Should you bridge early or not??

Posted on October 8, 2012 by Susan McAllister-Bee

If your goal is to have a thick (chestier) sound in your upper range, then bridging early isn’t going to get you there.

Bridging early will help balance your voice, and achieve good cord closure through your entire register. Bridging later will give you the advantage of more mouth and throat resonance with a tilted cartilage and narrowing of the aryepiglottic sphincter.

For example, I can sing high C with two different co-ordinations. One sound is more legit with great head resonance and cord closure. This is when I bridge around G above middle C. The second co-ordination is a thicker and chestier sound with stiffer cords. Because my thyroid is tilted and the AES tube is narrowed, the resonance doesn’t split the same as it does when bridging earlier. This gives the listener the impression of a thicker, chestier sound.

Sounds that make a difference

Posted on August 8, 2012 by Susan McAllister-Bee

There are many sounds you can practise that will help your singing improve.

One great sound is “neighing” like a horse. You want to make the sound a bit witchy or nasty. The problem is, if you force the sound, you are actually causing constriction, which is not going to help at all. This is a sound you can practise everyday that should feel relaxed. It is not a loud sound. You want to practise this at a speech-level volume with thin folds (your head voice).

Some singers will be able to do this easily, others will not. If you have trouble singing in your high voice, then this may be difficult so go slowly. Simply do it everyday, as often as you can, and it will gradually start to become brighter, louder, edgier, and less breathy. This can’t be forced…it must be “experienced” regularly. This is a fabulous head voice workout.

If you are doing it correctly then you will be working the aryepiglottic sphincter muscles in your larynx. When the AES is narrowed, the voice becomes more intense and more resonant at certain frequencies. AES narrowing is also called twang.

Check me out here at www.soundcloud.com for an example.

The nagging “flip”

Posted on June 13, 2012 by Susan McAllister-Bee

So this topic comes back and nags me every know and then. Actually, almost everytime I see a musical play.

Doesn’t it bother anyone to listen to a female singer with “two” voices? These singers who have a beautifully developed head voice all the way down to their belly button.

Of course, that’s the problem. The transition into mouth and hard palate resonance and the presence of “twang” just doesn’t happen very well, and these singers are left trying to figure out how to sing the middle notes around their first passagio. They are either yelling at the top of their chest register, or singing in their head voice only.

I’ve said it before….thank goodness I didn’t have singing lessons as a kid….or I could be one of them!

Singers, have you slipped?

Posted on June 9, 2012 by Susan McAllister-Bee

I haven’t been vocalizing near as much as I should be. I was very motivated at Christmas through to March break; doing my exercises, soaring through my bridges every day. It felt good, I was crooning!

The last couple of months I’ve been busier. Spring is here and I like to get outside in the garden, and take the dogs for a walk. It’s my favourite time of year. The days just fly by.

Yikes! My voice is paying the price. I did a gig yesterday and I noticed the setback. I was specifically having trouble accessing my head voice resonance as I was bridging through my first passagio.

Luckily I knew the steps to take straight away to get back on track. I focused on taking deeper breaths and engaging the abdominal muscles; I backed off on my volume a bit to the point where my vocal cords were “lighter” and I could handle the air pressure enough to focus on my “cry” and onset of each phrase.

If I was in better vocal shape setting out yesterday, my usual warm-up before a booking would have set me up well with the coordination necessary to get the “cry” and “twang” necessary to bridge through my first passagio with ease.

Once I settled in to the “rhythm” where my vocal cords, breath and body were in sync with each other, I was then able to focus on the bigger picture…..the dynamics, the resonance and vocal effects……and of course, the audience!

So, today I’ll vocalize for two sets of 20 minutes, or maybe longer depending on how it feels. I will do this daily (very focused) until I feel I’m back at the top of my game. Then it will be OK to take a day off once in awhile!