What if I'm Tone Deaf?

   Here is a common excuse of why people don't sing: "I can't!"  I tell them "Bologna." Then they reply, "No really, I'm tone deaf!" 
   My response is still the same.
   So now you may ask what inevitably follows: "Does that mean tone deaf people can learn to sing?!"
   Absolutely.
   Many people think that tone deaf people can't distinguish between different tones. Not true. If it were, there would be a lot of people who would despise anything musical. Music would sound terrible to them. So the whole term "Tone deaf" is a complete misnomer.
   A better way of describing many of these people would be "Monotone" or "Off-key." But does that mean they cannot hear the right pitch? No.
   What is happening when a person is monotone is that their vocal cords have not learned the movements and stretches necessary to create different pitches. And for an off-key singer it is that they haven't learned how to control the movements of their vocal cords, or perhaps they have too many other muscles involved because they may think it takes muscles to sing.
  Both of these conditions are treatable in my method of voice lessons. It is important to have a basic awareness of anatomy and what your cords are doing. Then I provide exercises to help limber the cords so they can begin stretching and moving in natural ways. We work on controlling the tiny little muscles necessary to moving the vocal cords and not all the other muscles around that can interfere with the sound and quality of the tones.
  Now if you are reading this because you have troubles singing the right pitches, know that jumping this hurdle will take time. Most people develop the ability to control their vocal cords from the age of 18 months to 3 years old when they are making all those funny baby sounds. It may seem that singing comes so naturally to them. It does. That is why there are so many judgments and misunderstanding of someone who hasn't learned it yet.

    But the best news is: It can become natural for you too! Your vocal cords were built to make noise just like theirs. It will just take a little more awareness, time, and experimentation for you to get there.  But the reward is to be able to express yourself through music; to not be embarrassed when you need to sing; and to feel more freedom and confidence.
   Truly our ability to create music with our vocal cords is a miracle. It is worth every effort to be able to cultivate and nurture this ability. Music is more powerful than I can say, and it is a pleasure to participate in its creation.

Teaching Your Voice to Fly

 

A bird we caught stuck in our vent

 So many, many people think that singing takes a lot of effort. Back when I was striving to become opera lady I told myself "PUSH!" with the constancy of my mother when I was having my baby. But getting a great sound doesn't take as much exertion or pain for that matter as having a baby does. But it can give you a sense of accomplishment and joy like child-bearing.

   The times that we most "push" our voices, and therefore tense unnecessary muscles is when

• We go higher
• We go lower
• We go louder
• We go softer
• We want to be more powerful
• When we're nervous

And many other times.

   But guess what? We don't need to push! In fact, you'll find that when you don't push your voice, you can sing better (ie. higher, sweeter, more resonantly, etc.).

 Our vocal cords were created to make noise, and it only takes a few tiny little muscles to create sound. It is not necessary to push, or tense, or hold things certain ways. We can just let go and RELAX.

   What would it be like to let go of the fear of sounding bad, or cracking or controlling the sound and know that your vocal cords can take it from here? To get there, there are a few exercises and techniques that can help your vocal cords remember how to work by themselves--without all that unnecessary help.  Getting all that extra help is like helping a baby bird break out of it's shell. It actually does harm. Notice that when a baby bird breaks out of its shell it isn't easy. It takes patience. So too will retraining your muscles. You may encounter your voice cracking or going breathy or breaking off altogether. Give yourself time to get out of the shell of tense muscles and learn how your body works.

Hummingbird Hatchlings

 Let your vocal cords do the work they were made to do, and you'll find that soon your voice will be flying just like that baby bird.

Common Mistakes

"I want to sound just like..."
   Everyone judges singing by the sound. That makes sense, because that's how we register noise, right? Unfortunately, this idea of sounding just like our favorite singer can put undue tension on our voices causing us to strain them. Eventually this can lead to vocal damage.

   Let me explain. Resonance is the area that sound vibrates in. With a guitar the strings vibrate, but without the hollow wooden box behind the strings, the sound wouldn't be very loud or rich.  Thus, resonance changes the quality of sound. So if your sound vibrates in a wooden container it will sound different than if it vibrates in a brass container. The shape and size of the area where the sound vibrates also is a contributor to the final product of sound.

  This same principle holds true with singing voices. Our vocal cords vibrate together to produce that vibration necessary to create noise. But it wouldn't be very loud without the rest of our anatomy: from the air in our lungs, to the space in our throat, to the shape of our mouths. All those things together provide the resonance our vocal cords need to provide the individual sound they generate.
  But here's the catch: No one is shaped the exact same way.
 We are as individual as snowflakes, and so also is the sound we yield.
 The people who have similar anatomy will sound more similar to each other; you may have noticed siblings have comparable voices.

