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!

Talk to your anesthesiologist

If you ever need to have surgery, as a singer you must know how to protect your voice.  For larger or longer procedures such as abdominal surgery you will more then likely have to be intubated. What does that mean? In order to keep your oxygen saturation up, the anesthesiologist once you are put under, will force an oxygen tube past your vocal folds directly into your lungs.  This can definitely cause problems, possibly even abrasions on your vocal cords!  When you consult with your doctor about your surgical procedure, be sure to let tell him or her that you are a singer.  The day of surgery you will meet with your anesthesiologist shortly before your procedure. Be sure to discuss with them the method by which you will be put under.  If you have to be intubated then ask the anesthesiologist to use the smallest tube possible to reduce the potential risks on your vocal cords.  You can also ask them if they can use a laryngeal mask or shield instead of a tube. The laryngeal mask rests above your vocal cords and although it is very drying, it does not come in contact with your vocal cords so there is no potential damage left behind.  Remember, when you are a singer, you must always advocate for yourself and your voice.

Relax that jaw!

Jaw tension.  Many of you have heard your teacher talk to you about this, right?  It is extremely important to create more space in the back of your jaw than in the front.  Here is a really great way to accomplish this.  Take your index fingers, place them on your jaw between your back molars and gently push in.  As you drop the back of your jaw you should feel a slight yawning sensation when done correctly.  (Also the lower jaw should drop back not jut forward)  This is the perfect position for your jaw so look in the mirror and memorize how this looks and feels!  The key is to keep this position AT ALL TIMES when singing all vowels and consonants.  Vocal science has proven that when we drop the back of the jaw our throats open and that is exactly what we want.  Try singing your songs in this position.  You will find your diction to be very sloppy…that’s ok, for now.   If you learn to use your articulators…your tongue and lips correctly…you will find that your diction will improve and you will experience a much more open, spacious throat.  I can’t think of a more important aspect to great vocal technique (other than breath support) than learning to sing with a dropped jaw.  Remember, don’t chew your words!

On my mind

Proper breath support and breath management is the true foundation for world-class singing.  Many singers who come to me state that breath is simply not talked about enough or at all in their voice lessons.  I like to use the term breath management which covers inhalation, exhalation, support, correct subglottic breath pressure to name a few.  You may think you take in enough air or that your support technique is good enough but I’d like to challenge you to think about this most important aspect of great singing in a different way.  Start thinking about breath support and consider how well you could explain it to a singer that came to you looking for expert advice.   Would you get tongue-tied?  Would you feel confident in your explanation without confusing the young singer?   See yourself as the teacher and give it a try.  More to come on this very important subject!

What is your uvula?

We spoke, a while ago, about how to achieve space in your vocal instrument through a relaxed tongue in the E vowel position.  Another area we need to talk about is openness in the back of the throat. In order to achieve that openness, we need to learn to raise our soft palate. You may be asking, “What is your soft palate?” The area on the roof of your mouth that includes your teeth is called the hard palate.  The area that is behind your teeth and going to the back of your mouth is the soft palate. You know that little thing back there that looks like a punching bag?  That is called your uvula and is at end of your soft palate.  When we were learning to sing we were told to practice singing in a yawn position which is our natural way to raise the soft palate.  Unfortunately, that concept was not helpful.  What did help us was to take a flashlight and shine it into our mouths while looking in a mirror and practice raising our punching bag or uvula.  Once we felt the sensation of a high soft palate, we practiced singing while maintaining that feeling of openness in the back of my throat.  Another simple way to achieve a raised soft palate is to always be sure that the breaths you take in are silent.  If your tongue is in that E position and your soft palate is raised you have just created as much space possible for your voice to resonate.

Get your Exercise

We are committed to exercising everyday to help us not only as singers, but to keep our minds clear and fresh.  One of the reasons why we believe so strongly in keeping cardio fitness for singers is because you need to build your lung capacity to make those long phrases you want to sing.  So, we want to tell you that exercise needs to be a part of your day.  Find some exercise you truly enjoy doing because then you will really stick with it.  

