Hey, Guys! Welcome back again to Ken
Tamplin Vocal Academy where the proof
continues to be in the singing. I want to
talk about open throat technique and at
least my experience of what that is
compared to some of the videos that I've
seen on the internet and I've seen some
interesting stuff and some decent
information here and there but a lot of
it is really textbook stuff and it's not
really seen a practical application of
how open throat technique works. So the
very first thing I want to talk about is
laryngeal position, which means your
larynx. Okay, now your larynx for guys
your Adam's apple so you have this you
know voice box it kind of goes up and
down and you know that's the larynx it's
in there and one recent vocal coach you
know talks about a lowered laryngeal
position and neutral laryngeal position
a raised laryngeal position, and then
kind of compartmentalizes all of this
stuff and I want to say that it's not
quite that simple. And let me explain why
to have someone's, I don't want to use the
word bash, but to say, you know, you don't
want to have you know here's a lower
laryngeal position: AAAHHH here's a
neutral laryngeal position AAAHH! Here's a raised laryngeal
position AAAHH! Right. So we have these sort
of you know ways of looking at this
that's not really a good healthy way to
approach this and let me explain what my
experience has been in it this could be
help to you then hopefully this will
you'll benefit from this the first thing
is is that in Bel Canto the canto means
opera in a Porsche it's the old-school
style of singing for Barbara that's sort
of the gold standard to really
understand how these alluring tail
positions work to make fun of you know
tenors that have been doing this a long
time a couple hundred years and make
that you know mock them in that kind of
way for a laurel ranger position oh that
would be so good I don't know that I
would do that for lots of reasons and
explain why I been doing the grandpa's
been doing this a long time 35 years so
I've done that look me up on IMDB I've
got close to a thousand songs where you
get more maybe than a thousand songs
placed in film and TV Internet Movie
Database just check it out go to my wiki
you can check out I've got over 40
records out and I've written songs with
kiss and I've done this that than that
so you have these vocal coaches that
come out and they say this stuff that's
textbook stuff okay this is really
important and they may even at the end
of their video give you some theatrical
thing or whatever but listen to their
actual voice and ask yourself if you
really like it and see if they display
any students that do this and you really
like the way their students soundin
here's why that's important it took me a
long time to figure this stuff out this
wasn't something this has been in
processed and by the way as we age we
also have to learn how to control this
over time it's not like once you learn
it you learn it your diet
no you have to continue the process so
I've taken some very prestigious vocal
coaches and I'd love to tell you who
they all are any with some to
braggadocious so I'm not going to talk
about it but what I am gonna say is this
what I've learned and if this helps you
is that if we first trained with a lower
laryngeal position it really helps you
understand what open throat technique is
now is that the end all no but here's
something I want to put it put out there
to you guys is in the world of appoggio
Bel Canto Opera is that but we're in the
early stages of let's say a tenor and
I'm going to talk about guys and we
could talk about you know female vocal
Sopranos Altos contraltos up etc in a
minute is that a lower laryngeal
position helps us identify how to keep
the throat open first it doesn't mean
we're always going to reside in a Laura
laryngeal position in fact that's silly
in fact the I've heard so many vocal
coaches especially SLS vocal coaches say
you should always be in a neutral
position how stupid is that the larynx
moves up and down all the time it
doesn't
what you're doing and if you're at one
position in a scale in a lower register
and you start to go up to a Midway's
register that neutralizes and as you go
higher if you allow the laryngeal
position you go up like this you inhibit
range
anylock down on the lyrics to where
you're not able to go up really really
high and again guys and gals are
different their vocal cords are about
half the size of men so we have to I
can't go in all the details of this now
but I'm just talking about how open
throw it works now what I've learned and
I hope the feel benefit from this so
really listen closely guys this is
Bolden information if you're talking to
a guy that's toured for 30-some odd
years not some guy that sits behind a
piano in a climate-controlled
studio that's parroting something from a
textbook look me up look at the stuff
that I've done they'll explain this to
you when you train a lower laryngeal
position you're able to open up your
throat and you know what is it throat
and all this stuff and blah blah blah
your throat is your throat guys go in a
mirror doctor wants to see your tonsils
ah-ah-ah just look at the back here
throat we want the tongue drop to the
base of the jaw first okay we want the
back of this road and this other vocal
coach was kind of mocking the uvula
approach and soft palate approach but
that matters it matters a lot actually
and it matters even more the higher up
you go so that you Gila rises even
higher as you go and the soft palate
rises higher to go to create maximum
space if we don't do that we actually
pinch off and choke off the back of the
throat and then we're straining
ourselves to get to having a lot of good
open throat as we go out this is really
important so what is what I learned
again this is just me talking doing this
whatever you want this information in
the vowel and I'm gonna go through the
vowels all the vowels in a second the a
