Your Vocal Journey Questions Answered

Ray G This is a perfectly fine place for your question :).

One of two things is happening:

1. you have not quite figured out the coordination of the actual lip trill. This can take some time. For me, it was a few weeks.

2. You have the coordination down and the lip trill is doing its job - telling you that you have some issues at the onset (too much air is coming through which is causing the vocal folds to pop open instead of starting a clean consistent vibratory pattern).  You can cheat the hiss, but you can't cheat a lip trill :)

No matter what the cause, my advice is to back off pitch and work to find a consistent trill mechanic on a steady stream of air. Then slowly introduce one pitch. When you can sustain that singe pitch, add another one. While you are working to find that even trill you can complete the challenge using the hiss and/or a voiced consonant like a "v" , a "z" or even a hum on those vocalizes. Just spending time thinking through the breath and working toward an even breath flow will be a big step in the right direction!

Violinit Those are some of the most common issues in singing. You will also find that often these issues present as a constellation. My advice is to break them apart and work on each skill one at time. First, think through your body mechanics (posture and alignment). When you are dealing with tension, its a great idea to introduce an element of movement to your work - large sweeping arm movements and full body organic rag doll movements - the bigger the better.  Pretend you are a jelly fish and mimic that shape. Move WHILE you sing. It will feel really silly at first, but that exercise will allow you to replace your pattern of tension with a pattern of play - physically AND mentally. It works on multiple aspects of that bio-psycho-social framework. That is where I would start :)

margaret gottlieb I love this strategy! Variety is the spice of life and a great recipe for developing a flexible instrument and artistic sensibility. I am attaching two pieces for you to consider.
Fauré's Après un rêve - this is a beautiful French Art Song with some wonderful opportunities to practice legato singing and the french style - very moody and thoughtful. As a contrast, I would love to hear you play with the Handel aria "Come and trip it," from L'Allegro.  This one allows you to play with the baroque style and try your hand at some brief coloratura and fun playful phrasing.
BOTH of these pieces will fit your voice and range beautifully and should give you some room to practice and grow. Can't wait to see and hear what you come up with!

Alia M Welcome to the tonebase voice community. I'm so happy to help. In order to give you really specific advice I would need to hear you (if you are comfortable, you can post a link here to a video of you singing and I can offer an even more informed opinion). It would also be good to know how old you are and where you are in your physical vocal development (as that can play a role in these issues, as well).  

That said, in reading your description and background one thing really jumps out to me and that is weight. You describe yourself as a "huge singer" (Wagnerian, even) with large breath capacity and a mezzo range. You also mention serious training at a VERY early age (prior to your voice maturing).  Your chest register is highly developed, but you struggle with the upper register. All of this points to a weight issue - pulling too much mass through the middle and head range and possibly even a hangover effect of training too heavily at an early age and developing some unfortunate muscle memory that you are fighting against.

To sing high notes, the laryngeal mechanic has to shift - you have to sing on the edges of your vocal folds. In the lower register, you are using  surface area. Couple that with the fact that when you sing high notes the vocal folds are contracting (not stretching as they do for low notes). If you are forcing too much air (this gets to that - BIG BREATH CAPACITY comment) and approaching the resonance with too much weight (usually that means downward pressure on the larynx), you can't make that mechanical transition.  It's helpful to know that often young singers do this to sound more operatic or prematurely create what they or their teacher perceive to be a more mature vocal sound, so it's a fairly common problem especially for mezzos!

The good news is, you know the pitches are there and the space is there because you can hum (and I assume lip trill on them), you just can translate that into a non-occluded full resonant sound. 

Assuming all of this is correct (again without hearing you, it's hard to truly know), how do fix it?

1. back off the volume!! You can't develop flexibility in the mechanic if it's constantly under pressure. Your poor vocal folds may be feeling that from both sides - from the sub-glottal breath pressure and supra-glottal resonance pressure. Remember - more is not always good especially when it comes to breath and resonance. You are aiming for efficiency and balance.

2. train from the top down. Work to build the head voice independent of the chest registration. If you start at the bottom of your range and go up, you will inevitably pull the weight up into the top and hit what feels like a ceiling. Start with some GENTLE and soft sighs (a fifth or octave starting on the top note). Develop a connection to that head space and play with making sound.  Feel free to pull out a straw for this and feel the space through a SOVT (semi-occluded vocal tract). That will often help you to reset the resonance space. OR you can hum and then open the hum to an [o] - saying the word "Moe" or even "Maw."   

