I like to break down voice training into two major parts: the hardware and the software.
The hardware consists of every physical element involved in vocal production; the lungs and diaphragm, the ribs, the throat, the arytenoids and other muscles, the voice box and vocal folds, and the mouth, including teeth, tongue, nasal cavities, etc… Indeed, virtually the entire body is used in some fashion for a true vocal performance. The training of these physical tools is a coordination of them, just as proper coordination is required to drive a car, hit a golf ball or run very fast.
The software is the musical processing that takes place in the brain. How the brain interprets songs and song performance, how it interprets pitch and commands the body to respond, how it deciphers what sounds good and what doesn’t; these are functions of the brain. It is usually these attributes that people are referring to when they say “you either have it or you don’t”, whether they know it or not.
But these people, which include some voice teachers, can often be wrong about who “has it” and who doesn’t, since the one saying it often doesn’t know the difference between hardware and software the way I just described it to you… in other words, they don’t know how to fix the problem or even what causes it in the first place.
You have to know what is wrong to be able to fix it – and you have to know what doesn't need to be fixed!
Years ago one of my clients was working with a very famous producer, and while in session the producer leaned over to me and said “you can’t teach that, you have to be born with it"; I smiled and nodded, but what I really wanted to do was play for him a live recording of that same client two years prior.
But I’ve always been the nice guy type! Yes, this person has a natural, God-given talent that was superior to peers, but how this singer was using it two years prior was pretty much as wrong as it gets. Shouting to the point of vocal exhaustion, trying to imitate another artist, pitchy as all heck and singing through the nose to the point where it could be mistaken for a kazoo…HELP NEEDED! And I was glad to provide it.
Singing through nose = hardware.
Imitating another singer = software
Shouting to vocal exhaustion = hardware
Pitchiness = hardware AND software
How do I fix this stuff? It all starts the same way: coordination. Power singing is not loud singing necessarily, it is focused singing… Tongue and neck muscles must be free to do what they're supposed to be doing, not pulling on the larynx to hit the high notes… and that's just what my training program, the Ultimate Voice Training for Singers, will do for you. Check it out by clicking RIGHT HERE!!