These exercises extend the range of notes you can move between.

They basically use a musical scale, but if that doesn’t mean anything to you just think of it as five next-door notes. It doesn’t matter at all if you’re not ‘in tune’.

A good range of notes is not just important to singers. If you listen to someone whose speaking voice you enjoy you’ll find they use far more notes than the five here.

Exercise 13: Humming five next-door notes lower to higher in pitch

• Pick a note (note 1) that you can hum comfortably.
• Think of the next-door note a little higher in pitch (note 2), the next one beyond that, and so on to note 5.
• Switch on note 1 in the usual way as a quiet hum, and slide gently to note 2, just as you did in the previous group of voice exercises.
• Continue the process until you reach note 5.
• Switch off note 5.

Remember the visualisation of your voice travelling smoothly and effortlessly along its horizontal line, to help keep the focus of your voice in your head.

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Exercise 14: Humming five next-door notes higher to lower in pitch

Now you’re going to reverse the previous exercise, starting on note 5 and ending on note 1.

Any significant downward movement can encourage a matching downward movement of the voice back into the throat and a loss of brightness. To counteract that, and maintain the bright quality of the higher pitched notes, it’s useful to create a more subtle picture of what your voice is doing.

Imagine some of your voice staying at the same point on the line while the rest of it moves to a point closer to you. Physicists have discovered that subatomic particles can be in two places at once, so why not your voice!

You might see your voice as a group of explorers, some of whom are returning to base camp for supplies while the rest stay at the furthest point they’ve reached. Your voice is thus spread between the two notes in the way the explorers are spread between the two camps.

With that in mind:

• Switch on note 5 as a quiet hum, and slide gently to note 4.
• Continue the process until you reach note 1.
• Switch off note 1.

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The foundations of your Better Voice

Exercises 2–14 are the foundations on which your Better Voice will be built, so take time to make sure they’re laid firmly.

Try to get really familiar with them by fitting them into spare moments.

You want to be able to reliably experience:

•  the sound in your head rather than your throat, and
• changing notes as a horizontal rather than a vertical process.

You can also return to these foundational exercises if at any time later in the course you think you’re losing the right feeling of producing your voice.