Sing Better By Turning Your Voice OFF?! (with Jeremy Ryan Mossman, Body Based Voice)

Christopher: Lip-syncing is normally seen as something less than singing, right? But what if it could actually be the gateway to better, more confident, more versatile, and more natural singing for you?

This is just one powerful technique which Body Based Coice expert Jeremy Ryan Mossman shared in his amazing Musical U masterclass.

In our last episode, you got the chance to hear a bit about Jeremy’s backstory and his fascinatingly different approach to singing, where he draws on yoga and Feldenkrais and biomechanics and biotensegrity to develop this really unique approach to helping you free up and explore and get deeply familiar with what your singing voice can actually do.

Today, I want to give you a little taste of what that looks like in practice, by sharing a short clip from his masterclass with you. In this section from the beginning of that masterclass session, he runs you through a couple of unusual singing exercises which can actually help you tap into your body’s deep wisdom about how to produce the sounds you want to when you sing.

A big part of Jeremy’s approach is that it’s not about just intellectually learning how to make your voice do stuff. Actually, our body already knows so much, and with these exercises you’re going to be trying today, you get in touch with what your body can reveal about how to sing the way you want to.

So if you’ve ever felt like your voice was stuck sounding a certain way, or if you don’t like the sound of your singing voice, this is an amazing way to start discovering what your voice is actually capable of.

And if you’re an instrumentalist, don’t switch off, don’t tune out. We wholeheartedly encourage everyone to sing at Musical U.

You are missing out if you’re not using your singing voice as a daily part of your music practice. And a big blocker for people is “I don’t like the sound of my voice” or “my voice doesn’t sound good”. So that’s why this was such an impactful masterclass.

You’re going to find in this clip that there are several points where Jeremy leaves a silent pause for you to sing, for you to try something out. I’ve left those in to encourage you to actually do this. If you’re watching or listening, use those as an opportunity to try it yourself.

If you do play along, I promise you’re going to be pleasantly surprised, maybe even shocked, by how much you discover. Here we go.

———

Jeremy: I’m glad to be here with y’all. The. The big stuff that I want you to start thinking about right now is committing to playing with your own voice and playing with whatever you choose to sing.

So if you haven’t thought of something that you want to sing today, I want you to start to think about that. And it can be Happy Birthday. It doesn’t have to be a Mozart aria, it could be anything, but just something that you can experience your own voice in many, many ways.

Because I believe, I truly believe that we already know about 80% of our questions about the voice and how to get the voice to do what you want it to do. I believe that information, that knowledge, that kind of knowing is not in your mind, but is already in your body.

And so we’re going to prove it right away. And I want you to hold a lot of space around possibilities that might emerge in this hour and make any notes that you want to make. There’s some sort of mantra-like statements that might be cool to write down that will just be little reminders of some of the things we did.

Because ultimately, what I’m trying to do with all of my clients and with you today is give you a process for working with yourself so that you can self improve. So that you can take charge of your own vocal destiny, whatever you want it to be, whether it’s just to feel easier in your singing or to sing in many more ways or to get yourself in front of an audience, or could be many other things.

So please use the chat liberally. And if there are certain things that you would like to express out loud that are hard to put in writing, by all means, just use the raise hand function and I’ll call on you when it’s a good moment, which won’t be very long. I’m very organic with what I do, so I have ideas down here on my little note. But based on your reflections, your responses, the things that you feel and put in the chat or share out loud that can change the course of what we do.

So I am hoping to get some feedback about things that you feel, things that you sense, confusions that are bubbling up, disagreements between what you know about singing and what you’re feeling or anything. Anything. I don’t want to limit you or suggest only certain things are reflection-worthy. Sometimes the smallest thing can make the biggest difference.

So what I want you to do is sing. I want you to go and sing something and sing it with full commitment, as if you’re singing in front of an audience or singing in front of, you know, your cat or in the, in a bus shelter, wherever you feel that you sing the best, go and sing something to get a reference that is sort of our before shot that everything will compare to.

So you’ll really get a sense of how things are shifting in sensation and sound possibilities. So I’m going to give you 20 to 30 seconds to just go and sing and feel what your voice is like right now, even if it’s not warm. I’m going to do the same.

[ exercise ]

Finish your phrase and I want you to sing it again. But this time I want you to change the musical accompaniment that you hear in your ear. And I want you to make it a country song. Like deep country, like the twangiest country!

And the more you play these games, the more you’ll mine out of them. So if that means you want to turn your camera off for a moment, turn your camera off for a moment and then pop it back on. But feel comfy because we’re going to play a few games.

So make it the twangiest country. Go!

[ exercise ]

Instead of country, make it opera. And make it the best-slash-worst opera. Like go all the way to ridiculous.

[ exercise ]

Instead of opera, make it like an indie folk song, singer-songwritery, somebody sitting alone with a guitar on a stool. Lots of breathiness or lots of intimacy in the voice.

[ exercise ]

And one more: give me your brassiest belt, your brassiest Broadway belt. Think Ethel Merman. Think Al Jolson. Think Idina Menzel. Think Sutton Foster.

[ exercise ]

And this isn’t about success. This isn’t about being good at these. It’s just about playing the game and seeing how your voice changes.

