Pre-recorded practice tracks are not tailored to your current vocal range

“Whenever I sing along to one of those warm-up tracks on YouTube, my voice gets tired” is a complaint I’ve heard all too often from singers! One of the main reasons (and the following two sections are also culprits) for that is that the generic prerecorded track is not tailored to your current vocal range! And no, choosing a track which has a voice type such as baritone or soprano in the title does not mitigate this issue because your range is to a much larger extent limited by your technical abilities than by your anatomy. Playing a track that doesn’t take into consideration this factor and singing along to it makes it rather likely for you to push and strain at least a little bit in an attempt to squeeze out a couple more semitones. And I’m not saying that a practice session shouldn’t present any challenges. On the contrary!

Practice tracks are moving along at a steady pace with no time for evaluation and corrections

I do believe that it is very important to challenge yourself during your singing practice session and you should be actively trying to expand your range beyond your current limitations. However, that should be done with enough time to evaluate each attempt and retry with corrections if the last attempt wasn’t adequate. Pre-recorded tracks just breeze along and make it hard to pause, readjust and try several attempts at the same pitch. Instead, most singers will just continue following the pitch from the track up and up several semitones above the one where the first problems started until they inevitably get up to the pitch where things fall apart completely. Instead, a singer should take pauses and reassess the strategy and technique from the first pitch where unneeded extra tension and/or instabilities present themselves.

Loss of focus

Pre-recorded tracks make it really easy to lose focus and just sing along the track without actively paying attention to the technical elements that you’re practicing. That’s sometimes even the reason people decide to practice this way – they feel they can practice while performing another task. However, focused practice beats autopilot practice every time!

Specific technical needs

The exercises you do should reflect the style of music you want to sing and the desired voice qualities you want to work on. For example, you might want to get better at brassy belted high notes in gospel songs and the tape you’re practicing with spends a disproportionate amount of time on semi occluded vocal tract exercises such as lip rolls, tongue trills or humming. That is surely not the most time effective way to work towards your goals as a singer! Your practice session needs to be tailored for your specific needs and desired outcomes!

What should you do instead?

If it’s between doing nothing and practicing along those tapes, it’s better to do something than nothing, but there are definitely more efficient ways to practice! You don’t need to be able to play complex scale patterns on an instrument nor even have an instrument nearby. You can just use a simple piano app on your phone to give yourself starting pitches. I always suggest to keep the exercises simple, but focused on a technical aspect you’re aiming to master. That way you don’t need to focus so much on executing complex scale patterns (unless that’s the point of the practice session), but you can instead focus on technical precision. After each repetition, before ascending or descending in pitch, ask yourself if the repetition you just performed met the desired technical goals. If yes, go on to the next pitch. If not, try to figure out what was out of whack, readjust and try again on the same pitch. Rinse and repeat! Only after that pitch is performed adequately with consistency, move on!

I understand that this process can seem a lot more tedious and require more mental focus, but I promise it will bring you more consistent results faster than singing along to random practice tracks on autopilot!
If you’re not sure where to start or want help tailoring a practice routine to your voice and goals, I’d be happy to work with you — feel free to reach out for a lesson here!

Any vocal sound that humans make can be categorized into one of those four modes. They are all equally healthy and correct when performed accurately and their appropriateness depends on the desired sound and style. What separates the modes are their limitations! Each mode will have its own sonic character and a different set of limitations and rules that need to be obeyed in order for the singing to feel free and unrestricted. Coming from a more traditional way of looking at the voice, I expected modes would somehow correspond to the chest – mix – head concept, but that is not the case! That part is handled more by the density and engagement parameters in CVT.

The first level of limitation that we come across is called metal. Metal can be described as a buzzing, ringy, loud sound. It comes from an increase in harmonic content that is achieved by a quick collapse of the flow in each vibratory cycle of the vocal folds which is achieved by a higher subglottic pressure, a higher degree of epilaryngeal narrowing and a thicker vocal fold setup. Metal is linked to volume and the more metallic the sound is the more volume it will have. However, metal is not the only way to achieve volume, so you can also be loud to a certain degree without having a metallic sound, but metal is the most efficient and sustainable way of increasing the volume. Listen to the sound examples below to hear what a note with no metal and a note with metal sound like:

Neutral is the only non-metallic mode and that is its limitation – it cannot have metal, which limits it to a soft character and to a lower maximum volume than the metallic modes. It is the only mode in which we can add audible air to the sound.
Out of the metallic modes, Curbing is always sort of medium volume and the character is restrained. It can have a wide range of vowels, but they all need to be somewhat centralized towards a schwa (UH) in order for the mode to work properly.
Overdrive can be very loud and powerful, but is very limited in vowel choices (OH and EH) and has a pitch ceiling.
Edge is approximately as loud and powerful as Overdrive and works on vowels that keep the back of the tongue high. That helps keep the distinct twang which is a requirement for the mode.

