Honestly I’ve been straining less than I used to. I have been singing for three and more days at the time of text this comment at the point in my voice where it breaks and I have not lost my voice. 🤩🤩
Great lesson I wouldn't say that soft airy coordination is necessarily wrong, I think it can be used within a certain range of notes, as it produces a softer more intimate sound that might be prefrered for some songs or passages
There is a difference between singing soft and airy by choice, and for artistic effect vs defaulting to the position because of a dysfunction and not being able to get rid of it. The gentleman in this video was not able to get rid of the airiness in his voice even when I asked him to try, therefore it was a dysfunction that was holding him back from seeing the progress with his vocal range that he was looking for. I do actually teach a light airy sound in my program THE PRO SINGER'S VAULT because as you said it can be useful artistically in songs however the light airy chest voice cannot be taken very high, which is why if someone is looking to build more vocal range and they are stuck in this sound...that's why I say it's "wrong". It's not a voice building sound. It's useful for smoothing the voice and blending chest voice with falsetto and then using it artistically in songs, it isn't a core staple of expanding the full voice vocal range however.
I’ve been struggling with singing for 20 years. Struggled massively hitting a G. Depressed me for years and ruined my performances….ive watched 5 of your videos and now I can hit an A with ease. I can’t believe it!! ….turns out I wasn’t compressing at all. Scratchy horrible G notes for 20 years have gone. I can’t thank you enough. No other teachers have drilled home the importance of controlled compression like you did. It’s all clicked. I wish I could go back in time You deserve a medal Thank you again!! Best of luck to you with your music and teaching
I found this class very important, it really makes a difference to make the note with a slightly greater force. My voice was getting hoarse, in fact, not firm enough, I insisted a little and on the third attempt the exercise sounded perfect, I made the sound clearly, I can only say thank you. I have several videos from your channel saved in a playlist that I am using to exercise. Big hug, your classes are excellent, and you sang "Don't stop belivin' " extraordinarily well!
@@philmoufarrege me and my cousin had some quarrels with the youtube channel so i packed up my things and left. its been a 2 month process but as of last week im finally settling in my new place. moved from california to boston. i just set up my studio and im finally ready to practice again, unfortunately the houses here in boston are mostly old and not sound proof so idk how im gonna practice without my neighbors complaining 😓 should i just sing into a pillow?
damn sorry to hear about that. You can practice into a pillow, but if you have a car, practicing in a car would be best. Because the pillow creates something called back-pressure, which means the pillow is helping create pressure which means your vocal cords and support won't have to work as hard. This sounds good in theory, but when you take off the pillow and try to sing you're going to find that it feels very different, and harder because the pillow won't be there to give you that crutch. While it's better than not singing, if you can find say a car or something or a closet to sing in it would be more ideal. pillow is next best option.
I would usually put some effort in sounding more beefy at the C4-F#4 or sometimes even up to G4. That helps me have a well supported sound but with too much strain. Because of the strain though I guess I can reach a little higher to a B4 a few times before completely geeing tired and give up. I think I can try and imitate your voice to get the feeling right. And hold on to it. I would say the buzzing that one would feel either in the nose and throat that would make one understand even better of how to approach the tone. Like for instance, sometimes I feel like I’m doing it right because I have more control and strength, and the buzzing (or resonance I thought) was in the front part of my head in my nasal cavity. Is it a good approach? I’m not sure if that’s really a good sound, but that’s way better than what how I used to sing when I first started it. I’m still learning but I’m also glad that I’ve discovered you. This video was pretty helpful, I would say because that right sound I was talking about sounded like how you did. Keep up the good work. 😊😊
Hi, I can't really comment on whether your individual sensations of buzzing are correct because it's possible to get those sensations while doing the sound completely wrong too, so I don't teach through that approach, I need to hear what you are doing. I teach people how to develop the right muscular coordinations and then the voice automatically positions itself the right way because the muscles "pull" the voice into the right position.
Some people mean different things when they talk about headvoice: are you referring to basically falsetto? or are you referring to a fully connected headvoice (mixed voice/fullvoice)?
sorry about the drastic volume drop at 9:00 not sure what happened with that, just crank your volume like mad there...then the volume will return to normal around 10:00 Not sure how to fix this without reuploading the entire video.
