What should I wear for auditions?

This is a very commonly asked questions in our studio! The best answer we can offer is to always wear something that really flatters your body type. Buying audition clothing is like buying a bathing suit. You want your outfit to totally flatter you and reflect your sense of style and self. We recommend against wearing white and overly busy patterns because white can make a person look much heavier then they actually are and busy patterns make the adjudicator focus on your outfit rather then your singing. When you go shopping, take someone with you that you can really trust to be honest with you about how you look and stick to bright solid colors and jewel tones. Also, remember that if you have a specific look that is important to your brand then you have to stay within that style. As we always say, JVS offers a holistic approach to teaching our students. Email us today for lessons and be assured we not only will help you sound great, but look fantastic, too!

It’s OK to say NO!

We would like to talk again about the subject of vocal fatigue.  One way you can get into trouble is when you are touring or doing multiple performances without getting enough downtime and vocal rest.   This can be very draining on you physically and vocally.  It is incredibly important that before you leave, you are comfortable with your schedule.  Many people will want you to sing more and more throughout your careers and while that is what we all are after, we must learn to manage our schedules and how often we sing.  We tell our students NO, is an important word to learn.  It can be very difficult to say NO to people when we want to please them and continue getting more and more opportunities to sing.  Remember, when you say NO to something, you are actually saying YES to something you value more!  At JVS, we offer a holistic approach for our students.  We don’t just deal with matters of vocal technique, but rather the whole person, seeing each one of you individually and doing our best to meet your needs.  Why don’t you send us an email and start learning not only a great vocal technique, but how to manage the many challenges of your career, successfully! Say YES to SUCCESS!!

Audition Shoes

When you are singing in a performance or in an audition the last thing you want to be thinking is, “My feet are killing me,” so, finding the right shoes is super important. When looking for an audition or performing shoe, always chose a one with heals that are comfortable to walk in and stand it. Never wear a brand new pair of shoes that are not broken in at all for an any type of performance. If you have a gorgeous new pair of shoes that you really want to use, wear them around your house or apartment for at least a week before you wear them for audition. Remember, if you are auditioning or performing on a stage, your feet will be at eye level to the audience so it is very important that your shoes look good. Never wear a pair of shoes that are scuffed up, need new heals, do not fit you right or that resemble your grandmas’ sensible shoes. The people auditioning you will be judging you with a very critical ear and eye so do the best you can to avoid giving them things to be critical of. Don't let your dirty or scuffed up shoes speak for you!

Auditions, Fun or Fear?

One thing all singers have to deal with at one time or another is that dreaded word…AUDITIONS!   Auditions don’t have to be so fearful and threatening if you make a choice to think of them in a different way.  First of all decide this, “Today I get to perform!”  Auditions can be thought of as a performance and not an opportunity to be judged and rejected.  I suggest wearing clothes that compliment you and make you feel comfortable and confident.  When you arrive at your audition kindly introduce yourself to the audition attendants in a friendly way.  Be courteous and make them feel you will be no trouble at all.   Be prepared and ready to walk into your audition when called.    As you enter the room smile at the people who will be listening to you and wait for them to greet you.  Speak clearly and slowly when addressing them and always look directly in their direction.  Take some time to settle yourself and sing your best, always offering what you feel most confident in singing.  When you leave, thank them for their time and walk out confidently with your head held high no matter how you feel you performed.  You cannot control whether or not they liked you or will hire you but you can control what you do and how you address them!!   Auditioning can be fun with the right attitude!  Remember, you get to perform!!  It’s what you love to do!!!   Drop us an email to get started on your lessons.  It will be one of the best investments you will ever make!

Volume control and singing Pianissimo (Very quietly)

 Have you ever wanted to sing really softly but could not make that soft sound carry or have the same beauty or quality in your voice as you did when you sang loudly? Singing softly or singing pianissimo which is the Italian word for very quiet, is a skill you can definitely master if you know how to manage your breath correctly. First of all, let’s review how much breath you need to take in by getting a straw and breathing in as much breath as you feel you can and then forcing in one more breath to stretch those inhalation muscles. Once you have taken in that big breath, you have to manage it by engaging or flexing your abs. As we stated previously, to engage your abs and sing on your breath, you must feel your stomach muscles come out when you start to sing just like your bicep would come out on your arm if you were flexing it. Before you try to sing softly you must practice singing loudly while engaging your abs. When all of that is working correctly, try singing loudly and then diminish the air flow out of your mouth by literally blowing less air while keeping your abs completely engaged as if you are singing loudly. The affect will be a level of volume control that will truly set you apart from other singers. Singing softly can be achieved pretty easily if you already have a strong vocal technique and breath management.

