What would you say is absolutely essential for a singer? The answer would be, a good and healthy voice. A good voice as in not “just wonderful voice” but as in healthy and well maintained voice which will be a pleasure to listen to while speaking and especially while singing. Voice is very precious and cannot be replaced or repaired easily if damaged. Therefore a great amount of effort has to taken to care for your voice.

The Problem: One of the problems which occur when we try to sing “just that little bit higher pitch” is that our voice cracks. The cracking happens when the transition from one pitch to the higher pitch is not done smoothly. There are three registers for singing namely low, medium and high register. Generally there is no problem with the mid register for any one. But, for low register the chest voice is used and for the high register a mixed voice or the head voice is used. This means there is a transition from your chest voice to the head or mixed voice while singing and vice-versa.

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Voice vibrato as the name suggests is when the voice vibrates to give more expression to the song. This effect is produced in the voice when singing and the same effect is given by a pulsation in the pitch in an instrument. The “depth of vibrato” is characterized by the amount of pitch variation created and the “speed of vibrato” is characterized by the speed with which the pitch is varied.

Vocal vibrato is actually produced by oscillation of the vocal chords from an open pharynx/throat with good support from the muscles at the throat and firm control in the opening and closing of your vocal chords. If done properly vibrato can be very pleasing to the ear and adds loads of expression and dynamics to the music.

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Bobby McFerrin is a genius! Every time I see or hear him I’m blown away by something… usually it’s his vocal prowess and the command of his vocal chords that he has fine tuned to make a wide range of sounds along with beautiful singing.

Here is a cool video that guitarists / vocalists will love – demonstrating the power of the Pentatonic scale and ease of vamping over top of it.

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I must confess, I love to watch Idol shows – both for the crash and burn aspect of the ones who are delusional in their abilities but also for the couple of times you hear mind-expanding performances that really connect with the audience.

With a couple of folks around the office asking me about this one I had to look it up. This one’s a lot of fun to watch.

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You’ve seen it many times – and probably been part of it yourself.  You, your quartet, chorus or band work for weeks on a plan that you are sure will blow your audience away – only to hit the stage for your first performance or even during practice before a smattering of observers and notice that they are just not responding to your plan.

Many years ago I worked with a producer on a Christmas show.  It was back when powerpoint was new and we were combining  a bunch of screen backgrounds with a narrative.  He had spent weeks picking out the perfect photos to use (and actually had too many) and somehow had decided that 8 seconds was the perfect amount of time for each background to show on the screen for the audience to gain the full effect.  Unfortunately, during the first rehearsal it became painfully apparent that the long display times and the short narrative assigned to each created a disconnected storyline that was impossible to follow.  Being young and naive, I pulled him aside and mentioned that we really needed to cut some backgrounds or shorten the times.  I was immediately cut off and told "Do you realize how long my team spent picking those backgrounds…  we are going to show them all and for the full 8 seconds".  Nevermind the audience or entertainment value, we’re going to do this according to the plan.
I read Tom’s latest post at Owning The Stage today. The basic story line is how Dean & Jerry had to threw out their entire plan after their debut in Atlantic City because it just was not working.

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I have a pet peeve (well actually a bunch of them but this one is first on my list).  My pet peeve is that as singers or performers we often think that what we think is entertaining or satisfying for us is what our audience would enjoy hearing.

Unfortunately, our human nature easily gets in the way.  Whether writers, singers, performers, presenters, enterainers, etc. it is not possible for us to step back from the moment far enough to actually see the forest for the trees.

I heard from a chorus member today (who shall remain nameless) who is not participating in their annual show – for the sole reason that…  it’s not entertaining for the audience – gasp!

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OK, it has nothing to do with singing but I thought it was funny!

Speaking of Ironic – isn’t it ironic that Alanis Morissette’s "Isn’t It Ironic" contains no irony?  Well, almost none.

However, I did see a couple of singers yesterday that demonstrated irony.  Lyrics about the joy, peace and love they had in their lives while exhibiting pained, stoic or expressionless faces and no movement.  I wanted to yell, "Hey guys, make me believe – I want to believe!".

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I’m often asked how to record a Multitrack vocal – be it a song, tag, etc. I’ve tried a number of the cheaper video screen capture programs on the market at always less than acceptable results. Over the weekend I finally broke down and purchased Camtasia and have been playing with it ever since trying to learn the ropes.

Anyway, I thought this would be a fun little recording to do.

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