Take a few minutes each day, and think about the singers who move you the most.

What is it, exactly, about their sound that you find appealing?

Chances are, bits of their artistry have already worked their way into your performance. We call these artists your influences.

Take a moment and type into the community group a few of the artists whom you might consider your influences. The more you can define what you LOVE in another voice, the more ready you will be to recognize what is fabulous in your OWN sound!>.

The choices we make around the break should be dictated by the style that we want to accomplish.

However, many of us choose to define our voice in terms of "head voice" or "falsetto" and

"chest voice" or "Speech".

We have WAY more options than that!

Watch the video on the nine options around the break and post what you see as your choices right now when it comes to the break.

We love changes in Texture! In the majority of pop music we hear three different types of textural changes that we use in rotation... the more we rotate these changes throughout a song the more "dense" the vocal stylization will be.

The first week on texture is devoted to SLACK or Vocal FRY.

This is the use of a vocal fold muscle which isn't engaged... it generally doesn't carry pitch, and it is how most of us speak in California!

It will Carry a sense of angst, or an organic tone.

Then there's Breathiness, and finally we will address the broken hearted sound of yodels and breaks that we use in pop singing.

How we move our lips can influence several other structures!

There's nothing like the feeling of hitting high notes with ease, and confidence, knowing that the tone is exactly the way you want it to be! It's a natural kind of "high"!

Often, the first tool we reach for when it comes to high notes, may not be the best tool for the job.

In this first lecture we talk about small spaces within the vocal tract, and how essential they are when it comes to hitting your highest of notes. I'll give you all my "tricks" in the first video- one of my favorite is the use of "ingressive slack". That means, you're breathing IN while making your slack texture quality.

If you run into any issues with this method, be sure that:

1. You are well hydrated- sometimes we will feel a bit of a cough with this, if the mucous around the folds is thick. The body perceives natural lubrication as an "intruder" if the mucous has become thicker due to a lack of hydration.

2. You aren't trying to move a lot of air through the ingressive slack. Use the bare minimum of airflow!

3. You may be trying to make this sound really loud. We're just using ingressive slack to get an auditory "measurement" of how small the laryngeal space is. So don't try to make it loud!

There are two Methodologies out there that utilize some form of "speech style" singing.

Seth Riggs Speech level singing is the first of such approaches, and then there is the Estill Speech "recipe" of singing in Level Two Estill.

Both of these approaches have some great benefits, as well as limitations.

This Lesson covers those styles, and what I perceive to be the real "amazing moments" within each of them, the risks, limitations, uses, and ways to address the limitations.

Buckle up for these videos, there's a LOT of information!

Powerful notes are one of the biggest things people ask me about.

To be sure, it's usually powerful HIGH notes that most singers want to be able to access.

This video seems backwards, but it lays the foundation for accessing maximum power, stamina and flexibility by getting to what we call "thin folds".

We will momentarily break up with your chest voice, or for some of you we'll break up with pushing extra air. Don't panic!! we have massive power right around the corner.

How we speak can say MORE than the actual words we say.

When it comes to singing, how we say those lyrics can radically change how your connect with your audience!

This unit has a TON of information, watch, and rewatch these segments as you play with your sound!

Vibrato can be the right icing on the cake...

or it can ruin a cake entirely!

Learn how to control it,

ways to make it happen,

and more importantly, put yourself in the artistic "drivers seat" when it comes to the direction of if, how and when you choose vibrato!

If you've ever listened to someone do a cover tune on a show like American Idol, or The Voice, and you find yourself getting chills all over... chances are, they're done what I like to call "breaking the ceiling".

This is where we find the top note of a song, and we intentionally go higher than the original melody. Typically, we will do the following things:

1. We will hold that high note longer than is written

2. We will have Morph on that note. (Remember that cool morph stuff from early on?)

3. We could go softer on that note instead.... often the softer version will come in a song after we've already done the louder/morphed version.

4. We will riff our way out of that note on the pentatonic scale

5. We will add every last one of our super-power vocal embellishments around that moment in a song!

What happens when we break the ceiling?

1. More drama/excitement is added

2. The audience gets an unexpected moment of musicality (when it's done right, there's often spontaneous applause here!)

3. You get to show off your own voice, and not just an imitation of what the original singer did with the song.

A well placed riff can be exactly what your song needs to make it come to life with your own signature sound. This three-week mini course on riffing is meant to get you moving like never before !

I am a firm believer in working smarter, not harder.

Song mapping has been a massive help to me in ensuring that my rehearsal time (which is limited) has the most impact.

It has also been a huge help for me in the studio, especially when doing "sound-alike" auditions. There's so much that happens that if we don't see it coming, it's hard to prepare vocally.

Here are MY steps for song mapping to unite the whole performance!