FOUNDATION

VOCAL BLUEPRINT
FOUNDATION VOCAL COURSE . COM
Index
What to expect
Introduction
The Four Vocal Fundamentals
Forward Placement
Height in the vocal tract
"All in one flow"
Mixed Tonality
Vocal anatomy P1 (resonators)
Vocal anatomy P2 (Larynx and vocal folds)
The AH vowel
The AY vowel
Subsequent vowels
Vowel Modification
Tonal Registration
Goal setting
Getting started

FOUNDATION VOCAL GUIDE

Foundation Vocal
Hi! I'm Kegan DeBoheme - I'll be taking you through this vocal guide, and it's my pumpkin
you'll be seeing in the training videos too!

I started singing at the tail end of the 90s - initially just a guitarist, I quickly became
frustrated at being unable to find a singer for my many highschool bands; and secretly
thought there was really nothing to it.

But it turned out to be exceptionally HARD.

About Kegan DeBoheme I strained, struggled and forced my way through even the most basic and lowest songs.
This ineptness at singing led me to take singing lessons for nearly a decade - seeing little
progress along the way; until I started to question every instruction I was given. I was
honestly shocked at the responses I got, such as "you don't need to know that", "you're
overthinking it" or even just blank looks.

I quickly came to the conclusion that many of the teachers that I had been seeing were
just 'naturals' - which is great, for them, but they really lacked empathy when it came to
the very fundamental issues I continued to struggle with; they didn't struggle with the
same things I was struggling with, so how could they possibly help me?

They couldn't.

Until I found an easier way that actually SHOWED me how to sing; enough anatomy to
understand what was really going on... without being rocket science, and absolute
practicality without relying on esoteric metaphors. Basically, real vocal training for
practical people who really want more depth than the common instructions like "yawn
before you sing" without just quoting a medical textbook.

Now with over a decade of professional coaching experience under my belt, I've created
The Foundation Vocal approach with a view to share the incredible growth and success
that I've enjoyed in my singing.

FOUNDATION VOCAL
 The Four Vocal Fundamentals

Every technique, tip, trick, term and

concept out there relates directly to
just FOUR basic fundamentals;

Height in the vocal tract

Forward placement
"All in one flow"
Mixed Tonality
Forward Placement
Introducing Brightness

A bright vocal tone is a healthy and powerful vocal tone.

By resonating higher in the bones of the face with a bright 'forward' tone instead of a
dark, muddy tone sitting towards the back of the vocal tract - you instantly increase
your vowel, power and precision ten fold and ultimately bring your voice out of your
throat.

There's really two aspects to forward placement - tonal intention and necessary twang.

For a brighter vocal tone, think "enthusiastic" in your tone "AHA!!" "YEAH!" up
towards the top teeth rather than UH low in the base of the jaw.

Twang occurs when you engage the AES - the epiglottis. This partially compresses the
air held below and also directs your resonance at the wall of the vocal tract itself; so
instead of the sound just bouncing about in the resonant space, the walls and bones of
the vocal tract itself actually vibrate to increase and improve your resonance.

FOUNDATION VOCAL
Vocal Tract Height Raising the soft palate up into the pharynx creates resonant space - akin to the
soundhole of an acoustic guitar.

By creating this space in the back for your vowel sounds, you allow your voice to
resonate fully without the need for force or tension.

Raising the soft palate Think about the sound of a small drop of water echoing around the walls of a cave - the
most minute sound can echo in an incredibly resonant, powerful and loud way.

The key here is really to sing a pharyngeal vowel instead of a speech vowel - we're not
forcing our soft palate up and then hoping for the best with our speaking voices; we
need to create the space first, but, we also need to sing the most efficient sounds which
in turn resonate effectively within that space.

There's really two main vowel groups in singing - AH based vowels with the tongue
lowered into the base of the mouth, and AY based vowels where the middle of the
tongue is raised up towards the roof of the mouth. These base vowel sounds resonate in
the most efficient way within the vocal tract, and all other vowels (aside from the
classical OO vowel sung with the bulk of the tongue 'back' towards the palate) are
formed from these two tongue positions .

