Sep 15, 20223 min read

Why Is Vocal Training Important? (And why not all training is equal)

A better question to know the answer to is "why is the CORRECT vocal training important?"

Over the years as a vocal coach, I've had many singers come to me for advice and training who:

Can't feel the benefits of vocal exercises
Don't understand what a particular exercise is supposed to achieved
Feel fobbed off by vocal coaches who direct them to endlessly sing scales
Get bored and disillusioned with singing
Feel like they shouldn't sing songs 'until their voice is fully trained"
Are obsessed with finding the right 'breathing' and 'support' believing that will fix things
Believe they have real vocal damage when they haven't
Feel disempowered and hate their voice
Feel that vocal exercises are too hard or don't match their actual singing
Try to sing with a 'trained' sounding voice in their songs

Hours of classical-sounding exercises which feel and sound like they are nothing to do with how you actually sing songs, and are difficult to execute, are NOT what correct vocal training should look like.

Any vocal training you undertake should feel beneficial straight away, should feel easy yet effortful, should make singing your songs easier and should be understood from the point of view of WHY you are doing that exercises.

Bridging from Chest to Head Voice - Singing 'in the Mix'

We've all heard of 'bridging' - the elusive 'going from chest voice to head voice smoothly', or singing 'in the mix' - but did you know that this can be achieved straight away if you are shown the correct technique and the correct sounds to make. A smooth transition between the vocal registers is not something that will magically happen after you've been diligently singing five note scales every day for six months.

In fact, bridging is something you can DO - right now. The voice naturally bridging in the context of a song may be something that occurs later, but again, this too can be a conscious, employed technique.

Bridging should be felt, explained, demonstrated by someone who knows how to do it, and then ingrained into the voice through repetition only AFTER it has been correctly achieved WILFULLY.

Chest Voice Training

Again, repetition should only be undertaken when something has been mastered and the technique and understanding is there. Repeating a couple of low vowels with perfect execution, resonance and healthy alignment of the voice will be much more beneficial than half-assed scales on all vowels brought up to pitches where it feels uncomfortable. ONLY REPEAT COMFORTABLE EXERCISES, VOWELS AND PITCHES.

Once you've achieved healthy vocalisation on the lower notes, you may be able to push your voice up a little further, and so on. However, just because you are in the process of training your chest voice for it's strongest and most robust potential, does not mean a) that your songs must be performed with this weight or timbre or b) that you should abandon all singing of songs until this is achieved.

VOCAL TRAINING HAPPENS IN THE BACKGROUND OF YOUR REAL SINGING, UNLESS YOU HAVE SEVERE VOCAL ISSUES

Falsetto Training

Vocalising in the 'hooty' head voice stretches out the vocal cords and encourages a nice healthy movement between pitches, which perfectly complimented the more intense training regime of the chest voice. Think of chest voice training as lifting weights and falsetto training as stretching out afterwards.

Breath Management Training

This may be a controversial opinion, but I've witnessed this so many times over the years that I'd be a fool to ignore it and go with the general academic consensus: Proper bridging technique aligns the breathing in such a way that the singer doesn't need to really focus their breathing at all. The 'support' mechanism is an alliance between the action of the vocal cords and the air taken up by them, resulting in the compression and release of the air. Once a singer has been shown how to bridge in a healthy way - ie with no unnecessary participation of muscles outside the larynx - the breathing or 'support' part of singing tends to become effortless.

Strain

Again, I've seen this problem disappear once a singer repeats correct and effective bridging technique. One of my jobs as a vocal coach is to make sure singers have some good go-to quick exercises to get their voices back into alignment if they find they are feeling strain or tension for whatever reason.