Ep. 7: What's vocal balance and how can I get it?

In this episode we'll discuss what it means to have vocal balance, why you should care, and how to get it.  The conversation is chock full of answers to questions you've always wanted to ask about basic mechanics of the voice.

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Transcript

Nechama Leah: 0:18

Hi, and welcome to the Jewish singer podcast. I'm so excited that you're here. Today we are going to be talking about vocal balance and what the heck is that? I mentioned vocal balance a couple episodes when I was talking about finding your authentic voice and I described an authentic voice as a voice that has vocal balance. And I want to go into a little bit more detail about what that is and how you can achieve it. So in simple terms, balance of the voice means that you have freedom and agility to move around your entire range from low to high without big changes in vocal quality including, cracking, flipping, or bringing up a lot of weight. Uh, uh, you know, there's not extra tension in the voice, especially when there are demands on the voice, like, large interval changes. Um, so like big jumps in, in notes, you know, um, or sudden changes in vowel shape. All of these things can have effect on air pressure and therefore the sensation of the sound production in your body. So if a voice is in balance, your voice is not going to become reactive to those demands or those shifts. Um, and therefore it can stay. In a balanced sound production, the larynx is also a very important component of this larynx should remain in a neutral position for the most part. And also the sound should be a relatively finished or polished sound in that it's not overly nasal. Ah, right. I mean, there might be instances where that's the sound that you're looking for, but that shouldn't be your default. Um, and it's not, overly dark or it's for sure not, pressed sounding and it's not super breathy. Okay. So a caveat, obviously, like I just said, is that sometimes those sound qualities are what you're going for, for a particular genre a particular song that you're singing and that's totally fine. The whole inyan here the whole thing that I want to talk about today in terms of balance is that you should have a home base. Your voice has a home base that it knows this is how it can function efficiently. Efficiency is actually really key here. And you are allowed to go off of that balance. Okay? Whenever you want. But the key is that you know how to do that. The key is that you know where your home base is, and you know how to go a little bit to the right, a little bit to the left, in terms of the different sounds that you want to make. Okay, so I think that's important to, to say as kind of like, why are we having this conversation? And before I move on, I think it's important also to define some terms that I know that you've heard of, but I want to make sure are really clear in case, nobody has told you what they actually mean and you've just kind of like heard them. So I want to define chest voice and head voice because we're going to be throwing out those terms in this episode. So we use those terms constantly, but what do they really mean for you as a singer? How do you make chest voice? How do you make head voice? What do they feel like? What are, what are those terms even about? And these terms were coined actually using the singer's experience. So chest voice does not mean that you produce the sound in your chest, right? We are using that term because chest voice is where you will feel sympathetic vibrations when you are singing most of the time in your lower register. So we kind of use chest voice synonymously with the lower part of your voice. And for a female, that's you know, the lowest you can go until right about G or A, if that means anything to you, G4, A4, if that doesn't mean anything to you, don't worry about it. That's just like, you know, the note on the piano. Um, so try this with me. In fact, take your hand. Put it on your chest, and just speak aloud your name and where you're from. Hi, I'm Nechama Leah, and I'm from Stockton, California. Okay. Did you feel vibrations in your chest? If you didn't, it could be because you fall into like kind of a light chest voice category that I'm gonna speak about soon, but ideally you should have felt some vibrations there. And now, do this again. Say this again now in your best Minnie Mouse voice. So, Hi, I'm, Nechama Leah and I'm from Stockton, California. Okay. I didn't feel any vibrations in my chest. If I was paying attention, which I sort of was, sort of not, I would most likely have been feeling vibrations up here more in the head. That's where the term head voice comes from It's not because we produce the sound in the head, right? That sounds silly just saying that out loud But it's because we feel vibrations there. Your vocal cords are what produces all of the sound okay. So the breath is the, the source, you know, the power behind the sound. And then it comes to the vocal cords and the air makes the vocal cords vibrate. The air pressure makes the vocal cords vibrate. It leaves the vocal cords that, you know, acoustic energy, and it resonates here in your vocal tract, which starts right above the vocal folds and then into, you know, the, the pharynx here, the mouth, everything here. And then until it reaches, until it goes out. Okay. So those are kind of like