Ok, it’s the 3rd day of my investigation into Speech Level Singing. I spent yesterday evening, for about an hour and a half, working on the first 2 exercises on the Singing Success CDs by Brett Manning.
It’s scary to find the break in my voice exactly where he said it would be – about E – and I was surprised how hard it was to switch off my ’singing’ voice. I suppose after having been singing ‘properly’ for more than 20 years, it’s not going to be an overnight transformation! Each step I take to go higher, I have to override all the bad habits. It’s not easy at all. Lesson 1, Exercise 2 – crossing the first bridge
However, using the nasal hum and then the lip trills, I managed to reach the D above top C without straining. I know it’s not true singing just yet, but if my voice can reach that high in an exercise, I should be able to do it with my voice eventually when really singing. Lesson 1, Exercise 2 – top of my range. I know my falsetto very well and, as light as this example sounds, I didn’t use it once at this altitude.
The trickiest part was crossing the first bridge at E. It was soooo difficult not to lift my chest voice up there. I could still feel my larynx flicker as it tried to move up for the high notes and it was only by resting my hand on the side of my neck that I could override it on the lower notes. Once I got up to top A, I had to use his advice and bend over for the top notes. This solved the upper notes immediately. What was funny was that once I’d got to the D above top C in the exercise, I couldn’t go to Eflat – my larynx just jumped up there despite my best effort.
After an hour and a half of vocal exercise, including going up and down my range, there was no sign of any tension or tiredness in my larynx at all.
Summary: Finding it hard to ‘flick’ over the first bridge at E; Reached D above top C; larynx still flickering as if it wants a part of the action
