Touring as a Vocal Coach for The Voice BBC Series 3

One of the perks of being a vocal coach is that we sometimes work in some very exciting environments, together with some great people. This year, apart from teaching my private clients and running The Associated Studios, I have had quite a bit of fun working as vocal consultant for ITV and The Voice BBC Series 3.

Working as part of The Voice team on the British Tour was both exhilarating and exhausting. We toured most of the major British cities. We saw and heard about 40 000 applicants and tried to narrow these down to 250. I was surrounded by other vocal coaches with great careers behind them and either knew them or knew of them. A typical day meant getting up very early and leaving my hotel room, wandering to the lift, travelling to the conference room floor where we stayed from roughly 8am-9pm. Looking out the windows there would be a long line of singers winding its way around the hotel, some carrying guitars, of all ages and sizes and descriptions imaginable. The Voice Team, being largely made up of virile young producers, then spent much of the night going over tapes and discussing the events of the day and the singers they were most excited about.

The process of auditioning worked as follows; Stage A meant I sat in a room with a producer and warmed-up and then auditioned 10 people. They had 90 seconds each to step into the middle of the circle and impress us with an A Cappella version of a song. Stage B meant we were seeing call-backs from Stage A. Singers could sing two songs to a backing track of their own choice, followed by an interview.

Several things struck me in the course of this process. It is astonishing how many British people sing in their falsetto and believe this to be their true voice. Falsetto, as most Musical Theatre Singers will know, is a quality where the vocal folds are stiff and lots of air is passing through them. There is no proper adduction or closure of the vocal fold. It is like sitting underneath your folds with a hair dryer. The quality is breathy and quiet. I find that quite a few singers who have sung in large choirs adopt this breathy, weak vocal production. There are some singers who only sing in their speech quality and belt voice, and the minute they need to access their head voice higher up in the range, flip into falsetto. I am not talking about the male falsetto here, but a falsetto voice quality which can happen throughout the range of a male or female voice. It is a useful pop sound, especially when mic’d. However, it is certainly not a quality which should be sung in for any length of time as voices do not like it, it dehydrates the vocal folds and the muscles get used to working in a lazy way rather than meeting and making a strong, healthy, clear sound. Hearing so many hundreds of singers every day, my one sadness was that many amateur singers seem to think this breathy quality is normal singing. It was a real joy auditioning the Musical Theatre singers as, for the most part, they know how to sing.

Another fascinating aspect was listening to the Rock Singers. There were not many of them and it was a very thinly represented category. I felt that here too there reigned a misconception as to the kind of singing that would be required. Rock singing is like any other singing with the only difference being that there tends to be more belt and speech quality and less head voice, as well as some guttural sounds like rasps and grunts. However, fundamentally it needs to be based on sound vocal technique, excellent control and support/ anchoring and huge amounts of stamina. This can only come with practice. Mythology would have us believe that Rock Singers spend their days sleeping and then spend the nights trolleyed on drugs and booze and all other manner of human waywardness. For the good and successful ones, the ones who stay around, this is often far from the truth. You will more likely find them sipping on coconut water and hot ginger and lemon whilst ‘sirening’ and going over their warm-up exercises. In truth, this is the only way a voice can survive the rigours of touring as a Rock singer, and build the vocal stamina and sheer vocal athleticism required to sustain a successful career. It takes exactly the same hard work and practice as for a Musical Theatre Singer who has to be in top form for 8 shows a week.

I noticed a similar phenomenon with Rock Singers as I do with those clients I teach who are in shows requiring continuous high belt such as The Lion King, Thriller and We Will Rock You. I have several singers in each of these shows. If singers who are having to belt almost every day fail to practice their head voices, the vocal folds thicken. Belt is a voice quality where the vocal folds are short and fat. The Vocal folds are closed for about 70% of the cycle. As this is the only orifice through which the air in the lungs can pass, blasting air through the folds in belt is damaging and can cause the voice to ‘crack’. Belt is like heavy weight-lifting for the voice, it needs constant practice, maximum anchoring to hold back air pressure from the vocal folds. It also needs to be balanced out by a good 20min session practicing the Head Voice. In this way the vocal fold mass is stretched out again and stays flexible and able to adduct on a thinner edge. If care is taken and the right technique is practiced, Belt is perfectly safe. Admittedly, when first developing Belt it does tend to ache a little and feel uncomfortable, just like a first work-out in the gym would. However, this stage soon passes once the muscles become fit. Many of the Rock Singers I came across on the Voice Tour had lost this flexibility. Their voices were thickened, lacked range, stamina and elasticity.

All this being said there were some absolutely astonishing singers who auditioned for The Voice. It was wonderful to see how important singing is to so much of our population. I came across girls and boys who did nothing but sing in their own bedrooms with extraordinary vocal facility. Singers who had never had a lesson in their lives. Singers who felt deeply every word they sung and where the experience of their humanity through the power of their voice brought tears to my eyes. I guess that is what we were all looking for.

Leontine Hass is a Vocal Coach and Director of The Associated Studios.
Website: www.associatedstudios.co.uk
Contact: info@associatedstudios.co.uk
She is a major contributor to ‘The Singer’s Guide to Complete Health’
published this year by Oxford Uni Press.