Expand Your Throat – Open Your Heart

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Have you ever tried to play a string instrument such as the guitar, while covering the hole in the sounding board? The tone becomes soft and weak: no resonance, no richness, just a dry and uninteresting sound. Similarly, when you sing with your heart closed, your singing will lack resonant heart qualities and you’ll be unable to convey true feeling. You may try to “fake it” by making your performance more emotional, but the audience will be able to tell the difference. People relate to authentic feeling. They may be momentarily swept up in the drama of your emotionalism, but they’ll leave the performance feeling empty (and empty-hearted).

​Music, in order to truly benefit us, has to resonate with the heart. If the heart is closed, the voice will tend to be tight, and vice versa. Learning how to relax and expand the throat and how to place your voice correctly will assist you in opening your heart, which will allow you to express more of who you truly are.

​A constricted voice can be an indication that a person is fixed in old habits and resistant to change. When learning correct voice placement (including learning to open your throat) you go through different stages. At the beginning, you won’t necessarily understand the point behind everything your voice teacher asks you to do, which requires you to have a certain amount of faith in the teacher. Sometimes, in fact, after a few weeks of training, you may end up sounding worse than when you started! Why? Because the teacher’s job is to help you get rid of bad habits, tendencies you must unlearn before you can learn the correct way, and this leaves you temporarily betwixt and between—gone is the old but you don’t yet know how to do the new!

​In my experience it’s often more challenging to teach a student who’s been singing for many years than it is a beginner. The more advanced singer may be attached to the way he does things, which makes it hard to let go of old, less effective ways of singing. Or maybe he simply doesn’t trust his teacher enough to take that necessary leap of faith. BUT—as soon as the student becomes willing to change, the learning process becomes smoother and faster and, ultimately, much more satisfying.

​People who keep their hearts and minds open and receptive, who are easy-going and harmonious, will tend to have an easier time letting go and making the shift to a new way of doing things. In their eagerness to learn, they manage to remain free of tension; to avoid excessive expectation and pride; and to operate with no (or very little) ego.

​So, what’s my point? Joyfully embrace the process of learning new vocal techniques. Relax and expand your throat and then focus on singing from your heart. As you increase the resonance and heart quality in your voice, your singing and spoken words will become filled with healing vibrations and you will be a blessing to others. And because, as Paramhansa Yogananda, the great Indian master, often said*: “The instrument is blessed by that which flows through it,” you will be blessed as a result.

​The more you dedicate yourself to using your voice consciously, the more Inspiration and Power will flow through you every time you sing or speak, making you a channel for a higher Consciousness.

 

Neutralizing Stage Fright

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I started performing when I was only five years old. My mother gave me a toy guitar that I used it to “accompany” myself singing all the songs I knew.

One day it was announced that a local singer was giving a concert for the elderly people in the small village in Switzerland where I lived. I was very excited because he was my favorite singer and I knew all his songs. My anticipation grew as the day of the performance drew closer. Only a couple of days before the performance, the singer cancelled due to lack of funds. My mother didn’t want to tell me, because she thought that I might be too disappointed. But when she did, I said “No worries mom, I’ll sing instead!” The day of the event I climbed on stage and for over an hour I sang all the songs I knew, strumming my toy guitar! Everybody loved it, perhaps more because of my courage and young age than my talent.

It’s amazing how children can be so free of  nervousness or self-consciousness, isn’t it? I’ll talk more about this later.

There is a wealth of information on the internet about the psychological and emotional reasons behind stage fright. Rather than exploring the reasons for stage fright, I will share what has worked for me to keep stage fright at bay in my many years of performing music as a singer and instrumentalist.

Breathe!

One of the most effective and fast acting practices that dispels nervousness and anxiety is deep breathing. When we’re nervous, scared, or worried our breath tends to become shallow and irregular, minimizing oxygen intake. One of my favorite breathing exercises is called “Regular (or Triangular) Breathing.”

  • Inhale slowly, counting to twelve
  • Hold the breath for the same number of counts
  • Slowly exhale for the same twelve counts.

This is one round of “regular breathing.” You can increase the count to 16:16:16, or decrease the count to 8:8:8, according to your capacity, but be sure that the three phases of inhalation, retention, and exhalation are equal. Generally speaking, a slower rhythm is better, providing you are comfortable and don’t get out of breath. As you absorb more oxygen and you are able, you may want to increase the count in later rounds.

