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art 2 Toward Speech-Level Singing
So far, you have done exercises that let you experience singing with a connected tone over a wide range of pitches, without much concern about the overall quality of that tone or the way in which you achieved it. Each exercise served as a mechanical assist, that permitted your vocal cords to maintain a connection through your passage areas and,in so doing, became a psychological assist because it gave you confidence that you could accomplish that connection.
We will now proceed with exercises that condition your voice to work only at your speech level. This means from this point on we will only use exercises that bypass your neuromuscular reflexes completely. We will basically use what we call an unfinished or "edge"sound. This sound needs very little air and cord to work. Like the exercises used in Part One, the "edge" exercises will assist you in maintaining a connected tone through your passage areas—but this time, in a way that directly leads you into singing with a speech-level posture.

Your larynx won't raise or lower very much as your vocal cords make their adjustments, so you will experience ablending of resonance qualities. Also, your vocal cords will begin to relax, allowing you to sing even your lowest notes more easily.
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Exercise 14
Instructions: This is the first time in your program you are going to be doing an exercise
listen to tape that gives you the feeling of where speech-level sound is made.
Starting in chest voice, just belowyour break area, make a sound (with your lips closed) like a squeaky door hinge and inflect into your head voice. (Listen to tape.)

Be careful not to break into falsetto; you have to keep it connected. (Listen to tape.)

Notes:

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Practice log:
Date started _____________________________

Date accomplished ________________________
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Exercise 15
Instructions:Using the same squeaky door or "edge" sound you made in Exercise 14, start
listen to tape lower in the scale.
This time add a little "whimper" or "cry" to the sound to help keep the cords connected—but don't overdo it. You don't want to overcompress the air so use just enough to keep the connection as you sing higher. (Listen to tape.) More doesn't meanbetter in this instance.

The stopping and starting of the tone keeps re-establishing your tone at speech level so that you don't get off that level as you go through the exercise.
*This doesn't include transitional tensions that take place as you change vowels and consonants. It only refers to sustained tones.

Once you can maintain a connection all the way through Exercise15, go on to Exercise 16. At this time you may want to start monitoring any speech muscle activity by feeling the muscles under your jaw. These muscles should always be soft, with no tension whatsoever occurring when you do the exercise.* If there is any muscular tension, listen to the tape again to see if you have followed the instructions correctly.

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Practice log:
Date started_______,____________________

Date accomplished ________________________
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Exercise 16
Instructions: Exercise 16 is the same as Exercise 15, except you are reducing the number of

listen to tape times you stop the sound to re-establish your tone at speech level.

I Notes:

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Practice log:
Date started ____________________________

Date accomplished _______________________81

Exercise 17
Instructions: This time you will take the edge sound straight through, only establishing
listen to tape your speech level at the beginning of the exercise.

Remember, you shouldn't feel any build-up of air pressure. It should stay even all the way up and all the way down. If too much air pressure starts to build, your voice will get...