You should choose a mode depending on the desired volume and character. If you want a strong and powerful sound, Neutral is probably not the mode to choose. If on the other hand you want to achieve a soft and intimate sound, Neutral will probably be a much better choice than Edge or Overdrive. If you want to sing loudly in the very high pitch range, Edge will be a better choice than Overdrive due to Overdrive’s pitch limit. If you want to achieve a medium strong sound with a melancholic character, you’ll probably be happiest choosing Curbing. You get the picture, each mode has its own specific strengths and limitations!

People will often ask which mode a certain singer sings in, but you should keep in mind that while singers will definitely have their specific tendencies of using some modes more than others, most singers will switch between several modes in a performance to create more nuance and dynamics, so it’s a good idea to master all four vocal modes.

This article is not intended to explain the details and intricacies of each mode, but rather to explain the idea behind the concept of dividing sounds based on certain shared limitations. If you’d like to know more about the modes, you can buy the full CVT app, buy the CVT book or download the free CVT introduction app which offers less details, but is a great starting point for learning about the modes. You can also shoot me an email through the contact form on this website to arrange a lesson to work on modes in practice!

How it all began…

To arrive to probable answers to these questions, we need to dive a bit into the history of singing tuition. Historically, formal lessons were only available for western classical music. Classical singing, albeit containing many different substyles of singing, has certain common esthetic ideals. It needs to be fairly dark in sound color, basically darker than any contemporary or folk style of singing. It needs to have a constant and consistent vibrato. It needs to be fairly loud to be audible unamplified while singing with a large orchestra in a theater. That already put some technical constraints onto which technical choices were viable and which were not. Keep in mind that in the heyday of opera when the most popular pieces were written, globalization was not a thing to the extent that it is today and that information was exchanged at a much slower rate. For the same reason, fashion in music was much more localized. That meant ideas around singing technique were often developing in different directions in different places. That lead to different schools of thought on singing technique in Italy, France, Germany, Austria or Sweden and sometimes even differences between different regions of the same country.

Singing teachers of that time weren’t educated on all the different possibilities of the human voice. If they discovered a technique that delivered a suitable sound consistently and without excessive wear on the voice, they would conclude that it must be the correct way to sing and were teaching it as such. If you dive into old texts on singing technique and compare ideas from, for example, Francesco Lamperti and Manuel Garcia, you will find many points of disagreement. So, different beliefs on what is right when it comes to singing technique are nothing new!

Beyond classical

With the democratization of music tuition in the 20th century, people started teaching various different styles including musical theater, folk, pop and rock which included vastly different sounds from classical and from each other. As I mentioned in one of the previous articles, it makes sense that a change in sound requires an adjustment of technique. Something needs to change in what you do to get a different sounding outcome. However, at the time there were no educated singing teachers for all these genres, so most often you’d have classical teachers attempt to adapt. That resulted in some of the classical stylings lingering on in teaching along with the belief that they are the only healthy way of singing despite the fact that different teachers sometimes taught contradicting things as the “only healthy way”.

Nowadays, with a lot more scientific research on singing available and with a much deeper understanding of how human voices function, we know that there is a vast range of different techniques that can be used healthily (as well as a vast range of things you can do to endanger your vocal health), resulting in a huge palette of different sounds! Unfortunately, many methods still lag behind the scientific research available and teach a single approach as the only right way.

Trust your own judgement

So what can you do to make sure that you are getting the right tuition for the sounds that you want to make? Listen to your sound and your body! If the sound you’re getting is not in the ball park of what you’re aiming for, you need to adjust your technique. If your teacher does not provide helpful tools to reach that goal, it might be a good idea to consider a switch! That doesn’t mean your singing teacher is bad, but their method might just not be suited to what you’re trying to achieve. Also, if what you’re doing feels physically uncomfortable, hurts, scratches or itches in your throat or causes hoarseness – you’re obviously doing something wrong and need a technical intervention to keep your voice healthy.