Breath support: Engaging your abs

When speaking of breath support, there are 2 concepts you must understand. The first proper inhalation and the second is managing the breath you have inhaled. The best way to experience proper inhalation is to take a straw and breath through it taking in as much breath as you feel you can and then forcing in one more breath. Once you have experienced that level of inhalation you have to learn how to manage the volume of breath you have taken in by understanding how to use your abdominal muscles to support your voice meaning. The question becomes, what should your abdominal muscles be doing to actually support your voice? The answer is the must engage or flex.

As an example, try engaging your bicep muscle by picking up something heavy for a second and see what that muscle is doing? It engages by rises up and stands out right? Well, our abs do the same thing. Let’s imagine that you are going to take in a big breath and blow out a huge birthday cake full of candles. Try it and see what your abs do? Did you feel them come out? If you did, that is is correct! We engage our abs the same way when we support our voices. So after you take in your breath with your straw, practice singing a line or a phrase of music and keep those abs engaged or coming out as you do. When you sing, you never want to pull your abdominal muscles in to start phonation. This concept will definitely take some time to master but it is really important to the overall health of your voice and your ability to sing long sustained notes and passages.

Special message for male voices

A common problem for tenors, baritones and basses, is learning to successfully manage the passaggio.  Passaggio is an Italian word that means passage and when we use it in singing, it refers to the passage from one vocal register to another. Guys must learn how to master the ability to move easily and seamlessly from one vocal register to another which is the only way to gain ease for singing their high notes!   If you can’t manage the passaggio efficiently, the larynx will rise quickly with each higher note leading to a tight, squeezed feeling.  Watch your Adam’s apple, (larynx) if it goes up with each higher note in your range then you are not going to manage your passaggio correctly. 

Try this exercise…

Start in your middle register on an ee vowel.  Remember your jaw should be dropped comfortably as in the ah vowel position and your tongue resting lightly just behind your lower front teeth to create the ee vowel sound.  As you sing a rising scale at some point you should feel it difficult to maintain a pure ee vowel.  Try creating a lower position in your larynx by mimicking the feeling of a yawn.  Done successfully, the ee vowel will  become easier and the vowel more pure again.  Learning to navigate your passaggio correctly is extremely important to overall vocal health and good singing.  It will take the help and guidance of a well-educated voice teacher.

Special message female Pop and Broadway singers

We need to address the female pop and Broadway singers.  It is essential that you learn how to sing in a  “mix” range.  The mix range is needed when what you are singing is too high to sing in straight chest voice or in “belt voice” and too low for straight head voice. Taking the chest voice or belt voice too high can lead to vocal problems and damage over time.  Just like a car needs to shift gears in order to go faster with less wear and tear on the engine, your voice also needs to shift gears in order to sing in a way that causes less wear and tear on the voice. Pop and Broadway voices have 3 different gears.  The lowest gear of your voice is called your “chest” voice, the middle gear would be your “mix” voice and your highest gear is your “head” voice.  In order to use your mix correctly, you need to take a bit of chest voice and combine it with a bit of head voice. When you sing something that makes you feel you are straining your voice by forcing it into chest but  feels too low for your head voice, then the mix you use would be an 80/20 split meaning 80% chest and 20% head voice.  When the range is still to low for straight head voice but much too high for chest voice then you use a 50/50 split which means 50% chest and 50% mix and for your highest notes in mix where it is still to high for straight head voice but way too high for chest voice, go for a 20/80 split meaning 20% chest voice and 80% head voice.  When you sing in the highest part of your range you should be using 100% head voice. It is essential for long-term vocal health and a long healthy singing career to build a middle register or mix range.  

Speaking in Your Optimum Range

It is very important to know how to take care of your voice.  True vocal damage is very difficult to reverse so you want to avoid it at all costs.   

