00:00Can I get the lights please?
00:05I'm Rachel Zegler.
00:09I'm going to teach you the basics to become the greatest singer in the world or wherever
00:14you live.
00:16This is singing 101.
00:20Step number one, warm up.
00:23The most important thing to do is to warm up your voice in any capacity whenever you
00:27are going to use it.
00:28The way to do that is usually through a bit of lip trills going up and down the scale.
00:37And then you go up.
00:42I like to warm up for about 30 minutes.
00:44People think that you can only just warm up for 5 to 10.
00:47If you have a certain warm up that works for you that way, go for it.
00:50But if you're going to be doing some strenuous activity, say doing a Shakespeare play eight
00:54times a week or singing a Disney score for 87 takes in an hour, you should warm up for
00:59a really long time.
01:00Make sure that you're not overdoing it, but also don't underdo it because both things
01:03can be really detrimental to your voice in the long run.
01:05It's a muscle.
01:06Treat it like a muscle that you're working out.
01:08Treat it like rolling out before going on a run.
01:11It's the same thing.
01:12And it's also very easily damaged, very easily injured, and you don't want to do that.
01:16If you've ever gone out to karaoke, which I do not, and your voice feels hurt, strained,
01:23gravelly, groggy the next day, it's probably because you didn't warm up.
01:27So the next time you're doing Silver Springs by Fleetwood Mac at your favorite karaoke
01:31bar, 20 minutes of vocal trills on the way there.
01:34The taxi driver will thank you and your Uber rating will go down.
01:37Step number two, find your voice.
01:40This could also be referred to as placement.
01:43Where are you placing your voice in a song?
01:45A lot of times that has to do with a character that you're playing, if you're doing musical
01:48theater the way that I have for most of my life.
01:50I feel pretty, oh so pretty, I feel pretty and witty and bright.
01:58Or even if it just means you're not sure where to place certain things in your voice when
02:02you're singing your favorite Sara Bareilles song in the car.
02:04There's a real misconception about singing that it's all here.
02:07Not at all.
02:08You have something called chest voice, which feels like it's coming from here.
02:12You have something called head voice, which feels like it's coming from here.
02:15Or people use a nice mix, which feels like you're doing both at the same time.
02:19A lot of times my vocal coach, Joan Lader, has had me equate sounds to animals.
02:24So a lot of times you'll be doing something like a goose being like, that's your chest.
02:33Sometimes you're doing things and it's like a little mouse where you're going, that's
02:38your head voice.
02:40Anywhere in between that is a mix, but that does take a long time to kind of figure out
02:43because we have something called the passaggio in our voice.
02:46That is when you are switching from your chest to your head.
02:49It's a very sensitive point in the scale that you're using while you're singing.
02:53A lot of times it takes a lot of training in order to iron out your passaggio so it's
02:58not as easily noticeable when you're singing a song.
03:00But there are ways to flip through both.
03:02So all of those things, very simplified, can be seen as yodeling.
03:08So when you're yodeling, if you just go like, is a very donkey sounding quality to your
03:15voice.
03:16You're going from your head to your chest and that actually requires a lot of skill.
03:20A lot of people actually can't achieve that, which is why yodeling is such an amazing skill
03:23when you see Julie Andrews doing up on the hill was a lonely goat herd.
03:34Speaking of sound of music, if you're going to sing in your chest voice, you want to do
03:39do-re-mi, do-re-mi.
03:45That's in your chest.
03:46If you're doing your head voice, it would be do-re-mi, do-re-mi.
03:54That's in your head.
03:55But there are ways to mix that so it sounds more like you're tricking the audience into
04:01thinking you are belting, but it's much healthier for you because in order to belt something
04:05like that requires some crazy skill and also a lot of strain if done too many times or
04:10done improperly or without warming up.
04:12So a lot of times you'll want to mix.
04:17It's a mix of both.
04:18I'm not fully in my chest.
04:19I'm not fully in my head, but I am using both in order to achieve a certain sound quality
04:24that I want to.
04:25Step number three, style and not the song by Taylor Swift, though we love that song.
04:33It's very important when you are singing to understand what you're singing for.
04:37That sometimes means understanding your audience or understanding the material to a certain
04:41degree.
04:42Do you want to sing it like a pop star?
04:43Do you want to sing it like a rock star?
04:45Do you want to sing it like Creed?
04:46Do you want to sing it like you're doing opera for the 18th time?
04:51It's very important to understand that stylistic quality because that affects the way that
04:55the audience is perceiving your performance.
04:57It also affects what you have to do with your voice.
05:00A lot of pop stars nowadays have many different styles.
