“Be True to Yourself”

Today we’re going to use Adele’s song to outline how artists use patterns in song structure to add stylistic texture to their songs, focusing specifically on vocal phrasing and vocal tonality. So let’s dive right in!

One of the first typical elements that I want to point out is this… as a general rule, most songs in popular music go back and forth between having super smooth phrasing, and choppier phrasing. This helps to add texture to the song, while helping it not fall too deeply into a repetitive, boring feel.

Adele does this well in her “Set Fire to the Rain” single. The verses tend to be super connected, while the pre-chorus breaks up the phrases more. This isn’t to say that the pre-chorus is choppy, but the phrasing is more deliberate, and has a little bit more space between the words instead of the super smooth feeling in most of the rest of the song.

So what can we learn from this? Well, when you’re singing, you want to make sure that you vary the phrasing throughout your song. If your whole song is super legato (music term for smooth and connected), then it’s going to be kinda boring. If it’s all choppy, then it’ll likely fell pretty monotonous.

The solution is to alternate back and forth between connected phrasing, and a more broken up feel. This will give your song more character, while also providing the listener with more variety, adding depth to your song. Remember, there’s no set formula for this. Adele did her verse and chorus smooth and let the pre-chorus be a little more broken up. You may want your verses less connected while making your chorus smooth. It’s all an artistic choice.

Another predictable element in Adele’s song is the strength of the tone of her voice. During the verses, she tends to have a slightly breathier feel, almost like she’s waking up from a nap. You can hear this much more easily by listening to the end of her phrases… most of which are extra soft and breathy.

After that, the song starts to drive forward in a more solid tone in the pre-chorus, and builds to a very solid and full sound throughout the chorus.

Now, as a general rule, most songs are going to start softer, often using more breathiness in the beginning, and as the song progresses, it’ll build in intensity and start leaning more towards a full, solid sound.

“Set Fire to the Rain” is a great example of this. In the first verse, we have a less intense sound that turns into a breathy sound by the end of most phrases. Then, the pre-chorus builds until the song opens up nice and strong for the chorus. After that, the second verse comes in. It starts like normal, weaker with breathy endings, but it’s a shorter verse that ends much more solidly. This helps the song continue to build in intensity while also adding texture in vocal tonality.

You’ll find that most songs use this approach when building in intensity, so feel free to play with this principle and apply it to songs you sing if you haven’t already.

Now of course, Adele does quite a bit more than this to create her unique sound, but outlining everything that she does stylistically within a song would take quite a bit more than one article, so perhaps I’ll come back to her later (comment below if you’d like to see another article diving deeper into Adele’s voice).

Regardless, I hope you enjoyed this article on how to add killer phrasing to your songs, and a special thanks to Adele for giving us such a clear example.

~ Vocal Coach Ken Taylor

Ok, so first off, most singers spend way too much time struggling at the top of their range while ignoring the bottom part of their range. When we sing in our lower and middle voice, we tend to be lazy. We can get away with this when singing lower, but when we start ascending in range, it completely throws us off.

Think of it this way. You can pick up a couple of soup cans off the ground lifting entirely with your back (and no legs) and you likely won’t have issues, but if you were to like a 50lb bag of rocks over and over, you’d be much more likely to throw out your back. Likewise, you can get away with bad form when singing lower, but not so much when you sing higher.

So, if you’re experiencing tension, cracking, or a choky feeling on the top of your range, you probably don’t need to start working on that part of your range near as much as you need to work on developing the right form in the bottom of your range.

So, how can we effectively work out the bottom part of our range? Well, first off we want to make sure that we’re using the breath properly when singing. The breath is the fuel on which our voices runs, so a decent breathing technique has to be in place. You can find out more about how to effectively use the breath in this article on breathing and singing.

After that, it’s important that you make the best use of resonance space. I’ve written a few articles on this concept on this blog that you could check out, but instead of pointing you in that direction, I’ll attach a cool video on this topic right here so that you can get caught up to pace quickly.

Once you are effectively balancing those two elements in your lower and middle range, it’s time to start playing with your upper range.

I can’t stress enough though, if you’re not open, relaxed, and supporting well when you’re singing lower in your range, you’re going to struggle in your upper range. So please, take the time to do what I’ve mentioned above before you move on to this next step… I promise it’ll be worth it.

Ok, so that you’ve already mastered those two concepts, it’s time to start working on the upper part of your range. If you’ve done everything well, you’ve probably noticed just how easy singing can be. Now, your goal is NOT to complicate things. As you go higher, don’t adjust your airflow. It should remain constant. If you’re pushing more air, or backing off of the air flow, then you’re going to dramatically limit your range.

Ideally, singing should be as easy as speaking, so don’t make it more difficult. For more specific tips and tricks to help you increase your range, you can read this article on how to sing high notes.

