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10 Frequently Asked
Questions: Generally, when you speak in a comfortable manner, your outer muscles do not interfere . You can learn to maintain your tone with this comfortable speech level posture when you sing, no matter where the note is in your range. You can then learn to add volume while maintaining this healthy balance, resulting in a strong, powerful voice that can last forever!
The voice is a subtle instrument that doesn't need huge amounts of air to work properly. We generally don't start with breathing unless the student is having a problem in that regard. We begin by helping you find a balance in your voice, and show you how to keep the vocal cords closed so that you are using your air more efficiently. It's more about the subtle coordination of how you use your air, than about having huge amounts of air. Eventually, you will learn to lean in with more air behind a balanced instrument.
If a person has trouble singing on the right notes, there may be a variety of reasons for this. Sometimes they just haven't learned how to use all the different parts of their voice (from low to high) so the notes don't go up when they need to go up. We can certainly work with you to pinpoint what your problems are, and to help you improve. All students notice improvement from studying this technique.
This question can not be answered without hearing your voice. Every person who comes in has different issues, and some may have old, ingrained habits that need to be changed. For some, this can take months to years and others can pick the technique up fairly fast. Each student will be assessed when they come in, and, by listening to your voice, we can give you a better answer to this question.
The key to speech level singing is understanding "Mix". As you sing higher into your range, you quickly encounter areas where your voice may "jam up", or it "breaks" and sounds weak. We call this area a bridge or passaggio. When you learn how to approach these areas in the right way, you can negotiate through them with finesse, increasing range into the higher areas.
Your voice wants to coordinate in its most comfortable way regardless of the style you're singing. However, most styles, even classical, can throw our best vocal coordination off-base. When you study SLS, you learn how to sing in the most healthy way for your voice. The exercises move you through your entire range giving you more styling choices and the vocal freedom to hit the notes you desire. As an artist you can choose to stray from good technique for style purposes, but with SLS it will become a choice rather than an unconscious habit, and you will always know how to get back to good form, or "home base", when you need to.
With young children, we mostly try to keep singing fun, learning songs and getting students to sing back and forth over their bridges in a comfortable way. As to the the exact best age to start, all children develop slightly differently. Children who concentrate well and have a strong desire to sing will move ahead more quickly. Piano lessons, or lessons in another instrument, can be helpful. As to when one is "too old": if you can talk, you can sing! Bob Hope's wife, Dolores, recorded an album of jazz standards when she was 92, singing with a lovely tone. Many older women who could never effectively use their chest voices and mix, are amazed at the strength, beauty, and expressiveness of the sound they can produce with SLS training.
No. Producing a usable vocal sound, and reading or playing music are separate skills. There are plenty of good (and well employed) pop singers who don't read music, or read at an elementary level. Reading ability is useful, however, for every singer, and necessary to some degree for classical and musical theatre. But, if your time is limited, and you really want to sing, better to start with that and not get hung up on things you think you "ought" to do. Playing an instrument, especially piano or guitar, is very useful for developing one's ear, choosing keys for songs, learning melodies and harmonies, etc., but is not necessary in learning to sing.
Falsetto happens when the vocal cords are coming apart and therefore the result is an "airy" sound. Falsetto gives you the feeling of resonance up in your head, which you also have in head voice. The main difference is that strong head voice does not sound airy and can connect smoothly down through the bridges to chest voice, while falsetto has no "bottom", and does not connect to chest. (It sounds like a separate voice)
We like to think that anyone who can talk can learn to sing. Every student who comes in experiences great improvements in their voice.
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