Coaching the Girl in 14G

The final song we worked on (see the previous two blogs) was one of my all-time favourites. The Girl In 14G - written for the vocally talented Kristen Chenoweth.

I've coached this song with so many different people, and there are so many different ways that the song can work for you. The song requires four completely different voices (docile mouse, opera singer, jazz singer and broadway belter). So there is usually one that the singer is most comfortable with. I tend to start from the comfort zone and work outwards.

There are three different characters in this song, and when we began they weren't delineated sharply enough, so I started with the narrator. This self-confessed mouse has three distinct moods - quiet and docile, startlingly angry, and strong and outgoing. The first mood needs a small, childlike, twangy sound that stays pretty much the same whatever she is singing.

The temptation with this song is for her to get too angry too soon, so we worked on keeping the narrator small with varying levels of patience. This helps delineate her against the opera singer, who is completely oblivious to her surroundings and expressing herself in the grand manner.

The physicality of the three characters is also vital. The mouse is physically hemmed in, not moving much and with a very small, narrow body space. This contrasts with the opera singer who has a wide body space and flamboyant upward gestures. They need to be upward, as she lives in the flat below the narrator.

The jazz singer's physicality is the opposite. Into the ground, flexible and funky, and aiming downwards (she lives in the flat upstairs). Once these physical characteristics are sorted out, it becomes much easier and more fun to sing the song. Particularly when they are singing in "three part harmony".

Even within each character there is a lot of detail to be found. For example, the opera singer when we first hear her sings music from (in my opinion) three different operas - Mozart, Wagner and Rossini. Yes, I know in the score it says the third one is Mozart again, but it's more fun if you change it...

So for the Queen of the Night excerpt you can stand in the classic dramatic vengeance pose; for the Wagner, romantic desolation; and for the "Rossini" you want the archetypical coquettish heroine. The more you throw yourself into each physical characterisation, the clearer the story is for the audience, and the more interesting it is for you to do.

And you're not just relying on your vocal skills to pull off the jokes.

My singer loves the new physicality and is singing it with much more clarity and fun.

Job done.

The Vocal Process "opening your throat" techniques appear on the new sell-out Constriction and Release Training DVD
The brand new voice training DVD Nasality and the Soft Palate has just been released
The Voicebox Videos DVD goes into its third pressing
The Vocal Process website has 300+ pages, including a series of free articles on vocal technique and style, memorising and different musical genres.

Visit http://www.vocalprocess.co.uk/ for the latest downloads:
the Vocal Process eZINE (free electronic magazine)
86 things you never hear a singer say (free ebook)

Moving from opera to pop style

Following on from the previous blog:

My opera singer client now puts We'll Meet Again in front of me. It's for the "singalong" part of a performance she's doing, and normally the idea of opera singers and singalong makes me shudder (and trust me, I've worked with enough opera singers to know what "And On The Lighter Side" actually means...)

As it happens, she's doing rather well with it, so I only put in a few style tweaks. The verse needed to be more conversational, so we experimented with shortening long final notes or dropping the volume on them.

One of the biggest and easiest changes you can make as a classically trained singer moving to more contemporary repertoire is to change the shape/volume of a line. Most classical singers are taught that sustaining is the breath of life, and that you meddle with the line on pain of death. That works for music that is written in that style (much of the classical repertoire from Gluck and Handel onwards requires it). But it really doesn't work in text-based music such as western musical theatre or pop.

Back to the Vera Lynn... We changed the volume shapes of each line from long arches to shorter, quicker volume rise-and-fall, for a more colloquial feel. It worked a treat, and she sounded much more real and more direct.

And the final tweak was an odd one. The verse was working fine, but she was sounding too energised in the chorus. So I asked her to imagine that she was singing slower than I was playing, and that the song had more breadth. She took the instruction and ran with it, and the feel changed to one of nostalgia and hope. It was almost like magic.

I always like to find out how people translate my instructions, so I asked her what she had done. She had imagined herself in a much bigger space, singing a broader, slower song "out there".

Fascinating what makes a performance work.

More in the next blog.

The Vocal Process "opening your throat" techniques appear on the new sell-out Constriction and Release Training DVD
The brand new voice training DVD Nasality and the Soft Palate has just been released
The Voicebox Videos DVD goes into its third pressing
The Vocal Process website has 300+ pages, including a series of free articles on vocal technique and style, memorising and different musical genres.

Visit http://www.vocalprocess.co.uk/ for the latest downloads:
the Vocal Process eZINE (free electronic magazine)
86 things you never hear a singer say (free ebook)

Moving from opera to musical theatre style

Working in the West End coaching studio again today.

