Set Your Voice Free: How to Get the Singing or Speaking Voice You Want

by Roger Love

My voice is just going to get better and better, right? Well, I wish I could just say yes and move on, but actually, it will save you a lot of worry and concern if I let you know that there are a few curves on the road to vocal mastery. Typically, students’ progress unfolds like this: Stage one. In our first vocal exercises, you learned the basics of connecting with all the parts of your voice. In short order, you should be able to move up and down your range smoothly and without strain. Discovering that you can do this is the first breakthrough. You may go through a stretch of finding the new places in your voice—and then lose them again, but the exercises will keep leading you back. Stage two. You’ll probably stay at your new level of accomplishment for one to three weeks without sensing anything like the first breakthrough. You may feel that you’re on a plateau, but remember that your speaking and singing have already improved markedly. Keep doing the exercises, and as you do, feel how natural it becomes to use your voice in this way. Stage three, the setback. Almost inevitably, you’ll go to do your exercises one day, after happily and comfortably doing them for days or weeks, and you’ll feel as though your voice doesn’t know what to do anymore. You may feel you’re lost, or sliding backward. This is completely normal. Sometimes the learning process slows down when you come to new material, and you struggle to put it together with what you’ve already learned. Incorporati...