Domestic circumstances preclude my being able to fully exercise my singing voice each day… By confining myself to lip-rolling and humming I overcome the problem of neigubour-noise-objection but of course this forced compromise procedure is no substitute for, repeat, full vocal exercises I realise. I therefore have a question arising: does being restricted to the two above-mentioned exercises SEVERELY diminish delivery of the’perfornance voice’? What percentage disadvantage would you say occurs as a result of being forced to just do lip-rolls and humming…?

I hope I haven’t confused you. It’s immensely frustrating not being able to do full blown vocal exercises, hence I’m keenly interested in receiving van email from you, please, to answer my question against the vexing backcloth described. Thank you in advance.

Thank you for the question. Lip trills are good for a lot of things! They can be done gently or with more energy, slowly or more quickly, so long as you don’t force anything. Generally, they activate the phonation (vocal cords) gently with the proper airflow, automatically, but you can think of narrowing the focus of the tone, especially as you go into the upper range. It’s a great overall exercise! Best wishes!

Regards

Tony Grau

Dear Danica,
Generally, humming, by definition (as the tone goes through the nasal passage and not the mouth) is going to “feel” nasal. That’s normal. It’s actually a nasal vocal production. That said, over nasality in singing can be addressed as it often pertains to issues with the soft palate not being activated enough or tone production concepts/habits. As for humming as you describe, I’m not familiar with that particular performer’s music that you mention nor do I know your voice, so I would have to work with you in the voice studio to answer that question adequately. As for humming as a vocal exercise, however, I would say it’s best when it’s produced naturally (without strain) and feels buzzy in the nasal mask (front of the face around the nose) — this is desirable for a well-placed/focused hum. I hope this helps.

That’s sweet of you, Julia. Thanks for listening. Daddy