I love working with versatile singers, and the opera singer who came today is doing really well with more contemporary styles. In today's 90 minute session we had a caribbean national anthem, Jerusalem, We'll Meet Again, The Girl in 14G and a new lyrical musical theatre piece (not heard in this country yet). Normally we'd be doing Donizetti or Mozart, so this is quite a repertoire swing!

This session was about tweaking and guiding. I'm working with her on vocal style, performing tips and watchpoints, and which musical style points belong to which musical genre.

It's fascinating for me to hear someone who is so used to singing and working in one genre change to another. She is doing really well and has a natural instinct for communication. Although sometimes we have to fight the previous training!

To the lyrical musical theatre piece we added volume changes within words, breathy excitement to one section, specific diction tips to another and played around with keys until we found one that really worked for her voice. The original was apparently for a female bass (down to low E and the highest note an octave above middle C). She's an operatic soprano singing with a lyrical vocal sound, so we had to find a key that worked with direct communication and didn't "overblow" on the top notes. Apologies to the opera singers reading this blog, but I know what I mean! Just ask me if you want to find out more...

We ended up in Eb, a really warm key for the song (subtext - "please don't ask me to leave you, I love you but I'll never see you again"). Unfortunately in the middle key change we ended up in Gb major - a great key for warm climaxes, but a little devil to transpose into.

Although I prefer people to sing in the original keys most of the time, there are certain styles of music where key is less important than performance, and this style was one of them. It was far more important to get the feel of the music and the emotion across than stick rigidly to the written score, and the transposed key worked far better for her.

Having said that, she'll be working with the composers in a couple of weeks' time, so I'll keep you posted on their thoughts!

More about working on style in the next blog.

The Vocal Process "opening your throat" techniques appear on the new sell-out Constriction and Release Training DVD
The brand new voice training DVD Nasality and the Soft Palate has just been released
The Voicebox Videos DVD goes into its third pressing
The Vocal Process website has 300+ pages, including a series of free articles on vocal technique and style, memorising and different musical genres.

Visit http://www.vocalprocess.co.uk/ for the latest downloads:
the Vocal Process eZINE (free electronic magazine)
86 things you never hear a singer say (free ebook)

Belting and the money notes

I'm at the Jacques Samuel studios in London's West End for the first of my coaching sessions.

Today seems to be troubleshooting day, and I thought I'd share one particular session on this blog.

My client was having problems with the money note in a song (the song title escapes me at the moment - must be middle age creeping in).

The second half of the song sits up around F and G, and the final note is a long held G on the word "go". since he has easy high A's, he couldn't work out why the G was so taxing. So we broke down the task into its separate components.

The word components:
The g of "go" didn't seem to be causing problems, but the vowels were. He was trying to close down onto the second vowel of the diphthong (like the conscientious singer he is). So we experimented with different vowels for the diphthong - Ah Oh (as in cart hot) worked best in this case, but you may need to experiment yourself for a better personal choice. Some vowels may need to be modified in belting to get the sound you want without losing too much of the word.

Doing "Gah-oh" worked superbly for him - giving him a really open and exciting belt sound, a clearer first vowel, and helping him avoid closing down too much for the second vowel. This change pretty much solved the problem, so there were really only two tweaks left.

The note:

The G isn't really in his belt range, it's just underneath, so vocally it feels a little odd. Even though he wasn't in a vocal belt setup, by putting him in a physical belt position (body braced, head up "to the gods", the sound got just a little thicker and easier without him weighting his voice any more. It also looks good!

The ending:

Coming off a belt note can be tricky if you're not completely balanced. We explored different tone offsets, including glottal offset (which sounds like a truck into a brick wall, frankly, but could be useful for shock value), and chose the slight pitch bend downwards for best effect. So his pattern was hit the note in 'belt position', hold it absolutely straight until the last few seconds, add the vibrato, and drop the pitch around a tone just as he offset the sound.

Working well so far...

And for more applause (!) we added a delay to the word of a couple of beats, and a gasp offset right at the end.

Shockingly corny I know, but it builds the intensity of the performance without having to do it vocally. And in this song, corny works!

Client was pleased that the fix was so straightforward (and quick). Well, that's 25 years of experience, and that's what you pay me for!

Tricks of the trade...

***Update. Client just emailed to remind me that the song is "She Was There" from The Scarlet Pimpernel. End of senior moment***

The Vocal Process "opening your throat" techniques appear on the new sell-out Constriction and Release Training DVD
The brand new voice training DVD Nasality and the Soft Palate has just been released
The Voicebox Videos DVD goes into its third pressing
The Vocal Process website has 300+ pages, including a series of free articles on vocal technique and style, memorising and different musical genres.

