Per Bristow www.thesingingzone.com
SING WITH FREEDOM by Per Bristow Bristow Voice Method Lesson 2 Welcome to lesson #2 of the Sing With Freedom voice training program! Power, Strength and More Freedom Realize that when we talk about power and strength, we don't necessarily mean being loud. You can have a powerful voice, just as you can have a powerful presence without needing to be loud. However, strength is necessary even if you want to sing softly (which of course can be very powerful). In the previous lesson we explored the concept of power vs. force, or power vs. restrictions. If all you can be is soft because of habit and lack of strength, then you are not powerful. If all you can be is loud and forceful because of habit, then you are not powerful. Functional strength of your instrument is necessary so you can express who you really are, what you truly want to communicate in the moment, and also so you can do what you want to do over and over, day after day. Also, the better trained your voice is, the less susceptible you are to injuries and irritants (allergies and colds, for example). Functional strength gives you a more dynamic instrument. The more strength and freedom you gain, the less limited you are in your choices - and you can express with greater joy and freedom. The more strength and freedom you gain the more confident, powerful, attractive, influential and successful you become. Lesson 2: The Magical Tongue Besides being the main organ for taste, the tongue is the main orchestrator of the act of swallowing. When you swallow, the tongue effectively blocks the mouth, the soft palate closes off the nose, and the larynx rises so that the epiglottis closes off the trachea. It's a brilliant process that makes certain that no foreign objects go down into the lungs, but instead go down the correct pipe - the esophagus - and then onwards, down into the stomach. So, simply put; when you swallow, you cannot breathe. If you try to talk or sing during this phase (while eating, for example), you're in for some trouble. Luckily, you have the cough reflex to save you from your not so wise attempt to multi-task. This is also why the liquid that you drink never touches the vocal cords, even though one might think so. The vocal cords need to be hydrated from within as an extension of hydrating your entire body. Per Bristow www.thesingingzone.com
When we sing and speak we obviously want to breathe. We want to relax the swallowing/gag reflex as much as possible and develop an ability to relax the root of the tongue more than ever before. This is sometimes easier said than done. Whoever said "The tongue is the singer's worst enemy" had a good point. (I believe the Italian opera singer Caruso has been credited with that quote.) The tongue is seldom in a relaxed position during our daily activities. We tend to hold a lot of chronic tension in our tongue when we speak, sit by the computer, watch TV, even when we breathe. Every person with a voice problem holds exceptional tension in this area. Any time we experience some sort of discomfort, other muscles compensate and contract. The tongue serves as a protective mechanism. If we psychologically feel a need to protect, if we feel uncomfortable expressing ourselves and speaking our mind, if we experience any kind of fear, then rest assured there is tension at the root of the tongue. One part of vocal training is to train the muscles to separate and act independently of one another (just like a pianist can swiftly move fingers one at a time without tensing the others). In an untrained singer/speaker, all these muscles surrounding the larynx tend to move as one package. The Power of Focus Your mind is so brilliant that you have the capacity to shift your focus at any given time. Right now you can focus your eyes on your computer screen. But without moving your head you can shift your focus and focus on something far away. You can also keep your eyes focused straight ahead, but mentally focus on what is going on to your peripheral side. And you can even focus on an imaginary image in your mind s eye. With your hearing you can selectively choose to focus on various sounds in your environment. You can also suddenly shift your focus to imaginary sounds. (We learn to do this in the ear training course provided inside The Singing Zone members area.) And you also can also choose to focus on physical sensations within your body. You can shift your focus from your throat to your right ankle to your lower back within a fraction of a second. How's that for genius? The effectiveness of your practice (in any endeavor), is determined by your ability to focus - and that ability is a trained skill and nothing else. Naturally, this ability is severely hampered by lack of nutrition, sleep, and more, but it is still a trained skill. But the biggest challenge to develop rapidly is a mind that races between past and future between judging and anticipating, as well as a mind who is conditioned to intellectualize a process rather than truly experience it. The impatient mind that thinks ahead and wants to jump ahead and thinks thoughts such as what is this good for?, or what will this lead to?, will have a very hard time truly engaging. The mind that goes: but I still don t sound good, or yeah, but my voice still cracks will have a hard time recognizing improvements since there is constant judging against some perceived idea of what a result should be. A result driven mind that cannot experience a process that is in the moment will likely never be able to experience the results. Per Bristow www.thesingingzone.com 3