Silent Breath

We want to talk to you about breathing in silently.  This is something that helps a lot of singers achieve a raised soft palate, which is a very important part of singing.   It creates a “yawn” feeling in the back of your throat.  Take a straw breath like we’ve discussed previously breathing in as much breath as you possible can and feel it down nice and low.  As you’re doing it you don’t want to hear that aspirated gasping sound at all!  If you do, you are not breathing correctly and it can cause dryness in your vocal instrument.  What you want to do is make a “yawn” feeling in the back of your throat, raise your soft palate and take in a silent breath.  You will hear the air go past your teeth but it will not have a whistling, aspirated sound.  Try mastering this important vocal breathing technique. 

Subglottic pressure

Subglottic pressure is a complicated vocal anatomy term so let’s break the word down.  The “glottis” part of the word refers to the opening between the vocal chords and “sub” part of the word mean beneath.  Pressure refers to the breath pressure coming up through the opening between your vocal cords.   So, subglottic pressure is the pressure of the air coming up through the vocal chords from beneath.  Subglottic pressure is something that is extremely important to overall phonation but is especially critical when you are singing in your high voice because the subglottic pressure is at its greatest when you sing high.  The reason is because your vocal chords stretch thinner and vibrate much more quickly in the high voice.  When you sing in your middle range and low range your vocal chords vibrate more slowly and so you need to move more breath.  If someone tells you that you’re lacking subglottic pressure,  you will now understand what they mean.   Remember, proper breath support is imperative to singing.  Without proper subglottic pressure, there would be no proper phonation.

Time to unplug

I’m sure that many of you, like us, get really tired of pursuing your singing, vocal, and career goals.  One of the things that helps us the most is getting out into nature.  Today we decided to take our old 28-year-old canoe….Mohawk….for a ride on one of our favorite lakes.  We had a blast!  The lake was calm and quiet and looked so peaceful.   The sun was shining…temperature just right…it was a beautiful, carefree summers day!  Our advice…find the things you love to do away from music and invest time in them!

Lip Trills, a great vocalize

Lip trills really help to move and anchor your breath by using correct sub-glottic breath pressure.  It’s a great way to show your legato line which you need to develop for world class singing.  The objective is to make sure your lips keep trilling throughout the entire vocalize.  If your lips stop, you can bet your breath stopped as well.  So, stand with correct posture, rib cage high, good, deep, low, down and out breath and start phonation or singing by trilling your lips.   In the lower range it might be a bit more tricky because you need to move more breath.  Remember, keep the breath moving and those lips trilling!

Start your day with quiet time

We think it’s important to start your day with quiet time.  We like to take the dogs out to the backyard gazebo early in the morning with our coffee and just listen to the birds sing.   Recently a student asked me how to stay sane on a tour.   We talked about the need to carve out quiet time or alone time even if it’s just 15 minutes.   She mentioned how so many singers struggle with the crazy demands of a performance career and that this idea of quiet actually was a new idea for her.  It’s amazing how we calm down and become peaceful and focused when we listen to the nothingness around us.  Try this before you start your busy day meeting the demands of a busy singing career.  

Are you standing with good posture?

Posture is extremely important when it comes to breathing.  If you don’t have the correct posture, you have nowhere for the breath to go.  What we tell our students is to stand against a wall.  Make sure your heels, bum, shoulders and the back of your head are touching the wall.  You want to have your head not too high and not too low.  Once you have that posture, step away from the wall and maintain that position while you sing.  You will look more confident and sing more confidently when you posture is correct.

Let’s talk about the E vowel

In our last blog, we spoke about the importance of a relaxed tongue position. Remember pretending to falling asleep in the chair and finding your most relaxed tongue position?  The vowel that most closely simulates that tongue position is the E vowel.  You want to keep that pesky tongue in that E position no matter what vowel you are singing.  Practice singing all of the vowels by only moving the tongue from your relaxed E position enough to change the vowel.  

Now, you ask why does this matter?  Well…if your tongue stays in this relaxed position for all of your vowels you will be maintaining the most space you can have in the back of your throat.  Always remember to keep taking in as much air as possible by using your straw, and engaging those abs for the right support!  

