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It’s important to create your own unique sound and style as a singer. The sound of each individual’s singing voice is entirely unique because of the actual shape and size of an individual’s vocal cords, sinus cavity and physical structure of each individual. The job of every singer is cultivating their voice by making a song sound good without any music to accompany the singing. Here are three steps to help cultivate your singing voice. The first step is to…

Part of getting the most out of your singing voice is to understand your own voice type. When you have a better understanding of your own anatomy, you are more able to know what to expect from your voice. Knowing your voice type is really handy if you want to sing in a community choir, audition for a music theatre production or join a vocal ensemble. We are going to look at six common voice types. Typically, in a choir…

We’ve looked at the coordinated, aspirate and hard onset. The last vocal onset called the vocal fry which sounds like a growl. To have a great voice you have to work at technique. There is a technique called the “vocal fry”, which is a healthy husk (growl) or raspy sound you can produce in your voice. The vocal fry is the lowest register of your voice. It is considered a vocal onset, which we discussed in the previous blogs. How…

Most people will sing freely without paying attention to what their voice sounds like. To create a polished and professional sound, it’s all about control in the details. The hard onset, also called the glottal onset or hard attack of a note can really make your voice stand out from the rest. There is a gap between the two vocal cords (folds), which is called the glottis. The vocal cords open and close like a curtain. The ligaments and muscles…

Last week we looked at an overview of four approaches to singing and a more in depth look at the coordinated onset. We are going to discuss the aspirate onset, also called the breathy approach to singing. The aspirate onset is a way to sing a note in a soft approach. It is the breathy singing voice like Marilyn Monroe. This is a fancy way of saying that you start with an “h” sound. The aspirate vocal onset happens when…

The last blog briefly talked about four approaches to singing: coordinated, aspirate, hard (glottal) and vocal fry. Today we will look at the coordinated onset. The most important fundamental technique in singing is that of a coordinated onset, also called the balanced onset. The onset is how you start a note or phrase: the beginning of sound. It is the coordinated onset that gives you a clean start to initiate your sound. A coordinated/balanced onset occurs when the vocal folds…

There are three basic approaches to singing a note and one special method called vocal fry. These approaches when singing a note are called the vocal onset. Vocal onset is the way you initiate a pitch or how you begin to sing a note. How you initiate a pitch effects the quality of your sound throughout the musical phrase. The four vocal tone onsets are: The coordinated onset (balanced onset), airflow & vocal folds are brought together at the same…

Polyrhythms are a way to achieve a particularly ambitious sense of rhythm, which layers one type of rhythm on top of another. For instance, a salsa percussion ensemble may feature congas and bongos playing 4/4 time, while the timbales concurrently play a pattern in 3/8. This creates a dense rhythmic collaboration. The emphasis is on syncopation and asymmetrical rhythmic patterns. Polyrhythms originated in African drumming and they’ve spread to all sorts of genres worldwide, from Afro-Caribbean to Indian, Rock, Jazz,…

Stage fright happens to most people, it just varies in degrees. Any singer or pianist will tell you their experiences of stage fright before or during a performance. Actors, public speakers and musicians have all encountered that dreaded fear. It is a nervousness before or during a live performance in front of an audience. Here are some ways to overcome the fear. Stop thinking about yourself and your fear. Think about your true purpose – connecting with your audience. When…

A cadence for piano is different than a cadence for singing. For piano, a cadence is referring to a sequence of notes or chords, giving a sense of resolution or closure. When referring to voice, a cadence has to do with the modulation of a voice. This is the fine-tuning of a singer’s pitch or tone. For a singer, a cadence is also the way your words flow when singing. It involves the rhythm in which you sing and the…