Listening For Good Singing Technique

Listening for good singing technique is critical to becoming a good or great singer yourself.

 

Inside this video I’ll tell you how to begin listening for good singing technique and we’ll listen to some singers to help improve your technique.

 

Hi, I’m Chuck Gilmore with Power To Sing.

 

But today I’m Chuck Gilmore with Power To Listen.

 

Listening is a vast subject…maybe more vast than singing. My focus today is listening for good singing technique.

 

“Listening for good singing technique” has multiple meanings.  It’s similar to “Family Matters”, which was the name of our family boat.

 

 

Listening For Good Singing Technique

“Listening for good singing technique” can include:

 

• Listening to find singers with good singing technique

 

• Listening to improve your singing technique

 

First how do we begin listening for good singing technique without knowing what is good technique?

 

There are many elements of good singing technique. In my opinion, the beginning requirement of good singing technique is the ability to sing from the chest voice (low notes) to head voice (high notes) easily and naturally.

 

That means singing from chest to head voice (low to high notes) without yelling, straining, breaking into falsetto or breathiness.

 

That means a female singer would be singing from her chest register (below A4) to pitches in and/or above the first bridge. That’s A4 and above.

 

A man would be singing from chest (below E4) to pitches in and/or above the first bridge. That’s E4 and above.

 

Here are examples of singers from different genres using good technique in portions of their songs.

Eva Cassidy – Songbird   (02:30-2:46)

 

Listen to her singing the phrase “I’d never be cold”.  Especially listen to her sing the difficult words “cause” and “that” in the phrase “cause I feel that when I’m with you”. She’s repeatedly singing on the D5 which is above the first bridge of her voice.

 

Notice how she narrows the vowel in “cause” and “that” which helps her stay in a mix voice. She could have spread and splatted the vowels in those two words, which would have resulted in her pulling up her chest voice.

Contrast that phrase with the same phrase from a different singer: (02:12) 

Notice how the word “that” splats as the vowel opens wider.

 

David Draiman with Myles Kennedy singing Sounds of Silence  (02:30-2:40)

 

Notice the word “songs” which is on the F#4 at 2:42. It’s slightly narrowed to keep it in a mix voice.

 

I love how they say “never” in the phrase “that voices never share”.  Notice how they narrow ”never” towards “niver” to avoid splatting the vowel.

 

Contrast the way they sing the word “song” with this singer.  (01:58)   

 

With this other singer the vowel in the word “song” is slightly more open which causes a slight splat and pulling up of the chest voice.

 

Also it’s interesting to notice the position of Draiman and Kennedy’s heads. See any difference with the other singer? It’s an observation you couldn’t make unless you were watching them.

 

However, even if you couldn’t see them, you can almost hear the solo singer raising his chin into the air as the vowel splats.

So watching can be another way to listen.

 

I’ll likely do more Power to Sing – Power to Listen videos.

 

If you liked this video, give it a thumbs up, please subscribe to my channel, and share it with a friend.

 

If you have examples of listening for good technique, I’d love to hear about it in the comments section below. Just describe it, but don’t put a link on the comment. Otherwise YouTube puts it into a spam file.

Knowing Your Vocal Type and Good Technique

Knowing your vocal type opens the door to good technique in your voice. Do you know your vocal type?

 

Your vocal type is what you tend to do when you sing through the first bridge of your voice. Go to PowerToSing.com and take the vocal test which I call the Power Test.

 

Take the quiz and discover your vocal type. Then go to the Knowledge Center and watch the videos about your vocal type. Download the free exercises and start practicing them today.

 

They will help you learn to bridge from chest to head voice successfully which is the beginning of great singing technique.

 

I’m Chuck Gilmore with Power To Sing. You can sing higher with beauty, confidence and power. I’ll see you inside the next video.