Visit http://www.vocalprocess.co.uk/ for the latest downloads:
the Vocal Process eZINE (free electronic magazine)
86 things you never hear a singer say (free ebook)

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...

Well, the first West End vocal coaching trip was nearly scuppered this morning. Although there's no snow in the West End at the moment, our drive still has six inches of crispy, crunchy powder and looks stunning. No problem getting to the station (although even the four-by-fours are driving at 30mph).

The problem came at the station - the first train had broken down at the previous station, the second train was going to push it but couldn't get coupled, and the third train was cancelled. So we stood on the station platform, not knowing when the train was going to arrive, with no buffet and no toilets!

Still, I'm sitting on a train now, admiring the astonishing scenery, and we'll only be half an hour late for our first session (thank heaven for little mobiles).

It's a mix of clients for both of us this week, with actors, singers, spoken voice people and an opera singer or two.

The Vocal and Performance Coaching Calendar is working well - clients are now contacting us knowing exactly when our available sessions are.

Update: Good grief! Another train cancelled on us! Apparently even the London intercity trains aren't immune. I love English winters - no-one seems prepared for them, even though they happen every year.

British optimism?

But hey, our timetable allows for the vagaries of the weather, and we're still only going to be half an hour late.

British pessimism?

The Vocal Process "opening your throat" techniques appear on the new sell-out Constriction and Release Training DVD
The brand new voice training DVD Nasality and the Soft Palate has just been released
The Voicebox Videos DVD goes into its third pressing
The Vocal Process website has 300+ pages, including a series of free articles on vocal technique and style, memorising and different musical genres.

Visit http://www.vocalprocess.co.uk/ for the latest downloads:
the Vocal Process eZINE (free electronic magazine)
86 things you never hear a singer say (free ebook)

The new Vocal Process Coaching Calendar

We're settling into the new house nicely - this picture is the view today from my office (it's one of the reasons we moved!)
Because of the move, Gillyanne and I have a new online Singing and Performance Coaching Calendar.

When we moved out of London, we wanted to make sure that our clients had access to us for vocal techniques lessons and specialist audition coaching.

So we've booked our West End studio up to April 2010. And you can now see when we're available for lessons and coaching sessions, live and online.

The link is on the Vocal Process website - just go to http://www.vocalprocess.co.uk/ and you'll see the live private coaching calendar link on the homepage.

We're happy to give sessions of an hour, an hour and a half, two hours or more if you have something specific and urgent you want to work on.

At the moment, we have clients flying in from Sweden, Spain and Israel for intensive coaching, as well as all our current West End clients.

If you're interested in booking a session with either of us, just drop us an email via the Vocal Process website. We'll look forward to working with you!


The Vocal Process "opening your throat" techniques appear on the new sell-out Constriction and Release Training DVD
The brand new voice training DVD Nasality and the Soft Palate has just been released
The Voicebox Videos DVD goes into its third pressing
The Vocal Process website has 300+ pages, including a series of free articles on vocal technique and style, memorising and different musical genres.

Visit http://www.vocalprocess.co.uk/ for the latest downloads:
the Vocal Process eZINE (free electronic magazine)
86 things you never hear a singer say (free ebook)

And they're off!

It's moving day today. The van is parked outside the house and we're standing in a slightly bemused huddle as we watch our surroundings disappearing into the cavernous maw.

Actually, I think it's been fun. And since we're moving from a four-bedroom house to a six-bedroom house, we really don't have enough furniture!

We're really looking forward to living and working in such a peaceful and beautiful environment. Gillyanne and I have signed up to write books 3-6 in the Singing Express series with co-author Ana Sanderson. Singing Express is designed to introduce healthy, simple singing concepts to 6-11 year olds and their teachers. There are new songs, song vehicles (vocal chants and exercises based around one aspect of the song), backing tracks, video films, cartoons, tips and advice. Book 1 is already out and Book 2 is being filmed this week.

We're also planning some brand new training retreats for the Spring and Summer. So if you'd like to join us in our wonderful house and garden (see the previous blog for a photo), and you are serious about working on your voice and performance skills, keep your eyes peeled for more news, or just join our eZINE mailing list.

Got to stop now, I'm surrounded by people brandishing bubblewrap - I assume it's for the computer...

The Vocal Process "opening your throat" techniques appear on the new sell-out Constriction and Release Training DVD
The brand new voice training DVD Nasality and the Soft Palate has just been released!
The Vocal Process website has 280+ pages, including a series of free articles on vocal technique and style, memorising and different musical genres.
Visit http://www.vocalprocess.co.uk/ for the latest downloads:
the Vocal Process eZINE (free electronic magazine)
86 things you never hear a singer say (free ebook)