A huge part of ad libbing is pacing yourself. We often get caught up in all of the 'tricks' and 'trills' that are possible that we get tripped up. Once you you have developed an ear for adlibbing you then need to learn to 'map' your vocals. You  can't do every possible trill each time it comes to your head. Remember that the melody always comes first, and the song must remain recognizable at all times. You have to have a plan to return to the melody at least half the time to give people a feel for the 'center' of a song, otherwise they can't follow you.That may mean altering every other phrase or one out of every four phrases.

When intensity builds its not wise to try to show intensity by doing more runs; Intensity = power. Think 'power' first, embellishments last. If you can't sing a high note exactly like the original artist, you have to show intensity soon after on a lower note of a climactic part to make up for it. This way there isn't a complete 'drop'.

Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think!

This is incredibly unscientific, but take a stab at it anyway....

I did a blog on imitating singers recently and felt the need to expound on the topic of 'matching a singer's intensity'. So here goes:

A singer must learn how to match another singer's intensity regardless of how different the voices are. For example, People withricher voices may automatically switch to a strong head voice when singing a song by a singer with a lighter higher voice. In reality, the original singer is in a chest voice. The singer with the heavier voice, if they sing in a strong head voice as opposed to a chest voice may be unsatisfied because they sound weak in comparison to the person with the lighter voice. The problem will be resolved if the person with the heavier voice sings in the full chest voice as well. On a scale of 1 to 10, everyone has their own level 10 and if the original singer is singing at his level 10, you should do the same, regardless of how different the voices are.

It may be weird at first because you may feel like you are screaming at the top of your lungs but keep in mind that
1. the original singer probably sounded the same way before the magic of studio 'softened' the sound
2. Their voice transition are alot more subtle because they have less voice.
3. You can always lower the key to acheive the same intensity at a more comfortable range. :)

I hope that help! Please comment and share this article!!

This week I've been dealing with the BET Awards' performers and their singing technique. Here is a quick blog about how to imitate singers. I just wanted to note that we're not trying to imitate in order to become caricatures of our favorite artists, its more so to learn how they do what they do so well and be able to add it to our own singing. this is how we become more and more diverse as singer.

1.       Placements- Imitating performers can teach a singer a lot about placements. Some singers place their voices very forward and have a very strong mixed voice with a clear, resonant belting voice. Other singers have very non- resonant voices and sing mostly with nasality and chest voice. If a singer learns to differentiate between a resonant voice that’s loud and a non -resonant voice that’s loud they will be much better at executing songs.

2.       Intensity- Imitating other recording artists teaches a great lesson on how to sing with intensity and how to match a person’s vocal intensity regardless of how different two voices may be. If one notices that a singer is in a strong chest voice, he must do the same thing in order to imitate correctly and give the same ‘feel’.

3.       Breathing and Phrasing- Another great reason to imitate professional singers is to learn advanced breathing and phrasing techniques. Many times the way a singer pronounces their works or moves there mouth serves a purpose musically, as opposed to it being for dramatic effect. Their mouth movements may serve to help them produce the very vocal skills you hear on their recordings. Its wise to take note and experiment to find out.

 Please share and feel free to comment if you found this blog helpful!