The Magic Triangle Singing Formula
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00:00 Welcome to The Voice Vibe
00:12 Exploring Common Singing Struggles
01:02 Deep Dive into Vocal Techniques
02:56 Guest Introduction: Kaya's Journey from Norway to the UK
04:29 Transitioning from Sports to Music
07:16 The Impact of Vocal Coaching and Teaching
10:07 Developing Unique Vocal Techniques
12:49 Introducing the Magic Triangle for Singers
16:09 Breaking Down the Big Five Coordinations of Singing
40:29 Personalizing Vocal Training with SOVT Exercises
48:43 Wrapping Up and Community Engagement
Welcome to The Voice Vibe
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Philippe Hall: Hello singers and welcome to The Voice Vibe. My name is Philippe Hall. I'll be your host today. Can you hear me, Kaya? I can. Can you hear me? Perfect. Welcome.
Exploring Singing Challenges and Techniques
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Philippe Hall: I'm just asking the listeners what they struggle with most in singing. You know, we, we teach singers how to belt, how to mix, how to sing different styles.
And a lot of times they're doing their best to, to execute the formula, but. They might not be aware. They might think, mom, my, my throat's really tight. I'm having to squeeze out these high notes and it doesn't feel comfortable. And then, then we go on this exploration. What's going on? What's going on there with our voice?
And is it, is it really my throat? Could it be my air pressure? My airflow? Could it be my vocal folds are just too thick? I've got too much adduction. And we got Stasia asking, so full metallic sound struggles with getting a full metallic sound. Um, you know, that right there could be an adduction issue, could be vocal fold thickness issue, could be.
What else could it be?
Well, and that's the thing that's so exciting about singing is that you can make the same sound in so many different ways. Right. Yeah. So. I think, um, it depends a little bit of what's happening before it. Um, so is it that you can get the belty sound in certain part of your range, but not in other parts, or is it that you can, um, get it on certain vowels, but not on others?
Uh, so the first one could be that you haven't managed to negotiate between. We might call our chest voice or head voice or M1, M two or, um, you, I think that was CBT terminology with the metallic, isn't it? Um, where you, uh, you might not have been able to find this like middle ground that some people call mix.
Deep Dive into Vocal Techniques and Terminology
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Philippe Hall: Um, and I like to refer to a muscle belt and acoustic belt, and this muscle belt, you can only get in your lower part of your range whilst this acoustic belt you can find in a higher range. Does that kind of make sense for you?
Yeah, absolutely. I like the, I like, we're getting into this whole topic of, of different terminology, right?
And I think that can be very, uh, confusing for singers, but I like, I like the, the descriptive words like acoustic belt and Muscle belt. So maybe we can unpack that a little bit, but you know, let me just introduce you to the audience and just ask you some questions.
Getting to Know Kaya: A Singer's Journey from Norway to the UK
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Philippe Hall: I know right now you are in the UK, correct?
Where are you tuning in from right now?
I'm tuning in from Liverpool, Northwest England. I in the UK, uh, I went to study originally and fell in love with the place I call myself a Scouse Weejun now.
A Scouse Weejun. Yeah, because you're originally from, you're Scandinavian, right? You're from Norway.
I'm from Norway.
Yes, that's right.
I'm from, uh, just north of the Arctic Circle.
North of the Arctic Circle?
Yep. Really? Yeah, about a six hour drive north of the Arctic Circle. Oh my goodness. I'm a proper northerner, but my, my mom lives outside Oslo now. So when I go back and visit, uh, it's generally to Oslo, which is Norway, it's a very long and skinny country.
So, uh, you get a lot of variety.
So did you grow up, you grew up in a small town. There aren't, there aren't any big towns up above the Arctic circle, right?
It's correct. Well, we, we called it a city, but it's, uh, just about 20, 000 people. So, not sure we can get away with city in a global context.
Um, is that a medium sized city in Norway?
Pretty much. Pretty much, yeah. Well, one day we're definitely, I'm going to have to, uh, book you to be my tour guide in Norway.
Yeah, sing our way around, uh, Scandinavia.
Kaya's Transition from Athlete to Artist
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Philippe Hall: Yeah, but how did you get to the UK? How did you, you said you came to, to England to study.
Yeah, that's correct. I, um, I was in, I was doing a performing arts, music and theater, uh, one year, almost like a gap year.
We have something called Folkehƶgskola, which is, um, you live on the premises and you just do your interest and it's like a, a one year residential, you know, Yeah, I think gap year is the easiest way to say you don't get marks or grades, but you, um, the ones that are really good are quite hard to get into.