AH - Tongue Down
AY - Tongue Up

By singing your vowel sounds in this way, you facilitate continued height within the
vocal tract - where accented speech sounds often require the soft palate to lower back
into a closed position.
"All in one flow"

DIAPHRAGMATIC BREATHING

Engage the diaphragm Manage your airflow Balanced onset

The diaphragm is a large, dome-shaped muscle which sits at the base of the lung cavity, above the abdomen.
When the diaphragm is engaged by way of the adjoining musculature and the right intention, the diaphragm
lowers towards the abdomen to create a negative space which is instantly filled with pressurised air.

FOUNDATION VOCAL
Mixed Tonality
Balanced resonance

Your voice isn't just separated into Chest Voice and Head Voice - there are
many tonal shades in between the two as you start to develop connection
between your registers in a way that creates mixed voice.

In a physical sense, Mixed Voice occurs when you use the TA and CT muscles
at the same time. Instead of taking chest voice as high as possible with the TA
muscle contracted, then 'handing off' to head voice by stretching the folds with
the CT muscle, these two powerful muscles that control your vocal folds
actually have an antagonistic relationship where they play against each other -
literally creating a bridge that your vocal folds can keep vibrating through as
you ascend in range through the break passages of your voice.

Mixed voice is young, assertive and pleasant - in the initial stages think of mix
as the dead centre between the tone of head voice and the tone of chest voice.

FOUNDATION VOCAL
 THE ANATOMY OF THE VOICE PT.1

Nasal resonator

Sphenoid
Oral Resonator

Pharynx
Articulators

Pharyngeal resonator

Tongue
Soft Palate

Digastric muscle
Epiglottis
 THE ANATOMY OF THE VOICE PT.2
Epiglottis

Vocal Folds

CT (Cricothyroid) muscle

Thyroid cartilage TA (Thyroarytenoid)

 The AH vowel
Uvula
Tongue down

Soft palate A pharyngeal AH vowel is sung with the tongue lowered into
the base of the jaw with a concave shape lowered in the
middle/line down the centre of the tongue.

Tongue The enthusiastically sung "Hard" without an americanized "R"

consonant (so, just the central vowel) is a great way to
identify this vowel. Remember, our soft palate needs to be
raised and our tongue needs to be sitting in the base of the
mouth - try to focus on resonance rather than pronunciation.

The AH vowel modifies along the path;

Neutral/Wider/Narrowing/Narrow
Hard/Hawed/Heard/Who'd

FOUNDATION VOCAL
 Subsequent AH based vowels
Uvula
Tongue down

Soft palate The base AH position of the tongue down, mouth open and
palate raised also makes the vowels AA like CAT and OH like
GOLD.

Tongue AH - Tongue down, mouth vertical

AA - Tongue down and forward, mouth horizontal
OH - Tongue down, mouth oval from top to bottom

FOUNDATION VOCAL
 The AY vowel
Uvula
Tongue up

Soft palate A pharyngeal AY vowel is sung with the middle of the tongue
raised towards the roof of the mouth and the tongue slightly
forward of the AH position.

Tongue The enthusiastically sung "Hey" without an americanized "Y"

consonant (so, just the central vowel) is a great way to
identify this vowel. Remember, our soft palate needs to be
raised and our tongue needs to be raised in the centre of the
mouth - try to focus on resonance rather than pronunciation.

The AY vowel modifies along the path;

Wide/Wider/Narrowing/Narrow
Hey/Head/Hid/Heed

FOUNDATION VOCAL
 Subsequent AY based vowels
Uvula
Tongue up

Soft palate The base AY vowel position also gives us the EE like SEE and
OU like SEARCH vowels.

AY - Tongue up, mouth horizontal

Tongue EE - Tongue up higher, teeth closer
OU - Tongue up and forward, lips forward

