Well we've crossed the 100 episode mark.
And, you know what that means.
Yep a whole new era of helping you learn about
vocal technique and discover your vocal best.
Today I'm so excited because we're going to start by
exploring the greatest vocal exercise of all time.
♬
Hi singers, I'm Justin Stoney the founder of
New York Vocal Coaching here in New York City.
Welcome to episode 101 of Voice Lessons To The World.
Today's question comes from Drago M. in Moscow, Russia.
Drago writes, "Dear Justin, if you were stranded on a desert island
with just one vocal exercise, what would it be?"
Amazing question, Drago.
Well, if I were stranded on a desert island with just one vocal exercise
here's the exercise I would choose...
♪
♪ HEH - EH - EH - EH - LP ♪
[ Hits piano ]
But that's just if I was stranded on a desert island, Drago.
But, you know me, I'm a voice technician.
I spend every waking hour in the vocal studio.
And if I'm in the studio working on the nitty-gritty of vocal technique
I'm totally going with the greatest vocal exercise of all time.
That's right.
One consonant to rule them all. [♪]
One consonant to find them. [♪]
One consonant to bring them all. [♪]
And in the brightness bind them. [♪]
What am I talking about?
The NG!
Long live the king.
♬
Sure, I know there's lots of great vocal exercises out there.
Lip trills, hisses, messa di voce, farinelli,
we've talked about so many of them on this show.
"The hiss."
"Lip trills."
"Messa di voce."
But after a hundred episodes it's time to meet the king.
The NG.
Let's start by talking about what is an NG?
♬
The NG is one of our three nasal consonants.
M, N, and NG are the three.
To do an NG the jaw should release,
the front of the tongue should touch the bottom gums,
And the back of the tongue should touch the soft palate.
It sounds like this-
[ sound demonstration ]
Give it a try!
Release your jaw, bring the tongue forward and tall and-
[ sound demonstration ]
That's nice work.
Now if you're having any trouble
just say the word "sing" and linger on the last consonant.
Sing.
That's it!
So what is this Justin, why ya so big on the NG?
Well, let's look at its benefits.
Here are five benefits of the NG.
♬
One, it puts the tongue in its ideal position.
Two, it puts the jaw in its ideal position.
Three, it brings the sound into the nasal resonance.
Four, it keeps head and nasal resonance consistent as we change notes.
And five, it can help with vowel placement for every single vowel.
Now there's an awful lot of vocal exercise variants
that you can do with NG.
But today we're just gonna look at three.
The first one exercises the voice on pure NG.
It sounds like this-
♪
♪ NG - NG - NG - NG - NG ♪
This exercise makes for a great warm-up
that you can do every single day.
When you do it, don't worry about what vocal register you're in.
In other words, just let it switch to higher registers when it wants to.
This allows your voice to change pitch while keeping
your resonance, your jaw, your tongue
and hopefully your breath, consistent.
It can be very hard for singers to change pitch
without changing a bunch of other stuff.
Well, not with this exercise.
Let's just try a couple of them together.
Guys down here-
♪ NG - NG - NG - NG - NG ♪
And ladies up here-
♪ NG - NG - NG - NG - NG ♪
Let's do a few.
♪
That's it.
♪
That's right.
♪ NG - NG - NG - NG - NG ♪
Good.
♪
Just one more.
♪ NG - NG - NG - NG - NG ♪
♪
Great, now let's move on to the second NG exercise.
It sounds like this-
♪ NG - AH - AH - AH ♪
In this exercise we're going to transition from
the NG sound to an open AH vowel.
Many singers struggle with open vowels because the sound
wants to go spilling out the mouth instead of resonating in the head.
This exercise solves this problem.
And, it should really improve your upper range.
The NG allows the vowel to automatically
be placed in the head and nasal resonance.
Then, when you open up to the open vowel
we're hoping that a lot of the same resonance remains.
So we're gonna have guys down here-
♪
And ladies up here-
♪
And we're gonna do ♪ NG - AH - AH - AH ♪
♪
That's right.
♪
Great, one more.
♪ NG - AH - AH - AH ♪
♪
Awesome.
Now we're on to NG exercise number three.
This one goes like this-
♪ NGING - NGING - NGING - NGING - NGING ♪
Or
♪ NGENG - NGENG - NGENG - NGENG - NGENG ♪
Or
♪ NGONG - NGONG - NGONG - NGONG - NGONG ♪
That's right, for this exercise you get to go ahead
and choose the vowel that you want.
You might start by choosing your favorite vowel
to make it better than ever.
Or maybe you want to pick your most challenging vowel
to make sure that you've got a chance to work on it.
Or you might even want to pick a vowel that you're
struggling with in a song.
In any case, it's always a great idea to make
sure that your vowels conform to the will of the NG.
[ Hits piano ]
Now what does that mean?
That means to make sure that every vowel learns to
be in the head and nasal resonance.
And every vowel learns to be placed in a similar spot.
This is a real game changer when it comes to
applying your technique work over to your songs.
Let's try a few.
We're gonna have guys down here-
♪ NGING - NGING - NGING - NGING - NGING ♪
And ladies up here-
♪ NGING - NGING - NGING - NGING - NGING ♪
And here we go.
♪
That's it.
♪
Great.
♪
So nice.
♪
And last one.
♪ NGING - NGING - NGING - NGING - NGING ♪
Well those are the three NG variants that I wanted to look at
with you today.
And now for a Voice Lessons To The World challenge
♪
For your challenge this week
step one is to find a song that you'd like to sing.
♪
Step two, isolate a passage that you're having some trouble with.
♪
Step three, do one of those NG exercises throughout that passage.
Kind of like this-
♪ NGENG - NGENG - NGENG ♪
♪ NGENG - NGENG - NGENG NGENG - NGENG - NGENG ♪
And then once you feel stuff placed in the right resonance,
we're ready for step four, add back the lyrics.
♪ Highway run ♪
♪ Into the midnight sun ♪
♪ Wheels go round and round you're on my mind ♪
And suddenly the song is relaxed and in the right resonance.
So go ahead, apply this trick to any song that you're struggling with.
I hope and trust that all your work on the exercises will help
improve your resonance, your range, your tone, and will make your singing
feel a whole lot easier.
All thanks to the king, our friend NG.
Here are some more things that I'm hoping will help
make things easier on your vocal journey.
For voice lessons or Skype lessons with the NYVC staff
visit us at NewYorkVocalCoaching.com.
If you'd like a vocal course that you can do at home check out the
Voice Lessons To The World Vocal Course.
This twelve part program takes you on a singing journey from beginner
to master level vocal exercises.
You can find it at VoiceLessonsToTheWorld.com.
Or, if you'd like free vocal tips sent to you each day
sign up at DailyVocalTips.com.
And now, here's Justin with this week's vocal benediction.
The beauty of the NG is that it makes your
sound go in and not out.
In life, we always try to force things.
We look for things that are out there to solve our problems.
But really, you already have the strength inside you.
So, as the NG helps remind you that your
vocal strength comes from within,
remember there's an awfully strong and beautiful
person in there as well.
So, sing like a king.
And make a joyful noise.
♬