Complete Vocal Technique (CVT)

As an authorized Complete Vocal Technique teacher, I am certainly biased so you are welcome to take my opinion with a grain of salt, but for me the beauty of CVT is that it categorizes and teaches many different techniques that result in a wide palette of sounds that can be used in all different styles of music. Working with a teacher educated in a modern science-based approach such as CVT or Estill is a great way to get coaching tailored to your specific goals! Instead of teaching one technique as the only right way, we can analyze your goals and come up with a technique path that works for those specific goals.

If you want to find an authorized CVT teacher in your area you can find the full list by country here: https://completevocal.institute/find-a-teacher/
Or you can contact me here if you’d like to work with me online (or in person if you happen to be close to Zagreb, Croatia).

Today I’d like to rant a little bit about a very common issue I encounter among singers, and sometimes even very experienced singers, who have spent some time studying singing technique. To facilitate technical discussions about singing, we come up with various terms to explain what we mean. Navigating the ocean of terminological chaos associated with singing is rather difficult on its own, but that’s a different discussion. However, I feel that the complexity of understanding these terms sometimes tricks us to unconsciously drift from our goals. Suddenly the aim shifts into “singing in Overdrive” or “finding mixed voice” or “singing from the diaphragm” where the initial goal was to capture a certain vibe and musicality of a song or a phrase. We start focusing on one tree and while that tree is possibly an important feature of the forest, it’s not the whole forest. After painting that tree really nicely, it is necessary to zoom back out to the forest and see what other trees need work for the whole forest to be nicely painted.

The biggest tree

To make my point a little clearer, let me explain with a specific example. For the sake of familiarity let’s pick rock legend Steven Tyler from Aerosmith and the first verse of their 1989 hit song Love In An Elevator starting at 0:32.

As a CVT teacher, I’d describe Tyler’s main approach to that verse as reduced density Edge with the added rough vocal effect called distortion. If you’d like to learn more about these terms and the associated technique, I suggest buying the Complete Vocal Technique app or book or booking a lesson with me, but that understanding is not required for following the rest of this article. So, to approach that kind of sound, I’d start training high notes in reduced density Edge and then once the singer has a good grasp of that technique, introduce training the distortion effect.

The issue is that many singers feel like they’ve now reached the goal because the overarching technical approach they’re taking is the same as Steven Tyler’s. However, getting good at reduced density Edge with distortion still doesn’t mean nailing all the subtleties of this piece of music! It’s merely the technical foundation required to be able to pull the song off, but there are many more aspects of Tyler’s performance that make it so electrifying and charismatic (which is of course taste dependent, but if Steven Tyler is not your cup of tea, feel free to imagine your favorite singer as the example of this text instead)! At this point you could start nitpicking and trying to copy every little subtle nuance of Tyler’s performance, but unless your aim is to end up a faithful Steven Tyler impersonator singing in an Aerosmith tribute band, I’d suggest a slightly different approach!

The wrong tree

Before moving on to other solutions, I’d like to derail and ask you to make sure that your biggest tree actually belongs to the forest you’re trying to paint! What I mean is that maybe the sound you’ve worked on while developing your technique is great on its own, but doesn’t fit the context you’re trying to fit it into. With the Aerosmith example, you’ll obviously need a fairly powerful sound as your baseline and if you have spent a lot of time practicing a different technique for hitting those notes, maybe the overall approach needs addressing before continuing on to finer points! My suggestion is to always assess if the overall sound character is appropriate. If it sounds too soft or too strong, too dark or too bright, work on those points first because no amount of attention to detail will make a James Blunt type of sound appropriate for a Steven Tyler style song and vice versa!