vowel is the biggest vowel that we have
and it's the most difficult to train
that's why all vowel sounds stem from
its lala i open up that vowel there's
something called vocal tract shaping and
hopefully I'll remember
get to this in a second is that in
within that about if we can train that
off I'll open first to keep all this
open mechanism in the back now what
you're gonna do is you're gonna go to a
mirror I want you to grab a handheld
mirror and I want you to just simply go
and I want you to watch the position of
your tongue and you're gonna see that
your tongue swells up and you start to
gag on your tongue right
what just trust me on this go to a
mirror or get a handheld mirror and
watch yourself do this if you drop the
larynx your voice box down
you're gonna find that you can maintain
and build muscle memory to hold the
larynx down this is really important
it's an anchor let me say this again
it's an anchor for your ability to
control the larynx okay so it's a pillar
that you build your voice on when we
talk about laryngeal positions just
because we talk about a lowered
laryngeal position doesn't mean we
always reside in a lower laryngeal
position okay let me say this again
we're going over Zeus in fact how many
insert something really funny for you
guys I have an assistant named Bob so
Bob when you can if you can insert I did
a couple of lower the original position
songs one of them is low rider okay and
we're going to show this clip in a
minute and another one is Johnny Cash
brings a fire and I use a lowered
laryngeal position through the whole
song okay but I can sing with any
position I want but I'm gonna get back
to why this is important in a second but
we're gonna play the clip Bob if you
play the clip now let's do it
right don't try to dance now
little trip to take a little
take a little trip take a little trip
take a little trip see
and low rider don't drive too fast now
so if you can tell this isn't just a
lower lense position this is a drop
learns position kinda like a gospel
quartet in country sort of combined I'm
gonna drop it even farther on this
course here readyit's keep going neck
here we go
I fell into a burning Ring of Fire
the flames of getting high and if
the ring of
okay so like I said you can see I
there's a difference between a lowered
larynx position a la la
very big difference one is just a
lowering of taking the farik's keeping
them flat horizontally straight and
taking your whole Eric and lowering it
so it's a la la is lowered and drop is
law completely taking the entire
Alaric's itself and dropping it all the
way to the floor
okay we chose a couple little pieces out
of that clip to show you a lowered
laryngeal position and why that's
important is it shows that I can
maintain a lower laryngeal position but
then how is it possible if I can sing in
this position but then sing
and connect the sound and go up really
high and release to a neutral position I
never go to a race position a raised
position would be this and you're caught
okay now I know there's a lot of pop
artists or you know Rihanna and like all
these people do you know Britney and all
these people do all these raise
positions and there are people that can
do it and do it well in fact Paul Rogers
does this i'ma baby when I think about
you I think about enough or Paul Carrack
you know tempted by the fruit of another
he's gonna use it so a brace position
but if you notice when they go up they
open up the sound and they drop the
lyrics so to say that you're gonna sing
only in one position and only in this
position and only in that position is
kind of ludicrous to me again
it's just can't tell they're talking I'm
just trying to give you a good quality
information let's get back to a lord
limit oh wait I was gonna sorry I was
gonna talk about a neutral position Bob
if you don't mind playing the clip you
know let's grab Steelheart for example
where I shit between a neutral position
I have dropped the lyrics as I go
through passaggio and then I have to
come back to a neutral position is that
go up high check out this clip
okay now there's other times you can do
it and use the John Fogerty clip here
Bob use fortunate side where you sing in
it in a just a slightly lowered position
like me a Wilson Pickett which we just
did a whole thing here recently on open
throat technique um you know right use a
lowered position and then I move it to a
neutral position
check out this fortunate side clip
okay why this is important is because
when we learn and we train the voice in
a lowered position we can hold down the
soundboard of the voice when we can hold
this down then we can relax it and move
it into a neutral position when we're in
a neutral position or we try to learn
only from neutral position the default
or what most people do is as they ascend
a scale or passage they go to a raised
position and then all of a sudden they
get caught in the throat right now there
are great artists that do this like I
said I talked about you know Paul Rogers
Glenn Hughes this ago you know sort of
the thrill II think Sam and Dave you
just talked about this in another video
well this becomes more of a stylistic
thing because I've heard Glenn do this
without having to raise the position but
what we do is again first we train first
the lower laryngeal position once we've
mastered that and we did the feeling of
it what I'm gonna back up sorry a lot of
information in bel canto when kids are
being raised to understand how to sing
with these different laryngeal positions
they cannot touch an aria which is the
musical piece of Italian for four years
we think by this for four years they
train bowels in different laryngeal
positions think about that okay what I
did was develop something that showed
that if you train a lowered position
first and you maintain that lowered
position to where you understand when
you relaxed the position to a neutral
position and if you want to raise it to
