Daily Tuning Your voice —–
Elvis said many times in interviews about what he was doing to maintain his voice. The first thing he quickly and instinctively would say was that he tuned his voice everyday. Which means he took 30 to 45 minutes tuning his voice every day. That doesn't includ melody tuning. He would start melody vocalizing on the song "Lead Me, Guide Me." He played on the piano every song he sung.
An Elvis Interview ... regarding tuning his voice ...
Audio file
..//downloads/elvis-vocalizing.mp3
"I exercise everyday. I vocalize everyday. And practice ... whether I'm working on... or not. I just try to stay in shape all the time. Vocally and Mentally." He is asked which is harder. "Well both is tough. You gotta work at them. I don't mind it, you know. It's worth it."
Exercise
The first thing he said was "exercise". You can't sing at your peak if you don't exercise. Elvis did cardio. Elvis also strengthened his stomach muscles. Doing situps (or something comparable) will up your singing breath control. Breath is half of singing.
Tuning Voice
Singing songs is not the same as tuning your voice. Songs develop a specific muscle memory for the notes of a song. Songs stay within a range and the note sequences in a song tend to repeat themselves.
Tuning your voice builds up the vocal muscles used in every note of your vocal range. It makes the subconscious embed the memory of the notes deep in the brain when tuning.
Voice tuning must be done everyday. It generally takes 10 minutes for just one octave tuning just going up the 12 notes of the octave. For the very serious performer two times a day, once at 7AM and once between 3PM and 5PM. After about two to three weeks you will see your results when you talk. If you stop tuning you will loose the quality effects. This daily tuning conditions your subconscious (and the vocal muscles) making it easy to hit the desired notes in a song with precision and great tones.
Elvis had a secret on the way he tuned his voice. This contributed to half of his singing ability. He would start at the lowest note on the piano and start tuning there. He would move up until he got to the highest note he could sing. Tuning on the low registers are what made a major impact on the way he sung.
Melody Tuning
Elvis melody tuned on every song he sung. He didn't read notes he used his ear to play out the melody and he put chords with it as he played the tune. Melody tuning is a must to sing the different notes accurately. You can tell Elvis tuned his voice before a performance. When he speaks right before going on stage you can hear him talk with a nasal/chest tone and it sounds very musical. You can only get this way by tuning up the voice for an hour plus. There is video of him coming to a rehearsal at the International Hotel in Las Vegas with the orchestra waiting where he starts singing perfectly first song with great intonation and pitch. He doesn’t stumble tuning up on the first 3 or 4 songs with video rolling. He “takes care of business” and he comes with his voice totally prepared, tuned up.
Your Melody Tuning
When tuning your voice practice the 1 4 5 chords of that scale. For example: after ascending and descending a C scale, play the chords C, F and G, then go to the C# scale and do like wise. Do the easy ones first: the C, F, G, A, D. Once you know the 1 4 5 chords of all the scales, then play the inversions that are closest going up. Then another time that you are tuning up, play the inversions that are closest going down. At that point you will be surprised that you know how to play the piano. Then after that when you tune up on a scale, you will play the various chord progressions and you will be able sing to many songs while playing the piano. Practice chords both in the right hand and in the left.
Frank
Frank Sinatra believed so much in tuning his voice every day that he wrote a book on it. Click HERE to read it.