The lab and the musical performance

During my studies at CVI in Copenhagen, we’ve been taught this very important concept of separating the lab phase and the musical performance phase of practice. The lab phase is where you perfect different techniques and nurture your newly acquired sounds until they’re ripe enough for the performance training phase. In the first phase, you don’t need to worry about musicality, but rather about stability, reproducibility and sustainability of the technique. Following that, in the performance training phase, you should focus on making things sound good. What sounds good is a very subjective matter and I encourage you to use your own taste more than relying on anyone else. Other people, including friends, musicians, and vocal coaches, can provide valuable ideas on how to improve your performance, but use your own taste as the main guideline! One of our teachers from CVI used to say “I might suggest ice cream flavors for you to try, but if you don’t like my favorite ice cream flavor, you shouldn’t be stuck ordering that one for the rest of your life just because I like it.” So make sure things sound good to YOU! Record yourself a lot and often! Notice the things you don’t like about your performance and rather than just flagellating yourself for not sounding good, try to decode what it is exactly that needs to change for you to like it better! Would you prefer a darker sound color on the ending of the phrase? Would you like a more even vibrato? Would some notes benefit from light pitch bends? These are all ideas you can then take back into the lab and work on the technical points that are required to put it back into context to elevate that musical performance to the next level.

Importance of emotional communication

Once you have ironed out the technical points, don’t forget that art is all about emotional expression. In most cases, no amount of technical work can make up for a lack of emotional communication. As a part of your performance training phase, I would suggest putting some thought into what the song is about, who you are as the character delivering the message, who the message is addressed to and what you aim to accomplish with delivering that message. You’ll find your technical choices will start to follow those objectives to underline the intended message. Most often an emotionally impactful performance with some technical flaws will be received a lot better than a technically perfect performance that doesn’t resonate with the listener emotionally!

I hope this short article helps you not confuse the forest for the trees and helps you structure your practice better in a more efficient manner. If you need any help conquering the technical aspects of a piece (the lab phase) or connecting it all into the bigger picture (the performance training phase) don’t hesitate to contact me and book a lesson!

At first glance, the phrase might seem rather nonsensical because the diaphragm is primarily an inspiratory muscle (meaning it’s used to breathe in) and it certainly can’t sing. Furthermore, no matter how extremely you lower or raise your larynx, your vocal folds (which are housed inside the larynx) are certainly always gonna stay in your throat. So taking the expression literally obviously won’t do us much good, but could there be a more cryptic meaning behind it? After all, the phrase must have gotten so popular for a reason, right?!

Before speculating on the hidden meaning of that common expression, let’s look at what the diaphragm is and what it does. The diaphragm is a dome shaped muscle attached to the lower ribs, the sternum, and the spine. It separates the thoracic and abdominal cavities. When it contracts, the diaphragm descends and thereby increases the volume of the thoracic cavity (containing the heart and lungs) which creates a negative pressure in your lungs and sucks the air in through your nose or mouth. Lowering the diaphragm by contracting it will push the abdominal contents down and out, which means your abdominal wall will bulge out slightly when the diaphragm is contracted.

Most singing, obviously, happens on an exhalation. So what’s the diaphragm’s function after inhalation and during singing? Strategies here can differ greatly, but they all come down to managing the subglottic pressure, which is the air pressure below the vocal folds (sub = below, glottis = the vocal folds and the space between them). The pressure below the vocal folds influences several parameters including loudness, pitch frequency and airflow. Generally, the higher the pitch you’re aiming for and the louder you’re singing, the higher the subglottic pressure will need to be. And it will need to be maintained as the air supply in the lungs diminishes.

The first role of the diaphragm here is a passive one. We can contract the abdominal muscles (rectus abdominis, external and internal obliques, and transversus abdominis) to pull in the abdominal wall, pushing the abdominal contents in and up (opposite from the diaphragm’s work during inhalation) which will push the diaphragm up. That will increase the pressure in the lungs by decreasing the volume of thoracic cavity and through the trachea (windpipe) increase the pressure below the vocal folds. As stated, this pressure needs to be maintained while you’re staying on the same pitch and volume, so it should be a gradual process. For this reason, I find that very often when the choir directors or singing teachers ask of their singers to “use their diaphragm more” to reach higher pitches or get louder, they actually mean engaging the abdominal muscles more against a firmer closure of the vocal folds, which act as a valve at the top of the trachea.

There are also several scenarios in which we might actively contract the diaphragm while singing. The diaphragm will contract when we need to quickly lower the subglottic pressure. For instance, quickly jumping to a lower note or performing an abrupt diminuendo (decrease in volume) will often involve an active contraction of the diaphragm. Another scenario where we might actively contract the diaphragm is where we use it to provide resistance to the abdominal movement. While at first glance it might seem counterproductive to use opposing muscle groups together, in human physiology we often see antagonistic muscles being contracted together when a highly precise movement is needed. In that case the diaphragm acts as a break, slowing down the abdominal movement.

