Technique

In this video, Jeannie discusses and demonstrates differences between using vibrato—when a held note has an oscillation up and down around the pitch center—and straight tone (no vibrato).

Do you use vibrato? If you're classically trained or sing musical theater often, you probably use vibrato a lot. If you're a pop or rock singer, you may not use vibrato much at all. Jazz and R&B styles vary but usually have a combination of both.

What if you can't control your vibrato, or don't know how to find it? Watch!

In this video, Jeannie shows you some essential basics about using a microphone.

In this 17:30 video, Jeannie takes you through a warmup, describes what is going on and how to do it well, and sings with you, too. Exercises in the video:

• Breathing: sustaining a "hiss"
• Sustaining a  note on "ah"
• 1-5-1 glides
• Octave glides up and back, on "ya, ee, o"
• 1-2-3-4-5-4-3-2-1 (half scale) on "ah, ee, o"
• Octave glide up then sustain top octave, "ah, ee, o"
• "Ee-hee ah-ha" and "Ee-ay-ah-o-oo" two-part exercise, on one breath
• "Ma - may- mi-mo-moo" on one pitch, sustained and legato
• "Soul and Intervals" exercise, from her book Your Singing Voice page 164, originally entitled "Meditation on Breathing" by Sarah Dan Jones

This effective exercise helps you manage your breath for any kind of singing. In it you practice breathing in slowly, pausing by holding your breath, then doing a hiss sound for 16 counts. Jeannie takes you through the exercise step-by-step and does it with you. This is a great way to begin your daily vocal practice!

Tip: When you make the hiss sound, keep it even-toned by listening as you go along. This will help your body to learn how to release air in a steady manner, which is great for breath control. The hiss should be at a moderate volume, not too soft.

Berklee student Amira Noor took Jeannie's Vocal Technique and Wellness at Berklee in the spring of 2021. For her final project, in this video she summarizes some of the many things she learned about vocal health and wellness. Her topics include things like:

• Practicing -do's and don'ts
• How warming up is essential
• Managing stage fright
• How learning about vocal anatomy has given her so much more facility for her singing
• How breathing happens
• Healthy tips

We always teach and practice singing in major keys --you know, Do Re Mi Fa Sol! But what about singing exercises in a minor key? Singing a flat third instead of a major third in a scale changes the intervals between notes. It happens in melodies, and when you also practice minor keys, you'll learn to adjust your singing to less predictable detailed intervallic movements.

In this video Jeannie describes the difference and takes you through an exercise in major/minor.

This is great for working on your areas of transition, and also great for belting. What is it? You hold a note and crescendo (get louder) from a very soft, clean tone, into a loud tone. When you're in an area of transition this will likely take you into your chest voice. Then, you reverse: Start a loud tone, and decrescendo (get softer) while holding the note, until you get to a very quiet final volume. This will take you back through your transition.

This is tricky for a couple of reasons.

First, when you're going through the transition as you're holding a single notes, cartilages and muscles within your larynx (where your vocal folds are) are moving as you change from your lower voice (chest) to lighter voice (head, falsetto). And vise versa. It can be bumpy, because by definition these muscles move in opposite directions.

Second, it's easy to strain if you're not careful. When you begin the loud note, do not yell it out. Instead, begin the note with an open mouth and excellent breath support. I demonstrate using a "y" vowel at the start of the loud note to help the note from being shouted.

Third, when you get to the feeling of transition the natural tendency is to let it flip, or stop and get frustrated. The whole idea of this exercise is to be patient and smooth out the changes. It may be bumpy or flip at first—that's normal.

It is essential that you do this exercise after you're well warmed up. Ground your legs, and use supported breathing from deep in your torso.

Does that sound strange to you? Well, think about it. When you meditate, you begin by focusing on your breathing. You take in breaths slowly, and release them slowly. This activates your parasympathetic nervous system, the part of your nervous system that brings you calm, a sense of peace. It also helps to deactivate your sympathetic nervous system which is the fight-flight-freeze reaction to fear or anxiety.

When you're singing you're active, but we don't want to be tense. Slow, deliberate breaths offers several benefits:

1. A slow inhalation is a deep inhalation, so you take in more air to create support
2. In turn, this prepares you for a controlled release of your air, which is what breath support means
3. When your body is calmer, you can be more focused on staying in balance and on your vocal goal in that moment.
4. This helps remove the fear of singing. You're not fighting off a dragon!

Singing can healing. Studies prove this. Take in a slower breath. Love the process, love your voice!

Advanced

Volume Swell Exercise Demonstration