That's my quick-ish advice. If you post a video, I am happy to reply with  some more specific exercises to help you find that space.

I know it can be really frustrating to hit these technical walls, but I'm happy you're here on tonebase sharing your journey and questions. I truly look forward to helping you trouble shoot it and bringing you closer to that free and flowing sound.

margaret gottliebI recorded this coloratura exercise for you. It's an intermediate one, but the range, vowels and level should work well for you. You can speed it up or slow it down, I took it as a moderate tempo. It also requires you to navigate some laryngeal shifting, so it will work that skill, as well. Watch out for the vowel modification (you can open sooner, if you need to). We will do a TWI on coloratura soon, so I'm hoping this will hold you over until then!

Sybil G No tutorials up there just yet, so I made you one here

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Please feel free to take a look. Try out the technique, record and post a video for feedback. I teach this all the time and I'm happy to help you!!

Sybil G YAY! So glad it helped. Feel free to make a video of you trying these techniques. I would be happy to offer some feedback (it would also just be great to hear you sing!)

Punya my apologies for the delayed response on this. I was traveling and didn't see that my replies were not uploading!! - so very sorry!!

There are two schools of thought on working with a voice teacher. The first is  that you should stick with one teacher that you trust to help you navigate your technique consistently over the course of your career/vocal journey. The other is that you should get as many perspectives as possible (since no single person could possibly have ALL the answers).

I tend to favor a mixed approach and believe that working with a single teacher at certain times in your career can be a great idea, but you should always remain open to the possibility that there are other ways of approaching your singing.

It sounds like you had an amazing foundational experience with your original voice teacher and this new instructor is opening your eyes to another approach. With any new (good) teacher, there is always a honeymoon phase - where you feel like you want to get in to see them and learn EVERYTHING!! It can be really frustrating to feel like you can't get on their calendar enough. The most obvious advice - record your lessons and review them on the weeks that you can't get in to to see the new teacher. Also consider the greater lesson in this moment - You are discovering that there are new ways to approach your voice and your singing that your first teacher did not present to you. That doesn't mean that first teacher was wrong or less-than, it just means they have a different approach. It sounds like you are opening up to new ideas and you want to try some new things.

All that said, I'm hoping that tonebase can be a great tool for you to do just that -Explore new ideas and concepts. Try them on and see how they work in your voice. Of course, feel free to take advantage of the platform and ask for personalized feedback. tonebase can certainly help fill in those gaps and give you LOTS of fresh ideas. I am so glad that you're here. I look forward to hearing you sing and helping to encourage you on your vocal journey!

Mary Let me first say, thank you for your kind words. I am so glad that you are enjoying tonebase voice and are finding it very helpful in your vocal music journey.

As someone who spent over 2 decades teaching at the university level and experiencing many iterations of degrees in music (from top notch conservatories, mid level music schools and B.A. in music programs), I have A LOT of strong opinions on that subject. In my current role, it is genuinely my hope that we will build tonebase into a platform that truly democratizes high quality vocal music education - making it accessible to everyone. At the fundamental level,  studying music and singing in particular, is such a worthwhile endeavor. It truly elevates the human experience.  

All that said, the way that we learn music at the university level in the U.S. leaves a lot to be desired - not usually because of the quality of instruction (though this varies WIDELY from institution to institution), but because the ROI (as you rightly mention) simply does not make a lot of sense from a financial standpoint for MOST singers (particularly at the undergrad stage of life - 18-21). This topic deserves a much LONGER conversation,  with a lot of in depth explanation on MANY points. The short answer to your VERY specific scenario is that given your age, your financial situation, your professional goals, and your personal situation, finishing your degree in music might actually be a good choice. Going to a top notch conservatory could offer you the professional validation and rigor to really propel you to the next level. Finishing your degree with a B.A. in music from a random university, could help you check the box (and in a lot of professional choirs, it looks better on paper if you have that degree). That said, the most important qualification is your SKILL. You may or may not learn more going back to school for music than you would self studying and working to fill the skills gap - that fully depends on your  personal talent, motivation and resourcefulness. The other thing that a university degree can get you is a network. SO much work comes from who you know. If you're not already running in those professional circles, the network you get from your university can be a great start (especially if you go to a highly competitive school). If you don't go that route, you can still sing professionally, you just have to be really good at networking, putting yourself out there and building those SKILLS ;) Hope this helps!! Truly wishing you all the best on this very tricky decision. 

Mary truly looking forward to seeing where you end up 😄