the three main parts of your vocal mechanism. So it's always, the sound is always going to be coming from your vocal cords, but different pitches and even vowel shapes and resonances are going to give you different sensations. It's going to determine that chesty sensation that we felt or a more head voice sensation. Great. So now having said that the next important aspect of a balanced voice is that it's not too breathy and on the flip side, it's not too pressed sounding or too weighty. And so I'm going to demonstrate what each of those might sound like so that you understand what I'm saying. So breathy, a breathy voice is like, Right, you can hear all of the air in that sound, um, a pressed sounding voice, um, could also result in breathiness, in fact, but it's something like, uh, uh, or you can even get so much tension and press that you get, uh, uh, uh, right? There's so much pressure and tension going on that it's actually. forcing the vocal cords open. And then you hear that breath as well. Or, um, you might have something like weightiness, which is usually going to happen at the top of the chest voice range and into the first bridge, where the singer is having a hard time thinning out the vocal cords. And so it'd be like, right. You hear that. It's almost like yelling, we'll call it. Okay. So that is, that's an example of weightiness. Okay, so I just described kind of like three ways that this sort of out of balance ness would present itself. Um, so I said, I said breathiness, which we'll call like light chest voice. And then, um, like a press quality, um, which is related to, but not exactly the same as that weighty quality that I mentioned. And then there's a fourth out of balance category, which, in the shita(approach) that I follow with the education that I've gotten from Institute for Vocal Advancement, as well as Modern Vocal Training with my voice teacher certifications. And this fourth one would be considered a flip. And this is, Really, probably the most common one that I see is that a singer will have a decent handle on their chest voice and a decent handle on their head voice. But what's happening in the middle is like a, uh, uh, either very abruptly, which can where it's like, uh, Right. Or, or not so abruptly, it can happen more subtly. And that's very common for singers. So I would suggest to you that you figure out which of these that you identify with which of these is you in order to move forward about how to how to fix these. So I'll just mention a little bit about how each of these would be handled in a voice lesson. So I'll go with the first one first that light chest tendency. I see a lot in, I won't say a lot, but I see more most frequently in younger singers, young teenagers and even into young adults. And it's light chest. And what we mean by light chest voice is that the vocal cords are lacking thickness. They're lacking depth and oftentimes lacking closure. When we're speaking and singing in the lower parts of our voice, the vocal cords are in their thickest state. Okay, they're, they're thick, they should be closing well. I mean, that should happen at any part of your range, but, um, they're, they're thicker and that's how we get that, uh, down there in the lower parts. Okay. Now, for whatever reason, someone who is not used to coordinating their body that way, there could be a whole host of reasons why, but we would just give them exercises to help with that. So one of the go to ones is a guh, guh, guh. So if you are someone who, you know, you're like, yeah, like I have a really hard time in my lower voice getting the strength and the depth that I want, you might go for an exercise like this. Guh guh guh, guh, guh, guh, guh, guh. And see how much of that You know, thick depth that you can get when you're doing them. Okay. And the next one, something like a press that usually is a result of just a lot of extra tension. It depends on the singer really where that's coming from and what's causing it. So it's hard to give you, um, you know, a clear cut, like do this and it's going to get a lot better. It depends on the singer. But one of my favorite warmups for. For people with a lot of tension is doing a voiced V and trying to stay on that V. You know, really voicing it the whole time. So you can try that one out. If that's something that you see going on with you and your voice. And then that third tendency, that weightiness, um, is often coming from. Uh, well, it's an overactive muscle that wants to keep the cords in that thicker configuration. And so sometimes it's really helpful to go to the head voice and let the singer really feel that, that head voice and then kind of draw it down. And then, and then eventually you want to reverse it so that you can start to feel that transition from the low to the high. Okay. So something like a, nyeah nyeah nyeah nyeah nyeah. Or Okay. nyeah nyeah nyeah nyeah. Something like that. And then eventually you're going to nya, nya, nya, nya, nya, nya, nya, nya, nya, nya, So you can feel how it transitions in and out through that first passage. I'm really throwing out just examples for these, each of these tendencies. But obviously, um, it does not replace, you know, a voice teacher hearing your particular voice and what would be beneficial most for your voice. So I just want to make that disclaimer. And then for the, for the flip, actually the exercise I just told you about is a very good one