Problems with youtube instructional videos!

Now, I hope this won’t be too repetitive, but I’ve been looking at some Youtube tutorials, including some by Melissa Cross (Zen of Screaming and such), and I think I’m missing something.

I’ve been singing along with the exercises sometimes, and I can do them and it’s all good, but I just feel that I don’t GET it. I don’t see how doing these scale-based and word-based (ya, ha, ee, etc) exercises will get me to where I want to be. I feel like I’m waiting for some sort of explanation as to what this is meant to achieve. I feel lost at the end of watching these videos, as if “So…what am I supposed to do now? And why did I do what I just did?”

One other video I watched by some Australian guy was supposed to show you how to use chest voice and such, but it was just scales. 5 note scales going gradually up and down the piano. I sang along with all of them, and I was aware when the vibrations left my chest and stopped altogether, but this was a long time before I felt I was using head voice, and there was no vibratory feeling in my head then either. At the end of it I kept expecting him to explain how those scales were meant to help with chest voice, but there was nothing! What am I missing here?!

Also, and lastly, I really like Melissa Cross, she seems nice and a good teacher, and I was able to do the exercises in the Zen of Screaming part 3, seemingly the same as the students in the video who she seemed happy with, BUT there was one exercise I could not do. It consisted of saying ee hey ha or something, and you sang the first ee and hey the way I could do it, more sort of slightly delicate singing, and then you were meant to yell / shout / belt / sing the last HA (which was the same note as the hey before it), and I just couldn’t do that bit. But she didn’t explain or show HOW you’re meant to do this!!!!

Am I so bad that I can’t even get help from instructional videos? Lol. When I can do the exercises, I don’t see how it helps me, and when I can’t do them, nobody explains why or shows how!

I think that may be because those instructions / exercises are meant to get you used to doing the breathing and vocal sounds by muscle memory so you can sing without thinking of all that crapola.

Kind of like learning to ride a bike:

At first you're thinking......I gotta balance, gotta pedal to keep going AND I have to steer all at the same time. Then when you learn the muscle memory part, you can just hop on and ride.

Does that make any sense?

I totally know what you mean, grace_slick. There's a big difference between doing singing exercises, and actually singing a song. You're missing the bridge between the two.

Here's what I find to be the key to this:

1) Match up a song where you're having some sort of issue, to an exercise that deals with that issue. For example, when I had trouble with a strong middle blend, I picked a loud-ish song that spent a lot of time in that area, so I could work on that weakness; and I picked an exercise where a strong mid blend was relatively easy.

2) Work on the vocal exercise until you feel like you're doing it right. (It's comfortable, you're not straining, but you are getting good resonance and tone. Record yourself for better feedback, if possible.) Notice how it feels in your body. For me, this meant working on that vocal exercise to really pay attention to how a strong middle blend felt.

3) Sing the song using the syllable(s) from the exercise, instead of the lyrics of the song. Just sing "nay nay nay" or "mum mum mum" or whatever the exercise tells you to do. Focus on making the song feel like the exercise felt.

4) Now take just one word or even one syllable of the song where you're having problems, and change the exercise to use that syllable or word. See if you can apply what you just learned in the exercise, to that syllable or word. This is important because changing the vowel and/or adding consonants can make it more difficult. Pay very close attention to how it sounds and feels, and work on it until you can get the feeling of the exercise, using a word from the song. For me, this meant changing from vocal exercises on, say, "nay" and "ee" to the word "call", which was waaaay different. I had to spend 20 minutes exploring the difference to figure out how to get similar strength with the word "call" as I was getting from the vocal exercises.

5) Expand a little more - maybe sing ONE LINE of the song now, using the technique from the exercise. Don't worry about tempo or anything really except the technique you're working on. Just focus on bringing the knowledge from the exercise into that one line of the song. Take your time.

6) Finally work up to doing the entire song using what you learned.

Now... if you aren't able to match up a song with an exercise because you don't know which exercise to do to address a weakness, you can still get some good mileage out of this method. Just pick a song, pick an exercise, and see if you can sloooowly transition from the exercise to the song. If it's easy, then maybe you don't need to work on that exercise right now. If it's hard, then that's a good exercise to work with.

I totally get you on this. I really do wonder how exactly singing "la-ga" while keeping my jaw still is going to improve my sound.

I didn't get a technical explanation either and didn't notice any difference at first.

I think sometimes you should just trust that what the instructor is telling you is true even if there is no explanation.

It worked in the end, even if just a little.

This is why you need a teacher. A teacher would do those exercises with you, then show you exactly how to apply the skill acquired to a certain song. That's the problem with online lessons, you have no feedback and no way of knowing if you're doing it right.

That's some great advice from Adrienne Osborn, I'm so happy to see more people contributing with such great advice!

OK, here is the deal. Performing those exercises strengthens the vocal apparatus, and they set up all the parts of the throat into the positions that they need to be in to sing correctly.

I think what is happening is this - you're trying to make it harder than it actually is. Just relax - do the exercises, and don't overcomplicate it. It is really quite simple, actually - just follow the instructions. If you can't do an exercise - then do the others and come back to it later.

That is why I'm still pushing you to get Al's program - it is simple, to the point, and extremely effective. You're only getting bits and pieces online, not a whole course to train with.

Singing "Nay" like a brat will get your through your Passaggio/bridge.

Singing "GUG" like Yogi Bear (yeah - the cartoon character) will train your vocal cords to remain in a lowered/neutral position.

So, those would be the two sounds I personally would start with - "Nay" to build the bridge between chest and head, and "Gug" to train your vocal cords to stay lowered.

And just as Adrienne said - sing the sounds to songs, that will help a lot. Just replace the words with the sounds.

One of my friends got me thinking about something - he strengthened his middle range a lot by reading books out loud on those pitches. I know, it sounded crazy to me, but he just started including it on top of his regular training and he has a really strong voice in the middle area now.

Cool idea! I like it!

@Mamma Cat: thanks

Great thread

I recall when I was first doing the exercises in Roger Kain's book/cd there is one that is a series of descending scales, starting in falsetto and gradually as you do the descending scale lower and lower you control where you move out of falsetto - I found it very very hard at first and grdually got a little better at it, and it's one of the stock excercises I always do on my commute in the car now.

Anyway a couple of months after starting doing this I was at rehearsal (weddings/functions band) doing 'Under the Boardwalk'. At the part where it goes "...down by the sea....yeah" I go up in to falsetto and then have to descend back in to my normal voice and had always had to be very deliberate about where I change, but suddenly this time my voice kind of slid down through the notes and joined up the falsetto with the normal sound. I nearly fell over! I had a mental flashback to the instructions for the exercise saying that that's what it is supposed to help you do.

I think in this case it was the concentration in the exercise enabled me to train the muscles enough that gradually it becomes possible even while thinking about the rest of the singing stuff. I still don't nail it every time, but more months on it is slowly improving.