This week:
Because we're headed to the studio soon to record Abbie's first song as a songwriting student - we decided to get a couple voice production lessons in before we hit the studio so that we're ready to go!
We're combining voice lessons and vocal production - which is super advanced because you have to learn the base line things that make you sing correctly AND the style things that take that placement and manipulate it further to more unnatural places. I usually separate the two - waiting for a student to master the first before moving to the second. But, because Abbie's situation with being a songwriting student is a little bit different - we catered the lessons to exactly what she needed.
She did SO awesome!!! I was very impressed!
With voice lessons - each week we'll break down our lessons into a few different categories:
"This week", "Things to remember", our progress videos, and reminders to bring a new song at the appropriate times - with Abbie the reminder to bring new songs will be when we finish new original music (unless she decided to add regular voice lessons as well).
At our first lesson we introduce so many new things:
- Vocalizing and matching pitch: Abbie has this down great! She has a great ear! Our vocalizing was more focused on moving her voice into a correct placement and stripping it down to a conversational or "forward" place.
- Relaxing the voice while singing: I make all my students promise me at the beginning of their lessons that they will do all the silly ridiculous things that I ask them to do because it will make them a better singer. You'll see this in their videos as i make them wiggle in a variety of weird ways. Some of the motions are to remind them to do very specific things (there will be a lot of forward arm movement). Some of the motions are to distract them so that they can't squeeze their vocal chords when hitting exceptionally high or low notes in their song - you can't hurt your voice, or sing incorrectly in an unsafe way, if you're rolling your head and moving your shoulders. It helps accomplish what we need to and we take the motions out the more lessons they have and more we move into performance technique.
- New placements : a new placement with our voice is an interesting thing. With our first few lessons we're trying to get Abbie to feel her voice in a different way. We do this not only for sound quality and vocal technique but also for safety of her chords. The first placement we introduce is singing like we talk. While the students are figuring out how this feels with their voice we break it down in ways that are easy to do. We call this "talk it out".
We took our talk it out placement even further to a more texturized place to make Abbie sound even more commercial. We stripped down her vibrato - to only use it as a tool and not a foundational part of her voice.
We worked on our "belt placement" - moving Abbie's voice to a place that she's never used before for her choruses - again to sound more commercial. We introduced the "triangle mouth placement" in order to achieve this belt sound and brighten up her voice.
We added keeping things punchy - emphasizing consonants to make it sound more pop, breathing out our words - adding a breathy texture to our verses to make it sound vulnerable and to focus more on the words of the song.
We went through the first 2 verses, the pre-chorus, and the chorus with a fine toothed comb - vocally producing each line to be a little bit different.
You'll hear me talking throughout their videos, saying all sorts of things that don't make sense. They make sense to Abbie I promise! As I remind them in real time of the different things to focus on in their song.
Now that you know what to expect - Here is your first lesson break down!
Things to remember:
- Smile!! It brings your voice forward and brightens the sound!
- Sing through your teeth!
- Keep it conversational
- Add breath to the verses
- triangle mouth belt on the choruses
- Sing like we talk!
I told Abbie she's never allowed to quit voice lessons - the improvement in 2 lessons has been UNREAL! She's such a hard worker and absorbs everything I give her like a sponge! I appreciate her work ethic so much! We're having a blast!
And um. WHAT A SONG! I'm super excited to record it with her !
Here are our videos:
Week 1:
Before/End of our lesson:
Week 2:
Before/End of our lesson:
GREAT job Abbie! See you soon!
Labels: Abbie S.