THE VOICE LESSON - WOMEN

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Our immediate goal is to see if our singer's bridges are intact. We do this by vocalizing her on a five-tone scale, beginning at A flat below middle C, and moving to E flat above middle C. We use the "ah" vowel, as in "father." - Play example: 1 (Real Player) Play example: 1 (Mp3 format) We then continue that exercise up the scale, one half tone at a time, working our way towards her first bridge, at A and B flat. One of two things usually happens around A, B flat or B natural. 1. The beginning notes are sung in a strong chest voice with a break into falsetto at the higher notes. - Play example: 2 (Real Player) Play example: 2 (Mp3 format) 2. There is a pulled chest sound all the way up with a yelling or splatting sound on the top notes. - Play example: 3 (Real Player) Play example: 3 (Mp3 format) At least eight out of ten times one of those scenarios occurs.

Now we know that the bridges are not being recognized. In many instances, corrections can be made relatively easily, unless we're dealing with someone with damage or very strong bad habits. For this lesson, we'll treat it as if it's fairly easy, with no damage. The next thing we like to do is help our student experience the mix with her own voice. There are many ways to do this, so we will provide a couple of examples. For our first example, we will use the word "nay," and we will exaggerate the way we say it, almost like a character voice. We then have our student sing an octave exercise from D flat below middle C to D flat above middle C. We purposely chose a high note, far enough above the first bridge, to hopefully discourage our singer from attempting to pull her chest voice up. Sung correctly it sounds like this - Play example: 4 (Real Player) Play example: 4 (Mp3 format) The exaggerated sound helps thin out the chest voice, and thicken up the mix. It is a great tool for immediately connecting the voice. If our singer had let go and gone into falsetto, that would be incorrect and sound like this - play example: 5 (Real Player) Play example: 5 (Mp3 format)

 

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