One of the most essential ways to care for your voice is to learn to speak correctly as we speak much more in a day then we sing. If we are not speaking at the right pitch level or optimum range, we can cause major issues with our singing voice.  The best way to find your optimum range, which is the pitch level your voice lies in naturally, is to bend over at the waist and let your head fall to a relaxed position and just say uh-huh to see where your speaking voice lies naturally.  Chances are it is much higher in range then you might have expected.  You can vary the pitch up and down from that optimum range, but never let your voice go into a really low guttural range which is called vocal fry.   Women tend to go into vocal fry at the end of a sentence and men will often speak lower then their optimum range to sound more authoritative.   If you speak in your optimum range, you will definitely find your voice sounding more rested through out the day. This is especially important for people who have to speak a lot on their day job.  Speaking in your optimum range is something you will have to practice but the results will be fantastic!  Remember to also practice supporting your speaking voice the same way as you do your singing voice.

Vocal Fatigue

In a recent lesson with a student the subject of Vocal Fatigue came up.  After singing a lot of consecutive days, our student, was concerned something was really wrong with her voice.  She said her singing felt low, heavy, and less easy.  After working with her we realized there was nothing more wrong with her voice the simple vocal fatigue.  She was vocally tired and probably physically tired as well from too much singing.  The advice we gave her was to rest her voice a couple days by staying quiet.  We told her not to sing or talk and definitely not to whisper!  She told us that she absolutely needed to use her voice just one more time before she could take that necessary and important vocal rest.  In order to help her, we worked her breath support by giving her warm-ups to help her re-engage her support muscles and get back to singing ON her breath not WITH her breath.  We also helped her alleviate that heavy, low feeling, by making sure she was feeling her resonance high and forward in her face not in her throat or chest.  

Arm Tension

We have been talking to you about ways to relieve tension associated with singing.  We talked about relaxing your tongue, jaw and lips but another common tension for singers is in their arms.  One of the best tests for determining arm tension is to have a friend come up to you while you are singing and raise your arms with the goal for you to just let them fall back down to your sides.  If they do not fall, you definitely are carrying tension in your arms.  To help you release that arm tension, try swinging your arms forward and back while you are singing or practice tossing something between your 2 hands while you are singing. You can also pretend to draw on the wall with your pointer fingers of both hands. If you find yourself stopping the movement for a high note for example, then you are definitely using your arms to support your voice rather then your breath. 

Whistle voice or register

We hear a lot of talk today on how to find your whistle register or whistle voice.  Once you have mastered a lot of the techniques we have talked about earlier, finding your whistle register will be much easier, however if you want to just play around with it and try to find it, there are 2 really easy ways to force your voice into whistle. The first one would be to hold your upper and lower lips in your fingers like we did earlier to relieve lip tension and sing a scale going up into your upper range.  You will feel your voice “crack” into another place.  It should not hurt at all and you should find it really easy.  You can also do the same mouth position by singing in a super closed (oo) position with your lips like the vowel sound in the word uber.  Be sure you are taking in enough air, supporting your voice and have your tongue as relaxed as possible.  Once you get the sensation, practice reproduce it with your mouth and lips in a more open position. 

Put your instrument in the correct position

To give yourselves the greatest chance at singing your best, think of always putting your instrument in the correct position for the best possible sound.   This includes the position of your larynx.   The larynx, which houses our vocal chords, should sit in a relaxed, low position at all times while we sing.  When the larynx is low you will feel that yawny deep stretch in your throat.  The problem with the larynx is it tends to rise with the pitch…pitch goes higher, larynx wants goes with it.  When the larynx rises it tends to squeeze our throats producing that strangulated feeling that is not good for healthy, beautiful singing.   So, in good vocal training we work to keep the larynx low and relaxed.   For men, especially lower voiced males, you can see the larynx pretty easily.  For women and higher voiced singers it can be difficult to see.  Here’s what I suggest-Gently place your index finger in your throat and take a yawny, deep breath.  Most likely you will feel your larynx lower.  Keeping your finger there can aid in revealing to you what your larynx is doing.  When I learned about this critical aspect of vocal technique, my whole voice and world changed!   We would absolutely love to help you achieve a relaxed, low laryngeal position so you can have that beautiful sound that makes high notes SO MUCH easier!!

What is the best quick warm up?

