Is Singing Louder Singing Better?

I’ve been training singers for more than 40 yrs and experience has taught me that one of the most destructive habits a singer can have is thinking, “I gotta’ sing LOUDER.” I can tell immediately by the force behind the sound that my student’s goal is to SING LOUD.

After so many years of teaching singers, I have deep insight into the “I gotta be loud to get cast/on my new album/on this gig/fill in the blank” myth. This myth is a belief – not based in fact – that loud is better.

Loud can be damaging to the delicate vocal cords if performed without supportive technique. Loud without purpose and/or expression is nothing but loud and has no artistic value. It will never impress or please an audience or auditors in an audition.

The truth of what you are actually are craving is resonance. Resonance is sound vibration. Resonance travels out into the room; resonance fills a microphone. Resonance connects with your audience. Resonance makes the sound powerful and wow is it fabulous to hear. Intense resonance is loud.

The voice, like all acoustic instruments has special chambers for resonating the tone. Once the tone is produced by the vibrating vocal cords, it travels into and through the open resonating chambers.

The myth that loud is better goes hand-in-hand with the myth that you have to use a lot of effort to sing loud.

Effortful phonation actually closes down your resonating chambers with the physical effort to sing LOUD. Think of the physical effort of straining to pick up a heavy box. You lock your abs and hold your breath and grunt. Now think of using that same type of effort to sing louder. It might feel familiar to you.

Energy vs. Effort in Your Voice

The Power and Volume of your voice come from…

• Activating to deep abs that help move breath and sound through your instrument
• Sustaining the open of the resonating chambers
• Freedom to release the sound without effort
• Direct communication that connects directly to the audience

Resonance travels. Resonance connects. Resonance washes over the audience with a vibrational energy that is sensual and pleasing. I can do a stage whisper and it will be heard at the back of the theater because it is resonant.

Resonance can be very loud. When your instrument is open and free to vibrate the sound. When your need to communicate is stronger than your myth that it has to be LOUD then you will find the power of your voice that you seek.

The resonance you can feel vibrating through your whole body. Resonance is produced without effort.

Sound is vibration. When you push and struggle to make a ‘loud’ sound, you are actually squeezing off the parts of the vocal instrument that need to be free to vibrate in order to resonate and translate the sound out to the world.

When I train students for powerful resonance singing becomes absolutely effortless.

Let me share a story about a student. This young woman is a professional dancer and has been on television in major dance competitions. She’s a perfectionist and drives herself to exhaustion. The result in her dancing is impressive.

The same hard-driving attitude with her singing is causing problems. When she started lessons with me her speaking voice was full of vocal fry; her singing, full of tension. It’s a wonderful instrument with huge range and expression but trapped in the jaw, tongue and throat because of the force behind the singing.

We had to give her a different muscle memory not only for power singing but simple phonation as well. Opening up the instrument on inhale – NOT taking in huge gulps of air. Opening all the way to the source of power – the lowest abdominal and back muscles.

To get an opening inhale, your thought has to be “Open” and not the myth that you need a huge inhale that fills your lungs to capacity. Drop the jaw, and soften the root of your tongue then think of opening all the way to your bottom. This inhale opens your resonators as well as activating the deep abdominal and back muscles for support.

Then we had to give her a clear path for the breath and sound to follow during phonation. In my technique, Sing Like You Speak™, we call it the “Oh Zone” – your open nasal passages above the hard palate.

To begin exploring the freedom of the “Oh Zone” get an opening inhale then exhale with an “F”. You will feel the space the “F” moves through – the nasal passages. That is your “Oh Zone”. As you feel something happening as you exhale with “F” widen the space even more. After several repetitions of this exercise observe how your voice sounds freer and more resonant.

The most interesting part of the process of freeing the voice is that it is scary to let go and make a big sound without effort. Somehow effortful is safer – not effective but it feels safer. The singer is frightened by her own power and the fact that it can be so easy to do.

This particular student cried a lot during these freeing lessons. The fear that she really is that good brought her to tears.

This student is now writing and recording her own songs. And let me tell you her songs are HOT! When she has a catalogue of songs, she’s going to find a producer and I predict great success.

It’s all about free-flowing RESONANCE!

#singlikeyouspeak

ABOUT SALLY MORGAN
Sally Morgan wrote the book on contemporary vocal technique.  Sing Like You Speak® is specifically designed to restore the effortless vocal production that is natural to the human instrument making your singing powerful, joyful and free. Singing so simple it feels like talking to your best friend without sounding trained. Sally has been successfully teaching people how to sing for 40+ years, turning decades of learning into days.

Every master begins as a disaster – including Sally Morgan. She gets it that you need to sing for the same reason you need to breathe. She’s felt the pain of not knowing how to release the amazing voice trapped inside. She’s felt the longing to be accepted as a great singer.

That longing became an obsession with finding solutions to vocal challenges. Sally spent many years developing those solutions into what became the Sing Like You Speak® vocal technique that is now empowering singers worldwide.

In both 2018 and 2019, Sally was a featured workshop presenter at SXSW® where she introduced an enthusiastic audience to the power of Sing Like You Speak®.

Sally has helped her clients heal vocal damage, expand vocal range, land a Broadway show, record their original music and tour internationally without vocal fatigue or strain. Besides teaching workshops Sally teaches private voice lessons and has developed online singing lessons – Sing Like You Speak® Academy.

You can see and hear some of Sally’s clients on Broadway stages, Off-Broadway, in Musical Theater – Regional, on Major Label Recordings, the Conan O’Brian show, A Prairie Home Companion and in Federal Courts, the PA House of Representatives, and the U.S. Senate. Sally teaches singing voice lessons in NYC and worldwide on ZOOM as well as online voice lessons on the Sing Like You Speak® Academy