Ten New Years Resolutions for Singers
While having a basic understanding of vocal anatomy can be helpful for grasping how your voice works, memorizing facts alone won’t make you a great singer. However, knowing key concepts—like the role of the respiratory muscles, vocal folds, and resonators—can be highly beneficial. This knowledge allows you to better understand the techniques you learn in voice lessons and gives you more control over your voice.
Improvisation is Music as in Life
Improvisation is the art of making music happen on the spot. For many musicians, it can be very difficult and intimidating. But it doesn’t have to be. With the right mindset and practice strategies, anyone can learn how to improvise.
How to Deal with Stage Fright
You would be hard pressed to find a performer who has never experienced stage fright. Your hands shake, your voice breaks, and you freeze. It is a completely normal reaction to doing something as difficult and personal and playing music in front of others. Even many famous artists never get rid of all of their nerves. Paul McCartney, Barbara Streisand, and Katy Perry have all said that stage fright was something they had to manage throughout their careers.
Impromptu Jam Bands
Community First Programming At Arabella’s Voice Studio, we don’t use a set “curriculum” as we find that a lot of our students come to us for lessons because they were looking for something a bit more personalized. Instead, all of our teachers are trained on vocal anatomy, pedagogy and frameworks that can be used to […]
Monthly Notes | June
Some things we are working on behind the scenes…We want to give a big congratulations to our dedicated instructor Quinn for graduating from Berklee College of Music! In addition to earning a degree in Independent Recording and Production, Quinn also ran the Berklee Metal Club during his final year of school. Quinn plans plans on continuing his work here at AVS, while also gaining experience in studio work, and recording his own, personal projects. Congratulations Quinn, we’re all rooting for you!
A Parent’s Reflection on their Child’s Musical Growth
Meet Virginia and Kaira! We reached out to Kaira’s mom, Virginia Lara to reflect on her teenage daughter’s musical journey. Her mom shares, in the midst of getting her driver’s permit, and trying to attain a summer job, Kaira also has undertaken working with AVS vocal coach, Lina, on her voice and songwriting. Virginia writes, Kaira learning music […]
Learning Functional Vocal Anatomy
While having a basic understanding of vocal anatomy can be helpful for grasping how your voice works, memorizing facts alone won’t make you a great singer. However, knowing key concepts—like the role of the respiratory muscles, vocal folds, and resonators—can be highly beneficial. This knowledge allows you to better understand the techniques you learn in voice lessons and gives you more control over your voice.
Why You Only Sound Like You: Harmonics, Timbre, and Formants
What are Harmonics?
Harmonics occur when a sound-producing object, like a guitar string or your vocal cords, vibrates. It doesn’t just vibrate at one frequency; instead, it vibrates at multiple frequencies at the same time. The lowest frequency is called the fundamental frequency, while the higher frequencies that naturally occur alongside it are called harmonics or overtones.
Follow Your Nose: Nasal Resonance Defined
What is nasal resonance?
In fancy, science terms:
Nasal resonance is a technique where sound vibrations are reflected into the nasal cavity, occurring when the soft palate (velum) lowers and partially opens the velopharyngeal port.
A functional definition:
A resonant strategy that helps the voice ring and ping.
Vocalizing Theory: A Musical Guide
A lot of successful singers, even those leading bands or recording albums, sign up for lessons because they feel that a lack of understanding of music theory affects their confidence when performing. At Arabella’s Voice Studio, we’ve developed a “practice flow” centered on vocalizing theory that you can easily incorporate into your lessons or home practice routine.