And mine was, um, one that called Romerike and Lippe, which is the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts in Liverpool, um, came over and held auditions. And I had heard of this from my singing teacher, just, you know, for any of the singing teachers out there, how important Um, singing teachers can be in sometimes even changing someone's life because at that point I actually had a football or soccer, depending on how you, um, define it, scholarship to study in the States.
Really? Yeah. But then I got into this school that was, you know, founded in conjunction with Paul McCartney and my, my, my parents were massive Beatles fan. And I was like, Oh, I better go. And I plan to do a one year course and, um, That is 25 years ago this year.
Goodness. So that, that is crazy. So the high performance athletes.
Obviously a high performance singer and you had to make a choice then didn't you?
Yeah, and I didn't actually even make a choice that year because as I said, I thought I was just doing a one year Um, but I just I felt like harry potter at hogwarts. So it was like I was like, ah, okay now i'm home Um, so I still trained football for that first year and then eventually when you're doing studio sessions around the clock and performing and gigging you, you can't really do football training for five times a week as well.
So, um, yeah, but, uh, it's weird how something That might've been, cause I've always done both since I was really little. I was always busy with loads of singing and playing violin and playing football, playing ice hockey, dancing. I've always had a lot on my plate, um, and continue to do so. I, I love having loads of different interests.
So yeah, you
went, you, you, I mean, you've, you're a singer songwriter. You've done a lot of performing. You've written your own music. You brought out music. Yeah. You, you organize music festivals and you're still in Liverpool working with the organization where you started learning.
The Impact of Teaching and Personal Growth on Artistry
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Philippe Hall: How did you get into the, the voice?
It's funny actually, um, it's, it's
related to the, the sport side of things because, uh, when I was in my third year at LEPA, I volunteered for a program that was for unemployed musicians to upskill. Um, and, um, I was, you know, I was getting vocal coaching, um, at Lipa and I had, had some singing lessons in my youth as well.
I was like, yeah, I can do that. And, and, and that's how it started. And I was just really enjoy that kind of relationship where you get to help somebody find their voice. And so I ended up doing my dissertation on vocal technique and, and like how. Because I, my early singing lessons were very much kind of classical based and opera based, and I never felt like I connected to the music I was singing.
It wasn't what I naturally wrote, it wasn't what I was listening to. So it very much felt like two worlds. I went, you know, I went into singing lessons and sang something that wasn't necessarily connected to me as a person. It was more of a. a hobby thing. And I think that was part of the reason why I never thought of music as a career.
I didn't know you could be a singer songwriter. I didn't know that was a thing you could be, you know, nobody from Norvik was that. So, um, and then, but I was a football coach and an ice hockey coach for, for, for young people. So I, I got a lot of the teaching elements from The sport. And I understood how muscles worked and, you know, as I started to learn about the biology and, and like how everything is into, into playing and it's, it's, it's, it's essentially just like training.
It's personal training. It just happens to be your voice instead of your, um, Well, instead of the rest of your body, Helm said instead of your body, but your body is obviously your voice is part of that as well. So it was interlinked. And then I thought I'd be doing like cover gigs and function gigs, but I never enjoyed them.
As much as I enjoyed doing my own stuff and teaching, and it feels like a really good synergy for me.
Yeah, and that's, uh, I think it's great. It's very interesting, the, your journey, and I think everybody's journey is unique, right? And I could tell my story, I'll have to tell that another time, but this, this brings what you bring to the table for your clients.
For your teaching, for your own singer songwriter, business, organizing things. Everything's based on our background, right? And that's what makes it very unique. And I think that's really what makes each artist potentially unique.
Introducing the Magic Triangle for Singers
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Philippe Hall: If they embrace the uniqueness of who they are and how they think and everything that's influenced them, it's going to give you a very unique perspective And so talking about this, some background and you've evolved and we met while you're working for Vocology in practice.
Um, teachers, singing teacher organization that, that I have a very high opinion of, and also what brought you to, to the point of coming up with your magic triangle to help singers?
Yeah, so, um, some of you might've seen an, uh, a previous, uh, podcast that we did about, about my, my style menu, which was something I came up with.
Like, I, I just always want to find something that people can connect to their previous, um, skill sets and previous knowledge, because I think, um, learning something new, you have to relate it to what you already know. And, um, what I was finding sometimes is when we talk about singing, teaching, whether it is, you know, as you said, it's a vocabulary jungle out there.
