BLOG - Learn with Legacy - Conditioning

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Learn with Legacy
Conditioning 

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Welcome to our September Blog 

What do we mean by Conditioning?

In our last blog we discussed coordinating. We said that if you still struggle to control vocal balance even though you have discovered chest, head and how to connect them it could be a simple case of bad coordination caused by too much external muscular involvement or modification to the vowels interfering with the pitch making process. This is often caused by tongue tension and the manipulation of the larynx by raising or lowering. Therefore coordinating and conditioning can go hand in hand because the modification could be causing the external muscular involvement or vice versa. 

How is this achieved?

To condition we must reduce extrinsic muscular involvement to allow for a resting laryngeal posture. But first we need to identify the root cause, is it a simple case of coordination or is something else going on? This can be physical or psychological. Often, when we correct the inside of the larynx first as mentioned in previous blogs, the outside will correct itself. However it can be in some circumstances that extrinsic muscular involvement is what is preventing a mix or that even with a good mix voice some extrinsic muscular involvement is still present. As with coordination we need to first be aware of what we are doing when and why and counterbalance this with an equal and opposite reaction.

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How do we do it?

Usually, in these circumstances, only a professional can advise. A trained Voice Coach can give you the correct tools to release whatever it is you are doing and retrain the voice to find the correct resting posture. Often the issue is psychological and it can take some clever trickery to get the brain to react the opposite way and so tell the body to do the opposite to what it thinks is correct, a little like we did with coordinating. For example we can bend over for the high notes to prevent us reaching and raising the larynx or clapping our hands together to encourage cord closure to prevent us from squeezing the airway closed with the muscles outside of the larynx. Another issue may be a high breath raising the larynx before we sing so we can practise saying AH or UH and then breathing in on this posture. 

Look out for our video with examples on our Youtube Channel “Legacy Vocal Coaching”.  
 

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