Is your tongue in the right position for singing?

When we lack adequate breath support we tend to use other things to support our voices and one of the things we use is our tongue.  We need to maintain a very relaxed position of the tongue to get a beautiful sound when singing.   Let’s imagine that you fall asleep in a chair with your head falling back.  In what position do you find your tongue?  This is the most relaxed position your tongue can ever be in.  The base of tongue is attached to our larynx and then comes up into our mouths.  It is because of this laryngeal attachment we must have our tongue as relaxed as possible.  Practice keeping your tongue in this position while singing scales and start to visualize that relaxed tongue position on all of your vowels.

Grab a Straw

In simplifying breathing for the singer we like to explain the correct use of it in 2 parts:  Inhalation and Exhalation.   Let’s think about inhalation.   We have a great tip to share with all of you singers.  Grab a straw.  It can be any kind of a straw just make sure its not too small-that may make you work too hard!  Stand with good posture and inhale through your straw.  Make sure your breath goes down and out, by that we mean your body should expand outward as low as possible.  Keep inhaling until you have that “I’m going to burst” feeling then take two more puffs of air.  Now release your breath normally without using your straw.   What does this do?   It strengthens inhalation muscles, which every singer needs to do!  Try doing this several times a day and you will find your breath capacity increasing and it will give you a good reference point on just how much breath you need to inhale for great singing.  It also relaxes you and makes you feel more peaceful.  This sounds so good we’re going to grab straws and go practice!

The Wonderful & Confusing World of Breath Management!

Breath. I refer to this most important subject as Breath Management. It encompasses everything to do with inhalation and exhalation. Personally I found this to be the most frustrating and bewildering part of mastering the skills needed to sing well. This is a subject that I need to talk about in numerous posts so I will just talk about one issue at a time. I am a down and outer. What does that mean? It means that when you inhale you literally feel your breath go down low in your body and out. This corresponds to how I experience support. If a singer inhales correctly they will see their abdomens expand outward. I like to expand as low as possible. When we sing we must maintain the same feeling of full inhalation. That outward expanded feeling is what we keep when we support. I never want to allow a feeling of in or up. The Italian word “appoggio” means “to lean” The great basso Jerry Hines talked to me a lot about the energy created when we “lean” down on the breath “appoggio” and hold our lowest abdominal muscles firm and strong. I must admit when I began developing this technique with Jerry and my main voice teacher Dodi Protero I was a mess! Pushing, shoving, trying, failing. It took me a long time to build not only the strength I needed but more importantly the correct coordination so I could sustain his breathing technique for long periods of time. One of the things that helped me the most is every lesson that I took with Dodi she made me sing with a seamless legato line. This means many things….steady vibrato on every pitch, constant vocal sound and no stopping of the sound. This is the essence of “bel canto” singing. I believe the absolute mastery of this legato singing is what is missing in today’s singing. I like to give my students some bel canto songs to make them work hard and develop this skill. 

What is This Singing Thing About?!

I was what I call a late bloomer. I entered college as a piano performance major. After about three weeks I decided I was bored and wanted to try something different. Singing was fairly new to me and I considered it a third instrument next to piano and tenor saxophone. I began dating my wife shortly into my freshman year who was a wonderful singer and voice performance major. After hearing me sing a little she encouraged me to take some lessons. Second semester I started with a voice teacher and a lot of enthusiasm. When I entered the practice room after my first lesson I thought-“What do I do now?” It felt weird and strange to open my mouth and actually sing out without anyone singing with me. I now found myself surrounded by other guys who were very comfortable and skilled at something I was completely new to. I think of that humble beginning every time I meet with a new student- the strange sensation of singing out loud without feeling stupid! It took me a while before I began to feel comfortable singing by myself. Singing is a very different than any other instrument. A lot of what we work with are feelings and sensations-things we cannot see or touch. I was used to feeling the keys under my fingers. Now, I had to figure out this new instrument I had inside my body. What a change! I’ve always believed this experience has given me a unique perspective and appreciation for how challenging and frightening singing can be. What I love when working with students is figuring out our own language together that brings them the greatest and fastest benefits for their singing. It’s a whole new and exciting world!