At 10:02, I’m curious how you learned about this technique as a self taught singer? And do you have a coach now? I’m very interested in this approach as what I’m learned now has teaching all about relaxing the voice as I go higher. Thanks!
The short version of the story would be that I had struggled with my voice for years, tried many teachers, methods, techniques and used a lot of trial-and-error and self experimentation to get my voice working. Pretty much every teacher/course/method was saying very similar things, and it was frustrating to me because none of those things were working and I was wasting years going around in circles. I felt like I was missing something else that no one was talking about and I was sick of feeling like singing felt like "luck" like, sometimes things would work and I would have no idea what caused it to work and it wouldn't be a repeatable concrete thing. So I realized I would have to figure this out myself, and I set out with the goal of having it be repeatable and developing a reliable process to get there. Since then I've been working with people who want to learn to sing and showing them the stuff they've been missing too. If you need any help reach out to me at my website!
Hello Phill, I recently discovered my mixed voice and noticed that hitting B4, and tenor high C requires a different/higher placement of my voice. Is this normal? Does this mean maybe I have a lower voice type(i.e baritone)? Quite a bit of time I will forget the feeling and end up straining on these notes.
I would need to hear your voice to tell you anything meaningful as it could be anything. It could be that you're just doing it wrong, or it could be that you're doing it right but you're just not used to the sensation of it.
This is very common for women to initially feel like they’re topping out around G#4. You CAN extend it beyond there with the right kind of training. Let me know if you need any help
@@philmoufarrege Well, I'm a music junkie and any help/advice that can help me improve is always wonderful. Thing is I'm a single stay-at-home mom of disabled kid. Friends help me meet monthly expenses. I sing for joy, not professionally. I can't book lessons, but if you have a video you could point me to, that would be fantastic!
@@Vidyut_Gore The best way I can help is by hearing how you currently approach your voice. You can email me over a recording of what you're currently doing and I can point you in the right direction. To get my email sign up to my email list at PHILMOUFARREGE.COM and reply back to my email through there
E2? You must mean e3 and g5, its impossible to sing e2 for a female maybe you mean a vocal fry type of trick, (even for most men it doesnt sound great) which is not exploitable, wordable. G4 is not even the general female bridge yet pretty sure you can sing there.
About belly supporting muscles, is it something you have to think about it while singing ? Or is it something that's turn on "auto" as long as they are trained after a while ?
Initially if you aren't used to doing it then it can be a very conscious thing, but once you've developed the relationship between the belly and the PROPER SOUND COORDINATION it will trigger automatically as a RESPONSE to you creating the sound. The sound I show around 10:00 is super important for making the support kick in properly. In my program I have specific exercises that we work on to build up each of these components separately and then we bring them together. The way we do this like this: In STAGE 1 of the program, I have you just get used to pushing from the belly, without any kind of vocal squeeze. It's like a sigh. Similar to what I show here at 2:43. I have a bunch of exercises that progress you through building up to that. Then you learn to maintain that while adding vocal cord squeeze on top of that. This is what I show in STAGE 2 of the course, and we build it up slowly up to the first bridge (f4 for guys, C5 for ladies). Then in STAGE 3 we take it up to 2nd bridge. Each STAGE there are different exercises and "standards" that you need to be able to fulfill before moving on to the next stage, because the high range is just a symptom of everything below it being stacked up together.
Good job little bro. Learnt vocal indian classical music for long years. Now, I'm over 60 yr, n I devote my time on singing light oldies (indian/European classics) on guitar mainly. Found your tips on how to handle high notes interesting. Keep it up. Thank you Phil👍
Hi phil I have been trying to sing higher since a year. In scales I can go upto G4-G#4 in my solid chest voice but I cannot use that range in songs it strains above D4. When I listen to other singers I feel like there is a sharp element ( some metallic sound, ping) in there voice, you have that too, that is missing in my voice. When I approach high notes I dont feel the resonance moving towards my head, resulting in straining and choking. How can I develop that. Basically either the voice strains above D4 or it fades out and became husky and hollow.
