The Vocal Coach

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Well it is March already and I feel Spring in the air. Although it is a little cold here in Nashville, we have had, and continue to have, a warming trend in our weather. What does this bring for singers. For me it always seems to bring on allergy complications. I am allergic to dust, cold drafts, perfume, any odd odors such as chemicals, smoke, and many other things. I know what it is to try to sing through allergies. These problems and the problem of the huge flu outbreak across the country have many singers reaching for the flu medicines and allergy pills to keep from sounding like frogs. I have found that drinking a lot of good room temperature water helps me more than anything else against allergies. The water seems to thin out mucus and help it drain out of your system easier. The water also keeps your throat lubricated. Much of the time, when you are coughing or have a raspy sound in your voice it is because of dryness in your throat, therefore water alleviates that situation, along with thinning out mucus.

I remember when I first started with the Stamps back in 1971. Richard Sterban had just started a short time before me. J.D. would get up every night and introduce Richard and tell about Richard talking to him a few years before and asking him what made him sing so low. J.D. Sumner then would proceed to tell how he told Richard that drinking LOTS of coffee would make your voice get lower. J.D. would then say the “Richard went home and drank coffee by the potful all the time” or something to that effect. Anyway, the insinuation was that coffee was the way to lowering your voice. I believe that has a little to do with it. I have been drinking coffee all of my life and my voice has never gotten much lower. Of course we know that when JD was telling this that he was going for a laugh from the crowd. He was a master at coming up with these kinds of scenarios that drew laughs from the crowd. I miss J.D. He was and always will be the best bass singer that I have ever heard. It was a great privilege to sing with him and the great singers that were in The Stamps Quartet in the 1970's. The point of this little story is to illustrate that I’m not real sure that coffee is the magic potion that J.D. jokingly made it, but I am sure that water is. I have tested it over the years and it has always helped me. DRINK MORE WATER!

When do you drink all of this water? You need to keep yourself hydrated during the day , prior to the concert, and after the concert. If it is an absolute necessity for you to have a drink of water during the concert, please do it as discreetly as possible, so as to not distract from the ministry that is taking place during the singing .. In other words if one of the other members of the group is singing a solo, don’t distract from that ministry to take a drink of water, it only draws attention to you and away from the ministry of the song, wait till there is a slight break or transition between songs . I know that if you are singing in a particularly dry climate, such as in the desert southwest of the U.S. that this general rule has to be broken. That is the exception rather than the rule.

This column is about singing technique and about how to help yourself sing longer and better during your career in music. I may address some things not purely in an instructional way, however if you will read the thought behind the little illustration it will help you sing better.

I want to transition here into addressing one of the comments that I received about last month’s column. The comment was about people who use the letter H on the front of many of their words and how that is a real distraction to listeners and away from the meaning of the words that they were singing. I must say that in all fairness that I, as a voice instructor, have had some of my students put an H in front of words to make them feel how their diaphragm operates when they are supporting a tone correctly. However, AT NO TIME HAVE I EVER SAID TO SING LIKE THAT ON STAGE. I believe that this little trick (for warmups and practice only) is a good way to feel the proper support from the diaphragm on certain hard to sing words and notes. But I believe that like many other things that happen in the quartet business, one guy will tell another something like that and all that the hearer hears is put the H there. Then that person goes out to sing, feels like he or she needs more air on a certain word, and actually puts an H in front of that word while they are singing. THIS IS NOT THE RIGHT WAY TO DO IT! NOR IS IT WHAT WAS MEANT BY THE VOICE INSTRUCTOR. The reason for practicing a word or a phrase with an H in front of each word is to cause the singer to sense ,in the diaphragm, the feeling that it takes to have the proper air support for that word or phrase. The idea or goal of this technique is for the singer to sense in his/her breathing diaphragm the physical sensation that it takes to achieve the proper support for that particular word or phrase ,then to replicate that sensation while singing on stage without actually saying an H when they are performing . If the singer can accomplish good support through that method, in warmups and practice (by oneself), then the hope of the instructor is that the habit of using the diaphragm correctly for support will carry over into the singer’s performance without actually saying an H in front of the words. When a singer sings every other word on stage with an H in front of it, he/she is not achieving the fulfillment of their instruction that the instructor had hoped for when he/she offered this technique in class. It is a valid teaching technique, but must be used as a tool during warmups and private practice, it is NOT TO BE USED ON STAGE.

. Much of singing, like any other performance (sports, or oratory etc) is mental. We must do physical repetitions of things, such as vocal exercises, for breathing, tone placements, or posture, during our practice times in order for them to be done well on stage. The idea here is that once you find the correct way to do something, and if you rehearse it correctly over and over, then your mind takes over, when you are actually doing that task, and functions to make your body do the task properly in such a way that you can excel in the performance of that task. It is somewhat akin to what a sports figure does ,such as a great pro basketball player, who goes everyday to the gym and practices shooting hundreds of free throws. Case in point, Mr. Larry Byrd of the 1980's, he was known to practice shooting the ball everyday hundreds of times. He would do over 100 free throws every day, and then shoot hundreds more shots from all positions on the floor. If you want to be a great singer, you need to develop some practice habits, which keep your skills sharp, your vocal mechanism trained to respond to your mind, and your mind focused on how to make you vocal mechanism respond to make it sound great.

Well that’s all for this month. More in April. Again remember “the Lord is on your side”
Psalm 118:6.

Thanks for reading the column. God bless each and everyone of you. Keep on keeping on for the Lord.

In His Service,

Bill Baize

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