To really engage an audience your voice needs to convey the emotions embedded in what you are singing. You want those listening to feel the joy, sorrow, anger or despair, even if the words are in a language they don’t understand. It’s not just a case of feeling those emotions yourself. In fact losing yourself in emotion is likely to make your performance less pleasurable for the listener, as you will be unaware of the practicalities of how you are producing your voice, tuning, etc. Instead you need a palette of sound qualities that simulate the emotions you want to convey. The exercises in this section and the next will help you develop this palette of sounds in your voice.
Of course, any tone variations you develop for your singing can also be used to add interest to your voice when you speak.
Wait to start practising these as add-ons until your Better Voice is well established – not before, otherwise, with your attention on the effects, you risk slipping back into your old way of voice production.
As we all have more experience of conveying emotions in our speech than singing, the exercises start with speaking and then transfer the new quality across into sung sounds.
Many tone variations are different mixes of two voice types: a breathier/softer tone and an edgier/harder tone.
The two exercises below introduce the basic techniques involved.
NB: A breathy tone is for close-up use only. Never try to project it! If you want to use it a lot when singing you’ll need a microphone.
Not surprisingly, the tone is produced by allowing more breath out of your mouth as you vocalise. Try this:
There is only a subtle difference in sound between a Better Voice-based breathy tone and one that is throat-based, but a world of difference in how it is produced and the effect it has on your vocal folds. As always, with Better Voice the extra air is felt flowing safely downwards from your head, as opposed to forcing it up through your throat.
A harder/edgier tone is achieved by allowing more sound through and actively projecting and radiating your voice.
As an introduction to the technique you will be saying the word ‘No’.
The tone quality you want is often called the ‘ring-ping’: edgy but still rounded and not too nasal. Once you know what it feels like you can start to practise it using the friendly phrases and then other words.
Expect it to take time for both these voice effect techniques to ‘click’, especially the edgier tone.
Once you can do the two basic effects, you can try mixing things up. Different blends of the breathy and edgy tone will give you a range of ‘voices’ to use when you sing or speak.
As long as you maintain your Better Voice as the basis of these effects, you can use any you want without harming your voice.
To really engage an audience your voice needs to convey the emotions embedded in what you are singing. You want those listening to feel the joy, sorrow, anger or despair, even if the words are in a language they don’t understand. It’s not just a case of feeling those emotions yourself. In fact losing yourself in emotion is likely to make your performance less pleasurable for the listener, as you will be unaware of the practicalities of how you are producing your voice, tuning, etc. Instead you need a palette of sound qualities that simulate the emotions you want to convey. The exercises in this section and the next will help you develop this palette of sounds in your voice.
Of course, any tone variations you develop for your singing can also be used to add interest to your voice when you speak.
Wait to start practising these as add-ons until your Better Voice is well established – not before, otherwise, with your attention on the effects, you risk slipping back into your old way of voice production.
As we all have more experience of conveying emotions in our speech than singing, the exercises start with speaking and then transfer the new quality across into sung sounds.
Many tone variations are different mixes of two voice types: a breathier/softer tone and an edgier/harder tone.
The two exercises below introduce the basic techniques involved.
NB: A breathy tone is for close-up use only. Never try to project it! If you want to use it a lot when singing you’ll need a microphone.
Not surprisingly, the tone is produced by allowing more breath out of your mouth as you vocalise. Try this:
There is only a subtle difference in sound between a Better Voice-based breathy tone and one that is throat-based, but a world of difference in how it is produced and the effect it has on your vocal folds. As always, with Better Voice the extra air is felt flowing safely downwards from your head, as opposed to forcing it up through your throat.
A harder/edgier tone is achieved by allowing more sound through and actively projecting and radiating your voice.
As an introduction to the technique you will be saying the word ‘No’.
The tone quality you want is often called the ‘ring-ping’: edgy but still rounded and not too nasal. Once you know what it feels like you can start to practise it using the friendly phrases and then other words.
Expect it to take time for both these voice effect techniques to ‘click’, especially the edgier tone.
Once you can do the two basic effects, you can try mixing things up. Different blends of the breathy and edgy tone will give you a range of ‘voices’ to use when you sing or speak.
As long as you maintain your Better Voice as the basis of these effects, you can use any you want without harming your voice.