Hi, basically it sounds like you are unable to properly compress your vocal cords together. You first need to make sure you can get a clear compressed solid sound on all your major vowels which I show here up to your first bridge (E/F4): ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-MQw5ydp3GAM.html It might sound yelly or shouty, that's okay as long as it doesn't irritate your throat. The bright vowels like AE (yay), EH (let) EE (me) AA(cat) are really important for someone with your issue, but eventually you need to bring this bright quality into your darker vowels too to balance the voice. From there taking it further gets a bit more complex and requires a more detailed step-by-step process which I teach in my program. If you're serious about solving this and don't want to waste years searching on the internet you should work with me and not only get past that G#4 range but apply it in songs within 6-12 months.
Unsolicited advice incoming: Idk how long it will take for you to do that, it’s probably different for everyone, but I feel like it’s a lifelong endeavor, as soon as I get better, I see how much better I could be, been singing my entire life, and while I feel good, I’ve never actually been satisfied with my voice, just always on to the next
Michael offered a great answer. Another thing that makes it hard to say how long is it just depends where you’re starting from. You may already have some natural talents or abilities that make learning easier...or you may be more of a “hard case” who struggles with everything - in which case it will take longer. But like Michael said, it’s going to be a lifelong endeavour. As you get better you’ll seek the next level. This keeps singing exciting.
Is it normal to had vocal break when we discover new note?me kinda struggle to sustain A#4(but my first bridge~A4 is my comfort zone).When I trying to hold the note,it will break like crazy and sounded like dying donkey I hope to hear your explaination as soon as posible🙏🙏🙏
that will depend on a few things. First you will want to make sure you can do it on every single vowel (oo, ee, oh, ah, ae) and consonants (mum, nay, nah, nuh, no, gee, goo, go, guh, buh, bih, woh, wee), over a multitude of different scales and get it to the point where it is working autonomously without you having to manually engage it. Then start working it into songs and focus on being able to get through full songs in one take all the way through. then after that you will have different problems/obstacles that will reveal themselves and you would need to then target those specific issues.
hey phil i am from india and just a beginner, i can reach G4 note but only by straning and it sounds really bad (my voice dosen't sound good on any note), your youtube channel is my only teacher, can you help me?
Is it common for your voice to get tired after doing this for awhile...also isn't this technique the false cords engaging with the vocal cords? Sense it has that 'grandpa sound' to it and sometimes distortion or is that when you're using too much squeeze?
Yes it is very common to feel tired in the muscles like you had a workout. If you do it right and you're just weak it can just make your stamina run out fast but your voice should be fine several hours later or the next day. If you do it WRONG your voice will usually be trashed the next day and loss of falsetto. The way I teach distortion/rasp/grit is from this same place, as you can hear distortion naturally and organically will sometimes come in to the sound. So when I get a singer who wants to learn rasp/distortion/grit I tell them learn how to sing clean PROPERLY first (in this way) and you'll already have the right position to distort from.
hey Phil ,I m 16 yrs and trying to increase my chest voice range since more than 1 year, and have watched hundreds of videos about mix voice , high notes etc and practicing lip trills , nay nay ,slides and all those similar exercises and all i got was just that i can flip into falsetto voice after an f4 without the break but i m still not getting the chest voice up there. I m a low baritone , my vocal range was a2 - Eb4 (now g2 - eb4) and now i can hit e4(sometimes f4) but cannot sustain and hold them. I really want my chest voice to go up there hitting those high notes .How can i take my chest voice up there ?
Hi Akshat, you need to learn how to stay in chest voice and NOT flip. These videos I post here are a good introduction to the process but there's a lot to it and it's very easy to do wrong. If you want to learn this I teach the step-by-step process as well as give you the personalized guidance to make sure you get there in my online course THE PRO SINGERS VAULT. It's an investment but I'll get you there if you're willing to do it.
@@philmoufarrege Actually I m interested in learning this from you but I 'm just 16 and I cannot afford it by myself and my parents are worried about my studies so they don't really want me to invest time and money in learning to sing ,therefore I practice when they go out at work and thus I try to learn singing by the free lessons and videos on the internet. So for now I will watch all of your youtube videos and try to learn how to stay in chest voice while singing up above the e4.