People are calling the same thing, different things. And that's why I always go, it could mean this, this, that, and that, but I, you know, if a singer comes in and go, I want to sound more purple, and then you have to just like, Do the detective work to figure out what does purple mean to you?
That's really funny because you, you actually asked me to give a presentation to the teachers organization, like a year and a half or so ago on the vocabulary jungle and connecting dots.
And I also try and incorporate that in my teaching. So. Really, sometimes I'll say to, to singers, you can call it mambo number five, that sound, you know, we are human beings, we want to name the sound, we need to have a name to identify it with the sound we're making. So we have a lot of different vocabulary and I think that's why there is a lot of vocabularies because singing teachers, singing professors over the years have tried to come up with a name for a thing.
And as research evolves, sometimes we shift the name and try and say, well, how can we make this a little bit more singer friendly and at the same time be anatomically correct of what's actually going on. But at the end of the day, It's what, what that word or those words do to the perception of the singer that helped them make that personal connection and unlock it.
So the magic triangle sounds really cool. Maybe you want to unpack that. How is that helping? That was
what I was doing. So I was just basically going, okay, how can I get the singer to stop thinking, am I in my head voice? Am I in my mix? Am I in my, my chest voice? Like, Oh, did I do it right? And like, because some singers need to stop thinking if the, in the technique and just sing, just tell that story.
Or it might be, yeah, well, you kind of in all the mechanical places, but that riff was not the notes that you were trying to sing because you haven't learned it properly. And, and, you know, um, you haven't got the understanding of the stylistic of this song to be able to perform it. So it doesn't kind of matter if you are belting it or not, we're not in that corner right now.
It's not where you need to work. So, um, should I share screen? Yes, that. A good idea and just show you,
if you have something to share, let me know when you're ready.
Let's see. So this is basically where I ended up and it was for a, it was just for a university lecture first, and it was just going, okay, well, you know, we are going to be this time around.
We're not going to be here. So this particular group of students were focusing so much on singing correctly. The, um, the teacher they had just before me had hammered that in because it was introduction to vocal techniques. So they were definitely, uh, constantly. Can you see that? Yeah. Um, So they were constantly going on about whether or not they were singing correctly.
And am I doing it right? Uh, have I warmed up correctly? Um, is my posture right? And then obviously vocal health is a big thing of, of that as well. And I'm not saying that this right hand corner isn't important, but it's just a one of the one of them. Um, and then I had some acting students who would be staying in this top part of the, of the triangle all the time, where they were constantly getting the acting journey, right.
And the intention and the conviction and the authenticity they had, and definitely loads of passion. But the voice that they came out with didn't necessarily match what they were trying to achieve. Just realized that I can be full, um, I can make that a full screen. Sorry.
Yeah. Uh, Oh no, it doesn't want to do that now for some reason. I'm not so familiar with this, uh, streaming platform. It's not too bad at the top bit.
No, we can see it. We can see it. Yeah.
You can see it. Okay, great. And then in that final corner, which is more about maybe your head, about knowledge, about listening and preparedness of the song, um, and music theory, musicianship, and those kinds of things.
And the reason why I ended up, uh, with this magical triangle, if you don't have all three, then some of the magic will fall out. And that's kind of where that came from.
Yeah, I love that. I love that because it is, it's all integral. Everything's going together. And then it's can, can be one of the things that's complicated about singing is because there's so many things happening at the same time.
You can't think of everything. Right. Yeah. Just blending together. So that's one reason we've got this, um, maybe people that have followed me and seen things, it's called the big five, the big five coordinations of singing. Because if. If these coordinations, if you have to train them individually, like I said, there's too many things to think about.
Then there's your artistry, there's your interpretation, all these things coming together for actually the purpose of communicating your message. So what we want to do as singers is train these coordinations individually so they work better when we put them together.
Effective Vocal Training Strategies and Exercises
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Philippe Hall: It's just like tuning your motor, right?
If you have a supercharger, well, that motor is going to go faster, unless There's something wrong in the system, you know, whether it's the fuel intake, or maybe a line is clogged, you got a flat tire, all these things could be little bits, little parts of the coordinations that if you improve that, if you just take the time to develop an individual coordination, the whole system works better, and then we get back to, like, the magic triangle where everything's coming together in a more effective way, so it's giving you really A benefit, an overall benefit.
It's like to get, do a system upgrade. You got to upgrade one bit at a time.
