Sounds like he has the latter. IMO the worst thing to do is to is to "apply more constant pressure" or to end notes more abruptly. You need to bring your voice back under your conscious control, first, and then learn to unpack more and more tension when you sing to where you have a true "natural vibrato," the second type Jaaki mentions. You would achieve the first part of what I am saying by learning to sing a straight tone, and then achieve the second part by starting all your notes with a straight tone and letting them loosen into a true free, natural vibrato.

I should also note that I am not sure that vibrato only occurs at one airspeed, but rather that it can be slow or fast and depends on relaxing the cords enough for that natural oscillation to begin at whatever airspeed. I think there are a combination of factors at work, airspeed or airflow being one, a balance of air pressure being another, but relaxation of the voice to obtain a free oscillation, which is a matter of physics taking over, is the central tenet. If you are not able to not do it, or are not able to do it to differing degrees, then you don't control it, it controls you. But, I believe that it is not a natural or hereditary problem, but a created one.

Steven is right, walk your singing back to speech level, to speaking on pitch. This may seem drastic, but if you have an abundance of gifts as a singer (and it sounds like you do), I think they will still shine through. You just need to strike that balance between free and controlled, that is so crucial to great pop singing.

Thanks very much all you! I will work on these ideas. Again thanks.

I so agree, John!

Are You Trying TO Belt High?

I would get Mastering Mix if you can. I also would continue to work SS as part of my daily exercise. When I got to the end of SS (the first time, haha), I kept a routine of practicing with disks 5 - 7 on alternating days. So, Monday, Disk 5, Tuesday, Disk 6, Wed Disk 7 Thurs Disk 5 and so on.

Then, when I had a breakthrough with digastric muscle tension, I went back and started again from Disk 3. You can think you have gone through the whole program and finished it really well, only to realize that you could do the exercises with even less tension. And so why not go back and do that, to cover your bases, and get even more freedom in your voice?

My point being: SS is both a great systematic program and an effective tool for daily maintenance and growth of your technique.

Your plan sounds great except that if I ever actually got my parents to get the program, I wouldn't stop after finishing, I'd go back because odds on, I would've learned something in a later disk, and want to apply it to an earlier lesson, there are just so many places to go, and if you limit yourself to one time through the program and done, it's going to prohibit you later.

Good point! The best kind.

Thank you!!! But would it help even if I do the vowel exercises at low volume?
and here's my recording of liprolls and tongue trills.

http://soundcloud.com/25cents/liprolls - Liprolls

http://soundcloud.com/25cents/sounds-from-saturday-morning - Tongue Trills

Yip, those few notes on the bridge that don't really have chest or head resonance can be resonated with something basically in between. The pharyngeal. It feels like a third, almost ball of resonance in a triangle behind, between the mouth and nose.
You'll know when you got it, coz the bridge will sound and feel super strong

This is because coordinations in the bridges are so tricky. The only way to fix it, IMO, is to work slowly and carefully through those areas, giving them special attention. For help with that, I highly recommend Mastering Mix, the Bridge System, Disk 6. Tough workout, but if you can master it, your problem will be solved.

I kind of agree with LiltingLass, most songs will be starting at the bottom and slide upwards, so, there is more need to be able to start at the bottom and go up rather than starting up and going down, which I can tell is easier. And, you cant warm up starting at the top too. But, yeah, it might help a little if you are already warmed up, but it will be rarely used, and it is easier..

Okay, thanks for the input!! it does make sense to warm up the chest voice first!

I think I understand, thank you so much, you don't know how much it means to me to hear this finally (I have never gotten feedback from a professional). So I really just have to let it happen? Even though it's small and hard to feel, I have to let it work out with time? I've seen a tip from Jesse Nemitz that describes using the velocity of the air coming out to make that small voice sound 'bigger' and it allows it to come out stronger. I have always felt "how am I supposed to apply this thin little thing up here to singing? and what the heck is mix?", and I think he shed a lot of insight using the staccato mum and nay to nail out the pitches so that there isn't a stretch in between each note that I plan to vocalize. What are your thoughts on that?

