Music Lesson: Tonal Quality Exercises

So there's lots of exercises that you can do. But for me, I wanted to just show you two that are:

• Not confusing
• Not too overpowering
• Manageable to take on board

Exercise 1: Laying the Groundwork

The first exercise that we went through is really important to lay the groundwork. This exercise, for me, is probably the one I would use for tonal quality. It may sound crazy; it sounds really strange when you do it, but you have to throw yourself fully into it and commit.

Key Points:

• The more nasal tonal quality you put in, the brighter the sound.
• It's like that tone button I've talked about before, you're turning it up slightly to keep everything in tune, ensuring you're right on the notes and not singing sharp or flat.

Example:

We're going to do an arpeggio. Here's an example first:

Gau, gau, gau, gau, gau, gau G.

That sounds strange, I know, but imagine you're saying "gaw" (so, gaw, G, O, W). Repeat that.

• This puts the smile in the voice.
• It creates a huge smile that brightens everything up, lifts the soft palate, and turns that tone up.

Technique:

When you sing, you need to:

• Sing down to the note instead of up.
• Attack it from above, this feels much more comfortable for me personally.

Warm-Up Exercise

Let's try it again. This is the warm-up, working your voice up the scale in semitones:

Prepare yourself:

Gow, gow, gow, gow, gow. Go, go.

And again:

Go, go, go, go.

Now, up a semitone:

Go, go, go, go.

You can hear that flick on the top.

Go, go.

Make sure you're really digging into that word and putting that smile in there. Now, up another semitone, and again.

Upper semitone, gau.

Don't push it, just go nice and gentle:

Gow, gao, gao, gao, gao, gao, go.

Focus:

• Fire it down when you get to the top.
• The more you practice this exercise and dig into that word, the tonal quality, and that smile, the brighter your sound will be.

Range Considerations:

• The higher the tone sounds, the more in tune things will be, making it easier to sing higher phrases.
• Stick with a range that feels really comfortable until you use these exercises to gradually extend your range.

Daily Practice:

• Try a semitone higher every day.
• Work on the difference between semitones.

Final Thought:

So, that's the semitone, and then go up the scale again. Work up gradually, adding one extra semitone every single time.

By doing this exercise every day, your voice will get higher, your range will extend, and you will start to sing more in tune!