hey chris liepe here with three easy vocal exercises you can do to improve
your tone it doesn't matter what your voice type is it doesn't matter what style you sing and these
exercises are inspired by singers that i've been getting an extra close look at lately studying
what they do how they get their sounds and you may have seen some videos pop up on the channel
about these singers so i'm excited to get into these with you these are simple you can do them
anywhere anytime and regardless of what your skill level is you're going to get improved vocal tone
it's not like you killed someone
it's not like you drove a hateful spirit
suicide raised the one who left you broken down and paralyzed
if you'd like more help with your voice and you like these kind of
unconventional tips and exercises and deep dives into other people's voices
click the link below and join my free vocal course that's the best place to start with me and if
you want to work with me on an even deeper level there's lots more avenues to explore from there so
click that link first exercise inspired by maynard james keenan we have a clip from a perfect circle
judith listen carefully he does this maynard does this kind of thing all the time with his voice and
i've picked a phrase out where he's doing it maybe a little bit more than usual but i'm sure once you
hear it you're going to uh you're going to be oh yeah yeah i can think of other phrases too
okay listen again
oh so many ways maynard loves the vocal hum even in the midst of lines he's humming even
in the midst of lyrics and you know a lot of times you'll hear him hum into a line
but here is a perfect example because he's taking words that most
i mean sure he's closing and there's the m's and ends i think we can all agree that maynard has
exceptional tone regardless of where in his range he's singing and his intensity level a big part of
getting great tone is having your voice resonate well and being able to feel it well in your face
and whether maynard knows he's doing this as it pertains to good tone or not isn't really the
point the point is he's got fantastic tone and he does this a lot and by us doing this and making a
habit of doing this feeling the tone the resonance in our face and then freeing the notes we are
placing the right focus on where the resonance should be happening there's no vocal resonance
right at our vocal cords our whole face and vocal tract is essentially our horn and by mmm
feeling the tone in our face and then letting it exit we are priming our
vocal horn or our vocal resonance to have more of an impact so here's the exercise
we're going to start with a comfortable note in chest resonance
and we're going to say the word
and we're going to go up an octave we're going to start with we're going to open up
we're going to kind of slide up to that law and then
we're going to close it back down and reclaim that loose facial resonance
now we're not going to be focusing on a whole lot of other things other than
when we get into that um we want to really feel it in our face we don't want we want relaxed
so that we can we can get the vibrations and then as we project our voice out our face
gonna move our face sort of out of the way and then
focus our attention shift our attention from facial resonance
to la la the interaction that the tip of our tongue has right behind the front of our teeth
as we open and close that l and turn that into an ah
the percussion of that law
how is this improving our tone we're getting our focus away from the rest of our body and focusing
on experiencing the sounds that come out when we focu when we sing in our comfortable range
yeah we're covering an octave so choose an area of your voice where you can hit an octave well
on on both sides and we are we're practicing moving our focus from face
to a nice thick l sound this if done right and it really it's not about the exercise it's about
what you experience during the exercise so as you do this you're going to have a greater experience
and greater awareness of where your sound is coming out and how to experience it just before
you share it with the world this will improve your tone and this is something that maynard
does whether he knows it or not one thing that he does to provide great tone across his whole range
okay exercise number two inspired by studying david draymond of disturbed listen carefully
we're zeroing in on the has been given to me has been given to me now if you listen to a lot of
disturbed songs this and this song is no exception part of what gets david his incredible tone
is his rhythmic sense how his rhythm how the voice interplays with the band
got the got to got to get that kind of that kind of thing and so the exercise
that i pulled out of here that i've been doing as i get in david draymond shape is very simple
it's tick and talk and tick and talk and tick and talk and and really embracing the way that
consonants stop the sound and then the way i re-enter and replace my voice
one of the biggest challenges that david has overcome entirely and uses it to his advantage
is that he's able to sing through his consonants and maintain this really neat rich tone
and you know distortion is great all sorts of other things are great too
but if you do this exercise right as i will show you again a nice comfortable
chest voice note ticking talking ticking talking ticking talking
tick and talk ticking talking ticking talking tick and talk we have a consciousness about
the contact of the sound being interrupted at the front of our mouth
the end of our vocal tract and then with
we have it in in the back of our throat as our soft palate meets the back of our tongue
and then we have this resonance opportunity point