@@akshat2237 ye its the same for me. I do it when people are not home. I cant afford lessons because they are really expensive. Been doing this for like 2-3 years. I think I am between baritone and tenor. Its just harder though because i really want lessons, but I cant take them. But just keep trying man. I learned a lot from Adam mishan and Ramsey voice and stuff. I dont sound the best, but I am still going. You got this man.
Hi Phil! I'm having a problem in my vocal cords closure, it's not airy but it feels crispy and I get this sound a lot unintentionally like this "Praying for" phrase here m.ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-jOpE5DThCIs.htmlm44s . Even I'm just singing fine it feels crispy in my throat like too much closure? Not sure because I'm not overcompressing tho and just supporting fine, what do you think is this problem? Edit: the way I can explain the crisp feeling in cords is like the hard glottal attack feeling in the vowels and it also feels uncomfortable in vocal cord like lot of friction is happening in there?
there is definitely a phase of strong muscle engagement and strengthening, which means effort level may be quite high initially. effortlessness comes later.
check out this video you'll see the sound is kind of airy and not super clear, and then the clear sound is developed THROUGH that: ru-vid.comRfB-JJu4hUI here's the longer full vid: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-7X-CFTg7F7A.html&lc=UgwyRXT6C7j-twfrYhJ4AaABAg so it's a progression of development. so with steven tyler he's kinda in that in-between stage where he can sing really well and high with freedom but it's not developed to the point where it's really clear. Michael Bolton and michael mcdonald are both in a similar state too. great singers.
@@philmoufarrege yeah, it looks like you caught my point. This singing tecnique is rarely used and even more rare is to find a decent lesson about it. In rock singing it is common to power-belt throuh high notes, often with distortion-like over-compression. But this, on the other hand, is someting completely different technically. It may sound the same for untrained listener, but if you struggling learning how to sing high without a strain, you would eventually feel the difference. I think this type of singing should draw much more attention, than it does atm.
It highly depends on case by case. Some people I teach I'm building them completely from scratch while others they already have a wide range but need to learn how to access it in this new way. Both of these two cases will be different in terms of how long it takes to become usable. The other factor is that you don't go from sounding ugly to great in a single step, it gradually happens, so in one part of your range you might sound normal then a little bit higher you start sounding ugly and strange. or you might sound good on one particular volume level but then as soon as you reduce the volume you sound strange again. It refines over time. The process will usually take months with the right kind of training and guidance. basically I consider "sounding good" to be the last thing that will happen in the voice. Function will improve before the actual sound in MOST cases. Most people are chasing the opposite though, they try to sound good first and then later try to make that work functionally better. the problem with this approach is you can find many different sounds that might sound cool but are dead ends in terms of developing freedom and stability. I come from building freedom and stability first then after you shape that to make it sound the way you want it to sound.
@@philmoufarrege Hey Phil thank you! Is this a similar concept to “laryngeal/pharynx expansion”? I think I remember hearing this concept from a classical singing teacher. He does a forceful expiration to basically expand his neck (the classic “fat-neck tenor” look) following a scale. Your way seems more practical since you’re making sounds on it as well as compress your vocal cords to work more efficiently
it sounds like it might be, because when you engage compression in this way the bottom of the neck near the clavicle WILL expand and if you go loud and high with it you definitely will get the "fat-neck tenor" thing going on. Tilting the head back helps this kick in more in the high range when done correctly (when done incorrectly it does the opposite).
Are you open to being wrong about this? I think it's more helpful to not view things in such a black or white way. There seems to be this idea that if a sound is not 100% effortless then it is not "correct" however how does one GET TO the "100% effortless coordination" if they cannot already do it? there needs to be a process and stepping stones, and most people who are not finding progress are missing an integral mechanism: adequate compressive strength in the vocal cords while the larynx is stable- that is what I am showing here. When someone finally learns to engage that correctly, at first it will feel and sound extremely effortful but completely safe. Once it is refined and strong it becomes effortless and natural.
@@philmoufarrege Thanks for your response Phil. I agreee with you in the fact that this kind of ranges require more energy and effort, specially at the beginning. My only concern is if they're using the correct muscles to engage, because if not, it may cause problems in the future. Wish you the best.