for, for negotiating that flip as well. As well as something like the nay, nay, nay, nay, nay, nay, nay, nay, nay, nay, nay, nay. Um, there are, there are lots of different exercises depending on the singer's voice that I would recommend for, for that, for going over that flip. And you, you would also want to figure out, well, why are we flipping? Is there maybe a little bit, tad bit too much weight happening in the bottom of the voice? Um, that doesn't necessarily classify them as like a weighty tendency, but maybe there's a little extra tension that we can relieve and then that transition will smooth itself out or, you know, there, there could be, um, a few other options of why that might be happening and each singer needs their own individual exercises that would help them work through that. Okay. I kind of talked about the different ways that the, that the lack of balance can present itself. And the idea is that in addition to the things that I said in the beginning, we want that handoff from chest voice to head voice to be seamless. So that, number one, so you're not hearing bumps and cracks and flips, you know, or big changes in sound quality, like as if you're driving a stick shift in a car for the first time. I drove a stick shift in high school. So I'm well aware of that, like, thing that can happen, you know, and, and don't you relate to that? Like sometimes it can feel like that. Right. For all of us, okay? I'm throwing out these tendencies that singers have and chances are one of them is yours, right? Like the fifth one is a beautifully completely mixed voice and that's very very rare. Okay. We're all, we're all heading there and we're all like, you know, striving for that, but that's, it's rare. So don't beat yourself up if you're like, yeah, I totally do one of these things. Good. It's good that you know, and then you can work on fixing it. Right. So, so why is any of this important? Uh, like the analogy that I used, which isn't a perfect one, but we'll go with it. If I'm accelerating. I'm in a car with a stick shift and I need to change gears, I have to use that, that clutch. I'm like totally forgetting now. I totally, I totally drew, drove a stick shift for a few years and I am forgetting exactly, but you know, use that clutch, you have to push it down and then you kind of like ease off it very slowly. If you don't, if it's like jerky, then you're going to feel that, uh, right. It's not going to make that transition. Very smooth. Um, and so we want the voice to, to also feel that, that sense of smoothness. So that transition from those gears has to be like ironed out. And that really just comes with practice. I mean, it comes with the right tools to help you to get there. And then it comes with practicing. So, and another reason why this is so important is the more advanced the repertoire that you want to sing, the more important it is that you have this balance. because you're going to be required, you know, via all this advanced repertoire to jump all over your range, to be up in a mixed belt, and then come back down into, you know, a more chest voice resonance, and then, and then up, and then down, and then into a falsetto y head, you know, head voice thing. And this is just the demand of the music these days, really. I mean, I'm sure there's a case to be made that like each, uh, stage or each, you know, era of music has its challenges. But I noticed that Today, we're really like valuing a lot of, um, intricacy, uh, melodically and also in riffs and runs. So that's another thing that riffs and runs are so much easier to do when you have balance in your voice. If you can come from a place that is aligned, has freedom lack of tension, then those notes are going to just flow easier. If you have tension because you are, um, trying to manipulate the sound or you just kind of come into more grab at certain parts of your voice for whatever reason, then you're going to meet that roadblock along the way in your riff and run. If I'm trying to do. Right. But I have like a lot of tension. Already, if I start that note with a bit of tension and weightiness, it's like impossible for me to come back down in a smooth way. And whatever, I'm giving a slightly exaggerated example, but that's just an example of a way that, you know, extra tension or, this out of balance quality can get in the way of you doing what you want to do, you know, of sounding the way you want to sound and singing the repertoire that you want to sing. And it's the same with head voice. If you, if you have a very developed chest voice and you don't have a very developed head voice, it's going to be hard for you to reach into your, you know, mix belt into your belt or into your head mix. You know, you need head voice. You have to be able to, Uh, go into those high things comfortably In order to mix it, so to speak, with chest voice. Right. To get that mixy quality that we want these days in contemporary music, even in Jewish music. Of course I have pop and musical theater background and I have those genres in mind, but really Jewish music these days is, is following suit with these types of sounds. It's very in right now to have that mixy, even like head mixy type of sound in Jewish music. And yeah, why not? It's beautiful. Um, and I'll just say this, cause I'm thinking of it now. With regard to high notes and mixy stuff, one thing that tends to throw us off balance a lot is what