The people who are truly able to experience tremendous results are also the people who have become good at experiencing the process. The person who has not learned to experience the process will also likely give up at the slightest setback. We all fall into these mental traps, and part of developing our awareness - as we are doing here - is to become aware of our mental processes. I have challenged you in this session to focus on some details - details that you may not have paid much attention to before. By doing this detailed work, you are effectively "programming" new habits into your muscle memory and you are developing your ability to focus.? Question to ponder What is the fastest possible way to break a habit? Answer to ponder You don't. You create a new habit that renders the old habit insignificant. So, do you need to focus on these details of the tongue when you perform on stage? Of course not. On stage your focus can shift to the intent of the song, to your audience, etc. That is why practice is a very different process than the actual performance. Your own practice is also a very different process from rehearsal. You also use your private practice time differently depending on what you are trying to accomplish. An athlete trains differently in the off-season compared to before the games. Each day, an athlete's workout is different depending on the objective of the exercise/session, and so it should also be for singers. The better you practice - i.e., the more you make the functionality of your instrument automatic - the freer you become to perform and express yourself. This is why I don t just give you some scales to sing along with, or some standard vowel-consonant combinations. I have yet to meet a singer who sings his/her scales and has a deep awareness of why they are doing it. Most people who have been trained to sing scales just do it because they have always done it, with little awareness of what they are trying to accomplish. The four tongue release exercises 1) The "ng" Sound: What muscle are you using to create that sound? What part of the tongue is engaged and what part is relaxed? Can the root of the tongue let go even more? Since the tongue meets the roof of the mouth, and therefore blocks off any sound from going through the mouth, the "ng" is technically 100% nasal. However, does it need to be squeezed and nasal sounding? Can you feel a warm, relaxed, free, deep, rich, non-restricted, buzzing vibration as you exhale making the sound? Realize how you can move the face and jaw muscles, wildly grimacing, without any disturbance to the vibration of the vocal cords. Yes, you can even move your tongue! Since you are free to move your facial muscles and jaw without interrupting the vibration, imagine the implication this has for the future? What if whatever goes on in your face is Per Bristow www.thesingingzone.com 4
because of your truthful, emotional expression - rather than because of pitch or volume? We become so limited if we need to shape our mouth and face in a certain way in order to sing loudly, or in order to sing a specific note. 2) Tongue Out - Holding It With Your Teeth: Experience that nice buzz. Notice how the tongue might want to pull back at times. Notice if you feel a hint of a choking feeling. Can you relax even more? 3) "Tongue Flaps": Move your tongue in and out at rapid-fire speed. Does the tongue get stuck? Can you do it with a bigger range? 4) Wide Open Mouth - Touching the Upper Teeth With the Tip of Your Tongue: Just breathe silently at first. Feel the openness in your throat. Then make a sound - i.e., connect the cords - with the same relaxed feeling in your throat. All these exercises serve to loosen the tongue and release tongue root tension. When you engage in these exercises, apply all the principles from lesson 1, such as: Sliding Moving your body Being aware of the vocal cords connecting (breathy vs. connected) Releasing, exhaling without pushing or holding back Having fun Do you yawn down the larynx? Do you have to? What tends to habitually happen in your throat when you inhale? What if you do a quick inhale? What happens in the preparation of the upcoming sound, in that fraction of a second before you set the cords in motion? Is there a squeeze sensation going on? Does the larynx need to move up and down just because you inhale, just because you are anticipating making a sound, just because you create a sound? You have now learned why "yawning", which is taught in most old-fashioned techniques, becomes so counterproductive. It is especially destructive for contemporary singers, but also for classical singers who have come to believe that yawning is what is necessary to produce a classical sound. In previous lessons we have worked on awareness. You now realize the difference between controlling and releasing. Even if the result is to have a low larynx the issue is how to get there. Do you need muscle effort to push/pull it and hold it in a low position, or can you release the surrounding muscles so that it releases/relaxes into a lower position? If a person has a tight jaw, does it become less tight if I instruct the person to open your mouth? What is the difference between a jaw that opens because of muscle effort and a jaw that opens due to releasing the tension that holds it closed? This is a good example of the difference between external result thinking and process thinking. The external result thinker thinks the jaw should be open so therefore the instructions should be to open your mouth. Per Bristow www.thesingingzone.com 5
