Josh commented on one of my earlier posts: "Over the years, I have long since struggled with finding a technique. I've found that, for me, I'm a kinetic singer. In that I have to experiment on my own to find placement, tone and manipulating vowels or phrases to give "the sound" that works for me. Could this be causing damage to the voice?"
I am the same way. I have been singing my whole life but never really had voice lessons until I hit college. (Choir doesn't really count and it can pose other problems for your voice if you aren't careful...but that is for another day.) I took lessons pretty regularly for about 8 years and it was only a few years ago that I finally just decided to find a person to sing with on a regular basis (see post below). It was amazing what happened. In a few short years I have expanded my range and my technique much quicker than I ever did taking lessons on a weekly basis. And although I had some great teachers many of them didn't quite know how to get their messages across.
For example many of them would say "open your mouth and allow the space to stay there." But in reality that can be taken many ways. You can open just the front of your mouth. You can open just the back of your mouth. You can open and spread the lips...You can open and purse the lips of keep them held in a fish like configuration...you get the picture. I know many people who understood what to do when they were told the first time. The frustrations I found was when I was really was doing exactly what they were saying but because there was a miss in the communication I would only frustrate the teacher and it wouldn't lead to a good lesson.
I have found in the last few years that when I can sing regularly without the fear of having to produce results I am able to try different things and sooner or later I find what works for me and more often than not I actually turn to whomever I am practicing with and say that I finally understand what my teachers had been talking about. It is pretty amazing.
Many days I really do wish I would have just "gotten it." It would have made pursuing a singing career easier. But the satisfaction I get when I finally put two and two together and realize what actually works for me, I think, will work out better in the long run. I will know what works for me and what doesn't; and because I have played and tried and succeeded and failed I will have an understanding of my instrument that can rival anyone else's.
Side note: Can you hurt the voice doing it this way? Short answer is yes...but you are the judge of what will and will not hurt it. You are the only one that can feel what your vocal chords are saying to you! You have to listen and if you go too far take some time to rest and recover before you practice again. That is where technique can come in. You can then fall back on it. You can say I pushed today and so what do I need to do in order so that I don't make that mistake again. I believe you should push your limits every now and then as then you can eliminate things that are obviously wrong. For a better understanding look at the book "How To Stop Acting" by Harold Guskin. I know it is an acting book but he has some exercises that you can use not only to help your acting (both plays and musicals) but you can adapt the exercises to your vocal practice as well.
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