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Question... Jenna Boyd writes: “With
many auditions requesting pop songs I find it hard to sing
these pop songs in a non-musical theatre style. I am looking
for a technique that will enable to sing in different styles
and learn new patterns/twiddles as I find it difficult and
imprecise just listening and copying the original artists.
Do you have any suggestions?”
Gill Main replies: Singing in a genuine pop style
is often tricky for the music theatre singer, but it is easy for any singer to
“get stuck” in their genre.
The biggest difference between pop
singing and classical or musical theatre is that the voice
quality will change many more times. Even in a very short
phrase there can be several rapid changes in quality. Vocal
flexibility is the key here, not just in terms of agility
across the range but also the ease and speed in which the
singer can move through voice qualities seamlessly.
Musical theatre singers are
accustomed to working the text of a song. The same principle
applies to pop but with a different set of rules. Stresses
will be different, vocal slides will occur in a particular
part of the phrase and pitches and note values are
completely flexible. Pop also uses a unique pattern of vowel
sounds and regularly clips words. These changes are often
the final piece in the puzzle to making the sound truly
authentic.
An artist will spend years trying
to find vocal individuality and to copy that in a couple of
hours is often unrealistic. If you are a flexible and
confident pop artist you will probably manage to imitate
reasonably well but most singers will sound and feel vocally
clumsy. A better way of owning a song is to create your own
licks. This is something that takes practise but is worth
developing.
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Start with a recording of a16 bar
instrumental phrase. To begin with do not use a
favourite cd – you will have too many preconceived
ideas about what that song ‘should’ be. A simple 8
bar blues played on the piano twice would be fine.
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Have a go at doing some basic scat on top of
your recording or use some words that are good old
pop favourites like ‘yeah’ or ‘oh’. |
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Begin to develop a rhythmic freedom as well as a
comfortable vocal line for you. |
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Experiment with all kinds of music, style and
tempo. |
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Once you are more confident, find some sheet
music of a pop song you don’t know at all and try
out some of your new vocal tools. |
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As you get more confident, experiment with
putting your own stamp on an old favourite. |
Jeremy also has a computer programme that might help.
Click here to read about 'Getting help to learn new styles'
Question... Matasha Allen writes: “I
have a problem with breath control. I believe that it's
weight-related. However, last year, I noticed that my breath
control gets even worse as I sing in my upper tessitura. The
higher I sing, the more air I hear rushing out. It was my
understanding that I should use less, not more air the
higher I sing. What could be causing this problem?"
(10/11/05 by email).
A Grigg writes: Do you have
any article on how to overcome breathy singing tones?
Thanks. (11/11/05 by email).
Jeremy and Gillyanne answer these together: Both of
these questions relate to breathiness in the sound, and
breathiness can have several causes. (We cover this in our
“Teaching in the Studio” course).
Firstly
Matasha. People who are overweight may have postural
problems and poor muscle tone in the muscles of the
abdominal wall. Either of these might affect your breath use
generally. See SATA Chapter 4 for advice on this subject.
If the
breathiness only occurs in the upper register, there could
be a different cause – that you may be in a falsetto setup.
The vocal folds need to be longer and thinner in general for
higher pitches, but there appear to be two ways to stretch
and thin the folds: raised plane and crico-thyroid tilt
(sounds and feels like whining). We find the latter more
efficient. If you are in raised plane (a falsetto mode) it
is more likely that your vocal folds are open at the back
allowing the air to leak out.
Practise
your siren, using a small ng sound, and slide from bottom to
top without increasing the volume. Check your head and neck
alignment, and “ease” your voice over any change points.
Notice if you start pushing breath at any particular pitch.
You can also experiment with holding the air back slightly.
And remember that in general, high notes need more muscle
support and less breath support.
A Grigg’s
question is a little more tricky to answer, in that it does
not appear to be range-specific. Breathiness in general is
usually caused by imperfect vocal fold closure. It takes one
set of muscles to open the folds, and two sets to close
them. There are various exercises that we recommend, which
target different vocal imbalances. These include monitoring
effort levels, using modal voice exercises (clear speech
quality), and identifying vocal energy. Glottal onsets can
be useful for closing the vocal folds before the start of
the sound – use gentle glottals, not hard attacks. Jeremy
will often get a client to do exactly what they don’t want
to do. So singing with more breath can often help identify
where the breath is coming from, and what is causing the
breathy sound. Beware of confusing the sound of breath with
the sound of constriction, and remember to check into your
chuckle!
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