Vocal Technique (I need some)

"Singing is a game of opposites," says my voice teacher Rob Nassif. You need energy, but your body needs to be relaxed. Your stomach muscles shoud not flex, except when you are in second gear. Second gear is just like a different tessatura than your regular voice, and although the listener doesn't hear a difference, the singer feels a whole lot different in second gear.

One thing that makes a voice wonderful is the vibrato. Somehow, it keeps the tone up and hleps the singer commit to a longer phrase. Vibrato is an essential key to ligit singing. Another essential tool is having both the quack and the yawn. The "quack" in a voice is how "pingy" the voice is, while the yawn adds a dullness to the voice. The perfect combination not only sets up the singer for a good tone, but also prepares the singer for a better closure of the vocal chords. It also makes way for a more present vibrato, while helping breath control.

When a person is singing, their vocal chords are supposed to be all touching. Thus, when a person sings, the breath trying to exit creates a pressure chamber because it can't exit that easily as a result of the closed vocal chords. This pressure lets the singer do innumerable things with their voice in range, as well as with the difficulty of the music and dynamics. Singing is truly a game of opposites. You must have your body relaxed, but yet there must be pressure and energy inside. You must have ping in your voice, but you must also have dullness. The list goes on and on.

Even though I understand all of this, I cannot do it, unfortunately. It's easier to say all of those things than actually do them. I only wish that someday I could implement all of these techniques for singing better. Right now, I need to work on my vibrato and my body tension mainly. Once I have my vibrato and body relaxation, I believe that I will produce a much better sound.