Work What Works!

Work What Works.

As singers we are often trying to please our audience. We have a tendency to feel that we need to work really hard to reach high notes, produce a great sound or tone. Sometimes novice singers will find themselves actually reaching, pushing and restricting their voice to get the sound they are aiming for and not use proper healthy technique to get the results they want.

It can be hard to get your head around, but the more relaxed and comfortable your voice feels, the easier it will be to get healthy and safe results, AND extend your range.

One of the best ways to do this is to work what is already working!

For example, if you are aiming for a G#, but it doesn’t sound great, it feels a little tight and is hard to produce the tone you want, take a step back to the G, or the closest note that feels great. Really dig into the one that feels good. Explore how you are setting it up, feel where the resonance is and where it needs to move to in order to get up to your goal note.

Imagine for a moment that you are about to climb some stairs. There are 10 steps. What happens if you climb the first two then try to jump from 3 to 8? It can be messy, embarrassing, perhaps even dangerous. The same applies to your voice. When strengthening your range, take each step at a time making sure you have solid footing and placement in order to safely and healthily climb up to the next one. Once you know your footing, and are fluent with the movements, with your voice at least, you’ll be able to start moving with more flexibility, power and most importantly CONFIDENCE!

So initially, stay within your comfort zone. Listen, feel, assess what you are doing to set things up so well and bring that up a semitone, then, build that note the same way, make the necessary adjustments of placement and resonance as you go. Play with your tone, modify vowels if necessary but WORK WHAT IS WORKING!

Practice makes permanent, so if you have a habit of relying on pressure, volume or power to get to the notes you want, you can start to develop bad techniques that are not consistent, reliable or comfortable. You will also have less control of the tone or quality of the sound. It will also not be predictable which leads to performance anxiety and that awful position of not knowing if you will “hit the big note” or not.

So dig into your comfort zones and areas that feel great in order to start stepping up or down from them. You’ll be giving yourself a really safe foundation to build your range from, plus, HELLO….COMFORTABLE, CONTROLLED and HEALTHY!!

So for now keep Working What Works and reach out any time if you are interested in 1-on-1 training with me. Check out the Rock Your Voice podcast for more free guided coaching and be sure to follow Rockit Vocal Studios on Instagram for all the latest updates.