Gemma Denman | - Professional Vocal Coach based in Surrey / Hampshire

Gemma - Voice Doctor!

This is the part of the website where you can send Gemma vocal questions and she will answer them for you on this page. If you want to submit a question please email gemmadenman@yahoo.co.uk

Singing Equipment Check List

Keyboard - Great for range building and pitching exercises

MD Recordable Player and Microphone

- Perfect for listening to yourself live through headphones or recording your voice!

Sony ECMMS907 Digital Recording Microphone

Sony MZ-G755 Recordable MiniDisc Walkman

Roland CD 2

- A great investment if you want an affordable system to record your vocals on to CD's!

The following books:

The Rock And Roll Singers Survival Manual - Mark Baxter

The Secrets of Singing - Jeffrey Allen

Set Your Voice Free - Roger Love

The following Vocal Exercise CD's:

Funky 'n Fun 1, 2, 3 and 4 - Kim Chandler www.funkynfun.com

The Vocal Coach Series www.vocalcoach.com

Singing For Dummies - Pamelia S. Phillips www.dummies.com

Be In Control Of Your Limits!

The secret of being a great singer is knowing your strengths and weaknesses.

Not only that, it's knowing the correct technique and knowing the ins and outs of how singing works. For those of you who have never taken a lesson, it's not as easy as you think!

There are several 'gear changes' in the voice, and each individual singer needs to know exactly where these areas are so they know how to move in and out of them smoothly. It takes a lot of time to do this, but once you've mastered it, you'll be in charge of your voice, and not the other way round!

One of the most important things is to know where your chest voice finishes, so you don't try and push further and end up straining, or going flat! Over the years I have seen a good handful of people who have blown their head voices out, because they haven't known the right technique to sing in the higher register, therefore continuously pushing chest voice so their range is simply a one register voice. Not good! Singers who only sing in chest voice have hoarse voices, and the higher they attempt to sing, the more their voices crack, and the more they open their voice and no sound comes out... just a blast of air...

Vocal nodules can then also be an issue, as pushing too high in chest voice is not safe, unless your voice is developed to be able to sing it safely of course.

Attempting to sing notes in the wrong register will make you sing off pitch. Sound familiar? If so, I would suggest getting some help from a vocal coach who knows a lot about register change to help you make sense of what's going on in your voice.

Like I stated at the beginning, a good singer knows their limits, be clever, don't push past your limits if you know you are going to strain or sing off pitch! Give people the best of your voice in performance, and work on your problem areas with a vocal coach... that way no one else needs to know your weaknesses!

I have no confidence, any tips?

1. Choose songs or artists that you enjoy and are easy for you to sing along to.

2. Sing along with the original record to see if you can reach all the notes.

3. Listen and learn where the music and main vocal starts. Listen for pauses in the music, and instrumentals, learn how to count the bars of the song, so you know where to come in.

4. Think about where you need to breathe! Mark all the breaths in by listening to where the original artist takes a breath. If in doubt then sing through and see where you naturally would breathe.

5. Record yourself singing using a recording device.

6. Practice in front of a mirror so you can see what you look like when singing - try not to tense up, relax and watch your breathing. If your shoulders are moving then you are causing yourself body tension.

7. Rehearse the song until you know the words and melody line off by heart

8. Drink plain room temperature water during singing, it helps to lubricate your throat and vocal chords plus prevents them from becoming dehydrated.

9. Smile! Enjoying yourself when singing will mean that you relax, and you will be tension free.

Vocal strain... What can I do?

"I have been singing between 2 and 4 times a week for about 5 years now. All of a sudden, I am starting to get hoarse – even after practicing at home, I seem to loose my voice some during singing. I have even noticed this when I am speaking. It’s as though my voice is not connecting and there is something in the way.

I have been with the same vocal teacher for 3 years and am just making a change. I do feel that I have been straining or singing from the throat and there was not much in the way of breathing technique taught to me. I know I am supposed to sing from the diaphragm – and also I admit when I have to sing alone which is not that often nerves can really do me in.

I have been working with some vocal cd’s and am starting to feel some coordination developing with my breath support. I am afraid I have possibly done damage to my vocal chords.

What do you recommend I do?"

Gemma's Answer:

Hi,

This sounds quite serious to me, and it seems that over a long period of time, by causing yourself vocal strain it's quite possible you have damaged your voice. I suggest you go to the doctor, and explain what you just said to me.

Are you aware of vocal nodules? (Hard skin that develops on your vocal chords due to vocal strain). This sounds like its possible you may have developed them. You may be lucky, it may not be this at all, and even if you do have vocal nodules it isn't always that bad...sometimes you can get rid of them with some speech therapy.

Please seek medical advice on this matter, as they will be able to look down your throat and see if you have any nodules. Or what may be causing you these problems.

Also, I suggest you find a new singing teacher, breathing technique is the MOST important thing to teach and get right... and breathing correctly means you should never have a sore throat from singing.

Regards,

Gemma

What is the passaggio?

The 'passaggio' is also known as the breaking point. In singing you have two registers, your lower register known as chest voice, and your higher register known as head voice/falsetto. At some stage your chest voice starts merging into your head voice - this is the breaking point (passaggio). It takes a lot of hard work and vocal training to smooth out the period where your registers change. The transition point changes with each individual, but it is normally around B flat below C to the F# above, it can be anything from 3 to 7 semitones. Over the passaggio singers find notes harder to sing, and often discover their notes are crackling.

To sum up, the passaggio (breaking point) is simply the cross over area where your voice changes register.

How can I sing with vibrato in my voice?

Vibrato is a natural 'wobble' in the voice often heard the most when a singer holds a note. Some people find it very difficult to produce vibrato. To produce it you need to be completely relaxed, if you are tense (in your body, neck, throat, tongue...) then vibrato will be very difficult to produce. Make sure you do a good physical warm up, including pretending to chew gum... it's great for warming up the lips.

Some people have a very fast vibrato and it sounds like they are nervous when they sing, if your vibrato is fast you should go to a vocal coach to try and slow the vibrato down.

Once you learn how to produce it then remember how it felt when you sang... so you can place the sound again and again.

The main way you can work on producing vibrato is to stay relaxed, but also make sure you are breathing correctly and your posture is good. With a good deep breath try and hold a long note, keep the volume consistent and listen carefully to see if your note wobbles slightly - this is vibrato, a vibration in the sound. Record yourself singing a note so you can listen back and notice if you were producing vibrato and if it sounded good, keep trying until you get your vibrato sounding natural and not forced. Good luck.

Why do I get a sore throat after singing?

It sounds like you are causing tension and strain to your throat. You need to learn how to breathe correctly... to get the support from the diaphragm.

Getting a sore throat from singing should never occur... it means you are on the right road to developing vocal 'nodules' - growths on your vocal chords (where the tissue hardens, in a similar way to how we can develop hard skin on our feet), resulting in laser surgery to have them removed.

Breathing is the first thing a vocal coach should teach but it can take quite a long time to get the placement right for breathing using the diaphragm. A good vocal coach should use a good 15minutes working on breathing each lesson until the student has got the breathing correct. Even after such a technique is reinforced it should be revisited to make sure everything is still in place, and you haven't picked up any bad habits.

Imagine a runner is running a race...He needs to warm his muscles up, and after he's run the race he needs to cool down. We use muscles in singing, so we need to cool down too. (You can cool your voice down by humming, or 'sirening').

I suggest you buy the following CD's from "Funky 'N Fun". They include breathing exercises, as well as lots of other vocal workouts, they in my opinion are the best CD's on the market. They would be a valuable thing to own as a vocalist.