How to improve your singing
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I heard this woman singing classic music, and everything for me changed. It was that profound. It was such an incredibly impactful happening, that that day I knew that my life changed. That day, it gave my life a whole direction, and I thought whatever this is, this is what I want to do. Hey you!. Yes, you. Whatâs that light inside of you? Is it a dream? A beat? A beautiful sound? A hearbreaking song? Whatever it is, weâre here with working musicians to help you grow and share that gift with this wild and wonderful world. My name is Denyce Graves-Montgomery, and I have spent more than 45 years on the stage as an opera singer.
Parallel to that, I have all always been in education and have also taught voice. Even if you are a natural singer and you know how to sing very, very well, some kind of training is going to be necessary. It will involve having some external ears, who can listen to your voice and say, your instrument is suited in this range. So, in terms of finding your specific voice type, you would go to a teacher or to a coach, and they would give you different vocal exercises up and down the scale to see whatâs comfortable, and where the voice also shines and where the voice is at its most beautiful. Iâm considered a mezzo soprano. We have the coloratura soprano, which is the highest soprano. Then you have soprano, and then youâve got the mezzo sopranos, the altos, the contraltos. Then you have the tenors, the counterternors, the light tenor, the dramatic tenor, the heldentenors, all the different classifications, baritones, and then the bases, right?
Thereâre a lot to learn about your voice and what your voice is suited for. There are some young people who come to me, for example, who might start out as mezzos, who might start out as altos, and then we discover that they, in fact, have this incredible range. And that they, you know, are sopranos. It takes time for the voice itself to ripen and to grow, and to be able to get that point where youâre able to cut across a really, really big orchestra. There has to a certain amount of heft, there has to be a certain of steel in the sound to be able to reach to the people sitting in the top balcony in the last row. I am a person who has a big, old honking voice, right? My forehead and my cheekbones and my nose, and all of these incredible resonating cavities which creates great ressonance thatâs able to cut. And when you first start studying, thereâs the technical part, but that continues throughout the whole of your life.
The vocal technique of singing is what we call chiaroscuro, Chari, clear, and scuro, which is darker to create a balanced sound. And to be able to do that, you have to be able to come in contact with what your body is able to do, and that is being able to use your body as the microphone. And the most important thing is technique, technique, technique, technique. And that would be fundamentally the breath and understanding what that is. And then understanding how to support that in your body and with your diaphragm and in your rib cage and in the back and in your lower abdomen support. Being able to creat that wonderful hollow sound, where youâre able to use those resonators, and then the articulators, the tongue and the teeth, and all those different things. If, for example, you blow up a balloon up, and you fill the balloon with air. If you donât hold on to the mouth of the balloon, all the air will come out and the ballon will fly all over the place.
And with singing, what you want to do is make sure that you hold on to the mouth of the balloon. So you create air and youâve got to use that air, and then youâve got to spend that air. But youâve got to make sure that you donât use it all up. And so thatâs the hand on the mouth of the balloon, so that you are able to dole that air out evenly. So you donât let it all out on the first phrase. But youâre able to gauge that breath and spend that breath throughout the different phrases. The bottom line, if it isnât real, we know. It has to be real. It has to be honest. That is the thing thatâs transformative for people when they go to the theater.
People come and theyâre riveted because theyâre seeing something in real time happen that is authentic. And thatâs the thing that changes peopleâs lives. The truth.