♬
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 66 of Voice Lessons To The World.
Our question for this week comes from Charlotte H. in Honolulu, Hawaii.
And Charlotte writes, "Dear Justin, the L and the R
are particularly difficult to sing, especially in a song.
Why are they so evil?"
Well Charlotte, I'm very sorry to hear of your distress.
But all we know are the facts ma'am.
[Investigator Music]
Ladies and gentlemen the story you are about to see is true.
The names have been changed to protect the innocent.
This is the city.
I'm Sergeant Joe Stoney of the NYVCPD.
I solve vocal crimes.
The accused L.
Last seen with his accomplice R.
These are our most wanted vocal criminals.
Real rotten apples, real bad eggs.
Rumor has it they're even in cahoots with the soft palate.
The L accused of conspiracy.
Conspiring with the jaw for excessive tension in the
neighborhood of the mylohyoid.
Disturbing the peace of innocent singers just trying
to sing a song that contains L's.
Grand larceny of nasal resonance, robbing singers of mask
and head resonance from already difficult musical phrases.
Disorderly conduct violating the god-given rights
and freedom of the larynx by constantly holding him back
with physical force.
Resisting a rest, a resting position
that's relaxed and tall like the NG and not fleeing into the
dark shadows of the laryngopharynx.
These are the facts, ma'am.
And I for one would like to see the L in a Cell.
But we're gonna need a darn good vocal tip.
Uh okay, so I know what you guys are gonna say...
Justin...
do you remember what it was like before you went crazy?
And no, no I don't.
But that's not the point, the point is we've got to
open a criminal investigation against L.
Because it's causing too much grief for singers
all over the world, so let's talk about it.
There's two kinds of L's really.
There's the front L as in the word unlawful.
Right that's a front L, unlawful.
But then there's another kind of L, the back L.
Which is as in the word evil.
Evil, right?
That's a back L.
So the front L, unlawful.
And the back L, evil.
Now let's talk about the crimes that L
has committed against singers.
That front L, first.
Now this L here, first of all, can often cause a lot of jaw tension.
We talked about the marriage of jaw and tongue
that L sound tends to lock the jaw
when really we can just do unlawful. [Demonstrates an easier L]
I don't need to do L.
The L causes a jaw tension.
Now the next thing is the front L
causes a lack of nasal resonance often.
First we want to find it with an N sound.
Nn, nn.
And then make that N into an L
[Demonstrates]
And then we have that nice unlawful.
And I have that buzz in my sound, that nasal resonance.
So it's the jaw and the nasal resonance.
That's the front L, what about the back L?
That evilll, that's even worse.
That's got a lot of tongue retraction
and we know all about tongue retraction.
That's going to cause the larynx to have
a backwards pressure on it, right.
So that it can't be free.
So evil causes that backwards tongue.
It also will prevent nasal resonance as well
because we're not getting some of that
high free tongue that we want and the soft palate slightly down.
So that we get that nasal resonance.
So that fix would be as in the pronunciation Evol.
See my tongue?
I don't have to go evil.
Evol.
That sounds a little strange to speak but we're really
gonna see how it applies more directly in a song.
So the song I'm gonna work on today
is the classic jazz song "I'll Be Seeing You".
And you're gonna see in this song "I'll Be Seeing You"
that there's all kinds of L's.
Front L's and especially back L's.
The L sound that could make this song quite difficult.
So this is the classic jazz song "I'll Be Seeing You"...
♪ I'll be seeing you in all the old familiar places ♪
♪ That this heart of mine embraces all day through ♪
♪ In that small cafe ♪
♪ The park across the way ♪
♪ The children's carousel, the chestnut trees, the wishing well ♪
Now you hear all of those L sounds all the way through.
And so if I exaggerate the problem we get something like this...
♪ I'll be seeing you in all the old familiar places ♪
♪ That this heart of mine embraces all day through ♪
♪ In that small cafe ♪
And you get the idea.
So that L gives me a lot of tongue retraction.
Especially those back L's.
♪ In that small ♪
♪ That small cafe ♪
I don't have to do small.
I can do...
♪ Small cafe ♪
And I keep my tongue up and the sound up in the nasal resonance
if I don't do that L.
So now that's the back L but there's a few front L's in the song too.
♪ I'll be seeing you in all the old familiar places ♪
Familiar.
I could do...
[demonstrates back L]
Or...
[demonstrates L with nasal resonance]
And get that buzzy L.
♪ Familiar places ♪
[demonstrates L with resonance]
And I get... [demonstrates L with resonance]
Instead of... [demonstrates the back L]
And then it's in the right spot.
So you guys can really see the application of those L sounds to a song.
But next we're going to put L in a cell
[sound of cell door closing]
by creating a vocal exercise.
It's going to be N-L-E-H-N, nlehn.
Now I know that's a little bit of a tongue twister.
Nlehn.
But we're gonna need it if the vocal justice system
is gonna have its way with L
and bring it out of the darkness and into the light, exposed.
So, nlehn.
We're gonna have guys down here...
♪ NLEHN ♪
And ladies up here...
♪ NLEHN ♪
And here we go together!
♪ NLEHN ♪
Nice.
♪
That's it.
♪
♪ NLEHN ♪
So nice!
♪
Very good.
♪ NLEHN ♪
So good.
♪
That's right.
♪
Good for you.
♪ NLEHN ♪
♪
♪ NLEHN ♪
♪
Very good!
♪
♪ NLEHN ♪
So nice.
♪
Right!
♪
Good.
♪
♪ NLEHN ♪
Awesome.
♪
That's right!
♪ NLEHN ♪
♪
♪ NLEHN ♪
A few more.
♪
Good stuff.
♪
Two more...
♪
Nice job.
♪ NLEHN ♪
♬
Awesome, awesome job.
So thank you for helping put L in its cell.
And Charlotte, I'm so sorry to hear of all the distress
a few bad eggs have caused you with your singing.
But I'm glad that we could put L in a Cell.
And so, let's take a look...
[Investigator music]
L we've gotcha right where we want ya.
What do you have to say for yourself?
Lllllllll!
Mmmmhmm.
Anything else you'd like to add L?
Llll Llll L Lllll.
Mhm. Sad.
Any last words, L?
La la la la la la la.
La la la la.
La la la la la la la la la la la la.
Book him, boys.
Lll lllll llllll L lllll.
♪♬♪