Did you know that how you move can actually make your singing feel easier and sound better?
In this episode of Your Vocal Evolution: Tips in 10, I’m breaking down how physical movement impacts vocal technique, tension release, and overall performance. Whether you’re trying to ground your lower register, free up your mix, or hit high notes with more ease, movement can be a
00:09 – Specific Movement Techniques for Singers
01:24 – Movement for Warm-Up and Vocal Technique
02:39 – Upper and Lower Register Movements
05:05 – Mix Voice and Belt Techniques
07:18 – Connecting Movement to Performance
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Hello everybody, welcome to Vocal Tips in 10. I'm Amber and today I wanna talk with you about one of my absolute favorite tools for all singers.
It is great for every level of singer. I feel like it's great for almost every area of singing, for releasing tension, for better mind-body connection, which leads to genuinely easier and better function, better sound, better performances, and that tool is movement. And what I love about it is, like I said, it works for every level of singer and we can all already do it. We all know how to move.
one of the movement tools I like to use, I do it right off whenever I'm warming up, I tend to carry a decent amount of tension in my neck, which can lead up into the jaw, into the tongue, into the voice itself. And I think a whole lot of us carry tension there because we're all bent over all the time, right? Our head is bent down looking at a phone, looking at a computer, a piano, a guitar, whatever it is. So I like to do gentle head rolls, right and left. And I think about this as a figure eight.
But yes, the figure eight would be laying on its side. So I'm just kind of doing like a fluid rotation to the right and the left. If you are listening to this and you're like, Amber, really need to be able to see it. You can watch this on YouTube too. When you're talking about movement, hopefully I can break it down enough where listening to it is something that you can start to play with. But if you need the visual, if you're that kind of a learner, jump on over to YouTube and check it out there. But this figure eight, and it's this gentle rotation.
This is also one of those moves that you probably don't wanna do it as dramatically as that big figure eight, but you can use this guys in a performance, even if you are playing guitar, because a lot of times I'll have singers say, yes, the movement hugely helps Amber.
but I hold the guitar in front of me. I have it strapped around my neck. What am I supposed to do? You can do little gentle head and neck rolls, right? Gently sway your body. It's keeping you free. It's keeping you from gripping. And the great thing is to the audience, it just looks like you're into the music and we want them to feel like we're into the music. Cause that makes them feel like they're into the music. It makes them enjoy it more if they think we're enjoying it. So this is a movement you can take right into performance. And I use it all the time. It seems simple.
but it can make such a difference.
I actually did an entire movement training for all of my Vocal Pro members where I broke down how you can use movement and really specific movements to work with, starting from the warmup through upper register, lower register, mixed voice, belt, agility, all the way up to performance and cool down,
And it's just so many fantastic voice changing tools. And I've decided to make it available to everybody for free. So I will put that link down in the show notes. So if you find some of these things really helpful, when you start to play with them, go to that link. and it is like,
ridiculously chocked full of fantastic tactics and tools that you can use and very specific ones. Like you get a list and I break them down for loads of different areas of the voice where you can start to play with those in your own voice.
an example of one of the movements that I share in this training is for your upper register. again, these all seem so simple because they are. It's just knowing what movement to use to get the result that you're looking for and playing with them in your own body and with your own voice. So for this upper register movement, you're gonna take your thumb and you're gonna put it on the hinge of your jaw with your hand up.
And as you go to sing higher in pitch, let's say I'm gonna do a sliding third upper register exercise.
as I
So again, my thumb is right on the hinge of my jaw. My hand is sticking up. And as I sing higher, I'm going to drop the hand down to tabletop. It does a couple of things that really help open that upper register up for so many of us. One, as that hand drops down, it takes away that thing that we all want to do, which is think up.
Right, right before we go to hit that high note, especially as it gets higher, so many of us are like, no, here we go, get on up there. We send that signal to the body, our vocal folds cannot move up. That's just not biologically possible. So all that happens is everything kind of tightens around them trying to do something that is impossible. When the body moves down, the brain gets on board with that and goes, ⁓ okay. And so the up, that tendency to wanna pull or push up.
goes away. So it makes the genuine function easier because we are working with our body, our brain is working with our body instead of trying to work against it. And then I also feel like it helps remind us that the jaw is a hinge. It should move. We don't want to be in any kind of grip static place.