But if a person is told to open your mouth, he/she will create the result by using the muscles that open the mouth. This is quite contrary to a jaw that falls open because muscles are being released. It is as artificial as if an actor produces the sadness by artificially producing tears. The process-thinking mind, on the other hand, thinks okay, maybe that s the result, but how do I get there?. When you engage in the process and develop the awareness to understand the process, you will create far greater results in any endeavor. The feel as if you re yawning is a classic instruction and an example of an instruction that creates an artificial result with artificial tension. The belief in this instruction hinders numerous singers from releasing their true resonant voices. As you have noticed, there is very little that actually relaxes in the midst of a yawn. Seven Count Aaaaaaahs: What did you notice when you did this exercise? Were you able to do it over and over again? Did you become more and more tired, or were you able to rebound between every aaaah? Again, shift your focus to various parts of your body. Are you exhaling? What is your tongue doing? What is your jaw doing? What about your neck? What about your abdominal muscles? Although the focus has been on the surrounding muscles, you are in fact training the vocal cords also. Their ability to come together without the "help" of outer muscles is improving dramatically by this focused work. As a result, they are being strengthened. Short Connections on an "ng" or "tongue-out-holding-it-with-your-teeth" Do, for example, four short ones and then a long one - very, very light. No hard attack. No push. You want to feel as if you're activating only the edges of the cords, rather than the full bulk of the muscle. It is not about squeezing the cords together or hitting them hard, but training them to come together quickly. Does the larynx have to move when you inhale? Does the larynx have to move at all when you make these light sounds? Hoarseness You now know what hoarseness is and you are learning more and more about what you can do to prevent it. What are the cords doing when a voice is hoarse? What tends to happen if we are in need of being heard but are being heard less and less due to hoarseness? What has happened to the cords if you lose your voice completely? Why has that happened? What are the surrounding muscles doing? Per Bristow www.thesingingzone.com 6
Realize that swelling and inflammation may or may not be part of the problem. And there can, of course, be numerous underlying reasons that affect the body and the voice. Some people also have raspy hoarse voices and do fine with it. Why do you think that is? As you practice and develop, you'll recognize when you start to feel hoarse, and you'll know what to do to avoid pushing the cords apart further. You will become better at recognizing when it's time to exercise to release the tension and when it's time to rest. The stronger your voice becomes, the less susceptible you will be to irritants. (On the other hand, the more crucial your voice is to your career, the more sensitive you are to being off your peak.) Visualize Visualize the vocal cords opening up wider than normal on a horizontal level when you inhale fully (they really do). As you make sound, visualize how they come together and vibrate. The key is to visualize and realize that it is all happening on a horizontal level. This week's challenge Can you avoid singing songs this week and instead take time to do the things we've done? Using your time this week to release tongue root tension, and activate and strengthen the essential muscles, will have enormous benefits to everything we do from here on. For example, learning to sing those high notes next week will become endlessly easier because of it. TO CONCLUDE The three pillars to developing muscle strength are: Muscle activity Nutrition Rest To rapidly develop the kind of functional, effective, healthy strength we are after, the key is activity that focuses on good "form". However, activity comes first. Activity with less than perfect form is better than no activity at all. There is no such thing as doing it wrong, nor is there such thing as doing it right. There is only doing. The more you do, the more you develop and discover, and the more effective your training becomes. Therefore, activity is the key. No activity = no development. So go and sing. Make sound. Have fun! I'll see you in lesson 3, Per Per Bristow www.thesingingzone.com 7