted to really avoid the glottal I need,
"Huh-hoh, hi spilled my hice cream."
I have to really avoid that, versus, "Uh-oh, I spilled my ice cream."
Okay, so you see that it is actually a natural thing.
Actually a natural thing.
Glottals appear all the time in our speaking voice.
So if we know that they're natural, and we know that they
don't necessarily harm our voices,
even though we have to be careful with them,
how can we use them for "singing good"?
That's the next step.
So one of the things that I've noticed in singers
is sometimes people have a lack of compression in their voice.
If your voice is weak, if it's airy,
if it's always kind of got that thin, airy tone, if it goes to
head voice too soon, what you may be lacking is
a little bit of compression.
Now if your voice is very strained, and very squeezed,
probably you have too much compression.
But a lot of singers who don't have enough compression
can benefit from some glottals.
A lot of singers can't even do it as they go up higher.
If I'm doing an exercise on an "ah".
And I sing...
♪ AH AH AH AH AH ♪
A singer who can't do a glottal or doesn't have enough compression might do...
♪ HAH AH AH AH AH ♪
They can't do...
♪ AH AH AH AH AH ♪
It's always...
♪ HAH AH AH AH AH ♪
And they can't even get the cords shut to start the sound.
So, singers that lack compression will not be able to do that glottal.
We can use that glottal to build some of that compression
to learn how to get the cords shut
with moderation in our vocal technique work.
And so today I am actually going to give you an exercise
that uses glottals just to see if you can
do your glottals up and down the scale.
Now, again, this is not for everybody.
If your voice is already too squeezed, too gripped, too strained,
if you're vocally fatigued, if you've got a vocal injury,
these sorts of things.
Then this is not the thing to be doing.
And in fact this isn't something that I want you guys just doing
all the time.
We want to, again, do glottals in moderation
so that you learn the skill, and that's it, right?
Don't just be glottaling 'til the cows come home.
We need to build the skill and then you've got it.
So for those who may lack compression in the voice
this is gonna be a great exercise.
But again, I don't want to be getting angry letters.
I don't want to hear that this destroyed your voice.
If you do this moderately and if you do this well,
this is actually going to help you.
So, another disclaimer, don't do this too loudly
and we don't want to be shutting the cords and
blasting tons of air.
We need good breath support when we do this.
We're going to do an "uh oh" exercise.
All it is is this...
♪
♪ Uh Oh ♪
Right?
I'm not going to do it loud.
It's like my speaking voice.
♪ Uh oh ♪
So I don't want...
♪ Uh oh ♪ [Loudly]
I don't want to be blasting air.
It's just a gentle "uh oh," on pitch, so that we know that we get the cords shut.
Alright, so guys are going to be down here...
♪ Uh oh ♪
And ladies up here...
♪ Uh oh ♪
And we're just going to go up and down the scale
with light glottals just to get this skill built in your voice
if you don't have it.
Here we go, guys down here.
♪ Uh oh ♪
Good.
♪
Nice!
♪ Uh oh ♪
Good.
♪
That's it.
♪
Nice job.
♪ Uh oh ♪
Good.
♪
That's right.
♪ Uh oh ♪
Good for you.
♪
Good.
♪ Uh oh ♪
Yep!
♪
♪ Uh oh ♪
Good for you.
♪
Yep.
♪
♪ Uh oh ♪
Good.
♪
♪ Uh oh ♪
♪
♪ Uh oh ♪
♪
Nice job.
♪
A few more.
♪ Uh oh ♪
♪
Last one!
♪ Uh oh ♪
♪
So that's it!
Just a little baby glottal, not doing that too hard.
Just a baby glottal to get the sense of compression.
I want you guys to graduate from this fast.
Again, not glottaling up a storm all day.
Because are glottals a friend or a foe?
They can be both, right?
Again, if you've got too much squeeze get away
from this stuff.
If you don't have enough try it a little bit to build
some compression in your voice
and then graduate from it really, really soon.
So Christa and all, I hope that illuminates your mind about the
world of glottals and what they can can do or not do for your voice.
If you guys have 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 that joy, don't lose that passion. [♪]
Don' let people tell you that you can't sing, [♪]
you know that's not true. [♪]
Keep working hard on your voice [♪]
and get with a great voice teacher in your area. [♪]
If you guys are in New York City you can visit us at, [♪]
www.NewYorkVocalCoaching.com. [♪]
And if you like these videos you can visit, [♪]
www.VoiceLessonsToTheWorld.com. [♪]
I'm Justin Stoney. [♪]
We'll see you next time. [♪]
♬