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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 22 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 Daniel J. in Queensland, Australia.
And Daniel writes, "Dear Justin, can you tell us how to manipulate
and alternate between head voice and chest voice quickly,
like Adele does in the chorus of 'Set Fire To The Rain'."
That's a great question, Daniel, and you're right about that.
Adele has this really unique ability to move between her registers very quickly.
It gives her a really cool and different sound.
And it's partly why she's such a great singer,
is she does this quick alternation between her registers.
So we'll look at "Set Fire To The Rain" today.
But I want to first do a quick registration overview.
So we've got our chest voice, that's the thick, robust, powerful coordination.
It's like speaking on pitch.
It's thick cords, it's air out the mouth, and like I say it's like speaking.
And Adele has that really strong, speaky-belty chest voice that she uses a lot.
But then you've got your head voice which is a lighter sound,
and it's air to the back, thinner cords,
a sort of lighter and "hooty-er" quality to the voice.
So that's head voice.
And then in the middle you've got all manner of blends between the two.
All manner of strengths, of vocal cord coordinations,
and things that are between head voice and chest voice,
which helps you to blend smoothly.
Now Adele does blend smoothly sometimes.
But she also moves quickly between the registers
and makes it almost in some ways not so smooth on purpose.
And I'll show you what I mean by that with the song.
So let's get to "Set Fire To The Rain."
And I'm just going to take one passage,
and breakdown some of the things that Adele does in the song.
This is not an Adele imitation.
I'm just taking some of the coordinations that she uses
and I'm gonna just show you what she's doing
with her register changes so that it gives you a better idea of understanding
what some of these great singers do with their voices.
So if I take that chorus of "Set Fire To The Rain"
♪
♪ But I set fire to the rain ♪
♪ And I threw us into the flames ♪
♪ Well I felt something die cause I knew ♪
♪ That that was the last time ♪
♪ The last time ♪
So she starts off in chest voice and then quickly she throws it up
into head voice and then back down into a mix and
then back up into head voice and then back down again.
♪ But I set fire to the rain ♪
♪ And I threw us ♪
Right into head voice and then right back into mix.
So she starts off strong with "I set fire,"
and then ♪ threw us ♪ is head voice, and then mix.
♪
♪ I threw us into the ♪
And then right back...
♪ Into the flames ♪
So she's back and forth between her head voice and her mix.
And that's giving it that really unique quality.
Now another thing to know about Adele is
that she's often doing the head voice that she throws in so quickly
on an E vowel or an OO vowel.
And those are very heady vowels.
They do help the air get to the back.
The OO because the air is being blocked from the mouth...
♪ threw us - threw ♪
It helps me get it back here.
And then the E vowel often you'll hear her do that one as well.
When she picks a heady vowel she often just lets her voice
go quickly up into head voice.
So hope that can help you see just what she's doing in her song work.
To go... Um... Well, I wouldn't actually call it graceful.
But, purposefully not graceful between her registers.
To do that you have to be very, very confident in your registration.
You have to make sure that you have all the registers worked out.
So let's then talk about how you can develop some of those skills
of moving so quickly between registers like that.
The first thing I want you to know is to work on every register.
A lot of people neglect one or another.
They say, "Well I'm a belter. I want to sound powerful like Adele."
But then they don't work on their falsetto.
They don't work on their head voice.
They don't work on the lighter coordinations.
Belters, you need to work on your head voice
just as much as you work on your belt.
Same thing is true of head voice singers.
Make sure that you have a strong robust chest voice
to add power to your voice so that it's not always just head voice.
Then finally, make sure that you have the mix qualities in-between.
You should be able to have every note that you're going
to be doing in a song, in every different coordination.
So if i just take this note,
♪ HEE ♪
I should also be able to do, ♪ HEE ♪ or ♪ HEE ♪ or ♪ HEE ♪ or ♪HEE ♪ [varying vocal registers]
I have all these different registers that I can use for that single note.
If you make sure that you can sing
each note in all different registers,
then you're going to be able to move quickly between them.
It's not like you sing your G and it's always chest voice,
you want to make sure that you can do it in different coordinations.
Another way to develop the ability to do all those different coordinations
is don't add air for the coordinations.
Don't add more air for your chest voice or less air for your head voice.
You want to keep the airflow even, regardless of what register you're in.
Pop singers are very, very good at keeping the airflow even regardless of the register.
The other thing similar to that is don't change the volume for your registration.
Keep the volume the same and don't get louder for chest voice,
don't get softer for head voice, and then it's easier to
go back and forth between the registers.
So I hope that gives you a little sense of what Adele does
and how you can start working on it too.
Now I'm going to do a part two next week on this, Daniel and all.
And I'm going to give you an exercise that helps you
to feel how you can move quickly back and forth
between registers yourself.
So there's gonna be a part two.
Stay tuned for that next week as we do that.
But I hope that's been helpful for you guys today as singers.
If you have questions you want to see us answer on the show
you can send an email to: Questions@VoiceLessonsToTheWorld.com [♪]
We just encourage you not to lose the joy, don't lose the passion. [♪]
Keep working on all the registers of your voice. [♪]
Keep being inspired by great artists like Adele. [♪]
Find a great voice teacher in your area. [♪]
If you guys are in New York [♪]
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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