Think of your body as an instrument. Your voice is your whole body, not just your throat, and certainly not just your vocal cords.
Your body is designed the way any good instrument is. Just look and compare a bass, cello or guitar with the way a human body looks. It’s very similar, right?
There are three parts to building your instrument so it produces great, effortless, healthy sound, including, but not limited to, a vibrato.
An instrument has to have:
- Alignment, structure, symmetry
- Space, resonance, freedom
- Power and ease to play the strings
The way you create these qualities in your body is as follows:
- Align: Be straight in your body. Align yourself naturally with both, Heaven and Earth. Lift the top of the back of our head slightly, so the spine straightens, and your chin tucks. If sitting, make sure your torso is at a 90 degree angle to your thighs. Easiest way to try what that feels like is sitting on a deck or dock. Without a backrest, your body will naturally align and sit straight, because this is the way it’s designed to sit. Often when we lean forward, lean down, we end up feeling down. When we lean backwards, we sometimes end up feeling disconnected and as if we don’t care. Why? Because when you lean away from your center in either direction, your emotions will follow that and you’ll also not be in your center emotionally. Next time you feel “off,” watch what pose your body is in. Then straighten it and watch what happens to your emotions.
- Create space: The idea is to make yourself HUGE. Like a bass. There are two areas you want to expand: A) Your lungs/rib cage, and B) your throat. A) To expand your middle: Breathe gently through your nose into your entire body, as if to inflate an inner tube all around your body, not just in front. Allow this to lift your rib cage off your lungs, so they can expand more. This has the added benefit of increasing your lung capacity, not only good for singing, but great to boost your immune system and possibly allow a longer life span. Feel as if with every gentle inhale you breathe in your own Infinity. Then, STAY in that space. Do not exhale right away. Sit on that intake of breath for a second or two, and then train your motor — your diaphragm and tummy muscles — with a gentle “sssssss” on the exhale, again feeling as if none of the air escapes, which of course it will to some degree. B) The other area to expand is the throat. For that, simply yawn. Yawn and observe what your body does in the BEGINNING of the yawn: The uvula goes up, the space behind the upper molars goes up, and your apple cheeks rise, while the larynx descends. That natural coexistence of opposites is what creates space and resonance. It also has the added benefit of opening the connection between heart and mind, always a plus in life, for smooth communication within your own body and with others.
- Finally you get to PLAY your instrument: After the inhale, pause for a moment. Only then do you allow a gentle hum to escape, from high to low in the front of your face. Like a sliding guitar, or a sled going down a hill. All the while you stay in your Infinity, your space. No air escapes, only sound. Of course some air escapes in order to make the sound. But feel as if no air escapes. Also keep your space, especially the expansion in your rib cage, and the space between the rib cage and the hips. Feel as if there is extra space there. This provides you with the resonance and resistance needed to create effortless flow. When your tummy muscles are engaged — the power of your “motor,” — your throat feels that ease, and is able to stay open. When your throat is open in that yawning space, there is no artificial pressure in your throat or on your vocal folds, and they will start to vibrate naturally. This may take a little practice, but it will happen invariably.
I hope this helped. This is just a beginning but if you keep to these three guidelines, you should find success in allowing your body to create nice alignment, posture, space, freedom, and beautiful sound with an effortless vibrato. Enjoy!