Yeah, totally. And, and, you know, having a kind of, when you're training, especially having a certain part that you working on without having to, you know, Try and do everything at once. Like I used the analogy of dancing quite a bit with that where, you know, if you learn a dance routine, you don't learn everything from beat one right away through the song in one session.
And at full tempo, you actually break down the first four bars and then you learn them and then you'd learn it slow. And then you gradually speed up until the muscles can handle it. And then you, you know, the best dancers will be able to put the conviction and that. Um, the artistry and, and, and, and passionate communication in all the way from the beginning.
And that's the same thing with singing, right? Like some singers will be able to meet a song, knowing exactly what they want to say with that song, whether it's their own song, whether it's musical theater, whether it's it's cover, whether it's tribute or creative cover, it doesn't actually matter what it is, um, it's whether or not you have the coordination to achieve the artistry that you hear in your heart and in your head.
Hmm, yes. Yeah, isn't that the essence of it all? Right, we hear music, we get inspired, we want to sing along. But, but, I think that that first step is so important. Something inspired us about what we heard, right? That's the only reason we want to sing along. Or we want to, we want to do the same thing, because we want to express that emotion and experience that emotion and connect with an audience.
I mean, it's so much storytelling and Vocal technique, the whole purpose of it is just, just like an artist. The more proficient you are at making sounds, the better you can communicate what you want to do. So if I were a singer and I was looking at the magic triangle, I'm trying to figure out where do I start?
Is there, is there somewhere that you need to start or do you feel like. I mean, individual, an individual might want to choose something for themselves, or is it just important to just keep rotating through? And continue working, uh, one at a time and then come back to it later. How do you approach this?
Absolutely tailored to the individual's kind of combination of choice and also needs. So some students, uh, or singers, I'm just going to say singers because, but you know, the students to us, but like everybody, um, whether you're a professional or whether you're just starting out, it's like, okay, well, what do you need today?
And if that is, I have a gig tomorrow and I still can't sing this song, that needs going to be quite different than I want to sing. And I haven't quite worked out what my voice is yet. Um, so I definitely go, well, what you know, sometimes that left corner of just learning a song, learning the melody and the lyrics, and we might not think about the technique of it.
You know, if you're not harming yourself, um, then there's nothing dangerous about just singing along and learning the song without looking at the technique or looking at the storytelling. But if we are able to pop into the other elements. Cause sometimes that thinking about that subtext and, you know, whether it's true, what, who, what am I trying to achieve with this song from a, I'm trying to get this emotion across, or I'm trying to achieve this, then all of a sudden the technique just snaps in because you had an emotional drive that just put, um, your voice coordination into place because, I mean, you know, Making screams, sounds, cries, and stuff like that is something we don't have to go, Right, I'm going to try and create a cry that sounds a little sadder.
You know? You don't. The intention basically then leads to tone and the quality and the loudness and thinking too much about volume or dynamics, you know, I find that a lot of singers go, okay, this, I'm really angry. So I have to be loud, but sometimes a really contained thing could actually be more intense.
Than just always being loud and, you know, and a belt that is a happy belt versus a belt that is a desperate. I just lost somebody I care about, you know, won't have the same tonality if it's led by instinct.
I just lost your volume. Why did I do that?
Ah, well, thanks for pointing that out. Sometimes, sometimes I I click a button and forget I clicked it. So I'm back on, um, sometimes that emotional connection, that instinctive sound making is, is, is something where I guess you could say as a singer, you get into the flow state.
The flow state you talk about and meditation and mindfulness. It's just that zone where things are working. You're just flowing along, coasting along and really communicating. So I, I had a phase in my career where I, I just relied on that because I couldn't, I wasn't really, I wasn't. Well, I didn't find a really good coach for, for a period of time.
And before then nobody was doing online lessons. Well, you could, you could call your teacher, but you know, on the phone, it was not the same as the great technology we have today. So I was just, you know, I was just winging it and doing pretty well. But I always felt like, Hmm, there's some, for some reason, I'm just working too hard to get these sounds out.
So it eventually just led me back to keep looking for the guidance and coaching. So I think a lot of singers could say, well, you know, if I'm in the emotional flow state, things are working great. So what's the value of continuing to work on technical elements like your, your vocal fold coordination, for example, even if, even if you've you're making this connection on, on a consistent basis.
Why would you keep working on it?
A few different things there, I think. One of them is I'll talk about color palette. You know, if you're an artist, and you are, um, you have this color palette of all the colors to paint with, then you have more artistic choices than if you just have The one or two colors.