05:03We have Lady Gaga's and Chapel Roan's in the world who use a very chesty voice and at times
05:08a very musical theater-y approach to singing.
05:11Also Chapel has a yodel quality to her voice, which is really amazing, but if you were going
05:15to be singing in a pop style, sometimes people are singing as what the internet dubs in cursive,
05:22and that's what a lot of pop stars do as well.
05:24It's very easy on the voice, but it also is a very hard thing to come across and make
05:29sure that you are doing it dynamically and make sure that you're doing it with diction
05:32so that people understand what you're saying.
05:34But it would sound a little bit like,
05:44That's more of like a Billie Eilish approach to singing a song like that.
05:47It's just a beautiful quality to her voice.
05:49She can do so much vocal gymnastics with what she does in all of her different records.
06:00But then if you were going to do a very operatic sense, a lot of that has to do with the amount
06:06that you use your jaw.
06:07It also has to do with your tongue placement.
06:09A lot of opera singers actually bring their tongue to the very back of their throat while
06:12they're singing.
06:17This is also common for a lot of musical theater singers because in order to achieve eight
06:21shows a week in proper voice, you have to treat it like an opera.
06:25A lot of opera singers really do treat their voice with so much care because you have to
06:29be able to sing for hours and hours and hours.
06:32So if you were going to sing,
06:42that would be in your opera quality.
06:44And then, you know, there are ways to add gravel, rasp to your voice, nasality, that
06:49will bring certain rock sounds, that will bring certain pop sounds.
06:54I definitely think that there's an element to creed songs that we call yarling, which
06:59like really is like going into the gravel of your voice.
07:03I don't recommend doing that solely because it does require a lot of skill in order to
07:08do it without hurting yourself.
07:10If you ever need an example of somebody who was doing everything right with their voice
07:14eight times a week, it was Alex Brightman in the musical Beetlejuice doing the Michael
07:19Keaton Beetlejuice voice while singing, dancing, doing acrobatics, and all of these stunts,
07:25but did it eight times a week.
07:31That requires an insane amount of training.
07:33Do not try that at home.
07:35Step four, add sparkle.
07:36There are times where you get to make things your own.
07:39There are times where you get to sing,
07:45It's fun.
07:45It's wonderful.
07:46It's not necessarily what you would be doing if you were playing Maria von Trapp on Broadway,
07:51but it's still really fun to do.
07:52So if you want to do that, I think this is a free world and you should absolutely feel
07:58free to sing however you want.
08:00Vibrato is your breath control.
08:02So if you feel like you can absolutely go for it.
08:04I learned how to do vibrato by listening to Sutton Foster sing Gimme Gimme from Thoroughly
08:09Modern Millie and Astonishing from Little Women on repeat.
08:12I would mimic her and that's the way I learned how to do it.
08:14I didn't learn the traditional way.
08:16So unfortunately I'm not necessarily the best person to teach it because I just copied
08:21my favorite musical theater actress.
08:24Step number five, sing.
08:26Now you have the opportunity to put all of these things together.
08:30Know that you've warmed up your body so you know where in your body your voice is coming
08:33from.
08:34Make sure that you're doing everything healthily and safely.
08:37It's very, very important to take care of this muscle.
08:40It is very sensitive.
08:42It's very delicate and you don't want to hurt it.
08:45Your next step is to find the style.
08:46Are you singing a musical theater song?
08:48Are you singing a pop song?
08:49Are you singing a rock song?
08:51Make sure that everything that you're doing for that makes you feel comfortable, makes
08:54you feel awesome, and then you get to just add your sparkle.
08:59And then you sing.
09:00Anybody have a question?
09:01Anybody in the class?
09:05Which song in Snow White was your favorite to sing?
09:08Oh, that's a good one.
09:09There is a song in act three of the movie where Snow White returns to her kingdom in
09:16an attempt to get it back.
09:18It's called Snow White Returns and it wasn't originally in the film until very, very late
09:23in the game.
09:24It was the 11th hour.
09:25Pasek and Paul wrote it for me to sing because we just felt the scene was missing something
09:28and it really just became the anthem of the film and the heart of it, truly.
09:33The lyric that moves me the most is,
09:35No more sending whispers to the water
09:41Cause you're everything you were wishing and waiting for
09:48Everybody needs to hear that, that the person you want to be has been within you the entire
09:52time.
09:53I'm very proud to have been a part of that process and it brings my heart a lot of joy.
09:58Now it's your turn.
10:00I'm so proud of you.
10:01You did it.
10:02Even though I'm not qualified to teach how to sing, I've been doing it for a very long
10:06time because it brings a lot of joy to my heart, as I hope it does for you as well.
10:10Thanks so much for coming to my class.
10:13Y'all.
Comments