Bear in mind that there’s a lot more to breathing mechanics and breath support technique for singing than this article aims to cover, so if you’d like to learn effective breath support methods for singing, email me through the website’s contact form to arrange a lesson.

So… We’ve established what the diaphragm can do and that it definitely can’t sing on its own and that the vocal folds can’t leave the throat (unless surgically removed ). So if we don’t just dismiss the opening line of this article as nonsense, which would probably be unwise because there’s got to be something to it since it’s such a common mantra, what could the possible meaning be? The logical conclusion that I’ve come to is that the goal of it is to focus the singer’s attention on the power production from the breathing apparatus to avoid scratchy and tight sensations in the throat that arise from poor technique. However, if the singer is not given concrete and clear instructions on how to achieve that goal, I find that “Sing from your diaphragm!” is nothing more than a concealed way of saying “Sing better!” without a clear idea of how the singer could achieve that.

Suggested further reading and watching:

Breathing Behavior During Singing by Johan Sundberg

Muscles of Respiration on Physiopedia

Ninja Nerd’s Respiratory Physiology video series on YouTube

But before I lay out the details of what I believe and why and drown one more opinion in the sea of differing beliefs, I’d like to first acquaint you with some scientific research on the subject. I want to show you what has been objectively observed, what are some possible reasons for some of the strategies commonly taught and what are the differences in laryngeal height for different approaches to singing. If you want to skip all that and just get my opinions on the subject, click here! But you’ll be missing out on the reasons why, which I believe are the most interesting feature of this text.

So without further ado, I want to talk about the link between laryngeal height and pitch. One of the most common mantras you will hear from some schools of vocal technique is that you should not let your larynx rise as you ascend in pitch. So let’s look at several scientific studies measuring laryngeal height through different pitch ranges. A 1975 study by Shipp looked at six untrained young adult males. The conclusion was that “subjects lowered their larynges from the resting position for low-frequency phonation and raised their larynges for higher fundamental frequencies.” However, all of the subjects being untrained could just highlight the need for correcting an instinctive behavior, so let’s look at a paper that was dealing with trained singers. The 1991 paper titled “Supraglottic Contributions to Pitch Raising” by Yanagisawa et al performed velolaryngeal endoscopy on nine professional singers and two untrained subjects. The study showed that “the larynx rose in all subjects with the production of higher frequencies“.

So, the larynx should actually rise with pitch then, right? Not so fast! To every complex question there is a simple answer… and it’s wrong! In preparation for this article and looking up available literature, I was pointed to a 1996 paper by Vilkman et al titled “External Laryngeal Frame Function in Voice Production Revisited”. The authors of this paper did a very thorough literature review on the subject and showed that things aren’t quite as simple. Let’s look at a paragraph from that paper.

“In singing, the entire laryngeal column moves vertically more or less in correlation with pitch. The elevation of the larynx for high pitches and lowering for low pitches, especially in untrained singers, is a well-known phenomenon. In trained singers, however, laryngeal displacement is significantly smaller and can even be reversed.“
Now that’s interesting! That particular study stops at 350 Hz as the highest examined phonation frequency which is probably not the highest these singers can go. The male high C is 523 Hz and the female high C double of that at 1046 Hz, so it would be interesting to see if things still behave the same as those trained singers approach these extremes of their range. Regardless of that, I feel that these results need more context, which will nicely bring us to the next part about differences between different styles of music. Since this is a literature review study, it synthesizes findings across previously published studies. In the case of the cited paragraph, studies quoted as sources have all been done before 1975. Until quite recently, almost no studies have been done on contemporary singing and almost exclusively focused on classical singing. Nowadays we’ve already got plenty of studies done with professional singers singing genres ranging from musical theater to death metal.

So let’s look at some observed differences between classical and contemporary singing in some more recent studies! Schutte and Miller in their 1993 paper “Belting and Pop, Nonclassical Approaches to the Female Middle Voice” say: “Whereas the “classical” approach to the middle range is characterized by the relatively low first formants that result from the widely endorsed “comfortably low” larynx position, the “nonclassical” approach prefers the higher (first) formants of speech. On the open vowels the first formants rise still higher than average speech values in the middle range to keep F1 in the vicinity of the second harmonic.
Although these measurements do not include any formal monitoring of larynx position, both informal observation and theoretical considerations lead us to assume that the higher values of F1 on open vowels in “nonclassical” singing are the result primarily of higher larynx positions. The assumption applies a fortiori to the extreme F1 values seen in high “belting.”“
The same study also gives us the most commonly cited scientific definition of belting which is: “Belting is a manner of loud singing that is characterized by consistent use of “chest” register (>50% closed phase of glottis) in a range in which larynx elevation is necessary to match the first formant with the second harmonic on open (high F 1) vowels.” There are numerous other studies comparing various different contemporary styles of singing with classical styles and the results are always consistently showing that non-classical singers keep their larynges in a higher position compared to classical singers.