Just to be clear, I am not a professional vocal coach. I am a student just like you, who has been doing SS for about 18 months or so. All the advice I put up is just my personal opinion, based on my struggles and successes with SS. As I am very active on these boards, I have this inflated "Mega Star" status, which can be misleading. My opinions are my own and not necessarily endorsed by Singing Success.

To answer your questions, though: It takes time before you are ready to increase the velocity of air and thereby the volume and fullness of that small voice. Even though he demos it like "Here's my small voice. Now, here, I am going to put some air pressure behind it and make it bigger." that doesn't mean that it is going to happen that fast for us. You have to really develop that small voice, get really comfortable in it throughout your range, really nail it, before you are ready to make it a big voice again. No matter what you should always maintain an ability to sing in that small voice, no matter how big the rest of your singing is. So what seems like a useless little voice that you will not want to be caught dead singing in is actually a fantastic diagnostic indicator of the condition of your voice, the quality of your edge function, your mastery and control over dynamics, etc. So, continue to work that small voice out until you can bloom from it into a larger voice and back down again at will. That's something we all need to be able to do.

Mix is singing in a middle voice, with a coordination that is on the border of chest voice singing and head voice singing (unless you are talking about light or high mixes, or are singing in a released Mix that is actually pulling head voice down), which has a balance of resonance between mouth resonance and head cavity (or nasal cavity resonance). These resonances are connected through the implementation of pharyngeal resonance. The more pharyngeal resonance you can add to your mix the more powerful and ringing your tone will be.

Yes, repetition of the proper sounds, sung in the proper way, evenly without tension, no matter how small you have to sing to achieve that, is great. So, like Jesse says, continue to work them over and over and over until the pitches are automatic. Then, try growing them, and see if you can maintain the same regularity and precision to the louder sounds.

In a sense, yes, when you are talking about that air pressure type compression, which is so important in head voice and even in mixed voice, particularly if you want that fuller gutsier compressed tone. In that case -- and Dave goes into it somewhere, and I think Shelby does, too, but I can't remember -- you really want to be "compressing" or squeezing those intracoastal muscles in the area of the ribcage, which is often a crucial element in what is known as support. The thing that is so magical about compressing the intracostals is that it increases your air, or lung pressure, without interfering with the free movement of the diaphragm. That is one reason "support" can be so hard to master, because people tend to think, or are told, it involves "singing from the diaphragm, which usually causes you to exert conscious control over it, which is IMO, not the way to go. That is how I understand the relationship between compression and "support."

"which usually causes you to try and exert conscious control over it..."

Yes. I will soon post my newer trial on "Everything I Do I Do It For You" and please let me know how I am going from the last post for the same song. Thanks a lot.

I have posted some new recordings on youtube. You simply need to type my name Arius Nusantara, and you can find that I am only comfortable in some jazzy tunes. Others I feel quite struggling. Yet, I want to develop my voice even more. My voice just fits in oldies songs and jazzy tunes. I am desperate trying to develop my voice more so that it will sound more pop or others.

Some of the posts are not well finished. Only three are final, "Fly Me To The Moon", "I Wish You Love", "The Way You Look Tonight".

thank you! i didn't read your post right. you said "staccato slide staccato." yes, i recall that, but i always thought the sound he was making was a soft i sound, like i-i-i-i, which is close to the "ee" in a way, and that is the way i have always practiced it. i will go back and check those videos out again. it seems to me, off the top of my head, that being both really pharyngeal and having sharp closure can just be worked on in separate exercises, like they are on disks 3 and 4 of MM, if it is too hard to combine them in one exercise.

@LL thx a lot. I guess I'll work on it separately first and then just try the a edgy 'NG'. Cheers^^