So it helps us take that tendency to want to pull up away and it helps us be a little freer. I think a lot of times creates more free movement there in the jaw. There are so many more upper register movements and like I said I share a ton of them in this training that I'm now offering for completely free. Gives you kind of a glimpse of what it's like inside of the Vocal Pro membership but it's just one of so many. I think we've got like 29 hours of trainings right now in the Vocal Pro library with new expert workshops every single month.
I also want to give you a move that you can play with for your low register. I feel like low register, we all have this tendency to do the opposite of what I just said as we go lower. So many singers literally tuck the chin and kind of squish their larynx and it starts to feel really stuck and froggy because we are thinking down.
And again, the vocal folds They're not going down. All they're doing is getting shorter and thicker. We have this tendency to round and tuck, which kind of sticks the sound in the back and that makes everything more difficult. So it's counterintuitive. But what we really want to do as we get lower is think about that note right in front of us. I actually like to brighten up the vowel a little bit. And then all I want you to do is take your hand and make a straight line in front of you. So if I'm doing that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that,
Vah, vah, vah, vah, vah. We start to have this tendency, vah, vah, vah, vah. We round and tuck. I want you to keep that brighter vowel shape and make a straight line in front of you reminding yourself that that sound should go right in front of you, just like a high note, just like a mixed note, just like any other note. We are always singing to someone. And again, as we make that straight line forward, our brain goes, ⁓ we're not going down. We're just going forward. We're working on this level plane.
So that tuck goes away, that tendency to kind of suck the sound back goes away And those low notes are a lot easier. ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba
It helps with phrasing. We want that phrase to go somewhere. We want it to move. We're communicating to someone. It helps with resonance. It helps with so much. But in this instance, it can really, really help with those low notes.
And then let's jump right into a movement that you can play with for your mix voice and really more powerful belty sounds. One of the reasons those are so tricky for us, there's a number of reasons for that. I can do a whole nother podcast episode on that. Obviously we need muscle development and coordination and all of these great things, tension release. But another big thing is we are trying to sing it and see what we can manipulate and push and pull.
versus tapping into sounds our body already knows how to make. I promise you, you call out to somebody from across the street and you don't think twice about it. And that is the same energy and the same process that we want to take into our powerful mixed voice, our powerful belt. So a movement I like to use for that is to take my hands and make a triangle over my nose, cheeks, and mouth. You probably can even hear a little change in my sound. It's probably a little dampened here. Or like I said, you can go watch this on YouTube.
I make a little triangle here and one of the things that's helpful is that is my focus. I don't want the sounds to go below my mouth because that is trying to manipulate at the vocal folds. No bueno, everything's gonna happen above the vocal folds. That's our focus. Also, my focus for resonance is gonna be nose, cheeks, mouth, that byproduct whenever we sing that buzzy feel that some of us get when we're singing. I want that to be focused in the nose, the cheeks or the mouth.
Below the mouth means I'm getting squeezy in the voice. Above the nose means I'm getting heady. And that's not what I'm going for when I'm going for a true mixed voice and especially a true belty, chest dominant mixed voice. The other thing I love about this is that makes the shape of a megaphone. If you're really going to call out to somebody and you can't get their attention, a lot of the times we do that naturally. Hey, hey! Natural megaphone, none of that feels tight in the voice. It automatically locks into the natural sound we know how to make.
So if I'm going to do a mixed voice or a belt exercise, let's say I'm gonna take that, hey, or I'm gonna call out to my mom. I'm gonna put it on five one, mom, mom. But I wanna use that triangle, that megaphone and think about calling out to somebody across the street for me. Mom, mom. So many times it helps singers really lock in. Your focus just becomes that triangle. It also locks you into more natural sound.
Again, these movements are all simple and they are just a few examples that you can start to play within your own voice, but they're simple on purpose. They work. We all can do them.
And I feel like movement is just a huge tool and gateway in that we can all access in all aspects of our singing to improve all aspects of our singing. And like I said, many of these, we can take it into a performance.
Again, I have a free movement training that goes into so many more very specific exercises for multiple areas of your voice. High notes, low notes, mix and belt, agility, warm up, cool down. And I am giving it away for free,
That link is in the show notes. It is part of my Vocal Pro membership. We have an expert workshop every single month that is live, as well as a massive library of past workshops that continues to grow. And that just scratches the surface. Video coaching, master classes every single month with me.
direct access to me five days a week, all of my online courses, including Erase Your Break. It's so much goodness and you can try out two weeks for free. Again, I hope you'll check it out. I love that community so stinking much. Thank you for being here and see you in the next episode.