So by just being able to, to, you know, if you just want to paint with the red and just for the blue, that's fine. But what if you wanted that purple? So for one thing, it can be artistically. Um, and I think technique, uh, it's a little bit like, like in music production, we, we talk about using effects, like, you know, where this reverb and compression and stuff like that.
We, we, we talk about using it either creatively or correctively. Correctively being like, Oh, I don't like that frequency. So you might be EQing it out. Whilst creatively you might go, Hmm, I want to sound like video killed the radio star and you want to EQ it. So it sounds like you're on the phone. And I vocal technique can be a bit like that as well.
Sometimes, you know, you could go, Ah, but what if you want it? Ah, or Oh,
you know, I'm, I was working with a student, literally, Last Thursday about so she wanted to sing, you know, what was I made for the Billie Eilish smash hit from last year and I She's so well trained that she struggled to get the flips and the, you know, so she kept on going into like, I used to It's like it, it doesn't work in that left hand corner.
It's not what that song, it's not what that song was made for. Pun intended. So yeah, sometimes it's hard. While breaking you out of these kind of patterns so that you can explore something that might be a bit more edgy or, yeah, it's not always about finding that correct way of singing. That's, that's an old fashioned way of singing.
Right. So blending in your triangle again, you got the stylistic understanding you're addressing right there. Preparation of the song, looking at the singing technique and the posture, all those, so you've got, usually it does happen, it does happen to skilled singers. Where it's like my voice, uh, is Let's say you just have vibrato trained in most of the things you are singing You just the vibrato is there and it just feels like part of your voice And then getting the vibrato to go away sometimes, like, how, how, I used to sing, personal confession, when I first started singing, I had no vibrato, it was like a bell, it just straight, straight as an arrow, and I was looking for, for vibrato, and then I found vibrato, and I was so happy I found it, there was vibrato in everything!
And then it was like, how, wait a minute. I never used to sing with vibrato. Now I can't get rid of it. So it is really interesting. Sometimes the more you train, you get into your, your patterns and your comfort zones. And it's like, ah, wait a minute. How, how does, how do I do a breathy tone? So talking about, for example, this in, in June, we started the big five coordination training with airflow control and vocal fold control.
And if my abduction is, is just clean, clean, clean all the time, the only way to get any kind of breathy sound is just going to be, forcing air through the voice, which I find, maybe I can just share this with the audience. If you're looking for a breathy quality, it's, it's, it's, a lot more about your air flow control and your vocal fold control than anything else, because you can really strain your voice trying to be breathy in any range.
But if you gain that vocal fold control, so popping over here to one of the elements of your magic triangle is again, an element of technical control you can isolate and work on. So that's, that's just an example of one of the things we're going to be working on this summer. So I'll be sure and I'll put a link in for anybody that's interested in, in, um, the big five of vocal full control training, you can check it out.
Yeah. And I think that's as well, uh, that everything is connected and every, you know, nothing is linear. It's all nonlinear.
Personalizing Vocal Techniques and the Importance of Continuous Learning
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Philippe Hall: So like, if you get a little bit better at the breath management, Then often you get a little bit better at the vocal fold compression, which means you have more dynamics, which means you can be as quiet and as loud as you want.
And again, for the notes that you hear in your heart and in your head, rather than having to make decisions. point in your vocal range, because when you hit that note, that's when you have to make that decision for, um, going into a flip or, or opposite, um, you know, swapping over to a more classical head, depending on combination of your nature and nurture, and that's, you know, your voice is a combination of nature and nurture, some of it is the size and shape of your vocal tract, and some of it is, is the way you use it.
And your accent.
Yes. So good. Well, tell me a little bit about, let's say, if a singer is struggling with getting a clear tone, where would, what are, what's some of the checklist points you would go through with, with them?
So first I would go, is that singing anything and everything, or is it certain areas of your voice?
Is it certain, um, volumes, is it? And often with, with a singer, I find it's because of what they're listening to. So it's going, have you heard that? Um, this person actually has a bit of distortion there. So like, can we try and do it without? Cause my, my philosophy in, in artistry is as long as you're creating healthy sounds, um, you know, 80, 20 is a good rule.
As long as you're 80 percent of the time, you're in super healthy vocal production. A little bit of vocal naughtiness, 20 percent of vocal naughtiness is, is probably not gonna, gonna harm you because, you know, screams and all this kind of stuff we do in, in life, it's just, if we're living in this kind of unhealthy world, that is a problem.
