[LAU] Helping Singers transition into Vocalists

[Stephen Stubbs]

The Disclaimer:  some personal opinions on the topic, not definitive by any means.

1.  Good Hearing.  If one was born with a hearing loss, then it may be impossible to progress.  Otherwise, protect your hearing!  Loud amplified sounds/music, gunfire, and other loud dB sources should be avoided.

2.  Proper Air Support.  If your chest is moving up and down while you sing, then you won't have proper air support.  You need to learn to sing from the diaphram.  Your navel should be going in and out, like a bellows, forcing the air up.  For instruction, visit your local junior/high school band teacher and let him/her show you proper brass playing breathing technique.  Your voice works more like a brass instrument than any other instrument.

3.  Resonance.  Nylon strings on a solid body guitar will NOT sound as rich and full as nylon strings on a hollow body guitar.  For a singer to create a richer, fuller sound; the mouth cavity needs to be expanded as much as possible.  A beginning technique is to arch the eyebrows up, drop the jaw, and form the lips into an 'o'.  This technique expands the mouth cavity the most.  The singer should notice an immediate improvement in the fullness of their sound.  Then the singer will learn to maintain that openness in the mouth cavity as the eyebrows come back down.  The jaw will tend to stay down all the time.  Opera singers are a great visual clue to proper jaw technique and roundness in the lips.

4. Positioning the Sound.  The sound of your voice should seem to be coming from a point 1/2 meter from your head, along a line formed by the back or your mouth and a spot midway between your eyes and about a centimeter above your eyes.  To help you visualize what I'm trying to describe here, search the Internet for a picture of John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie's B-Flat Trumpet.  The back of your mouth would be the mouthpiece of the trumpet and the upturned bell should be the line coming out from your forehead.

5. Critical Listening.  Just like a recording engineer, the singer must listen critically to the sound they are producing and fine tune the result in real time using the techniques raised in numbered paragraphs 2, 3, and 4 above.  A vocalist is continually listening to and adjusting their sound.

A helpful tip:  Sing in front of a supportive audience.  We all need positive encouragement while we are learning.

My public performances are at my Lutheran church as a choir member and as the cantor.  This is a very supportive environment because it's inborn to Lutherans to be forgiving.  As I always tell the PhD Choral Performance candidates (from the University of Illinois music department) who the congregation hires, "Don't worry about making mistakes, you're forgiven!  It's in the contract!"

I'm singing/canting in a very large space without amplification.  I know I've 'gotten it right' when I can't tell where the sound is coming from, it's all around me.  I sometimes find myself wondering:  who is singing that?  My other acid test is when you can literally 'hear a pin drop' in a audience of 200+ that also includes infants and small children.

A personal annoyance:  Vibrato is an effect, not a musical style.  A little reverb can be helpful.  Too much reverb and you start getting into an echo chamber that quickly becomes tiring to the ear.  I'd really like to listen to more classical opera, but that operatic vibrato turns me off within 2 measures.

For What It's Worth,
Stephen Stubbs
Champaign, IL
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