As the basics of your Better Voice technique become more secure you will be able to increase the complexity of the voice exercises you use. No doubt there are particular aspects of your vocal abilities that you would like to work on. Two very common ones are difficulty maintaining an even tone quality when covering larger intervals, and tuning (intonation) slips in quick runs of notes. Mastering these will improve your singing technique significantly.
The exercises here will help you to do that. Always start a practice session with some simple exercises; add on one or two of these more complex exercises at the end once your voice is well warmed up.
The examples below give you the note sequences but not necessarily the right pitch for you. As with all the previous exercises, start at a comfortable mid-range pitch and then work outwards towards the extremes of your range.
All the advice from the previous, simpler exercises still applies (Part One, Section 2.1), and take things slowly to start with. The six-step sequence is still a good way to gradually master the exercise, but postpone adding any words until you can cope with vocalising on vowels.
Recordings are useful to monitor your progress – with the usual warning that unless studio quality they are not an accurate representation of the sound you are making. There are also programs available that give real-time visual feedback on the accuracy of your tuning (see Section 5.6).
This sequence gradually increases the interval between adjacent notes from a major third (i) to an octave (vi). The seventh (v) is the trickiest to pitch, and you might want to skip that initially.
The ultimate aim is to vocalise the whole sequence (with or without the interval of the seventh) in one breath: first humming mmmm or nnnn, then to maa or naa on each note, next to aah with one initial mmm or nnn, and finally to aah. Transitions between notes should be smooth and the tone quality consistent throughout.
You can work towards that aim by identifying particular intervals you find difficult and working on those individually, then gradually stitching together the complete exercise.
The next step is to repeat the sequence above with different vowels, and then with a friendly phrase.
Try the same exercise but with falling intervals:
The exercises in Section 2.3 started your practice with runs of notes. There, technique was the priority over tuning. Hopefully your technique is now more secure so you can concentrate on the tuning. See if you can maintain accuracy while gradually increasing the speed with which you move between notes.
You can start with the familiar exercises from Section 2.3 and then move on to the examples below. The first reduces the interval between adjacent notes to a semitone and the second increases it to a third, both of which bring their challenges.
Semitone runs are notoriously difficult to keep accurately tuned. The first exercise keeps things fairly simple with a run of just five notes in each direction. The second is a classic exercise for semitone tuning. If you find it tricky you’re not alone: most people do.
If you’ve worked your way through the sequence of humming/maa or naa/aah and other vowels/friendly phrases and want a further challenge, you can sing it to the phrase ‘I will sing my half-tones ev’ry day till they are per-fect’.
Try increasing the interval between adjacent notes to a third.
This type of exercise moves you a step closer to what you will encounter in anything you sing. A simple interval/run combination is given below. You can add to that with examples you find in pieces in your repertoire.
As the basics of your Better Voice technique become more secure you will be able to increase the complexity of the voice exercises you use. No doubt there are particular aspects of your vocal abilities that you would like to work on. Two very common ones are difficulty maintaining an even tone quality when covering larger intervals, and tuning (intonation) slips in quick runs of notes. Mastering these will improve your singing technique significantly.
The exercises here will help you to do that. Always start a practice session with some simple exercises; add on one or two of these more complex exercises at the end once your voice is well warmed up.
The examples below give you the note sequences but not necessarily the right pitch for you. As with all the previous exercises, start at a comfortable mid-range pitch and then work outwards towards the extremes of your range.
All the advice from the previous, simpler exercises still applies (Part One, Section 2.1), and take things slowly to start with. The six-step sequence is still a good way to gradually master the exercise, but postpone adding any words until you can cope with vocalising on vowels.
Recordings are useful to monitor your progress – with the usual warning that unless studio quality they are not an accurate representation of the sound you are making. There are also programs available that give real-time visual feedback on the accuracy of your tuning (see Section 5.6).
This sequence gradually increases the interval between adjacent notes from a major third (i) to an octave (vi). The seventh (v) is the trickiest to pitch, and you might want to skip that initially.
The ultimate aim is to vocalise the whole sequence (with or without the interval of the seventh) in one breath: first humming mmmm or nnnn, then to maa or naa on each note, next to aah with one initial mmm or nnn, and finally to aah. Transitions between notes should be smooth and the tone quality consistent throughout.
You can work towards that aim by identifying particular intervals you find difficult and working on those individually, then gradually stitching together the complete exercise.
The next step is to repeat the sequence above with different vowels, and then with a friendly phrase.
Try the same exercise but with falling intervals:
The exercises in Section 2.3 started your practice with runs of notes. There, technique was the priority over tuning. Hopefully your technique is now more secure so you can concentrate on the tuning. See if you can maintain accuracy while gradually increasing the speed with which you move between notes.
You can start with the familiar exercises from Section 2.3 and then move on to the examples below. The first reduces the interval between adjacent notes to a semitone and the second increases it to a third, both of which bring their challenges.
Semitone runs are notoriously difficult to keep accurately tuned. The first exercise keeps things fairly simple with a run of just five notes in each direction. The second is a classic exercise for semitone tuning. If you find it tricky you’re not alone: most people do.
If you’ve worked your way through the sequence of humming/maa or naa/aah and other vowels/friendly phrases and want a further challenge, you can sing it to the phrase ‘I will sing my half-tones ev’ry day till they are per-fect’.
Try increasing the interval between adjacent notes to a third.
This type of exercise moves you a step closer to what you will encounter in anything you sing. A simple interval/run combination is given below. You can add to that with examples you find in pieces in your repertoire.