So if a student can show me that they can do it with a clean tone. Then, okay, well, let's explore how we can maybe make this, um, more edgy or, like, I'm not sure exactly what you were deferring, referring to, to in, in, in that, but like I said, it was some, a little bit of distortion when they hit certain areas.
It's like, okay, well, let's try and find it in a clean. balanced production, and then you get to do what it, whatever you want from an artistic point of view, as long as you can keep on producing the, the more balanced element as well. So that would be one strategy.
I like that. I think it's a really good, good suggestion to, if you're analyzing your own voice, ask yourself the question, is this happening?
The same thing happening, happening, is the same thing happening throughout my entire range, or is it just a part of my range? Is it two notes in my range? And if it's, if it is, um, what am I doing differently? And if I'm not able to figure it out on my own, that's when, that's when you do want to get a guidance.
And the best way to do that is honestly just to work with a professional coach on that issue. And the funny thing is we can talk about, maybe we should mention for singers as well, when you're considering all these things that may or may not be affecting your voice, I say may or may not be because What if you thought, let's just say, Singer analyzes, I've got, I've got tongue tension issues.
My tongue's tied. My tongue's not moving fast. Something is wrong with my tongue. And usually a singer will say that because somebody pointed out to them, you've got to do this with your tongue or your tongue's tied. Well, it, it might not be the tongue at all.
No. And, and, uh, and, and it might not be anymore.
That's another thing. You know, if, um, NLP calls it spells and curses, if somebody in kindergarten told you to sing quieter, then all of a sudden you're scared of singing loud forever because somebody in a place of authority said something that made you. think that that was not allowed and and what they meant was in this particular song in that section The soprano needs to be lower and your soprano voice is very you know, like it We never know where where these things come from and they become these limiting beliefs that we have of like, Oh, you know, you're not very good at rhythm by your brother, you know, all these kinds of things that parents and teachers can say that becomes the truth.
And it might not have been, it might not be the truth anymore because you've since had training, you've since figured things out. And, and it was just that you hadn't realized that clapping on one and three isn't great. Or like, you know, you, you didn't have the knowledge. To get that skill across and getting these things together, but you're, you're, uh, identifying yourself as the person you were three years ago when That might have been the truth.
Yeah, that's, I, last week I believe, I did the, the, the live stream podcast about, is your voice stuck down a rabbit hole. And it's kind of this thing, right, it's somebody told you, you have this issue, you work on it, you find a solution, and then you just keep going with it as if that were the only, the only key.
Once again, you're just hyper focused on one of these elements. And then you, the good thing actually becomes a problem. So what, uh, it's, it's really interesting that if, let me see if I can share this screen. All right. I'm going to, I'm going to pop it up, make it a little bit bigger. Um, so people are more familiar with what I'm talking about when I'm talking about the, um, the big five coordinations of singing.
Let's see. Where is it? There we go. So you've got the big five coordinations of singing here. We'll see what that looks like on your end. You've got airflow and air pressure and vocal folds coordination. So each one of these coordinations have different layers, but they're always interacting with each other.
And that's, that's the key is, is like, how does this, I'm going to move back here so I can see my screen. So you could be having an issue and identify in your singing, I'm sure it's my pharynx. I'm sure it's my twang. But when it could actually be a weakness in your air, air pressure balance and your vocal fold coordination, you fix those two.
Suddenly it's like, Oh, I thought it was this. I thought it was my, my throat, my pharynx, but actually it wasn't. So going through that, those coordinations as a checklist is super helpful as well. And then working, working on them. You know, I've been singing for a very long time. But I'm really excited during June to be, to work on my own air flow and air pressure management and my own vocal fold control agility.
And I've been singing professional professionally for 30 years. It's like, wow, I'm going to spend a whole five weeks just refining these things and getting them in really good shape. It seems like in a way that the, the journey never ends.
No, definitely. And you know what, rather than seeing that as something that is scary or, like, I haven't learned anything, it's more like there's always something new to learn.
And the epiphanies get smaller as you get more advanced because it's not going to be like, oh, wow, every time. It's going to be more like, Oh, that was interesting. Or I could do this instead of that. And, and I think, um, in, um, in the UK, we have a MOT, which is like the, where you take your car to, um, once a year or so to just make sure that everything is safe and the brakes are there.
