Vocal resonance exercises: get more power and volume

How to sing louder without effort and without losing your voice? Join me in these vocal resonance exercises, on video.

These will help you to get a fuller, richer sound.

Vocal power without sounding aggressive

We all want to have “power” in our voice when we sing. Whatever that means. Usually we mean volume, we want to sing louder. Yet we don’t want to sound aggressive. We want a full sound, maybe even carry over an orchestra, and really impress everyone. So that they will gasp: what a voice!

You'll need to exercise, and to be specific: do vocal resonance exercises.

Here’s the deal. Most of us don’t know (initially) how to sing louder and more powerfully without loosing our voice after 10 minutes. I confess I was no different. I had to learn it. The good news is - I did! Now I can show you. 

Where is our resonance?

The vocal instrument consists of multiple organs in our body. And there are resonances throughout it. We have spaces in the nasal cavities, pharynx, throat, lungs. Yes, also the mouth, but you’d be surprised how small of a roll this one plays. When we make sounds, there is potential for sound waves to move around In all of those spaces.

You hear some teacher talking about “voice placement”, like: place the sound in your mask. I don’t believe in this approach. I think the voice exists in the entire instrument. When the result is ideal, in my book, we will feel the sound in multiple places. And that what can give the sound volume and power. 

Our speaking voice will give a fuller sound

You will see in the tutorial on this article that I am working with the speaking voice. When we use our natural speaking voice (unless there is some struggle with the speaking voice, in which case, you should check out the vocal cord tutorial) we close the vocal cords better and use less air in the voice. That will get the result of a fuller sound. If you think about it, the opposite of that will be a sound with a lot of air, and that’s less sound - the extreme version of which is whispering.

As we use our speaking voice on higher and higher notes, it will sound ever more weird and squeaky inside our heads. If the space of the instrument is open (we work on that in the below video tutorial as well) it won’t sound weird on the outside.

So don’t freak out! That squeaky voice has a professional name - the twang. I use it for multiple purposes, because it’s magical and essential for vocal control. 

So, here we go. In the below video are all the exercises to increase volume. 

0:06 in the above video. We'll try to trap the sound and the air, so to speak, in between our hands. Lay one hand on the upper part of the chest - just under your collar bone. Put the other hand on the back of your head, just under your skull. Make the NG sound, as in the end of the word tongue. Feel the vibrations on both your hands. The more you concentrate on those hands, the more resonances you'll be able to get. We won't 'send' the sound out, and we're not making a big sound. Just think about the sound staying between the hands.

If you need even more resonance, visualize the sound going into your mouth towards the neck hand, and then travelling down to your chest hand. This is of course a mind trick, it's not physically what happens. But it's effective.

An important thing to realize here is that the air and the sound in our voice play a zero sum game. The more airy your voice is, the less sound, or less resonance, you get. When we whisper, we barely produce sound. If you want a louder sound, you want to "extract" air. So here we are imagining we use almost no air. Thinking of the trap helps with that.

6:06 in the above video. You can keep your hands where they are in the trap position. They will help you. Say yo yo yo yo yo. Next say yo yo yo on the notes. Don't make a singing sound, make it ugly even. Hear (and feel) how that is louder?

As you go up, the sound might be weirder and weirder in your ears. The extreme version of the speaky voice is a squeaky voice. And we need that for the extra high and low notes. But don't worry about it, it's a tool to become louder and richer, eventually it won't sound squeaky or weird on the outside (and it probably already doesn't)

9:42 in the above video. Do a lip trill part and then repeat the sequence with a vowel. (again, if you can't do lip trills, replace them with the NG sound. When doing the lip trills, concentrate on where you feel the vibrations, and how much air you are using. Use that feeling when you're also saying the vowel. You might feel vibrations anywhere the air goes when we breathe, that's great.

14:16 in the above video. Another way to have more resonance is to make sure the spaces where the air goes are open. A really good way to do that is to feel where the air goes when you inhale. I like the exercise on a vowel, for example u. I create the u shape and breathe in with that shape of the mouth. When we sing on u, we visualize the sound going in the direction of where the air was.

This exercise turns on awareness of what is going on inside your body. That's new for some of us. If you need some time for this, take it. With time you'll be able to feel where all the parts of the respiratory system - which is your vocal instrument - are.

22:26 in the above video. In this exercise we'll combine what we worked on with the squeaky/speaky voice and the backwards motion. 'Thinking backward', whether you are speaking or singing, is very helpful. It makes you concentrate on the pharynx - which is your main resonance.