the larynx does. And so the larynx is that, bump that's not really so much a bump on women, where men have the Adam's apple. that houses the vocal cords. And for whatever reason it likes to jump up tension or just the power of suggestion of like going into a high note. Uh, we try to go for that and the larynx goes up so you can hear that it started to sound squeaky and a little pinched, right? If the larynx can, can remain neutral. And so for you, it might think you might have to give yourself the. the cue to like, Oh, I'm going to kind of keep it down. And again, there are other, there are exercises that can be done to help with that instead of just like, you know, the power of the mind, trying to keep the larynx down. But, um, if we can keep that more neutral, then all of a sudden, see, you heard there, I had some vibrato coming in and that is a sign of vocal balance. Oh, there we go. I just kind of segued into my next reason why we should care about vocal balance. So that neutrality with the larynx is really key to getting vibrato. Okay. So we want vocal balance. We want the larynx to be neutral. We want it to be free. The vibrato comes from the larynx being free to oscillate. If there's extra tension in the muscles around the larynx. It's not going to be allowed to move that way. So people ask me all the time, well, how do I teach myself vibrato? There are some kind of exercises you can do to like help yourself along, like doing things like eeeeee, things like that to kind of generate some feeling of movement in the larynx, but really the way that you can have vibrato is by getting your voice to be free, getting your voice to feel, agile, and to work in this way, to work efficiently and work in balance. That is the best way to get beautiful vibrato in your voice. Okay, so I hope that this was helpful in helping you to define what vocal balance is and define some of the terms that we use in singing like chest voice and head voice and mix and the different kind of vocal tendencies that there are. So I'll just review them. We talked about light chest voice, and we talked about pressing and over tension. We talked about weightiness and we talked about a flip in the voice. And I want to say too that, I think I mentioned this in the beginning, I can't remember now, that just because you want your voice to be smooth like this, from top to bottom, and to feel easy to move around and riff well, and all the reasons that I just gave you for needing to have vocal balance, it doesn't mean that you always, always, always have to sing with balance Okay. By all means bust out the breathy, cool Billy Eilish sound. If that's your thing, or if that's what your song calls for. Okay. So what I mean by that is the, uh, whatever I'm making that up, but okay, that sort of sound it's cool. It's beautiful, right? This doesn't mean that you can't sing like that. Okay. And I want to make that really, really clear that while as a voice teacher, I I want my students to strive for a balance. It's because I want them to know where that home base is. Like I said in the beginning, I want them to be able to feel that. And then by all means, take yourself off balance when you want to and when you need to. Okay. And. You should be able to do that breathy cool thing and you should be able to get a little weighty here and there, you know, like think Adele type of sound, you know. There's also effects that you can do, you know, there's growling, there's like vocal fry. There's that like weighty quality I just talked about. Um, yodeling, all this different things that you can do with the voice that take you off balance, so to speak, but yeah. You should, um, but you always know where to come back to. That's going to help your voice function really efficiently and also sustainably. Right. Cause we're also concerned with having your voice work for a long time, right. For a lot of years and also for, you know, A good chunk of time each time. Like if you're a performer, if you're already gigging and you're doing kumzitzes, or you're up on stage performing for thousands of people, then your voice needs to work for you, right? You can't just get away with singing one song beautifully and then feeling hoarse afterwards. That's not going to work. Okay. Um, and so just to kind of drive this point home that you should allow your emotional connection to your song and just your feeling about how you want it to sound to dictate how it should be, how it should feel. And it could be that the entire song really calls for, uh, you know, a beautiful Disney princess mix, and you're going to be in that sort of balanced state the whole time. Or it could be that you need a bit more rawness and realness, cool. Go for it. Okay. Um, but we always know how to get yourself back to that home base. All right. I hope that was helpful. Thank you so much for listening. If you are enjoying what you're hearing, please share it with your singer friends and follow and rate the podcast on the platforms you're using. And if anything really stuck out about anything that you've heard on this episode or previous episodes, I would be so happy to hear from you. Send me a DM on Instagram and let me know about your aha moments. Or if you have any questions or thoughts I am so happy to hear them. My handle on Instagram is@nechamaleahmusic and I'll drop the link in the show notes there and have a wonderful rest of your week. Happy singing.