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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 44 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 questions for this week actually are going to be three.
This week you're gonna get three in one.
And that's the name of the episode.
And the reason why is, you know I just feel so fortunate
that you guys are sending questions literally from
all over the world.
Some of the finest vocal questions I can think of
coming in from all over the globe.
And some of these questions they just aren't
meant to take up an entire episode.
They're not that kind of question.
They're a little more fun, and we can get right to the point.
So today I'm gonna answer three questions for you guys
in one episode.
First question though comes from Louisa L. in Melbourne, Australia.
And Louisa writes, "Dear Justin, is it bad to clear my throat?"
And thank you for that great question, Louisa.
Because people do think that it's gonna harm you
to be clearing your throat.
And I'm gonna be the first to tell you no.
Don't worry about clearing your throat.
We want to be using common sense when we're
working on our voice and when we're studying voice.
And we know that there's so many things that are
actually natural about the human voice.
The people in voice-land have gotten so fearful about
and implanted fear in singers' minds.
And we want to break that, alright.
It's natural to clear your throat, right?
You have some phlegm, you have some mucus.
You need to be able to do [clears throat].
That is not bad.
Now what is that?
That's going to be your inner arytenoid muscles.
Whoa.
And your lateral cricoarytenoids.
Whoa.
Bringing the cords together as air is passing through.
So it is a little bit of a squeeze, right.
And also a little lifted larynx, alright, to bring it together.
Now there's the reason people say it's bad.
Because you got a little squeeze going on, right,
with the cords.
And then you got a little bit of a lifted larynx, right.
And you're pushing a little bit of air through that squeeze.
I will say that's not the greatest thing if you've got a really sore voice.
If you've got vocal damage of any kind or a vocal injury.
Or just you're really tired, you've been doing a lot of singing.
Then go ahead and avoid clearing your throat.
That's smart advice.
But the idea that we shouldn't ever do it or that it's gonna ruin our voice,
or "a singer should not be clearing their throat",
this is a little bit too much fear being placed in your guys' hearts.
So I want to get rid of that, go ahead and clear your voice.
Just watch it if you're a little bit tired.
Okay so that's question number one.
Thank you Louisa, I loved it.
Second question comes from Blake M. in Portsmouth, Ohio.
And Blake writes, "Dear Justin, why do I always feel like I have
to yawn when I'm going to sing?"
That's another good one.
We do!
A lot of times in warmups or if you're in a choir
and you're starting to sing you may feel this
temptation to yawn when you're singing.
And this is not a bad thing or a good thing necessarily.
It's just a thing that you guys may have noticed as singers
that you feel a need to yawn when you go to sing a little bit.
And here's the reason why.
When we're singing we're usually inviting more air into the body.
Alright.
And often we're singing with a lowered larynx, right?
And often with a higher soft palate.
Now I promise you guys I'm going to talk to you about the
soft palate in a major way in the future.
We need to discuss that.
But for now, know that when air
comes into the body, the soft palate often lifts
and the larynx will drop, cords will part.
We're inviting air in as it's about to
come out in a specific way.
So that's the same kind of thing when I yawn.
I feel all of that space.
So there's something about when we see somebody else yawn,
when we hear a kind of round sound
or when our body is needing more air,
that we are tempted to yawn.
And so singing has a lot of those components in it.
And it just sort of reminds the brain of those things.
And you might feel like you've got to yawn.
So that's why Blake that singers often yawn when they're
working on their voices.
Great question.
Now question number three comes from Jacob W. in Brooklyn, New York.
And Jacob writes, "Dear Justin, should I become fat to sing?"
That's a good one, too.
Alright Jacob, so here's my flat-out answer...
No, don't do that.
A lot a lot of people do admire singers of, you know, great girth.
And there's nothing wrong with this.
But I cannot recommend you actually gaining weight
to improve your voice.
Now, here's some truths.
The body is a sympathetic resonator to your voice, right?
So the bigger the resonator the bigger the sound
Our primary resonators are up here in the pharynx and in the nasal cavity.
But the body itself is a sympathetic resonator as well.
So you will get a bigger sound, honestly,
if you're a bigger person.
But I can't tell you guys to go out there and
gain weight to try to change your voice or improve your voice.
There's so many people who are willing to do
destructive things to themselves for their entertainment career,
and for their singing career.
And think about it, you don't want to do that, right?
You want to be true to yourself.
You want to be healthy.
It's not worth doing something destructive.
It's not worth putting on a bunch of weight in order
to get better at your voice.
Let your voice be true, let it be beautiful within what you've got.
And to be honest with you guys,
I think getting a really good regimen of cardio,
of strength, of flexibility, being in great physical shape.
That's so much better for you, for your mental health,
for your physical health, and for your singing,
than it ever would be to purposefully put on
tons of weight for your voice.
Now if you're already a bigger singer,
still try to keep in good shape.
But know that it's not also going to be negative
for your voice to be a little bit of a bigger person.
But nobody out there ought to be doing destructive things
for their singing voice or for their singing career.
Use what you've got, use what God gave you.
And be happy with that.
Don't try to do something destructive to change it.
That's as my personal advice to you.
And so, there's your three four one.
Three very quite fun questions from Louisa, Blake, and Jacob.
I thank you guys so much and just keep these questions coming.
Because we're so glad to be able to do three in one.
We just got hundreds and hundreds coming in from
all over the world and I promise you I'm gonna do
everything I can to answer them all for you guys.
So I hope that's been helpful for you today as singers.
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.
And we just encourage you don't lose that joy,
don't lose that passion.
Keep those questions rolling in
and don't let anybody tell you that you can't sing
because you and I both know it's not true.
Get with a great voice teacher in your area. [♪]
Or if you guys are in New York City [♪]
you can visit www.NewYorkVocalCoaching.com. [♪]
We also do Skype if you guys would like to do that. [♪]
And I do encourage you guys to download our free app. [♪]
It's for iPad, iPhone, hopefully more soon. [♪]
A lot of great resources on there, [♪]
free tips, free articles, videos, everything. [♪]
And you can also visit, www.VoiceLessonsToTheWorld.com. [♪]
I'm Justin Stoney. [♪]
We'll see you next time. [♪]
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