The Kind Affect

One of my students, who just returned to the states after completing the Berlin Opera Academy in Germany, told me how shocked she was to find at an international program, that so many singers really didn't not know how to manage their breath support. She told me that when auditioning for an international manager she was told that she was one of a very small few that he had heard from the program that really new how to properly support her voice. To quote her exactly, “It is an international problem and I was so thankful to have you as a teacher. You have really unlocked the key to breath support that I need to allow my voice to grow!” Breath support is everything for singing. It is the literally the food needed to keep one’s voice healthy and strong. Would you drive a car with no gas? In order to properly “drive” your voice, you need a very strong and correct support mechanism. We at Jameson vocal studio want to help you find your support and in essence find your voice. We can guarantee that with proper support your voice will grow into the instrument you have always hoped to have. Join us and find your true potential as a singer!

We have been truly appalled at the number of students coming to us telling stories of how they were verbally abused by voice teachers. It is disheartening to say the least to us here at Jameson Vocal Studio. How can a singer possibly improve if they are being taught through abuse or oppression? How is a person supposed to sing with a relaxed jaw, lips and tongue if they are feeling afraid? We too have experienced this type of treatment when we sang for professionals in Masterclasses or with difficult conductors. A singer must never feel that it is ok to be treated rudely or unkindly by your voice teacher, a Master teacher or a coach. You should not ever feel unsafe or like crying from the way you are treated! Abuse is never ok no matter how famous or important the professional! We believe in a gentle and nurturing approach to training singers. We want to teach you to sing with as little tension and as much relaxation as possible so that your voice can truly reach it’s full potential. Following a young artist program, I nearly quit singing all together after working with an abusive general director. My voice, emotional state and my career were all saved through the nurturing support of my teacher and my coach. Please know that we at JVS want to uplift not ever tear down. You will receive the training you need, but you will receive it with a kind and supportive teacher who really cares about you as a person.

We frequently asked question by pop, gospel, and broadway singers, "Why is it important to study classically?" I think that the question can best be answered with a story of a blues singer who came to us with virtually no technique at all. She was very open to the idea of classical training because she wanted to make certain demands on her voice and her vocal range that would make her sound marketable in her genre but also desired a long sustainable career. Because of her drive for perfection and her strong work ethic, she improved very quickly and within 6 months, she had increased her range dramatically, had a much more even and consistent sound, and learned, through proper technique, how to avoid vocal damage in the future. She also was offered and signed a contract with Sony records and is on her way to a wonderful singing career! The vocal technique we teach and believe in will help you learn to have proper breath support, correct use of your articulators, an open vocal production, and a relaxed body. Whether you plan to sing opera or blues, you must understand your voice! Once a classical technique is understood, the singer just needs to change the style to whatever type of music they want to sing. Healthy singing is healthy singing no matter what type of music you sing so learning to sing correctly will give you a much better chance at a the singing career you want. We can not promise that everyone will sign with Sony in only 6 months because every individual is different and everyone’s results will very great depending on many factors, but we can guarantee that you will have dramatic improvement if you are willing to diligently seek to improve your voice.

What is the best vowel to sing on in a warm up? There are as many schools of thought on that question as there are teachers! The Italians say that [u] or the vowel sound of in the word moon is medicine for the voice. Some teachers think that all singers should start with an [a] or the vowel sound in the word pop because it is the most open an the easiest to master. Still others believe that a singer should start with an [o] or the vowel in sound in the word toe. We at JVS like the [i] sound like in vowel in the word tea. When singing the [i] sound, your tongue is in the most relaxed position it can be just as it would be if you fell asleep in a chair with your head back and your mouth open! When your tongue is in this position, it allows for the most open space you can have. Add that [i] vowel to your raised soft palate and relaxed low larynx and you have now created an open space for your voice to properly be produced and to resonate. Once you truly find this place of relaxation, add your breath support and you will love the sound your voice is making. Warm-ups are so important but can be very counterproductive. Technique begins with mastering warm ups and then carrying over into songs and arias so get those throats open and those tongues and jaws relaxed and get that career going!