♬
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 7 of Voice Lessons To The World.
A show where we want to help you guys as singers
by answering your questions from all over the world.
I'm going to give you a chance to ask questions later,
but our question for the week comes from
Mary S. in Galway, Ireland.
And Mary says, "Dear Justin, I'm a new singer. I'm a beginner.
And my voice is very weak. What can I do to strengthen it?"
Well Mary, first of all, welcome to singing.
It's great to hear that you're a new singer and a beginner.
But we know that you're going to strengthen your voice,
you're going to work really hard at it.
And I encourage you just to keep going.
But one of the things that I find with brand new singers,
one of tendencies,
is this sort of weakness that you're talking about.
And I can do a lot of videos in the future about different ways to
strengthen the voice, cause there's actually a lot.
But one of the very first things that people start off with is breathiness.
And I betcha', Mary, that that's what's going on in your voice.
I bet that it's a little bit breathy.
And for those of you that don't know what a breathy sound is,
it's sort of this leaky sound where there's air passing through my vocal cords. [Speaks breathily]
They're kind of slack. They're kind of apart. [Speaks breathily]
They're not coming together cleanly and making a clear sound, but they're breathy.
So if I tried it sing a phrase, and I try a "mum,"
I get...
♪ Mum Mum Mum Mum Mum ♪ [Breathily]
I don't have any... ♪ Mum Mum Mum ♪
...any clarity and strength in my voice.
Most beginning singers struggle with that, Mary.
And we can fix that as long as we know how and why.
So one thing before we start with that, that I want you to know,
is breathiness is not a bad thing.
A lot of people think it is.
But actually, we're gonna want that later for stylistic effect.
And it can actually be a really good thing.
But we want to be under control with it.
And at first it just sort of happens.
And so one of the very first things to fix
as a new and beginning singer is that breathiness.
So let me give you a few reasons why
the breathiness might be happening.
The very first is too much breath.
A lot of beginning singers, they take these high breaths
that we talked about.
These... [Inhales]
up and down breaths. [Exhales]
Which, expels the air really fast across the cords.
One of the cords' defense mechanisms is just to
get the heck out of the way of that air.
So they go slack because there's too much...
[Exhales]
exhale coming at them.
And so you get a breathy sound.
So you get this up and down breath.
♪ Mum Mum Mum ♪ [Breathily]
And breathiness that's coming from that too fast air.
So you're gonna want to work on your support, Mary.
You're gonna want to make sure that you
bring the air down here.
And that you don't blast on your exhale.
That's one thing that will help you
correct your breathiness.
The second thing is, a lot of times it's psychological.
A lot of times people that are new to singing think,
"What do I have to do to sound good?"
And, "Singing, it's so beautiful, it's so pretty, I need to make my voice sound pretty."
That's a big mistake.
You don't wanna make your voice sound pretty.
You want to make your voice sound like you.
So if you go in thinking that singing is a pretty thing,
then you're probably going to manipulate your voice
and instead of singing clearly...
♪ Mum Mum Mum Mum Mum ♪
you're going to think, "Well, I gotta be pretty"...
♪ Mum Mum Mum ♪ [Breathily]
and then we get this sort of airy, breathy tone.
So, change up the thinking.
Pretty sounds will happen later.
But don't try to be pretty.
Let your voice be strong, let it be clear.
Even if it doesn't sound good to you,
it probably sounds a lot better than you think.
If you just go clearly into the sound and don't try to be pretty.
Point number three is, a lot of times people aren't aware
how much they're speaking voice
carries over into their singing voice at first.
And you really are going to need to use your speaking voice, Mary.
If we're going to get those strong sounds into the voice.
So if I walked up to somebody and I said,
"Hey there!"
I would just say, "Hey there."
I wouldn't go, "Hey there." [Speaks Breathily]
If I did I might get arrested or something like that.
If I said, "Hey there," [Speaks Breathily]
and I let my cords go apart.
I'd just say, "Hey there."
So I have no problem in my speaking voice.
I don't just all of a sudden randomly become breathy. [Speaks Breathily]
Alright, so, you don't want to randomly become breathy
in your singing voice.
So if I can just close my cords and be clear in my speaking voice,
I can close my cords and be clear in my singing voice, too.
So I don't go...
♪ Hey there ♪ [Breathily]
I speak into the sound...
♪ Hey there ♪
And I use my speaking voice on pitch.
Now I'm gonna do that with you right now.
We're gonna try this.
But first, before we do, let's practice that.
So just try speaking clearly.
Just say, "Hey there."
Go ahead.
Good.
Now I hope you didn't go,
"Hey there." [Breathily]
Alright. See if you can speak clearly.
"Hey there."
Okay, great.
So now if you can speak clearly,
you're gonna take your speaking voice
and put that to pitches.
Guys are gonna be down here,
and you're gonna do...
♪ Hey there ♪
Ladies up here...
♪ Hey there ♪
And you're gonna speak right in.
Don't let it go breathy. Don't let it be pretty.
Don't blast the breath, just speak on pitch.
Here we go.
♪
♪ Hey there ♪
♪
Great!
♪
♪ Hey there ♪
♪
♪ Hey there ♪
Good.
♪
Good.
♪
♪ Hey there ♪
Speak.
♪
♪ Hey there ♪
♪
Last one.
♪ Hey there ♪
So already you can see
that just by speaking into your sound -
not letting it be too pretty, not letting it be too airy -
you already have more strength to your voice.
So that's a really simple way to start developing strength.
Like I say, there's a lot of other components to vocal strength.
But when you're starting off, that's the first thing you wanna fix.
Don't let those cords go slack.
Don't be pretty.
Don't be afraid to use a more "speaky" tone in your sound,
and you're gonna get a lot more strength, Mary,
and everybody out there who is new to singing
or may struggle with breathiness that they didn't intend.
So I hope that's been helpful for you guys today.
If you have questions for us that you wanna see answered on the show,
you can send an email to
Questions@VoiceLessonsToTheWorld.com. [♬]
So we just encourage you, especially if you're new to singing, [♬]
to just not lose that joy. [♬]
Don't lose that passion. [♬]
Work really hard with your voice [♬]
and get with a voice teacher you trust in your area. [♬]
If you're ever in New York City, you can check out our website at [♬]
www.NewYorkVocalCoaching.com. [♬]
And if you like these videos you can check out [♬]
www.VoiceLessonsToTheWorld.com. [♬]
I'm Justin Stoney. We'll see you next time. [♬]
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