Last month, we introduced a NEW virtual workshop event into The Learning Curve for singers. Two sessions hosted jointly by myself and Ryan Walker, audio/tech coach here at The Voice School. Intentions of the workshop were to provide hands-on, informative guidance in terms of what constitutes a good basic recording set-up, grasping best practices when doing so at home on a realistic budget. 

The idea developed from the need and desire for continued music-making and connection during these restrictive and isolating COVID-19 times. Singers need to continue using their voice, to keep the instrument in fine fettle - and in seeking to do that, technology repeatedly came to our rescue to make blending voices for ensemble singing a possibility.

As such, fun vocal work/projects we’ve been pursuing within The Voice School Hub since April 2020 using and sharing recorded vocal MP3 and WAV files have given rise to many FAQs along the way and a natural curiosity in understanding more to achieve be...

By ‘yodel’, singers, I don’t mean ‘a form of singing which involves repeated and rapid changes of pitch between the low-pitch chest register (or “chest voice”) and the high-pitch head register or falsetto.’

No no. This is different. Yet there are similarities …

The infographic alludes to those moments when you’re singing, everything is going smoothly until suddenly your voice does something weird. A ‘yodel’ or a ‘blip’ - a fluctuation in pitch/sound. It can feel embarrassing.

(A good analogy would be: when you’re driving - perhaps negotiating a speed change or a tricky corner - and you don’t quite change gear smoothly enough and the gearbox complains.)

Often when learning a craft or skill, (at any stage of development) there are moments when new muscle memories wrestle with the old, and the result can often mean a spot of spontaneous ‘yodelling’ happens.

There’s an imbalance going on somewhere in the mix.

The remedy lies in reapplication of very basic vocal technique principles a...