This technique helps me with stage fright, or nervousness or agitation of any kind. I find this technique particularly useful when confronted with situations (or people) that irritate me. Equalizing inhalation and exhalation calms the reactive process, enabling you to expand your perspective and accept situations and people as they are, rather than reacting (negatively) to unpleasant situations.

Another helpful practice is to simply close the eyes and concentrate deeply at the point between the eyebrows. This area is the location of the pre-frontal lobe, the most evolutionarily advanced portion of the brain. Science has shown that concentrating on this area decreases anxiety, fear, worry, and sorrow. This powerful practice increases mood control, fear management, stress reduction, and general happiness level. (You can download for free a practical Routine to Neutralize Stage Fright at the end of this article).

A main cause of performance anxiety is the tendency to let the ego’s concerns rule the scene. If we’re excessively concerned about ourselves — our outlook, our gorgeous voice, our amazing magnetism – we often become anxious and nervous about every little detail about ourselves. We then arrive on stage a bundle of stress and nervousness. More importantly, we lose sight of our primary motivation for performing: to share something of value with our audience, to touch their hearts and change their lives.

If we keep in mind that our goal is to serve and inspire our audience, we can keep our ego in check. Using these techniques to achieve a more balanced perspective will result in a decrease in nervousness and anxiety.

Then, performing becomes more about giving to the audience than serving the ego’s insecurities. This allows us to return to that child-like simplicity I had during that performance at age five. There wasn’t any thought of me, only the joy of singing and sharing those songs that I really liked.

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THANKS FOR EXPRESSING YOUR OPINION!

This coming year I want to make sure that the content of my blog posts matches your expectations and needs. Below is a list of possible voice-related topics. Please email me and list one or more topics that you would like to learn more about in the coming year. You can also propose something that is not listed here!

  • Vocal Range
  • Purity of sound
  • Vocal Warm-Ups
  • Vocal Health
  • Performing Issues
  • Vocal Routines
  • Singing With Inspiration
  • Magnetism
  • Nervousness
  • Getting the Most Out of a Song
  • Illnesses of the Voice
  • Overcoming Shyness
  • Deeper Benefits of Singing
  • Choir and Its Many Benefits
  • Voice Registers
  • Boosting Your Confidence
  • Other
  • …

I look forward to hearing from you and learn about your preferences!

 

 A Community of Voices

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Music has a power. It changes those who listen to it and those who sing and play it. J. D. Walters, an American composer, said “Music is so much more than entertainment. It doesn’t merely reflect a state of consciousness: It also generates it.”

I experience the truth of this statement every Tuesday night, when I rehearse with the choir. Even if I’m tired, had a bad day, or am in a bad mood, I always know that by the end of rehearsal, I’ll feel light, joyful, and energetic, sometimes even to the point where I have a hard time going to sleep afterwards!

I found an interesting study on www.chorusamerica.org. Here’s an excerpt:

“Chorus America’s study found that an estimated 42.6 million Americans regularly sing in choruses today. More than 1 in 5 households have at least one singing family member, making choral singing the most popular form of participation in the performing arts for both adults and children.

That’s good news because the study also found that singing in one of the 270,000 choruses in the U.S., such as a community chorus or a school or church choir, is strongly correlated with qualities that are associated with success throughout life. Greater civic involvement, discipline, and teamwork are just a few of the attributes fostered by singing with a choral ensemble.”

Music can do that. But the group magnetism also plays a very important part. A choir is like a small community. Its strength and positive influence on the people in it, as well as the audience, is directly related to the singers’ willingness to blend their voices and energies together to create a unified sound. As long as the desire to stand out and be noticed is present, the true spirit of group singing is absent. It’s only when each singer humbly offers their voice to become part of something much greater than any individual that the choir can become a powerful instrument to uplift and inspire.

Here’s a short interview with John Rutter, a British composer, conductor, editor, arranger and record producer, mainly of choral music, about the importance of choir:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pm-Pm1FYZ-U

A lot of what’s happening in the world today seems to undermine people’s trust in one another, creating disharmony and division. Singing together is a simple, fun, and effective way of building bridges, fostering harmony, and creating a sense of community. Try it!

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NEW AND UPCOMING

I’m very close to publishing my new online course How to Sing High Notes Without Effort!

It’s a series of 18 videos with instruction and guided exercises to naturally and effortlessly expand your vocal range, and overcome once and for all fear of high notes.

