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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 15 of Voice Lessons To The World.
The show where we want to answer your questions
about singing from all over the world.
I'll give you a chance to ask questions later but
our question for the week comes from Bulacan, Philippines
and coach Fatrick Sta. Ana, he's the founder of Popstage
and he asked me to give the website so it's right here.
Popstage, it looks like these guys are doing some great things.
But coach Fatrick asks, "Dear Justin, what is the
difference between pop singing and classical singing?"
That's an awesome question Fatrick.
And I know that lots of you want to do multiple styles
and I really encourage that.
I really encourage you to not just get locked into one
but give your vocal cords variety, do a lot of different things.
So today we're going to talk about the differences between
pop and classical.
The very first one is simply volume.
Classical singing is just louder than pop singing.
And now that doesn't mean to be loud,
but when you're singing classically you don't use a microphone
and when you sing with pop you do use a microphone.
And so you want to know that as you're developing your voice.
That when you're going to sing with the elements of classical
part of the purpose is to project the voice
and be able to sing without a mic and to be able to sing
over an orchestra and in a large hall.
With pop singing we purposefully do not want the voice to be so big
because the mic's going to be very close.
If you sing too big you're probably not going to have the agility
and the dexterity and the lightness that we need.
So, classical singers, be sure that you're
singing, as they say, "on the body"
with a lot of connection to the body, with a lot of great breath support,
a lot of physical energy, and a voice that can carry.
We never want to push, we never want to be loud.
But we want to set up mechanics that will cause good healthy projection.
We'll talk about one of those in a second.
Pop singers, purposefully do not make your voice so loud.
If you're singing pop loudly, like I say, you're probably going to
prevent the growth that we want as far as
agility, lightness, and dexterity that we need for pop singing.
So that's the first difference.
Now one of those mechanical differences
with vocal technique, is the larynx.
Now we talked about this in the past but we'll do it again.
Classical singers sing with the lower larynx,
pop singers sing with a higher larynx.
There's gradations of laryngeal coordinations that you can do.
But I'd like to take a song here that could be
in a pop setting or a classical setting, "America The Beautiful,"
and just show you what these larynxes sound like.
So if I have a little bit of a lower larynx,
I have...
♪ Oh beautiful for spacious skies ♪
♪ For amber waves of grain ♪
And if I lift up my larynx and get it in a little bit of a lighter place with it...
♪ Oh beautiful for spacious skies ♪
♪ For amber waves of grain ♪
and I get a little bit more into a pop sound.
So part of the thing that allows for more projection
is that lower larynx.
With a lower deeper sound I can make a bigger sound than
with the higher lighter sound that I have with a high larynx.
So part of what causes the projection and the
volume difference, is your laryngeal position.
Again we want to feel a sense of a little drop and a little openness
in the throat for your low larynx
and a little bit of a lighter higher, not squeezed but higher,
laryngeal position for pop.
So then the next thing is sort of similar to that,
it's the conversational-ness of contemporary sounds.
Classical singers do not put on the pedestal as much the
conversational-ness of their sound.
So in other words, if I want to have
tone quality be my number one focus
I might pronounce the words...
Oh beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain.
And then I get of course...
♪ Oh beautiful for spacious skies ♪
♪ For amber waves of grain ♪
But if I speak it very conversationally...
For purple mountain majesties above the fruited plain
♪ For purple mountain majesties ♪
♪ Above the fruited plain ♪
it sounds more like me and it sounds more with the emphasis
being on the lyrics and on the communication.
So, in pop and contemporary we hear the words more clearly often
because the focus is on the conversationalism of the tone
versus the richness and fullness and the depth
of the tone that you get in classical.
Now a fourth thing is going to be stylistic elements.
Classical singers do at least two very distinct things.
Lots of vibrato and lots of legato.
Legato means smoothness.
So if I have a lot of vibrato and legato, it's this...
♪ America America ♪
♪ God shed his grace on thee ♪
You can see that I'm being very smooth through there
and I also have... ♪ Thee ♪
That shimmer of vibrato.
Now a pop singer might not have as much of that.
They might have...
♪ America America ♪
♪ God shed his grace on thee ♪
That's straight tone.
There might not be any vibrato at all.
And it might not be so smooth and legato.
I'm being a little bit more choppy there.
Now again, both styles can use
legato, staccato, vibrato, if they want.
But they tend more toward vibrato and legato in classical
and toward choppy staccato and straight tone in pop.
Now another thing that I can do is throw in riffs.
A pop singer would do that more than a classical singer.
Although classical singers do have cadenzas,
which is sort of a classical riffing.
But if I have this again...
♪ America America ♪
♪ God shed his grace on thee ♪
I'm throwing in just a little bit of riffs there
to kind of bring it into a pop style.
So riffs are another thing that a pop singer
might do that a classical singer might not.
And then finally breathiness and vocal fry tend to sound
very good in pop but not so much in classical.
Breathiness is this sound and a vocal fry is this sound.
So if I go back and do my pop...
♪ America America ♪
♪ God shed his grace on thee ♪
I have [breathiness] and [vocal fry] in my sound
and it brings me into a pop style.
And because I'm not loud, because I'm not forcing
a lot of air or volume, that's not bad for my vocal cords.
So again, the purity of the classical sound...
♪ America America ♪
♪ God shed his grace on thee ♪
I don't have any of those elements but
I have a lot of other great elements alongside.
So I hope that's some good clear differences for you guys
as you're working to get both a
classical sound and a pop sound together.
Again we've got the volume issue.
We've got our laryngeal coordination-
where are we going to feel the depth or the raise
or the neutrality of our larynx.
We've got the conversational style of pop versus the
focus on tone quality and richness of the musical line in classical.
And then we've got those stylistic elements that we talked about-
Vibrato, legato, staccato, vocal riffs, fries, breathiness,
there's a lot of stuff that you can play with.
So Fatrick that was a great question.
Once again that website for you.
Popstage, looks like these guys are doing some
great stuff out there in the Philippines.
So we wish you the best in helping singers.
That's totally awesome.
And if you guys have questions for us to answer on the show
you can send an email to-
Questions@VoiceLessonsToTheWorld.com [♪]
So we just encourage you to study a lot of [♪]
different styles of singing from pop to classical. [♪]
And, as you do, don't lose the joy [♪]
don't lose the passion, don't let people tell you [♪]
that you can't sing because we know that that's not true. [♪]
Get with a great voice teacher [♪]
like Fatrick out there in the Philippines and Popstage. [♪]
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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