Pictures used by permission of Alexey Kljatov

   So if you are trying to sound just like your favorite singer, well..it IS possible, it's just not healthy for your voice. You have to change the resonance of your voice to accomplish it. So you utilize muscles in your tongue, throat, jaw, cheeks and even soft palette to mimic a sound that your body wasn't meant to make. Picture squashing your vocal box into the shape you want to produce a certain sound.

   The other thing to be aware of is more often than not, you are not just trying to impersonate the sound of your favorite singer. You're also trying to mimic the microphone that adds a lot of resonance itself. Most pop singers don't really sound like their recordings. They have a normal voice just like you. That nasal/grindy/electronic/synthetic sound is exactly that: synthetic. It isn't natural.

   PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do not compromise your own unique and beautiful sound for something you may like the sound of, but will only be temporary.

Danger Signs

This post I want to focus on the dangers of forcing our voices to sound a certain way. As I have mentioned before, it is common for vocal instructors to have a preconceived notion of how your voice should sound and they teach you to crunch your voice to accommodate that sound. Some of the common things they ask you to do are:

•    Sing from the diaphragm! If you don't have rock-hard abs, you're not doing it right!
•    Have breath support: Hold back how much air you're pushing out in a phrase!
•    Take a really big breath for a big phrase
•    Sing like you're yawning.
•    You have to have vibrato.
•    Hold your cheekbones high, and keep your mouth round

   Do these things sound familiar? These tips are very common in vocal lessons. Unfortunately most of these techniques can harm your voice.
 
Enter Pamela's sob story:
  
   I took voice lessons from when I was a very young teenager. I had an incredible 4 1/2 octave range. Singing just came easily. All my teachers were amazed with my natural talent (end bragging session).
   Then my teachers decided to take all that raw talent and harness it into a beautiful operatic voice. I could sing louder than someone singing into a microphone, and typically my choir teachers had to ask me to "tone it down" so that you could hear the rest of the choir. I had a six-pack from singing.
   Doesn't that just sound painful?! It was. I almost always had pain on high notes, and my voice got very tired after singing for about a half hour. But I sure sounded awesome! My teachers bragged that I had a world-class voice.
   But I was doing damage to my voice every time I sang. One morning when I was almost 19, I woke up and I had no voice. In fact if I tried to sing higher than a middle G, my voice split apart and would sing two dissonant tones at the same time. It was incredible painful to sing anything.
   This state lasted a couple years, until I realized I had to learn everything all over; that everything I had learned was wrong. Instead of tightening everything up to sing, I had to learn how to relax.  I spent a year lying on the floor singing to encourage me to find that relaxation. To make a long story short, I lost my six-pack (rats!) and started broadening my range again.
   I eventually (almost 10 years later!) found the Bristow method. It agreed with my own findings of relaxing, and added the anatomy knowledge to support it. I haven't got back my original range, but it no longer hurts to sing, and I find that things that used to be really difficult for me, are not as difficult as I thought.

Moral of the story: A lot of methods out there are wrong. It's not the voice teachers' fault: they're just teaching what they were taught! If you're having throat pain while singing: stop! Don't stop singing, never stop singing--just let your throat relax and not work so hard. Even if you have to sacrifice some of the sound or power. It's not worth it, and as you continue to learn how to sing in healthy ways, your voice will actually become more beautiful and powerful because you're doing what your vocal cords were meant to do.
  

About the Author

   Hi! My name is Pamela Adams, and I am a vocal coach. Notice I don't call myself a voice "teacher," or "instructor," or "resident expert" or anything like that. The reason why is because I like to incorporate coaching into my lessons. This includes:

   -Having a safe atmosphere so you're comfortable exploring your voice.

   -Creating awareness of your body and what it is doing.

   -Helping you create individual goals for your voice.

   -Targeting what is keeping you from those goals.

   -Recognizing and celebrating your progress!

   I have noticed that a lot of voice teachers tend to take a talented voice and squish it into a certain sound or genre like a toddler pushing play-doh into a mold. I do not want this to ever happen. Every one has a unique voice, and trying to obtain a certain sound from every voice can actually do a lot of damage to the voice box. I have experienced some of this myself, but I will spare you the sob story--at least for now. But know that I understand vocal damage.

   The frustration that I experienced with my voice lead me to find the Bristow Method. It is a method based on improving YOUR voice in healthy ways so that you can sing with freedom. I have taken quite a bit of this method and added my own personal twist to it. But the most important part of my method is YOU and your needs.
 
   If you are a one of my students, or if you are just curious and trying to find what works for you, please feel free to participate in my blog: leave comments, ask questions, argue with me...I love learning too, so I'm open to your insights!