And, you know, I feel like having, uh, a couple of lessons per year, even now as somebody who's had lessons for, you know, most of my life and I've been professional as well, you know, not very far behind you. 25 years now. And it's, um, it's like, I need to make sure that all of my engines and Everything is work in it, both for my own performance career, but also to know that when I'm talking to, to a student there is something that I might pass on because we, you know, monkey see, monkey do, we learn a lot from kind of demonstrations and if you can't demonstrate it correctly, even if it's not part of your own artistry and, and, and, and toolbox that you might Want to use in that, I still need to, to be able to present that part directly either that, or I have to have examples of other singers who can do it so that I don't say, well, this is how you do it.
Cause that's, you know, we've all had singing teachers who go, no, yes, we're going to sing a song. And then, um, when they sing it, they don't sound very good because they haven't,
it's important for singing teachers to, to, to revisit. Their own technique. I mean, if you have a car, it's gonna last longer if it's well maintained, just a fact. You've got to give it regular oil changes, tune ups, you maintain the car. A good car is gonna last, it's gonna last for a very, very, very long time.
And obviously, as a singer, you have a very long span of your lifetime where you can, you can sing very well. And the more we keep tuning it up, the better, the better it goes. So I, it's a good point. Even as a singing teacher, a vocal coach, you are also wanting to continue to upgrade and work on your technique and make your own little discoveries.
Maybe it's just so you can help your, your clients and the singers you're working with. But as a singer, when you're active and, or you're learning, just tune up, you know, go through these main fundamental coordinations because the more agile you are, the better you control over them. The better you can combine them to make the sounds you want.
I use a funny analogy, I don't know if you've ever heard this, but it's like, if, if you and I, and let's say you are a, a sprinter, uh, you run the 800 meters, so it's a distance, but you're fast. And I'm just an average, average human that's not training that all the time. And we're walking through the forest and there's a bear.
And And it comes after us, well, who's going to run faster? You know, you're both going to be terrified and, and take off, but it's the person that's actually in training that's going to go, their body has access to better control. So working on, on these vocal fold control, air flow and air pressure control, it's just going to upgrade everything you do.
Maybe we could share with, um, the audience, if I'll just ask you a question, like, I know every, every person you coach is individual and has individual needs, but is there a go to element with, with breathing technique or support? Do you have a go to exercise that? that you like to use or you find that a lot of people benefit from.
Yeah.
SOVT Exercises: A Key Tool for Vocal Improvement
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Philippe Hall: So I, it's going to be all in the kind of family of SOVTs or semi occluded vocal tract exercises, uh, for breath management, unless somebody can't quite get their vocal folds together in which, so like for, 80 percent of people is going to be aversion of SOVT and my favorite is the super sexy raspberry tongue.
It's, uh, it looks super silly, but I just love it because it, you know, it, it does also get the tongue out. So if I got Larry here, um, you know, the, the, the bottom of your tongue, this, this is the tongue bone or the hyoid bone is the bottom of the tongue and the top of the larynx. So by kind of getting. The tongue out of the way, you often get a slightly more, um, relaxed or stabilized, I should say, rather than relaxed because singing isn't a relaxed activity, but it shouldn't, it's the effort versus tension.
Right. So
it's definitely my favorite, but I do tailor my, and I'm actually going back to these sprinters. Right. So if you're gonna end up being a sprinter, but actually I'm training for a marathon, we wouldn't do the same exercises. So Yeah, so it is really does depend on, um, and I am in other SOBTs, um, it's basically a resistant exercise, right?
So it can be things like, or it can be, or the two together, or even with a thumb. Blowfish Um, or even the sirens, many of you will be familiar with All of those are great for the management of the power and the source So you, your, your air flow with the, in combination with the vocal folds And we get so many singers coming and saying I need help with my breathing, but they breathe perfectly fine.
They might actually be in great exercise fitness. Uh, they don't necessarily need help with the breathing, but it's the breath management. So I've, I love, um, putting things in to context, but also isolation. So, uh, do we actually need to work on the vocal fold compression or are we working on the breath, uh, breathing?
You know, do they, if they have enough airflow, cause singing is great for your, your airflow. Like I'm, I'm asthmatic and I generally come in at 110, 120%, um, on the, the kind of airflow tests. And I'm not showing off. It's just to show, to say that it doesn't necessarily have to be that you have the super hundred percent, because we're not a petrol tank that needs to fill up on air.
We just need to. refill is that getting the oxygen in and the carbon dioxide out so that your body and your heart can work as efficiently as possible. And that's what the body needs. So when it comes to working on breathing, as long as those things are generally well controlled. Then it really is about, okay, well, what do you do with the airflow in conjunction with the vocal folds and the compression of that?