back to the first exercise that we did inspired by maynard and
we don't want to say d tick and we don't want that we for this exercise we just want ticken talk and
tick and you have to make sure you get a lot of breath be on top of your breath as you're doing
all these exercises take this slow at first and really embrace the changes tick and and tick and
talk and tick and talk and take a break when you need to and then speed it up a little bit ticking
talking ticking talking ticking talking ticking talking ticking talking ticking talking ticking
talking tick experiment with different levels of air different dynamics different notes tick and
talk and again talk antique and talk antique and talk and take and talk and tick and talk
and the main thing we want to do is with our mind embrace the phonation
really embrace that tone experiment with slightly different amounts of air and different resonance
placement with that as well and then lean into the fact that we break airflow with these consonants
tick and talk and tick and talk and tick and talk and tick and talk rather than letting rather than
letting it be this true interruption focus on letting it on letting your your tone connect
through the consonants and that's what david draymond does so well listen with his consonants
it's almost this there's definitely consonants there but he's carrying tone through so that's
what this would sound like as you work this exercise more and more not tick and talk and tick
and tuck and we're adding more uh divisions ticking talking ticking talking ticking talking
ticking talking ticket notice how the consonants get lighter ticking talking ticking talking
ticking talking ticking talking ticking talking ticking talking ticking ticking ticking talking
to kentuck and tick and tuck and ticking tack on ticket even as you get tongue-tied even as you
work with speeding it up and slowing it down you can make these consonants more prominent
and less prominent by a function of your will and experiment with how airflow feels as you make them
less or more prominent again the goal is to meld resonance with needed consonants or with
intentional execution of consonants ticking talking ticking talking tick and talking so
this would be bad or not bad but where you don't want to end up as you're doing this exercise tick
notice how my voice the resonant part the the phonation part the the vowel execution sounds
thinner there make the consonants less prominent and the resonance more prominent pick and talk and
tick and talk and tick and talk and tick and talk and tick and talk and tick and talk and dick and
talking tick wow you really feel it in your face bringing these consonants in and working with that
if you're tense if you start getting tense slow it down take a break shake it off and do it again
i've got lots more help with how to deal with tension in the midst of
exercising your voice in my course all right
exercise number three for improving your vocal tone mindfully the last of these
three vocal exercises but certainly not the least important is inspired by adele listen carefully
the most important thing to understand about great tone and improving your tone
is it's not about finding one great tone it's not about oh i found my vocal tone the best tone
is dynamic and changing and diverse and adele in this passage here really really as she moves her
placement around she gets that's the essence of great tone and she does this all over this track
and all over her singing that's one of the reasons she's known as having such a wonderful tone having
such a great voice so the exercise that we're going to do to get more familiar with dynamic
tone placement and creation is the word orion orion but we're gonna sing it like this
we're gonna go up a major third as we open up let's let's unpack what i'm doing here
oh has a very low larynx an open back of throat oh like an open singer sort of oh and then as we sing
oh and we go up the third we're going to move the larynx up now don't list don't worry about
oh i should have my larynx in a certain place and a high larynx isn't bad or low larynx is
better don't worry about any of that stuff just experiment with this and feel it out oh as we move
we're going to close on that in in the low larynx big wide open throat
soft palate thing and then when we're on rye we're going to follow that r up or
try to take this around to different parts of our range
feel that in back to maynard's thing all right
what we're doing is we're practicing sort of this full spectrum this full gamut of
tonal possibilities yes inspired some by vowel placement and or modification
but mostly by choice by going oh my voice can sound really forward and belty for this part
and it can sound more back and warm and long in this part every good singer that has
really good tone that they're recognized for that they're doing this constantly we may not
hear it that way because they've learned how to be less extreme with it but in our exercises we
want to be extreme so that we can fully feel out and unlock the potential in our own voices so
there's no wrong that can come out of your voice as you're experiencing these exercises
orion tick and talk and tick and talk and tick and
talk and tick and talk and tick and talk and tick and talk and tick and
i'll say it again it's not the exercises the exercises are inspired by really great singers
and they're easy to do but it's how you experience your voice during the exercises that are going to
help you unlock great tone i hope i've helped you experience or start to experience that
in this video again if you'd like more tips and help like this and a lot more hand holding as you
explore more of your voice click that link below and join my free course we'll see you for more