Overview
- Applying the 7 Dimensions
- Diagnostics Guide
- Vocal Gym vs. The Stage
Performance Diagnostics
Applying the 7 Dimensions
Every song has unique challenges when singing, requiring a variety of skills and muscle coordination to execute. When performing your song selections, you can use the Diagnostics Guide below to learn which dimensions you need to target when training. Once you identify your goals, adjustments can be made within those particular songs, as well as globally when training your voice.
Diagnostics Guide
1: Do Flexibility exercises IF:
- the quality of your voice sounds worn or fatigued
- your voice isn’t responding quickly to your intentions
- your voice is cracking in the passaggio unusually often
2: Do Breathing exercises IF:
- you struggle to sustain long notes or phrases
- you feel the need to inhale in awkward parts of the song
- you sound unintentionally airy or breathy
3: Do Intonation exercises IF:
- you’re not able to match your intended pitches
- you unintentionally slide in or out of the notes
- you struggle to remember the melody (or harmony)
4: Do Range exercises IF:
- your voice cracks between registers at various volumes
- you feel and/or hear strain on higher notes
- you’re unable to sing the lowest or highest note in the song
5: Do Tone exercises IF:
- the sound of your voice doesn’t match what you intended
- your quality of sound is inconsistent throughout the song
- the sound of your voice is generally unpleasing to your ear
6: Do Articulation exercises IF:
- the words you’re singing aren’t clear to understand
- you feel tension in your tongue, jaw or lip regions
- you unintentionally modify the vowels (formants)
7: Do Strength exercises IF:
- you struggle to increase or decrease volume when desired
- your voice sounds generally unstable or inconsistent
- you notice signs of fatigue even after warming up
Vocal Gym vs. The Stage
The Vocal Gym is for training the voice, using conscious decisions to create subconscious programs. When singing a song, we invite our unconscious into the mix, creating an emotional connection to both the lyrics and to the listeners. To help separate these concepts when working on specific songs, its best to replace the lyrics of a melody with components that target the dimensions in need. This way it becomes clear that if you are singing lyrics to a song, you are using a “Stage” (performance) mindset. If the lyrics within a song have been replaced with a formant/feature combination, you are using a “Vocal Gym” (practice) mindset.
Activity
Using the Diagnostic Guide above, identify the dimensions most associated with descriptions below:
What Did You Learn?
- How to apply 7 dimensions to a performance
- How to identify which dimensions need to be developed
- the difference between the Vocal Gym and the Stage