I will send out more information and samples soon. Stay tuned!

 

How to Deal with Stumbling Blocks

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In almost every piece of music there is at least one passage that challenges our vocal skill (and sometimes our patience, too!). Many singers believe that by just repeating the song over and over, they will eventually overcome the difficulty and be able to sing it flawlessly. Unfortunately, that’s almost never true!

How are we to deal with tricky passages?

  1. First of all, sing that passage and try to identify which note or group of notes are weak and why. Maybe they’re high, or you’re singing a word that contains a vowel that you’re particularly uncomfortable with, or they are in a challenging area of your range.
  2. Whatever the reason might be, isolate that note (or group of notes) and focus on one at a time. Practice holding that note on the particular sound in the word you have to say. For example, if you’re singing the word “sky”, hold the note on the sound “aahh”, because that’s actually the main sound in that word (funny mysteries of the English languages!).
  3. While you hold the note, make sure that:
    • You’re supporting your breath correctly from the diaphragm and belly muscles. You should feel that your belly muscles are engaged while singing.
    • Your throat is relaxed. If not, relax it consciously while you hold the note. When you do, you will notice a progressive improvement in the quality of the sound.
    • Your mouth is open and round.
  4. While holding the sound, as you hear an improvement in the quality of your sound, pay particular attention to your feeling in the throat. That’s the most important thing to focus on , because you will have to recreate that same feeling every time you sing that note, until you’re able to master the passage without thinking about it.
  5. Add back the consonants of the word in question and make sure that you can still place it correctly.
  6. After working on each “problematic” note separately, put them back into the context of the whole passage and see if you notice an improvement. In my experience, there’s always an improvement after completing this process.
  7. If necessary, repeat this sequence several times, until that passage is no longer an issue.

Describing this procedure takes longer than going through it; much less than repeating the whole song over and over. The difference is that, by following this practice, you will actually SOLVE the problem.

Being able to practice efficiently is one of the most important things a musician can learn. Too much time is wasted repeating the same mistakes and imperfections over and over, reinforcing them, instead of getting rid of them.

More importantly, spending time to make a song absolutely flawless, from the technical standpoint, makes it possible to perform with your mind completely free to focus on what really matters: sharing inspiration, energy, and consciousness without impediments. That’s what singing and music are really all about.

 

I’m on AMAZON and iTUNES!

Last month I announced that my course, Singing for Busy People, is now available on Amazon. Now I’m happy to let you know that the same course is also available on iTunes!

What is it?

The course consists of downloadable audio files with a different vocal exercise for every day of the week. The recording will guide you through the practice of the exercises, giving you special instructions, reminders, and addressing the most common issues students often run into.

This is my first time on Amazon and iTunes, and what I’m learning is that the more positive reviews a product has, the more likely people will buy it.

Therefore, I’d really appreciate it if you were to go check it out and, if you feel so inclined, write a short review. This will help other aspiring singers find, and benefit from, Singing for Busy People!

Click here for the course on Amazon

Click here for the course on iTunes

THANK YOU!

Sing the Blues Away

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What is happening in the world today?? While I don’t pay much attention to the news or watch TV, I feel a growing sense of fear and anxiety sweeping the world. My family in Europe tells me that this feeling is even more tangible there.

Current attitudes and events make world brotherhood seem more and more like an unreachable dream. Hearing of so many acts of violence causes many people to fall into despair, fear, and hopelessness. Many are asking “Is there anything that I can do to make difference? If so, what?” People are looking for tools to find inner peace for themselves and to share it with others. We may think that our individual efforts have little impact on the world’s madness, but the power of good is much stronger than evil.

As singers, we are powerful instruments for change. Certainly, we’ve all experienced the power of music to deeply affect our moods, our energy level, our behavior, and our consciousness. Just a few seconds of listening to an uplifting song can dramatically change our state of mind, from worry, anger, sadness, grief, to confidence, calmness, and joy. Just a few minutes of listening to positive music can alter our whole perspective, changing how we feel about virtually everything that’s going on in our lives. We have to choose the right kind of music, because just as there is music that uplifts, there is also music that can, and does, bring us down. (Interesting fact: in the early 1940’s, BBC radio banned a popular song called “Gloomy Sunday” because of the many suicides associated with it.)

