Understanding Your Voice and Vocalization

The good news is you know how to sing. In fact, sometimes in our urge to be the best we can be, we may actually interfere.

What Do I Mean by That?

• We might be using too much jaw tension because we really want to give the song our all.
• We might be trying to breathe out too much or save our breath.

Now, we're going to have a look at how you evolved to vocalize. We will do this by remembering that you already know what to do.

A Moment to Reflect

Think about this for a moment:

• When we evolved to vocalize, did that happen to make pretty sounds?
• Did that happen so you could hit the big notes and impress audiences?

No. When we evolved to vocalize, it was for several vital reasons:

• Communication
• Survival
• Imparting information

These vocalizations were needed to connect with people, soothe our babies, and call out to warn others. All these things happened thousands and thousands of years ago.

Body Knowledge

Your body knows how to make sounds, high sounds, low sounds, all sounds. I want to remind you of this by using some sounds now that you'll be making all day long, perhaps to:

• Release some emotion
• Communicate with your friends or family

We will explore these sounds and see how we can use them in singing, especially in musical theatre, where it's so important to connect your emotions to the song and the story.