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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 31 of Voice Lessons To The World,
the show where we want to help you guys as singers
by answering your questions from all over the world.
And I'll give you a chance to ask questions later,
but our question for this week comes from Maira C. in Sao Paolo, Brazil.
And Maira says, "Dear Justin, I really like your videos.
They've expanded my thinking on vocal technique.
I've been singing for a long time,
but everything I sing sounds the same.
I'd really like to change my style, but I don't know how to do it.
Can you help?"
Now Maira that's an awesome question.
And I really appreciate your kind words,
as well as the question about changing style.
I think so many of us want to do more than one style,
and you guys know that I'm very big
on us all being able to do a multitude of styles.
But for your question, how do we change our style?
If we've been locked into one thing,
how can we get out of that one style that we've been doing?
It's a great question.
But the first thing we're going to talk about
is being open to other artists.
So, you need to be able to get lots of sounds in your ears
to be able to change your style.
It's great to have a few artists that you always listen to,
that you're inspired by.
But one thing if you want to stretch past
your comfort zone and really change your style,
is you're going to have to get those other artists in your ear.
Maybe you always listen to R&B.
That's great.
But can you expand your listening to some things that you
wouldn't maybe think that you would like.
Maybe some opera, maybe some jazz,
maybe some gospel, maybe some rock.
No matter what you listen to a lot, go ahead and challenge yourself
to listen to something that you think that you don't like.
Maybe some people think that they hate country,
and actually when they start listening to it they say,
hey, maybe that's not so bad after all,
and maybe there's some ways I can use
those sounds in my style, even though it's very, very different.
So get other artists in your ear.
Part of the reason why that's true,
is that there are no original artists.
Now that's kind of facetious.
But truly there is no such thing as an original artist.
The only real original artist is the person that was
in the woods one day and found
a big rock and a couple sticks
and started hitting that rock and said,
"Oh that's rhythm! Well that sounds pretty good."
That's an original artist.
Maybe another person picked up a stick in the woods
and hollowed it out and blew in it and it made a
couple notes and they said, "Oh! Music!"
Now those are original artists.
But everybody else since then has been somewhat inspired by the past.
Every generation builds on itself.
Every generation inspires the next.
Nobody can actually do something truly unique.
Nor should they really try.
Because everybody is really influenced by the past
and that's not a bad thing.
What you want to do is not try to create something that's truly different,
but to take artists and take sounds
and expand on them in your own way,
and that will truly change your style and make you a unique artist.
But you don't want to try to reinvent the wheel.
Everybody is inspired by the past.
So go ahead and quote/unquote, "steal from the best."
Make sure you've got lots of artists in your ear
so that you can be influenced and inspired by those artists
and take that and make something new.
Now the next thing I want you to do
is be open to other styles.
And the reason why is because styles are now
becoming very cross-pollinated.
If you hear an R&B song it might have some rock sounds in it,
some pop, maybe some jazz.
There's a lot of crossover.
Musical theater, a lot of the Broadway shows
are using pop and rock sounds.
It's a little bit less of the traditional,
it's a little bit more of the contemporary.
Although they're not losing the traditional either.
Classical singers are known to do a lot of crossover work.
It could be an opera singer that releases
a pop or musical theater or jazz album.
There's a lot of ways that styles merge.
So if you're open-minded to a lot of different styles
then you're really going to be able to incorporate that into your sound.
Now next, I want to talk about being open to the larynx.
Because those things I mentioned so far,
are a little bit more of practical tasks for you guys
in order to be able to expand your style.
But there's some technical things as well.
And as we've talked about in the past,
the larynx is a style changer.
It could be many other things.
But mostly, if you're going to be adjusting the
larynx position purposefully, that's going to be
one of your key technical skills for changing your style.
Now again, the neutral larynx is our ultimate larynx.
That does the freest, healthiest, best things.
But, it's not bad or wrong or unhealthy to do other kinds of things.
Again we don't want to slam the larynx up or jam it down.
But there's different gradations of larynx height
that determine your style.
Pop, rock, contemporary music is going to be a little bit
of a higher larynx than say a classical singer
who's going to use a little bit of a lower, deeper larynx,
and a more open pharynx.
These are just differences.
They're not good or bad.
But you guys need to be able to mess with your laryngeal position,
if you're going to do a multitude of styles.
Now by just singing lots of songs
you're probably going to get that down.
But I just want to inspire you guys to
do a little bit of that in your practicing.
Let me give you an example of what I mean by that.
Let's say I have an e vowel, I could just say,
E [ Neutral larynx ]
but I could also perhaps do an,
E [ Deep ]
or maybe,
E [ Deep, and dark ]
or perhaps,
E [ Bright ]
or,
E [ Breathy ]
There's a ton of "E"s that I could do.
None of them are right or wrong.
They're just different.
So depending on what I'm working on in my practice
I might choose a different thing to focus on
if I'm trying to change my style.
So if I just had any old exercise, the simplest possible thing I could do,
♪
and I do...
♪ Me Me Me Me Me ♪ [ Neutral larynx ]
I'm going for a plain sound. Plain.
♪ Me Me Me Me Me ♪ [ Neutral larynx ]
It's fine. It's just a plain old sound.
But what if I am working on a little bit of a lower larynx?
Then I might try...
♪ Me Me Me Me Me ♪ [ Lowered larynx ]
I'm experimenting with some depth.
Or what if I'm trying to work on a little bit of my breathiness?
And a little bit of a higher larynx position?
♪ Me Me Me Me Me ♪ [ Heightened larynx, breathy ]
I can manipulate not only the larynx height,
but kind of the style of my exercises.
So don't just do your exercises in one way.
Figure out some different sounds that you're working on.
Maybe you need a teacher to help you,
or maybe these videos help you.
But you need to be able to do your exercises
in more than one way.
So be conscious of what you're going for
when you're doing your exercises
and know that there's adjustments that you can make
that will facilitate that style.
And then finally, I want you guys to be open to yourself.
Changing your style is great.
I definitely want you to be experimenting with lots of listening,
with lots of trying of different song styles and variations of your technique.
But don't be afraid to be yourself.
A lot of times people say I gotta change my style
because I just don't sound right.
But really sometimes that's just because
we're judging our own voice too much.
I did tell you to steal from the best.
I did tell you to be inspired by other artists.
But what I don't want you guys trying to do
is sound like other people.
You should be inspired by them but don't try to
change your style so that you can sound different from yourself.
Your voice will always be the best voice.
Maybe it's not as big as somebody else's voice.
Maybe it's not as high and flexible as somebody else's voice.
That's fine.
You don't need to change your voice to be somebody else.
You just need to open up your stylistic possibilities.
But never lose sight of being yourself when you sing.
A sound that sounds like you will always be better
than a sound that sounds like somebody else.
Be inspired by the style, but make sure that whatever you do,
whatever larynx position, whatever style that you're working on,
it still is a version of yourself.
That's always going to serve you the best.
So, Maira and all, I hope that's been helpful for you guys as singers today.
If you 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 not to lose that joy, don't lose that passion. [♪]
Keep messing with different styles. [♪]
Keep messing with different kinds of technique for your voice. [♪]
It's going to open up a lot of possibilities for you. [♪]
Get with a great voice teacher in your area to help you. [♪]
Or 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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