If listening to music has this much power over us, how much more power is there in singing it? Singing positive, uplifting music, while striving to express high ideals and positive qualities, like love, joy, understanding and forgiveness is a sure way to help people, to give them hope and inspire in them all the beautiful qualities that bring happiness to us and those around us. Furthermore, it brings an intense feeling of joy to the singer, because, as a wise teacher once said, “The instrument is blessed by that which flows through it.”

Perhaps, our singing won’t change the world, but it can uplift and change people for the better. And that’s no small thing!

Don’t Just Sing, Inspire!

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I can tell a good movie by how uplifted I feel afterward. With really good movies, the feeling of upliftment and expansion can last for hours, or even days. Lincoln was such a movie for me. I saw it at the Grove Theater in Los Angeles. I was struck by the fact that, unlike any other movie I had seen there, at the end of the movie nobody was in a hurry to leave. Almost everybody sat through the credits quietly. There was a tangible feeling of stillness pervading the theater. I distinctly remember the sense of deep love and harmony I felt for everyone I saw when leaving the room. Quite a contrast from the usual “push-and-be-pushed” that you experience when leaving a crowded movie theater!

I reflected afterwards as to why some movies have that effect on us. I think that a movie inspires us when it helps us expand beyond our mental horizon and see things from a broader perspective. Mere sentiments and emotions cannot do that. The same is true for singing. If all we do is express ourselves in a purely emotional way at the level of jealousy, anger, hatred, or other base emotions, the effect on our audience will be shallow and short-lived. Only when we share the higher qualities of love, forgiveness, compassion, beauty, and joy through our voices, does our singing become a powerful source of blessing for us and for our audience.

I think that many singers today focus too much on developing an impressive technique, and too little on doing what a true artist should do: inspire and uplift people. If you can hit all the right notes perfectly, but you don’t inspire, your performance will impress your audience, but it won’t bring about any lasting changes. The next day they will just move on with their lives, as if nothing had happened. If, on the other hand, you touch their hearts and souls with your singing, you could change their lives with just one song! Such is the power of music: in just three minutes you can change people’s state of mind and consciousness. All it takes is to consciously sing from your highest self to theirs.

DO YOU SING IN A CHOIR OR WOULD LIKE TO JOIN ONE?

Since I’m working with so many choir singers, I’m creating a special section on my vocalbliss.net website where singers and aspiring singers can find resources to improve their singing. There will also be a section with a special curriculum of vocal training for brand new singers who want to get started but have never sung before. Please email me if you have any suggestions for things that you think it would helpful to include in this section. Thanks!

When Less Is More

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Last Saturday I went to Sacramento with my wife and some friends to see a live performance of Beethoven’s monumental Ninth Symphonie. If you don’t know Beethoven’s Ninth, it’s considered one of the major masterpieces of classical music. Beethoven composed it toward the end of his life and personally conducted the premiere when he was completely deaf! One of the revolutionary innovations in this masterpiece is the introduction of the choir and four soloists singing the famous “Ode to Joy” in the fourth movement.

We were seated in the second tier fairly high up, pretty far from the orchestra and the singers, and yet the sound was crystal clear. I was especially struck by the voices: even though the singers weren’t using a microphone, it sounded as if they were only a few feet away.

The beauty, clarity and power of these singers made me appreciate even more the value of training the voice to place the sound to be as full and loud as possible and to shape the throat and mouth to allow the sound to fully resonate. Properly produced sounds are not just loud but project, reaching the farthest row of listeners in the room.

When we hear such a powerful sound, we may be deceived into thinking that it took a lot of effort and strain to produce. Quite the opposite! It’s only when we learn to relax and let go of unnecessary tension that we’re really on our way to singing with a full, resonant sound. It’s one of many of life’s paradoxes!

In this article you will find helpful tips, including a tutorial video, on how to develop your voice to be fuller and more resonant without effort. Interesting that the two articles have almost the same title!

8 Tips to Keep Your Voice Healthy and Strong

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by Ramesha Nani

baby_strongThose of us who speak often and for extended periods of time have all experienced vocal fatigue. While this feeling of tiredness when we talk improves only when we stop talking for some time, it is often quick to return as soon as we begin to speak again.

For someone who teaches, gives presentation, preaches, sells products on the phone, etc., vocal fatigue can be a real problem. Because of the demands of the job, they’re not likely to be able to stop and give their voice a break, allowing it to rest and heal. Unfortunately, this can eventually lead to more serious issues, like nodules, polyps, or contact ulcers, which are caused by vocal abuse (and overuse).

