FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (FAQs)

Q: What is the training process?

A: Our objective is to learn to coordinate and strengthen the muscles within and around your larynx so you can sing using and maintaining a level of speech production throughout a wide pitch and dynamic range. The training process is a series of customized exercises, which place your larynx at its proper natural position of speech-level posture time and time again, until it just does it by “rote.” You don't control your voice by focusing on "breath control," manipulating your throat by raising or dropping it to meet pitches, or listening for resonance. These are all by-products of speech-level singing, brought about naturally when you condition your larynx to remain in a “stationary and floating position."

As you progress through your training, your muscles, as well as your nervous system, will recognize the natural production of your voice as you do each exercise and because it’s the natural and normal way the voice is produced, training takes half the time of other methods.

 
Q: How can I prevent myself from sounding breathy on the high notes and/or straining for them?

A: Using too much air, which then blows apart the vocal cords, causes breathiness. Not only does singing with too much air distort your tone and harm your vocal cords, it also causes your outer muscles (any muscles other than those of speech production) to interfere in vocal-cord vibration. Unfortunately, this is a habit that creeps up when you are anticipating the high notes

Tip: Try bending forward at the waist as you approach the top notes, returning to your standing position upon completion at the bottom of your scale. Your thinking will be that when seeing the oncoming floor, it will make you think you're going "down" instead of "up." In actuality, you are lessening the production of air and allowing the cords to remain in their “thin” and “lengthened” state. You can use this bending technique whenever you find yourself tightening up or reaching for notes.
 

Q: How can I expand my range without tensing or straining my throat? It seems like my voice won’t go any higher after a certain point and my range is only about 7 or 8 notes.

A: The reason you tense your voice is because you are trying to belt your sound in only the chest register by raising the larynx instead of strengthening the vocal-cord muscles to carry the higher notes. Once you accomplish this you will have a range of approximately 2 ½ to 3 octaves, or 20 to 24 notes or whole steps.

 
Q: Why is it more difficult to maintain my range after eating?

A: After a meal your body slows down as energies are directed towards digestion. This affects your mental alertness and the vocal cord coordination you require during rehearsal or performance. Also, the excess mucous that secretes onto your vocal cords can interfere with the vibration process itself. But range should not be strongly affected and higher pitch frequencies will return quickly.

Q: Why are some songs easier to sing than others are? They seem around the same range?

A: Different songs demand different vocal dynamics, such as words, tone, style of music, and tonal intervals. These aspects make a song easy or hard to sing depending on these dynamics. The main reason is because the intervals used in the song may lie right at the bridge, or “break” and may need to be a half step higher to avoid singing in the “crack”.