What happens when you show up for an audition early all warmed up and ready to sing only to find out that the auditions are running an hour behind and there are no warm up rooms available?   First of all, don’t panic!  You can always find either a stairwell or a bathroom to be a great substitute for a warm up room but what if the substitute space is too close to where the auditions are being held and it will be way too loud to sing full voice?  We advocate the use of the lip trill to warm your voice up with out blasting away in full voice.  Buzzing or trilling your lips also takes a lot of breath support so you will get a chance to warm up your breath.  Start on a pitch that is in the middle of your range and sing into the buzz coming down in a 5 note scale or a full octave arpeggio.  Then go up a half step and come down again until you have reached the top of your range.  Then go back down a half step at a time until you reach the bottom of your range.  Once you have done this simple warm up, you will be all set to sing your audition.  We start our students on this warm up ever lesson so we totally believe in it’s effectiveness.

Healthy Relationships

We want to remind you to be in friendships and relationships that are healthy for you.  Be very wary of relationships in which you are always the only one who gives.  Make sure that the people in your life give back to you in a way that makes you feel valued, appreciated and loved. We all need people in our lives to love us for who we are and that may not necessarily include family. We are not advocating selfishness but more self-care.   Remember that everything that affects your body and your emotions also affects your voice because your vocal instrument is housed in your body!  Only you can decide who stays in your life so keep the people who uplift you and not those who tear you down. 

Breath Support

 I want to speak to you about breath support.  When I was a young singer the word “support” was something I could not get my mind or body around!  There are many ways to discuss support so let’s try and simplify it for todays discussion.  What we’re trying to achieve in support is to manage the flow or pressure of air from our lungs through our vocal folds…not too much and not too little is very important!  Far too often we see singers use what I call their “valves” to manage or hold back air pressure that is built up in your lungs after you take a deep straw breath.  We can think of our lips, tongue, jaw, larynx as valves that open or close.   Let’s say you’ve mastered keeping your jaw down and relaxed, low laryngeal position, high and lifted soft palate in other words, everything is open and relaxed as it should be for great singing.   What is going to hold back the pressure of air in your lungs if you don’t “tighten” one of our “valves”???   Hopefully your’ well built support system!   Try this.  Take a hard backed book and put one end against a wall and the other end in your lower abs-below your belly button!  Then Breath in deeply allowing your breath to be down and out.  Your body should move backward from the wall.  Exhale on “S” and don’t let your body fall into the book!

Collapsed Rib Cage

One of the things we see a lot of singers do incorrectly is drop the rib cage.  We call this collapsing and what that usually results in is a jutting out or sticking out of the jaw.  Sometimes we say to students, “You’re leading with your jaw” It’s the wrong position to have your instrument in.  What you want to do is pick up your rib cage.  It’s difficult to do this because under our rib cage is our abdomen and we don’t have a spine like we do in our back to hold us up.  We can drop or collapse into the abdominal area which is really incorrect for great singing.  Instead, imagine a string that is tied to your sternum and up to the ceiling pulling your rib cage up which automatically puts your head in a better position and gives you better posture through the vocal tract area.  Make sure, by looking in a mirror you never collapse your rib cage while singing!

Medications and Their Effects

We want to remind you the importance of knowing how prescription medications affect you.  It is paramount that you ask your doctor to explain any known side effects but especially ones that could have a negative impact on your singing voice.   Many medications can negatively affect your voice and can cause something as insignificant as a dry mouth to something terribly serious such as a vocal hemorrhage or bleeding from your vocal cords.  Always remember to advocate for yourself by telling your doctor that you are a singer and ask tons of questions.  Don't feel shy or embarrassed.  This is your body and your instrument.  It is your job to protect it from damage and that includes negative effects of medications.   

Correct Jaw Position

We’ve discussed the need to sing with a dropped jaw position and never, ever compromise the space in the back.  When you do this correctly you achieve a natural “ah” vowel.  The question is how do we sing all the other vowels while maintaining the dropped jaw?   Well, here’s how!  Place your index fingers on your cheeks and gently push in between your upper and lower back molars.  You now have achieved what I call the natural “ah” vowel.  Again, you should feel a yawning sensation.  If you want to sing an “oh” or “oo” vowel you need to simply use your lips without closing your jaw.  Now, go back to the natural “ah” position and move your tongue slightly up and forward keeping the tip of your tongue against your lower front teeth.  This will form the “AYE” or “E” vowel.   Lips and Tongue are what we call our articulators and that is only what you should use to form vowels.  There really is no need to ever close your jaw or compromise that vital space you need to sing beautifully!