In this article I’m going to offer a few suggestions to prevent vocal abuse and to deal with it when it occurs.

  1. Get vocally “fit”. The vocal cords are, essentially, muscles. Just like any other muscle in the body, they need exercise to be kept in good shape and to make them strong and flexible. Using the voice for public speaking, as opposed to simple everyday conversation, can be compared to running a marathon, as opposed to taking a morning stroll. It takes strength and endurance. A serious public speaker needs to view speaking as an athlete views training for a sport: train the voice, warm it up before every talk, do everything you can to take care of it.
  2. Love your voice! As much as possible it is best to avoid “voice killers”, like smoking, sleep deprivation, alcohol, shouting, and too much caffeine. Be a good steward to your voice and it will serve you well in the long run.
  3. Water your vocal cords. Drink plenty of water! Your voice works best when you’re well hydrated. Remember that caffeinated beverages tend to dehydrate you. If you live in a dry environment, you can moisturize your throat using steam. Lean over a pot of boiling water with a towel covering your head and breathe deeply for about 10 minutes (don’t burn yourself!).
  4. Breathe! Many public speakers don’t breathe correctly. They take shallow breaths with their upper chest, instead of engaging their diaphragm, abdominal muscles, and floating ribs. Lack of proper breath support will most certainly lead to vocal fatigue, because it puts too much strain on the muscles around the throat. Full breathing allows the throat to stay relaxed and produce a full, resonant sound.
  5. Breathe more! The tendency to not breathe often enough is also very common. Training yourself to slow down and take frequent breaths throughout your talk will yield gains in clarity and vocal health, and will help keep nervousness under control!
  6. Stand (or sit) up straight. Besides being more pleasant and magnetic to look at, standing or sitting up straight frees up your abdomen and diaphragm, allowing you to speak with better breath support and avoid vocal fatigue.
  7. Speak in your natural range. Many speakers force their voice down to an unnaturally low range. This doesn’t allow the vocal cords to work correctly and they will tend to tire rather quickly. It also makes your voice raspy and not particularly attractive or magnetic.
  8. Learn to use the voice correctly. The best gift you can give your voice is vocal training. Neglected and overlooked by so many speakers, vocal training can be the key to bright, powerful, and confident presentations. Would you give a talk dressed in rags? Your voice is the garment of your words. It’s what people hear first, before any idea or concept is presented to them. Vocal training also ensures voice longevity. If you’re in for the long haul as a speaker, you need your voice to work at its best for years. Start now!

High Notes Are Not Hard!

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by Ramesha Nani

opera singer

One of the main goals of every singer is to extend their vocal range. Too many singers, alas, pursue this goal by straining and eventually ruining their voice. This is partly due to the many bad examples that can be found among the so called “professional” singers, as well as misinformation found on the internet. Of all the ways that one can sing, there’s only one that is physiologically correct and that fosters vocal health and longevity: by relaxing and expanding, rather than by squeezing and tightening.

Is it possible to sing high and even very high notes without strain? Absolutely! In fact, it is the only way, if you don’t want to ruin your voice. Here’s how you do it:

The ability to sing high notes without effort depends on the ability to access your high range, called “head voice”, or “head register”. In order to access it, it’s important to:

  • Stay relaxed and not push the voice
  • Open and expand the throat
  • Open the mouth wide
  • At first, decrease the volume. It’s harder to get into your upper range when singing loud. Once you know how to do it, you can sing loud or soft, it won’t matter.
  • Don’t be impatient! It might take time to develop and strengthen the muscles that operate the head voice. Some people don’t ever use them until they take on voice training.

One of the best ways to start is to hit and hold some relatively high notes singing in falsetto, and then gradually open the mouth and expand the throat. At first, your high notes will probably sound airy and thin. That’s absolutely normal. Keep practicing! As you do that, you will notice that your sound becomes deeper and more robust. Maybe still airy, but less thin. Gradually, you will strengthen your throat muscles as the sound becomes stable and strong, more and more similar to a “real” voice. Tip: practice on all the vowels (eee, ay, ah, oh, ooo). You need all of them to be able to sing a song!

I created a couple of videos in the past showing this process. Click here and here to watch them.

Don’t be impatient as you practice and learn this technique. It may take a while to get to the point where your voice is strong and loud in your upper range. However, in my experience, this is the safest way to learn to sing high notes without effort or strain.