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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 33 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 Verena T. in Salzburg, Austria.
And Verena writes, "Dear Justin, I'm not tone-deaf but I have
problems staying on pitch.
Can you help me?"
Now Verena that's a great question because I'm sure so many
singers out there struggle with staying on pitch
and so we need to address this.
But I'm not going to address this in the way that
you guys probably think.
Because there's a tip that I'm about to give you
which to me is actually one of the best
possible tips that I could ever give away.
Because singers and actually unfortunately even voice teachers
make this mistake all the time.
And that is putting pitch on the pedestal.
Now obviously I'm not going to have you guys
going out there on stage singing way off-key.
That's not our goal.
But the problem that people have is putting
too much emphasis actually on staying on pitch.
Now clearly one of our first steps as a singer is
can we just match the pitches, can we stay on pitch.
But very soon after that all the way to when
you're an advanced elite singer,
pitch should not be on the pedestal
if your goal is to try to stay on pitch as a singer
that's probably one of the worst possible focuses that you could have.
And that just does not seem intuitive
that does not seem right that I would be saying that to you.
That we don't want to value pitch.
But today I would like to take pitch off its pedestal for you guys.
Now here's the reason why.
If I put technique on the pedestal the pitch will soon follow.
What people do all the time is they're trying to stay on pitch so much,
pitch is on the pedestal.
So maybe you can get up to the note
maybe you can sing perfectly in tune.
But what manipulation did you have to do in your voice
to get it on pitch?
And that is causing big problems.
So, actually often when we make technique number one in a voice lesson
a lot of times the pitch suffers.
Maybe it's flat or sharp.
If I'm making an adjustment to
my breathing, to my larynx, to my jaw or tongue,
to my resonance, to the vocal cords themselves.
If I make one of these adjustments oftentimes
the pitch suffers for a little bit.
Sometimes it's just a couple seconds,
sometimes it's a few minutes.
Sometimes it might take a few days
or a few weeks to try to fix a certain area of your voice
that has been manipulated .
But if you've got pitch on the pedestal then you're just
manipulating something to get to the note
and then you're going to have problems long-term.
If you can be flat and sharp for me,
if you can put technique as your number one
and risk being flat or sharp,
then very soon that pitch will fix itself
and then you're going to have perfect technique
and be on the right note.
That is what we want.
Let me give you a quick song example.
If I'm trying to sing "You Raise Me Up" the Josh Groban song.
And if I just sing it freely...
♪
♪ You raise me up ♪
♪ So I can stand on mountains ♪
♪ You raise me up ♪
♪ To walk on stormy seas ♪
Fine.
But what if I have a problem that most singers
would have up through here...
♪ You raise me up ♪
♪ So I can stand on mountains ♪
♪ You raise me up ♪
♪ To walk on stormy seas ♪
Now I'm just straining a little bit on purpose
so that you can see what I might end up doing
if I hadn't coordinated those notes.
What if I just took it away?
Do that exact same approach, but took it away...
♪ You raise me up ♪
♪ So I can stand on mountains ♪
I might go flat.
I didn't have all that [tension], so I might be flat.
♪ You raise me up ♪
Whoa.
But very soon by singing free and loose and not pushed
I will get...
♪ You raise me up ♪
♪ So I can stand on mountains ♪
♪ You rai- ♪
♪ You raise me up ♪
♪ To walk on stormy seas ♪
I will find the looseness and I will find the pitch
and that's what we want.
So I'm going to give you guys a chance right now.
I'm going to pick the simplest possible exercise
I could ever give you.
It's gonna be one three five three one on a MUM.
Just like this...
♪ MUM - MUM - MUM - MUM - MUM ♪
We're gonna go up and down.
And I don't want you guys to focus on pitch.
Even if you have pitch problems.
Verena or anybody, even if you think you have pitch problems
you've got my permission.
Let's sing wildly flat or sharp
doesn't matter to me.
Probably it won't be, but what I want you guys
to focus on is a complete feeling of looseness,
breath low, loose jaw, loose tongue, larynx free,
resonance up here, all of that good stuff.
I don't care if you're flat or sharp.
I just want you to put technique and that free feeling
as your number one.
Throw pitch out for now.
Pitch will follow, maybe even in this exercise.
We'll see.
Guys down here...
♪ MUM - MUM - MUM - MUM - MUM ♪
Ladies up here...
♪ MUM - MUM - MUM - MUM - MUM ♪
And here we go!
♪
♪ MUM - MUM - MUM - MUM - MUM ♪
Good.
♪
Nice.
♪
♪ MUM - MUM - MUM - MUM - MUM ♪
Good.
♪
♪ MUM - MUM - MUM - MUM - MUM ♪
Nice.
♪
Good, now remember up here technique first, pitch later.
♪
♪ MUM - MUM - MUM - MUM - MUM ♪
Good!
♪
Right.
♪
Good.
♪
♪ MUM - MUM - MUM - MUM - MUM ♪
Awesome.
♪
♪ MUM - MUM - MUM - MUM - MUM ♪
I did a flat one for you, let's try it again.
♪ MUM - MUM - MUM - MUM - MUM ♪
Nice, good.
♪
♪ MUM - MUM - MUM - MUM - MUM ♪
Good.
♪
Good job.
♪ MUM - MUM - MUM - MUM - MUM ♪
Few more.
♪
♪ MUM - MUM - MUM - MUM - MUM ♪
Last one
♪
Awesome job.
Way to put technique first.
And like I say, the pitches will follow.
I'm sure, like I said, you probably were right
on most of those.
But when you're doing your exercises,
you're not on stage, nobody cares,
you're working on technique.
You're not working on pitch.
Try to be on pitch, but technique is number one,
pitch is number two.
Now just real brief, I want to give you some
practical ways to really answer your question, Verena.
A couple things I recommend while you're practicing,
practice with an instrument.
That's going to really help you to stay on pitch.
If you're just practicing a capella
you could go off pitch and not know it.
So that's a way to actually fix pitch if that's what you're trying to do.
The other thing is make sure you're recording your voice lessons.
If you're just taking the exercises and
having your voice teacher work with you
and then trying to remember what it was,
you may be having pitch problems because
you're not listening back to the adjustments that your teacher was making.
The next thing is make sure that you're recording your practices as well.
So if you do a practice, listen back.
If you had technique as your number one,
were you on pitch or weren't you?
You can go right back and verify if you are
recording what you're doing.
And then like I said, just be patient with what technique
can bring to your pitches.
If you make technique your number one
I just guarantee the pitches will follow.
But as you're working on this with your teacher
and on your own,
just make sure you have some way to verify,
whether you actually are on pitch so that our
final product isn't you guys going out on stage
and singing flat and sharp, but perfectly on pitch
and with great technique.
So, Verena and all, I hope that's been helpful
for you guys today as singers.
If you have questions that you'd like to see us answer on the show
you can send an email to: Questions@VoiceLessonsToTheWorld.com [♪]
We just encourage you not to lose that joy, don't lose that passion. [♪]
Don't let people tell you that you can't sing [♪]
and don't let them tell you that you can't sing on pitch. [♪]
You know what to do to fix it. [♪]
Find a great voice teacher in your area. [♪]
If you guys are in New York City [♪]
you can check us out 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. [♪]
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