So singers, I find it could be valuable to let singers know, let's say the range, your, what is the optimal range for SOVTs because SOVTs are just, you're blocking off part of things to do the, you know, the strawberry or the tongue buzz, whatever you want to call it. Um, you have your tongue out, you have to close your mouth a little bit, you're not going to be able to open your jaw very far.
So there's, what is, do you have a range you find to be most beneficial for the SOVTs?
Um, I, well, it depends what we're trying to achieve. It's the, it's the long distance versus the fast. But generally with SOVT, I use that to kind of wake up the voice, to balance out the voice. So I'd start in a comfortable speech, um, area of your voice and then gradually go higher up.
Um, and when, If things start becoming grabby, then I wouldn't go any further. So it'd be very, depending on what kind of voice I was working with of the actual range. But, um, when singers, if you're working without a vocal coach, I would say, don't go into the super extreme, you know, stay, uh, within your own range and push it a little bit, but that's not the time to, to go for personal best in the same way.
Well, going back to the workout analogy, if I'm working with my personal trainer, I might add more weights to my, uh, lifting, but I wouldn't take a personal best without having somebody spotting me. And when it comes to like really going into the extreme part of our range, you've got to be really knowledgeable and skilled to do that by yourself.
Uh, even if you're a teacher, even if you're a professional and I have students coming to me with. You know, they've just come off tour and, and they've, they had the song that they've been pushing themselves a little bit with, we will go and we'll analyze and we'll see, and I might do that song on the SOVT in the more extreme way that they've been, been performing it, but through an SOVT and they go like, Oh, that feels easier, or they might go, okay, I'm still strained.
So in that way, that might be the body going. That's probably not working for you. And then we have the options are going, is it because it's actually outside of your current range? Is it because it's impossible and we need to rethink how to do it? Is it because you just haven't found, you know, the coordination between the muscles that tends to stretch out the vocal fold versus the muscles that tends to, to add more, um, uh, mass together.
Um, and when you get really advanced, one thing that is, Making me super excited over the last few years is the isolation between the larynx, the pharynx, the soft palate, the tongue, the lips, the jaw, and all these articulators and, and, and elements of the vocal tract where, and I'll do my ventriloquist act, so you can actually do a really a lot of things without moving all of the, the parts of the vocal tract.
So obviously I can't do M and P properly cause they are, they need your lips together. But with good diction, I can sing a lot in this kind of thing. Now I'm just doing random weird kind of sound and, and, you know, I need to have a doll. Yeah.
It is amazing. Ventriloquism is quite amazing, but it does. It just says that gaining control over those individual articulations, as you call them, I'm calling them in the, in the big five coordination training, coordinations, artic, the coordination of articulating, or basically moving those parts in a skilled way.
You can do a lot and it does, does help to isolate them and train them. individually, then you can re regroup them and come together. Yeah, I do agree with the SOVT training. They are wonderful exercises. There's a lot of them. Um, look for one that works well for you personally. You, every singer kind of identifies that with one or the other.
And what I mean by that is, Some are just going to feel more natural and more easy and others are going to, you're going to feel like the grabbiness, something tightening up, something grabbing where you're like, Oh, that just doesn't feel released. And, and as, you know, fluid and efficient. So find the one that works for you.
And, and they're not, they're not, um, not every SOPT you're going to be able to do in the same range just because of how you're doing it. So keep them in the main zone. Um, like I said, it's not, you're not going for your personal best highest note with this one, but, uh, it is a great, great way to train that coordination.
Closing Thoughts and Invitation to the Vibe Community
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Philippe Hall: Well, I really appreciate you being here today, Kaya. And Kaya and I are going to jump on a private Zoom call. For the vibe private singing community. If you haven't heard about the vibe, just go to my website and check, check it out. It's a private community for singers. And after the live streams podcast, then we get on a private call with the singers in that community where you can ask questions, get some coaching, get personal feedback, and that is extremely valuable.
So the link is in the description. Just click on that. If you want to check that out. And also I believe there should be a link in there where you can pre registered for the big five. Summer intensive training where we are going to focus for five weeks on your airflow and air pressure and vocal fold control.
Really in upgrading those, improving your coordination so your entire singing can benefit from that hyperfocus. So have a lovely day. Reach out if you have any questions. Don't forget to comment and share with other singers. And we'll see you next time, next week. On the voice vibe. Take care everybody.
Thank you. Kaya.
Thanks for having me. Bye.
Bye
