The Voice: Tuning In and Warming Up

Tuning In

I love how my body feels internally during and after a good vocal warm up or sounding exercise or even after singing a few songs. Sometimes, after really working my chest voice, I literally feel like I have been doing incline bench presses or flys (I used to be a bodybuilder -- in case you are not familiar with "gym vocabulary"!). I find that those lovely internal sensations are even more intense if  I have taken the time to "tune in" before hand. For me, that "tuning in" can be as simple as closing my eyes, placing my hands on my belly, and really feeling the journey of the breath as I draw air in through my nostrils and  allow it (the breath) to move right down into my belly. I try to become very aware of what is happening internally through the simple act of breathing. Oh yeah -- I also find it important to be conscious of my feet connecting with the Earth or the ground that I am standing on. Bringing my awareness into my breath, into my belly and into the connection of my feet with the ground helps me begin to settle more fully into my body. Once I really feel settled and grounded in my body and I am more internally focused, then I am ready to begin vocalizing. When I do begin from that centered, internal place, then every vocal sound I  make feels like a delicious internal vibration -- like an internal massage. 

There seems, to me, to be great benefit in allowing vocal vibrations to penetrate all of our deep internal organs and systems --both for our health and well being as well as for our singing or whatever else we do with our voices. All kinds of musical and vocal vibrations are being using in various healing practices these days. Sound healing is becoming increasingly more popular and is proving to be a very effective healing modality. More on that in a future blog post.

And I don't know this for a fact, but it seems logical to me, and has been my experience, that when the voice can be more deeply connected within the body, the more stability and depth it will have when singing. That can only make our vocalizing and singing richer and fuller and more exciting!

Plus, it is really fun to explore the possibility of making sounds that come from the depths of the belly, or sounds that come from the centre of the heart, or how about some nice high head voice sounds that create an actual vibration in the brain? (For more on that, check out my blog post  "The Resonant Voice" June 29, 2012). Nothing like massaging our own brain with that beautiful head voice! I do believe that the more we can allow ourselves to be "tuned into" and centered in our inner body, the more the vocal vibrations can penetrate internally. For me, that creates a stronger and more stable voice -- a voice that can then share what is in the depths of my being or in the depths of my heart, through sounding or singing. And it is very soothing and healing for our internal organs to receive that vocal vibration.

Warming Up
Once you have "tuned in", here are some great warm up exercises, explained and demonstrated by Singer/Songwriter/Vocal Coach Earl Harville. I find Earl's  explanations of the exercises extremely helpful and informative. These exercises are also really fun and super effective. Enjoy!

.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zu1onlpF97M

This link will take you to the Part 1 Warm Up. Earl has also posted a Part 2,3&4 -- all equally wonderful and worth watching and following.

Happy Singing!

Barbara

Women, Breath and Singing

It seems that we women do have a slightly different instinctual way of breathing from our male counterparts.

What got me thinking about this was the fact that after doing Yoga most of my adult life (which does involve a lot of various deep breathing exercises), I was surprised (and somewhat dismayed) to find that my vocal coach had to remind me several times to breathe from my belly while vocalizing or singing. Unless I was consciously thinking about breathing, which isn't always easy to do when one is concentrating on pitch, timing, lyrics and all the other things involved in doing scales or songs, I would inevitably end up taking a shallow chest breath.

So I was quite relieved when I discovered the video from Seth Riggs (link below), well known vocal coach in Los Angeles, about breathing. In it, Seth explains that he was puzzled by the difficulty that women often experience in trying to breathe "from the belly" or in keeping the breath low. A gynaecologist  explained to Seth that women breathe instinctively into their chest. That is in keeping with female biology since the female body is designed for childbirth. In the delivery process, a woman has to breathe into her chest and then push the air down through the birth canal to aid the delivery. Whether we choose to have babies or not, that is what nature prepares our bodies for.

That got me experimenting with breath and I realized that it does feel more natural to breathe into my chest and  to then allow the breath to flow naturally down into my lower body on the exhalation. That way of breathing  feels very grounding and natural to me.

On the other hand, I still want to vocalize and sing so I also make a point of consciously practicing the low breath -- or allowing my inhalation to move more deeply into my belly and allowing the exhalation to move up through my torso, through my throat and out of my mouth or nose as I would for singing.

I found this really fascinating because I do love to explore the breath in many ways and I just love how amazingly adaptable these bodies we inhabit really are.

     Seth Riggs Video on breathing      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5W3_Otvm4U 

So have fun exploring your breath. Who knows where it might take you!!


And happy singing and vocalizing.

                                                Barbara