Voice Exercizes:
(by Reza Ganjavi February 2001)

I took some voice classes at college and some private lessons here and there. When I was younger I could not sing - well I could but it would not sound good. The real transformation came with a session I had with Ingrid Voermans the Dutch singer and voice teacher at Brockwood Park in UK.

The most important things I remember from the lesson:

Imagine a ball spinning in the throat.
Say a vowel - like Ah - and keep repeating it while imagining the ball spinning in the throat - and get naturally louder.
Keep to one vowel and one note - then change note and change vowel (my own way of extending the exercize).

This simple exercize opens the voice.
And I remember Ingrid saying: best exercize is to just sing - but in a key where it's comfortable.
I also notice when I am well rested and in good physical / mental shape I can sing better - just as I play better guitar when I psycho-somatically feel good...

Now I can sing and have fun and most times others enjoy it...

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A few other notes I found:
Relax the tongue.
Lift upper pallet (roof of mouth) - vibrate pallet - loosen-up echo chamber.
Thong down. relaxed jaw and cheeks, nose, 3rd eye vibrate.

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Raise eyebrows to hit those notes.

Ingrid Voermans on 16-07-98

>A few more questions please:
>
>1) Let's say mucous is built up, any way to clear it (cough of course...)
>:) stupid question

Coughing is o.k.
Singing and mucous are an important issue. The mucous membrane should vibrate
in a different tempo than the vocal cords themselves: then we will hear this
brilliant quality. We need lessons to find out ....


>2) Do we ideally always feel the ball rotating?

No. The shape of the sound will develop. Just question yourself (e.g.) what
shape does the sound has now? Do I hear/feel/or see it? Become aware of the
fact that we can(this is a learning process) sense the sound as a
3-dimmensional product.


>3) Is it better to smile?

Some traditional singers like to do it. They want to get a 'mask', in this
position all the 'notes' should be there. In functional singing we do not
want to start with the form. We would like the sound itself to organize the
body. Not the other way around. SO, just find out. AND of course... keep
SMILING anyway!!!

>4) Is it better to take eyebrows up?
See the answer of nr. 3.

>5) Ok to practice while walking?
Singing and walking is wonderful. It is all depending of what you want to
findout, what you want to stimulate etc. If I want to hear/see if f.i. my
nose is connecting with the mouth, then I should not move at all. We are
standing still when we want to observe very deeply into the sound and into
the body.

However, again when we walk this also influences singing... So At
least it gives JaY.

>6) What signal does the body give when doing voice wrong?

We must become aware when the sound moves freely and when not. When the
spaces (larynx/mouth/nose/ear/pelvis) are in systolic or diastolic pressure,
we can feel it and hear it in our soundproduct.

SYSTOLIC pressure: It feels that your stuck. Then the big muscles are stiff
-and the fine muscles (you cannot feel them) are not able to do there
work(this you can learn to hear!!!).You can see it when you look at the
singer e.g tension in the face/belly/legs/back. Find out if you can feel it
or see it yourself. (even some people describe that it hurts...)

DIASTOLIC pressure: it feels like hanging/ sucking quality( hard to
describe... )

ANYWAY, maybe you should have a lesson one day !!!!!

> Thanks a million
>Reza
>
Thanks for you long e-mail letter too. Hope you are doing fine!
groetjes van Ingrid.

=========================================================

4 elements of voice - Ingrid

1) pitch
2) vibrato = nucleus of voice chord moves independent of voice chord
3) brilliance = we want it. all has to do with organizing the body too.
4) vowels

there are millions of stimulations which effect how sound is organized.

brilliance and vibrato are involuntary.
they involve another part of brain
vowel and pitch you can control.

exercise 1 pitch at a time.
can do 2,3,4 vowels (change between)

it's good for male voice to do falsetto
start in falsetto and go down
active silence - observe one note sound.

can brilliance be there consistently after it comes?

orange juice adds mucus (not good).

projection/volume comes naturally
watch one note, later go up and down

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sing from upper palate – for clear intonation – sound directed from there (comes from top of mouth) b/w nose&vibrators

sing softer – so volume is comfortable within box not as max. then box will grow.