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What is the feeling of the vocal modification? HELP

Hello:),
I have been taking the KTVA for about 6 months now, and i'm struggling again with the vowel modification, I feel lost and I am struggling to do belting, I don't remember the sensation.

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  • highmtnhighmtn Administrator, Moderator, Enrolled, Pro, 3.0 Streaming Posts: 15,354
    It is the feeling of "closing down" the top of the tunnel. You start the AH out as tall in the back of the throat as is comfortably possible. As your notes start getting pretty high, getting close to your primo passaggio, you kind of let the upper "arch" of the throat close down a little bit, right there where the sound ricochets forward to go towards the mouth, back there behind the uvula. Think of the "aw" as in loft going from a tall, wide space to a more of a short megaphone shape. Small in the back and getting wider more towards the mouth. As you go to the next mod, the megaphone gets closed down more in back and longer. I've heard others call this sensation being like a "wizard's cap" but for me a "megaphone shape" works better, because, after all, Ken calls it "Ampitheaters". Ampitheaters work, in the task of amplifying the voice, because of the shape of being small, going to large, like a giant megaphone. In our vocal tract, the "megaphone" is very small, and gets smaller as the notes get higher. The "ooh" mod is the smallest, and longest. You stretch that feeling way up high in the back of the throat, behind the uvula.

    We are reshaping the vocal tract, at the point where the sound has to reflect in order to bounce forward, and we are closing down the shape of the space, to better contain the sound as it gets higher. If we don't, the sound will splat and get out of control, making distortion sounds, and causing us to strain.

    The mods help us to sing higher with less effort.
  • RAULGORAULGO Member Posts: 7
    THANKS THAT WAS VERY HELPFUL :)!

    Another question.......,

    Im struggling to take chest voice all the way to G on the last note of the excersice "ALA U O A" VOL. 2

    Ken says that glotal compression is the key for doing this excersice but i dont know if im cutting the air enough or should i cut more the air, or maybe it isn't about glottal compression at all, maybe is all about vowel modifications?
  • highmtnhighmtn Administrator, Moderator, Enrolled, Pro, 3.0 Streaming Posts: 15,354
    Please give me the exercise number. Vol 2 audio?
  • RAULGORAULGO Member Posts: 7
    Yes it would be the VOl 2 Audio Piano For Dudes Only, Track 11
  • highmtnhighmtn Administrator, Moderator, Enrolled, Pro, 3.0 Streaming Posts: 15,354
    Without hearing you do the exercise it's not possible to tell you what you may not be doing right.
    Track 11 on the piano-only tracks is the same as Track 17 on the guided tracks. Try it with Ken singing along, and then make sure you're in the right octave when you do it with the piano-only track.

    It actually goes up to a G#4 on both tracks. So Remember to do your vowel modifications as these exercises go up in pitch, higher and higher on each new scale.

    On that G# version, you can clearly hear Ken modifying. Lah, ah, aw, then at the top he is putting the oo mod over the AH, OH, AH, so that part is more like oo, OH, oo, and even the OH part has to morph from an "AH-oo" to an "OH-oo". To simply, just be sure to do your vowel mods, as taught, throughout this exercise.

    On G#, most, if not all of us, need to be modifying, and many will have to get to the aw by around middle C or so, and keep modifying all the way to the G#.

    So once you are properly modifying, cutting back the air with glottal compression will help to make getting to the top note more attainable. This is about learning to relax more and modify with reduced air pressure, at the upper stretches of your chest voice.
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