an upper you know to a raised learned
your position then all of a sudden
you're you have total command total
control of this and you can get there a
lot quicker you don't have to do it in
four years you can do it six months okay
straight up if you do it every day about
an hour hour and a half a day five days
a week and start sorry for those who
didn't want to take the quick pill and
get it you know doing faster than that
it
happen that way because we're at the gym
and we're working out and this is what
we have to do now we want to use these
different positions all throughout the
spectrum of the voice but there's two
elements that are missing big ones the
first one is is remember I just said
that all vowel sounds stem from its the
LA ah and it was a real open sound well
gets wet when I go ah ah eh and I spread
the pharynx which is just the mouth
right when I spread the pharynx all of a
sudden the sound closes down so I
haven't trained a lord laryngeal
position first I have no way of really
identifying how that really feels in the
throat when the fruit itself closes down
as the pharynx is spread this is really
important why because we don't sing only
one vowel Wow and we sing many different
vowels through the spectrum of the voice
and as we go through raising the going
up and range up and down in range we
find that we have to change this
laryngeal position and also there's
another huge element to this which our
glottal stops are things that close down
the back of the throat now what am I
need by that it means that we want to
reside in something called contiguous
phrase singing continuous phrase singing
is that we want to keep that vowel open
as long as we can without closing it
down with consonants well it turns out
to be this is extremely important
because every time you close a consonant
down it closes off the back of the
throat it wants to shoot air up into the
velar nasal port by the way fancy terms
for all the stupid stuff not stupid but
I try to keep things so simple I don't
love complicating stuffing you find
yourself using technical terms you hope
people will understand cooling into the
nose and so as it goes into the nose
then the throat is swing hey hey man
what's wrong with you do you want this
to come out of the mouth or do you want
this to come out of the nose could you
make up your mind here or both right so
what we want to do contiguous racing's
we want to have the the sound over the
fact Steve Perry and Sam Cooke I just
did a vocal demonstration on this and
sure when I'm gonna air all this stuff
but if you listen to what change is
gonna come from by Sam Cooke and using
house bow because every time I close
down a consonant sound I have to read
open the throat and then get back to
that placement that I had depending on
where I am in the range well men if you
think that's tough and you think that
you're gonna only reside in a neutral
position or raise laryngeal position or
lower position you've got another thing
coming
now again I'm gonna say this again check
out whomever you get your information
from do they sing great not just sin do
they sing great what do you want to
sound like them and do they displace
students that sing great this is so
important because I could sit there and
then I could be some guy that gets on
the internet reads all kinds of
technical stuff and and regurgitate this
stuff to you or I could put my heart on
a sleeve and put my heart on the line
and actually demonstrate and show you
this is very very important so as we go
up and down a scale if we only train a
neutral position a neutral learned your
position as we ascend there's a 95 doing
this for 35 years 95% of the people I've
trained default to erase positions so
they'll get caught and erase the
position if you train a lower position
first this is old-school bel canto guys
you train in a lower position first and
then you relax to a neutral position and
you understand the soundboard how to
move that soundboard first by anchoring
it to a lowered position it doesn't mean
you're sentencing yourself to see in a
lower position all the time
it just means you understand it I wanna
wrap you
till I'm dying
the way feel like me
- spend my time waiting on your call how
can I tell you babe my backs against the
wall I need you by my side to tell me
it's alright cuz I don't think I can
cheat game
love
and century
three days
hold on
it's got a hold on me
cutting passes on cello but the
backstage tour
I know that I must do what's right
sure is Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus
above the sea
I seek to kill once deep inside trying
to know this thing that I've become
I miss the rain salad
ricca-san
please with
yeah yeah
Jamie tell me
I can always kill you
I believe
you won't ever have to
everybody you see
come and take me Shira yeah
come and take me when I hold my own
no she bets my solo
she's alright
that's the way is me
I met you baby
dream
Drimmer
as you've seen some of these different
positions you see that this can be done
in all kinds of different ways now
here's where this gets equally
interesting we talked about the vowels
themselves with a vowel if you go to an
e e is the most parentally spread vowel
but we have all of a sudden learns goes
up right but if you've trained a lowered
laryngeal position
I can actually maintain the a vowel or a
different vowel modification to hold it
at bay so then I don't get caught in the
throat anyway guys I could go on and on
and on about this I have a singing
course called how to sing better than
anyone else I covered all of us in the
poor's if you guys want to check it out
cool hopefully this information that's
beneficial to you and I'm sure we'll
talk a lot more about this in future
sessions so thank you for joining me
ken Tamplin vocal Academy where the
proof is in the singing peace out hey
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thanks guys
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