Learn
How to Sing
Perfectly in Tune!
YOUR
REAL VOICE
The Daily Tip
Sign
Up
Seven
Secrets Course
The
Emotions Course
About
Us
The
Daily Tip Archive
Main Page
YOUR REAL VOICE
Archive Main Page
|
YOUR
REAL VOICE - the vocal ezine for real people
May 1,
2005 #2
FEATURE EDITORIAL
Why You Should NEVER Copy Other Singers
This is Part 2 of our last article, "Why You Should ALWAYS sing in your
real voice" and picks up with the exercise from last time.
Did you DO the exercise? Those of you who did get to be teacher's
pet for the next two weeks! If you did, the most important part
of it was the directive to write down why you wanted to change
something about the sound of your singing voice. As I mentioned
in the last article, this is one of the most challenging exercises I
give my students.
To really get into this, let's consider WHY we sing. What
possible reason could anyone have for singing? Why do it?
Why do it if we're going to complain about it and have to work hard at
it? Now I don't know exactly what your answer is, but I do know
mine. Singing for me is about how it FEELS, not how it
sounds. Or said better, how I feel when I'm singing. There
is no magic on earth anywhere that can match what it feels like to let
loose and fling myself into a song.
I imagine your answer has something to do with that, too, which leads
us to the question of why we should NEVER copy another singer.
There's two reasons we're going to examine here. Number One for
me is, if singing is all about how it FEELS, I can't copy how someone
else feels. I can only feel how I feel.
But that's not the technical and scientific answer. Number Two is
the nasty one that can really hurt you physically as a singer, and
actually causes a LOT of vocal damage.
DRUM ROLL PLEASE....................
Why you should never copy another singers is:
You can't HEAR reality when you are singing. You don't HEAR your
real voice while you are singing.
WHAT!?!?! "Are you crazy?!?! Of course I can" you
say. But from an anatomical and physiological perspective (here's
the science part), you can't.
Remember, when you try to copy another singer, you are changing
YOUR sound while you are singing to match their sound that you hear
while you are listening. When you listen to another singer,
you hear the reality of their voice. When you sing, you don't
hear your own voice as the audience does. You, in fact, don't
hear reality. What you hear as the singer is COMPLETELY different
than what the audience hears as listeners. And if you listen to a
recording of a singer, you hear their voice processed through about
$200,000 of electronic gear and microphones and stereo stuff. You
don't have a CHANCE of ever hearing your own voice in that same
condition when you are singing.
Here's why you don't hear reality when you sing: you don't hear
your sound as it comes out of your mouth. When you sing, you hear
a COMBINATION of a little bit of sound from your mouth, a lot of sound
vibrating around inside your head, and a little bit of sound vibrating
from the bones in your chest. All
this combined sound, the sound YOU hear, is completely different than
the audience hears while they listen to you.
So here's the homework/experiment for this time:
1) Cover both ears completely, and then sing something.
Notice how different it sounds completely different than you are used
to hearing yourself. It probably sounds muffled and goofy!
2) Cover only one ear and sing something. Notice how it
sounds different than having both ears covered, and still sounds
different than you are used to hearing.
3) Practice singing an entire song with both ears covered and
notice how it feels.
4) Practice singing an entire song with one ear covered.
How was the experience different than singing with both ears covered?
If
you have questions about this article, please email us at info@sing-in-tune.com
YOUR
REAL VOICE is the best vocal e-zine for real people! It is a FREE
biweekly newsletter that is jam-packed with hot stuff on all
things vocal, no matter what styles of music you are into. If you
would like to sign up for this newsletter, here is the
link to the sign up page.
Contact Athena by e-mail at info@sing-in-tune.com or learn how to sing
perfectly in tune at her web site at www.Sing-In-Tune.com
|