But you might have heard that classical technique is the only correct approach to using your voice… That is probably the reason a lot of contemporary coaches teach the larynx shouldn’t rise (but usually don’t insist on making sure that actually happens). That statement is quite easy to knock down because the sound you get is a direct consequence of the technique you use. So if you follow classical technique fully, you will without a doubt end up sounding like a classical singer. It stands to reason that certain adjustments are required to get a sound that is acceptable for contemporary genres and larynx height seems to be the number 1 most commonly observed difference.

So you might ask yourself “What is the difference in sound that the vertical larynx position makes?” A 2021 study titled “Deconstructing Timbre into 5 Physiological Parameters” by Aaen et al found that: “Darkening and lightening the sound color involved altering the size of the vocal tract space related to lowering/raising the larynx, widening/closing the piriform sinuses, increasing/decreasing the distance between stylopharyngeus and palatopharyngeus, increasing/decreasing anterior-posterior narrowing (and the resulting view of the vocal folds), medialising/retracting ventricular folds, and altering supraglottic funnel depth.” So lowering the larynx creates a darker sound color and raising it creates a lighter, brighter sound color. Comparing the sound of a classical and non-classical singer, it’s rather easy to notice that classical singers sound much darker than singers in most other genres and a large part of that obviously stems from their lower laryngeal position.

Now that we got that out of the way, you might still be concerned with vocal health implications of raising the larynx. Where does the idea of a raised larynx being unhealthy come from and is it always true? A raised larynx is a common feature of hyperfunctional dysphonia (a tight, hoarse sound), so ENTs and SLPs are trained to recognize an overly raised larynx as one of the telltale laryngeal gestures of hyperfunctional dysphonia. However, a good belter’s voice obviously very rarely sounds dysphonic. Luckily, we have a 2018 study by Saldias et al titled “A Computerized Tomography Study of Vocal Tract Setting in Hyperfunctional Dysphonia and in Belting”. They found that: “Various similarities were found between belting and hyperfunction: high vertical larynx position, small hypopharyngeal width, and epilaryngeal outlet. On the other hand, belting differed from dysphonia (in addition to higher pitch) by a wider lip and jaw opening, and larger volumes of the oral cavity.” They further hypothesize that what makes belting safe is the so-called megaphone shape of the vocal tract that maximizes efficiency.
The same author further builds upon that in his 2020 study titled “The Vocal Tract in Loud Twang-Like Singing While Producing High and Low Pitches” where the conclusion is that “A wider mouth opening, pharyngeal constriction, and epilaryngeal tube narrowing may be helpful strategies for maximum power transfer and improved vocal economy in loud contemporary commercial music singing and potentially in loud speech.“

And to drive the point home, let’s take a look at a 2022 paper by Aaen et al titled “Extreme Vocals—A Retrospective Longitudinal study of Vocal Health in 20 Professional Singers Performing and Teaching Rough Vocal Effects”. The authors say that “the study shows that specific and systematic supraglottic narrowing in the larynx, hypopharynx, and raising of the larynx to allow supraglottic structures to approximate and vibrate is not damaging to vocal health.” They also warn that “caution should be exerted in determining or diagnosing dysphonia, and vocal health generally, based simply on identification of supraglottic narrowing and larynx elevation, as these are simultaneously healthy and necessary features of healthy metallic vocal modes, alterations in sound coloring, and rough vocal effects, which can all be produced healthily and sustainably according to current literature.“

I hope that after this short literature review, we can agree that laryngeal elevation is a normal part of pitch raising for most singers and styles, that the vertical position of the larynx is an important factor in sound coloring and that there are no health risks to raising your larynx as long as you have a good control of your overall vocal technique (and the same applies to any other laryngeal vertical position).