Okay, now you’ve got the right concepts that you need to allow the upper part of your range to expand significantly. So feel free to allow these tips to guide you in playing around with your voice until you find yourself easily discovering how to expand your range. And as always, feel free to comment below with any thoughts, questions, or if you feel that this helped you in a big way!

Happy Singing,
Vocal Coach Ken Taylor

ps – If you liked this article, please hit one of the buttons below and share it with your friends on Facebook or wherever you spend most of your time online.

I promised forever ago that I’d start creating video singing lessons for you, and I’ve finally got all the equipment and ability to do it. So, without further adieu, below is a video describing some of the different goals you want to be striving for while warming up your voice. Enjoy!

ps – No making fun of how funny my face looks before you push the play in the comment field below (or do, I don’t really care :p).

If you’ve been following my articles for any period of time, you know that it’s space that creates the fullness of the sound. Just think of thumping a wine glass. If it’s empty when you thump it, it’ll ring out. But, if you fill the same wine glass with pennies and thump it, all you’ll hear is a quick thud.

But this article isn’t about space… okay, well maybe it is, but in somewhat of a round about way. That being the case, why would spitting out our consonants give us more space when singing?

Well, there are a handful of different spaces within our body that we can open to create more space when we sing. One of these spaces is the back of the mouth and throat area.

It doesn’t take a genius to know if you close off this area, you’re going to be able to create like zero sound. But, the more you allow this space to open naturally, the more sound you’re going to produce while exerting no extra effort.

So, once again, what does that have to do with spitting out the consonants?

When we sing, it’s relatively common for the consonants to pull the tongue backward, closing off the back of the mouth and throat. This is especially true when singing R’s and L’s, but relatively common with many consonants.

One of the best ways to keep this from happening is to spit out your consonants.

When spitting out your consonants, you want to keep the tongue as comfortably forward in the mouth as possible when speaking the consonant, then, AND HERE’S THE BIG THING, release the tongue forward after speaking the consonant.

This will likely feel very weird to you at first, but once you get the hang of it, it’s no big deal. Doing this will not only effortlessly give you more volume, but the added space will likely make singing higher notes much easier on you than they were before.

While there are certainly more places in your body that you can open up to create resonance space while singing, spitting out your consonants to create more space in the back of the mouth area is probably one of the easiest to do and will yield you one of the greatest results.

So give it a try and see how much it helps. And of course, feel free to comment below with your thoughts.

Happy Singing,
Vocal Coach Ken Taylor

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I’m usually not big on promoting things, but I just ran across this super cool tool, so I figured I’d share with everyone. It’s called iLift (it’s an app).

This little app gives you the ability to change the key of a song, up or down, and also lets you speed up or slow down a song.

It’s super easy to use, and selects music straight from your itunes library (so if you buy a karaoke track on iTunes, you should be able to use it just fine).

This app is presently $9.99 and I don’t believe provides you an easy way to transfer your song to a CD (I just played with it on my iPhone… nowhere else). But, it’s a great practice tool for you to use, and you can even use it in a performance if you can plug your ipod into a mixer (which nearly everyone can make happen).

Anyway, I found this earlier today and thought it was cool, so I figured I’d share.

Enjoy!
Vocal Coach Ken Taylor

In order to get past this, it’s important to remember that the fullness of the sound while singing is created by space, not effort. Singing requires a delicate balance, and if you start trying to force things to happen, it’s going to knock that balance out of wack. So the next time you get frustrated because you’re having difficulty singing something, instead of turning aggressive, try relaxing and allowing the sound to come out at more of a speech level instead. You’ll almost always get better results this way.

Guys Have More Extreme Voice Changes

Ahhh, the infamous voice change. To a girl, it’s inconvenient… to a guy, it changes his world. I love the analogy I heard from a fellow vocal instructor, Wendy Parr – Imagine one morning you wake up and your legs are two feet longer. Now, imagine trying to walk. That awkwardness in coordination is similar to what a guy goes through during his voice change.

If you’re going through your voice change, I feel for you, as it’s not always the easiest thing. To me, one of the best things you can do is work on maintaining a steady flow of air, then work on making sure that your larynx doesn’t jump around like crazy while using your voice. You can learn more about these two things in the articles Breathing and Singing and How to Sing High Notes on another website of mine.

Guys Have Less Competition

I figured I’d end this on a high note… no pun intended. If you’re a guy in the performing field, then you’re likely to have much less competition than your female friends, especially when growing up. There are probably 2-5 girls for every guy at an audition,
 which means you have much better odds both for getting the role, and finding yourself a girlfriend afterward.

…this should make the voice change a little bit less painful.

I hope you guys have enjoyed this article. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment below and I’ll try and respond.

Happy Singing!
Vocal Coach Ken Taylor