Sing It In Seven! Never Enough
A few years ago, I came up with a genius idea. I had just quit my job as a waitress (little did I know I was about to go into another waitressing job that I would hate even more) because I wasn’t doing enough of what I wanted to be doing. I was feeling motivated, but knew I was SO out of practice and weak from being knackered all the time. I decided to start an Instagram series to hold myself accountable. Here’s the concept: I’d pick a section of a song that I found difficult or had something in it that I wanted to work on specifically; film myself singing it; practice it super, super mindfully for a week and then film myself again to see the difference. It’s your classic makeover, before/after format! Like Snog, Marry, Avoid or What Not To Wear … but for singing, and I’m doing it to myself, so it’s less mean!
Initially, it was called Working Week; and I let myself fall out of the habit because it was frustrating, trying (and failing) to fit everything I wanted to say in an Instagram caption.
But I have a blog now, and I have a new name for my series. We’re going IN and we’re going HARD on the self-critique! And for this long-awaited revamp, I’ve done a WHOLE song and it’s really really difficult. So difficult that the ‘after’ video also sounds awful (just preparing you) …
Why ‘Never Enough’?
I’ve never been a belter. I’ve never been a balladeer (omg I thought I was making up that word, but I just googled it and it’s real!). I’m able to sing high, but it often ends up sounding heavy and laboured (apparently, I’ve got the double-jointed gene; so I have suspicions that my larynx is hypermobile – who knew that was a thing?!). My voice just suits more gentle, intimate songs and I wanted to know how, or even if, I could expand my skill set.
Goals
Because big ballads have always been my nemesis, I’ve always tried to ‘just get through it’, which has ended up in me leaning into bad habits. In the ‘before’ video below, I’ve pointed out some of these ‘tactics’ to just get any kind of sound out – a lot of what’s going ‘wrong’ is simply a case of adrenaline kicking in and blind panic. None of it sounds good and it definitely doesn’t feel good. By the end of my week, I wanted to be able to sing the whole song intentionally – knowing what registers I was singing certain parts in, where to place particular notes, exactly where in my body to support and when – I wanted to have a plan so that I could work on sections in a healthy way, rather than desperately scrambling to get to the end.
Ew. That was gross. So how was I going to deal with this?!
Luckily, I’d already been trying to ‘retrain’ my voice, for a while, to do a lot of stuff that would help me sing this song more easily. The first is breath. When I was younger, I was told that you need lots of breath for low notes, and not much breath for high notes. Ten years later, one of my wonderful tutors at university pointed out that I hold my breath when I sing. Like, I just don’t breathe. Cool. Great job, me. Personally, more breath for high notes makes much more sense now. You need lots of air to make your vocal cords vibrate quickly. For this song particularly, a lot of the high notes are held for a really long time – how are you supposed to do that with little to no air? So I had to keep reminding myself to take big breaths.
I tend to hold a lot of tension in my throat and jaw. Taking deeper breaths definitely helped relieve a lot of the effort that my throat was trying to compensate for, which was resulting in a horrible, scratchy, tickling feeling. I also push my tongue down, which I think puts extra pressure on my larynx and prevents me from being able to lift it enough to make higher notes slightly easier. My jaw has always been a tricky bugger, but I recently learned that I’ve been opening my mouth far too much (I have quite a big mouth – potentially that hypermobility thing again?). About halfway through my week, I decided, after my warmup, to sing through the song with my tongue out and holding my jaw in place (obviously holding very gently, in no way pushing on it) – this helped SO much and it felt so much better and easier singing the song properly after doing this. Muscle memory is always at work, so doing this reminded my body that my jaw and tongue don’t need to be doing as much as they usually do.
Whilst trying to work out how the hell to sing this song, I serendipitously stumbled across a video of Natalie Weiss coaching Katharine McPhee through it. Putting this video on really helped when working out where to place certain notes. I don’t think you can work on placement without simple trial and error – playing with sounds and working out what feels/sounds best. I’ve not had a proper singing lesson for a really long time and find it quite difficult to practice these sounds in my flat by myself (especially since my neighbour decided to tell my boyfriend that he listens to me practice sometimes – like, I’m well aware you can probably hear me, but we don’t need to know). Having the video there as a guide was super beneficial and made me much less self-conscious about experimenting and eventually working out where to place things in a way that feels best for me. There’s a ton of helpful information and techniques in there, so I’ll pop the video at the end of this post.
Eventually, I found that I was able to ‘get through the song’ without many of my usual issues getting in the way (tight, tickly throat, over-support in my abdomen, hoarseness caused by fatigue). Logistically, I would say that I can sing it, for the most part. In the ‘after’ video below, there are definitely moments that edge on sounding unhealthy (to my ear – I’m sure a more experienced coach would pick up on a lot more), but I was pleased with how I felt, physically. It could definitely sound free-er, but I think that would come in time, with more focus on resonance placement and maybe adjusting some of my vowels. By the time I was able to ‘get through it’, there wasn’t much time left to work on stylistic elements and make it more of a performance. I wish I could’ve worked out things like why I can’t get vibrato on the long, held notes, so it would’ve sounded ‘prettier’, but I’m just not there yet.
There it is! There’s my transformation. Please don’t think I’m incredibly happy with how this sounds and please don’t think it represents me, as a singer! I’ve just realised I’ve not put anything of me singing up on this blog yet – what a great first impression! It’s not great, but I’m proud of my progress. These kinds of songs have always been a weak spot for me, so I’ve got a bit of a confidence boost realising that I can work on it and it’s not something that I’ll inherently be shit at forever.
As well as this being a personal, accountability project for myself, I wanted to make all of this as detailed as possible, in case it brings up something that anyone reading/watching this has been struggling with, vocally. As much as natural talent can account for, there’s also a lot of practical stuff in regards to singing that doesn’t hurt to know. It can be really tricky to balance knowing your own body and voice, whilst trusting vocal pedagogy and scientific research (that changes all the time – not saying that’s a bad thing!), whilst maintaining creative integrity in a way that satisfies your soul (potentially the wankiest sentence ever, but I mean it). I think the best way to deal with that is to expose yourself to as much knowledge and research as possible and find out what rings true for you. I’ll be sharing a list of some of my favourite resources and practitioners to follow in a few weeks, in case there’s something there that you’ve not come across yet, so keep an eye out!
Thanks for bearing witness to the most humiliating thing I’ve ever done to myself, by the way!
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