That finally brings us to the final point of this long-winded rant – What do I believe the correct laryngeal position for singing is? My answer to that is – it depends! Are you singing classical? If yes, your larynx should probably sit comfortably low. Are you singing non-classical? You should probably allow a slightly higher larynx position. Are you trying to belt the high notes like your favorite rock/gospel/Broadway star? You’re probably shooting yourself in the foot if you’re trying to accomplish that without allowing your larynx to raise significantly. Besides that, if you want a darker sound, you should lower your larynx and if you want a brighter, lighter sound, you should raise your larynx. Becoming skilled in controlling laryngeal position is awesome and rewards you with a wide palette of available sounds!

If you’d like to explore these options with me, don’t hesitate to shoot me an e-mail through the website’s contact form and we can schedule a lesson!

I’ll often come up with a series of steps that I take a singer through, from very simple exercises to establish the basic technique to applying that technique in a song and more often than not, we arrive to a solution for that issue during the session. And that’s when the mistake happens…

The singer is happy about his new ability to sing the difficult song or passage that we worked on during the lesson, goes home and continues singing, but in a couple days the issue is back and the singer can’t seem to solve it independently. The singer will claim that he is singing the song exactly how he did at the end of the lesson, but the result is not the same anymore. Why does this happen?

The reason is that it takes time and practice to build a reliable muscle memory and instead of following the protocol of starting simple and then gradually building up towards the phrase or song as established during the lesson, the singer will often just aim to reproduce the end result from the lesson. At such an early stage, the singer’s muscle memory of the new technique is not that well developed yet and little by little, over several days (or sometimes as little as minutes), old habits tend to creep back in. Good singing technique consists of different complex coordinations and it’s impossible to focus on all the elements at once, so we need to focus on them one at a time and build a good muscle memory so that we can count on that element working properly when we shift our focus to something else. The singer will usually focus on keeping one or two of the elements that were mentioned in the lesson and confuse that as the whole thing he was doing at the end of the lesson. So what should be done instead?

Instead of just trying to copy the end result, the singer should copy the workflow from the lesson that led to the desired result and regularly run through all the step by step exercises needed to find the desired end result! The singers I’m working with can recognize what I’m talking about as the “21 Steps” approach I teach. Over time, less and less maintenance is needed as the new muscle memory grows stronger and eventually the singer can rely on the new technique to always work and move on to practicing other techniques he wants to master.

If you need help with aspects of your own technique and developing a practice regimen to solve the issues you’re dealing with, contact us through the website’s contact form and we can schedule a lesson!

If you analyze raspy vocals with a spectrogram compared to a clean vocal, you’ll notice the raspy vocals will have lines between the harmonics. Adding rough vocal effects (rasp) will add subharmonics below the fundamental and sometimes those subharmonics aren’t stable and shift around. In my experience, most tuning software will recognize those subharmonics as a fundamental and if the subharmonic jumps around or if the raspiness comes in and out while the singer is actually singing the same pitch, the software will recognize it as a pitch change. Those subharmonics will also have a set of their harmonics visible as the lines between the harmonics of the pitch you’re singing.

On top of that, raspiness also adds interharmonic noise, meaning there’s more noise energy in between the actual harmonics which also makes pitch detection harder.

I’m attaching a spectrogram of a quick raspy example with different subharmonics so you can see what I mean!

And here’s the audio file, so that you can hear it and make more sense of what you see:

So, first I’m starting with a clean note, then I’m using a technique that is called distortion in Complete Vocal Technique. It’s the most common thing people refer to when they talk of “rasp”. The ventricular folds vibrate along with the true vocal folds and modulate the airflow in a way that creates subharmonics. So after the short clean bit, I add distortion to get an octave subharmonic, then jumping to the second subharmonic which is an octave and a fifth (which gives it that almost power chord sounding vibe), then going back to clean sound, then going into a more chaotic subharmonic thingy, then into a version that creates even more interharmonic noise, back into the octave and a fifth subharmonic and finally ending on a clean note again.

I think the most obvious shift you can hear is at the beginning when the subharmonic suddenly drops a fifth below (from around a C to around an F – sorry I didn’t take a pitch reference before, so it’s all about a quarter step sharp).

And I’m also attaching how Synchroarts Repitch graphs the pitch of this example! To the human ear it’s very obviously just a single fundamental, but Repitch hears it as a changing fundamental!

Sorry for the lengthy explanation, I’m a nerd!