Do you feel a shift vocally when you explore these different options, these different images? Things are shifting a little bit? And you can use the chat to say anything that you noticed.

What’s shifting? Steve, “yes, things are shifting”. “Interesting”. “I discovered country opera”.

I love it. “Yes, radically”. “Resonance”, oh, very cool. Steve Lee is saying “resonance is shifting”.

This is great, this is great. So use the chat liberally anytime you want.

I want you to go through two, three, four of those styles again exactly as you just did, playing that game as much as you can play that game.

But this time I want you to do it with your voice completely off, like a lip-sync. Just imagining singing that song like a country singer, or imagining singing that song like an opera singer, or imagining singing that song like an indie folk singer.

Or any other styles. There’s nothing magical about those styles. They’re just different. So you can choose your own genres. Go take a minute or two and explore the lip-sync version of those and notice any shifting it.

[ exercise ]

I just put a little list in the chat just to point your mind’s eye to certain places. As you continue to play this game, you might notice shifts in torso engagement, where the breath goes, the speed of the breath or the quality of the breath, the way you create space in the mouth and or throat, the shape of your tongue, the shape of your lips. So if you’re not sure what to look for, there’s a little list and more might emerge in your mind’s eye.

There’s some great comments in the chat. I think I see mostly reading, not as much singing. So let’s just put a pin in that right there.

Unless you’re really curious and something’s going on that you want to continue to investigate, you can review the rest of this afterwards.

So if your curiosity gloms on, follow where it leads, because that’s so important. I’m just going to read some of these comments because they’re amazing and they might help you connect to different aspects that you didn’t think about.

So where we left off before was “resonance was shifting”, “expression shifted”, “tempo and tension”. That’s very cool. And I’m going to say tension can be a good and a bad thing, right? My muscles are tensioned into place, I don’t have to put them back on my bones in the morning. Everything stays where it’s supposed to be because of tension. But the way we use tension can be the difference between singing like an opera singer, singing like a belter, singing like a country singer, right? Like, tension is so a part of how we shift from one possible voice quality to another.

“The whole body changes with each segment”, I’d love to hear more about that, Jack. “Shape of the mouth, air pressure, posture, gesture changed as well”. Right? This is so the nature of the work, which is that it’s behavioral, it’s not intellectual, that your ability to sing is not about your ability to understand singing. It’s about how your body moves. And singing is movement.

There is neurological research, actually, that points to that, that it’s a movement-based art. Let’s see, what else here. “Gosh, makes me far more aware of what my face is doing”. Yes! “With lip syncing, the sound goes right into my head”. “I am freer with the imaginary singing, too limited singing if I hear myself”. Y’all are sensing some really important stuff!

Karen Martin “Yes, more thinking, imagery”. I’d love to hear more about what you mean by thinking and imagery.

“Move more dramatically with more presence when I’m singing as an opera singer”, “complete change from a head voice to chest voice”.

So interesting. Such interesting things that you’re starting to tap into. And what learning requires is curiosity.

So if what you wrote makes you curious, it gives you a lot to investigate. Just to understand, like, that was an interesting thing, that there was a complete change from my head voice to my chest voice. I wonder if I can investigate that, understand that further on the experience level.

And you might have had this magic moment that many people have had in the shower when you’re singing for joy, and suddenly the sound comes out and you’re like “what was that?! And who was that?! Who was that that just did that, because that was really good!”

And then you repeat it, and then you repeat it, and you start to wonder about it. You’re like “well, that’s interesting. Can I do that on all the vowels, or can I do that a little higher? Can I do that a little lower?”

And you start to investigate it and self educate, and what you’re doing is integrating this new possibility that emerged as if out of nowhere.

And that’s really what new behavior is, is emergence. It comes out of nowhere.

I love these comments that are reflective of how much more you can feel your singing when your sound is off. Because there’s such a truth: when your sound is on, it’s a distraction. It locks you into the sound, and you can go “I like that, I don’t like that”. And that limits you. But when your sound is off, you can feel your voice, you can feel the behaviors that lead to your singing. And that’s a whole different feedback loop that can help emerge a different possibility when you turn your voice on, which is what you should do now.

Why don’t you turn your voice on again and sing how you want to sing and see if any of the new noticings, the new awarenesses that you’ve just gotten from your own system when your voice was off. See how that factors in. See how that emerges as a part of your tone or leads you to taking control of your vocal choices.

So sing how you want to sing, and then throw something in the chat.

———

Christopher: How did you get on? I really hope you played along with those exercises as you watched or listened, because until you try it, you don’t realise how powerful these things are. I hope you experienced some of what you heard Jeremy picking up on in the chat there, from the participants who were there with us live.

It can be a truly mind-expanding thing to try. Even if you’ve been singing for years, both the singing in extremely different styles and that voice-off lip-syncing, they just bring out a whole new voice from you that you may not have realised was there.

So in the rest of that masterclass Jeremy ran us through a bunch of other exercises and helped start to take these observations and new awareness into your regular singing and integrate all of the new possibilities you discovered. Super cool.

You can learn more about Jeremy and his work at bodybasedvoice.com. we’ll have a link in the shownotes. And if you’re a member of Musical U, you’ll find that full masterclass in there waiting for you to enjoy right now.

That’s it for this one. Cheers! And go make some music!

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