FOUNDATION VOCAL
Vowel Modification
ALTERING THE VOCAL TRACT
Vowel modification occurs when we alter our vocal tract to
facilitate and encourage a shift in our frequencies and
resonance as we ascend.
Think of vowel modification as different sized tuning forks, or
differet harmonicas tuned to different keys.
For each register there is essentially a 'register formant'; a
specific collection of frequencies which resonate in the most
efficient way.
So, we have to alter the size and shape of our vocal tract
and setup within the vowel to allow and develop this
effective, powerful resonance. The key to learning vowel
modification is to first understand the soft palate.
The soft palate
THE KEY TO RESONANT SPACE
The soft palate, known as the Velum, is located at the
back/top of your mouth and sits just behind the hard palate
(the roof of your mouth) - where the uvula hangs down in the
back of your throat.
This soft, fleshy flap has three main functions when you sing;
height in the vocal tract, width and contraction of the
resonant space, and finally the velar pharyngeal port - which
controls the passage of air through the nose or mouth.
You can practice raising the soft palate by inhaling from an
unvoiced "K" consonant sound, a gentle yawn and even a
surprised inhalation high in the back of the mouth. The key
here is to focus solely on the soft palate and not engage the
neck or larynx when we raise the palate - especially on a
yawn.
FOUNDATION VOCAL
The velar port Vocal tract width

THE DOOR TO THE NOSE ALTERING RESONANT SPACE

Breathe in through your nose only - the velar port is "open"
Breathe in through your mouth only - the velar port is
"closed"
While many practice routines include "open" velar sounds
such as M, NG, N - it's important to understand that while
these sounds help you achieve a forward placement; this is
actually an incorrect position for the velar port while singing
vowel sounds.
On vowel sounds, the velar port is actually closed as the soft
palate is raised, meaning that there is NO airflow through
the nose on a correctly sung vowel.
The key here is to differentiate forward placement from
nasal airflow.
As you ascend in range, the vocal tract actually takes for
different positions;
Chest Voice - Neutral
Chest Mix - Wider
Head Mix - Narrowing
Head Voice - Narrow
Imagine someone telling you an inappropriate, but hilariously
funny joke at work during a meeting - keep the smile off your
face, but breathe wide into the soft palate like an internal
smile. This is a WIDE vocal tract.
Sing a French sound like OUI with your fingers in your
cheeks and your tongue forward. This is a NARROW tract.

FOUNDATION VOCAL
Word references AH Vowel Mods

THE PATH OF LEAST RESISTANCE ALTERING RESONANT SPACE

When we say "vowel modification", it's easy to get conned Chest voice - HARD
into thinking this all has something to do with speech Chest mix - HAWED
pronunciation like your accent - but it's actually all about Head mix - HEARD
your resonant space. Head voice - WHO'D

For example, the word "SIT" is a narrow word, and the word
"HEAD" is a wide sound.
AY Vowel Mods
So, as we ascend on an AY based vowel - singing from the
base sound "LAY", we slightly shift the vowel towards YEAH
ALTERING RESONANT SPACE
to widen the tract a touch, then slightly shift the vowel
towards SIT as we move into our upper mixed voice to start Chest voice - HEY
narrowing the space. Chest mix - HEAD
Head mix - HID
It's important to note this is a shift in the soft palate - not in Head voice - HEED
the pronunciation of the word within your mouth.

FOUNDATION VOCAL
 Tonal Registration
Chest Voice
Bright, forward and open

Fully contracted TA muscle, raised but neutral soft palate

Chest Mix
Classroom voice - young and assertive

Partially contracted TA and CT muscles, wider soft palate

Head Mix
Cry
CT dominant over TA, narrowing soft palate

Head Voice
Hoot becoming witchy

Fully contracted CT muscle, raised but contracted soft palate

Goal Setting
The key to serious progress

Setting incrementally challenging and ambitious goals is the true key to serious
vocal progress. If you're just doing lip trills and scales and hoping that one day
you're going to be an awesome singer - you're going to fall short.

Singing is very much a "do or die" pursuit - to achieve your ultimate dream of
being a great singer, you have to take the training wheels off at some point
and start actually being a singer. Set modest goals to begin with - that local
open mic night, writing that song, making that demo recording. Then as you
start achieving these lower tier goals, start reaching higher with that audition,
doing a serious recording with your band, writing more challenging songs.

The key to constant progress is to constantly be working towards the next,

better, bigger, more ambitious goal to meet the ever growing level of your
progress.

FOUNDATION VOCAL
Getting started One of the hardest tasks a singer will ever come up against is exactly
HOW to get started. Which exercise? Which approach? What goal?
What range?

Our singing voices are unique and individual - so we really need to

balance it all out by connecting chest and head voice together as one
Today is the day fluid voice. Whatever level you're at, whether you're a total beginner or
seasoned pro - if you've still got a big 'ol flip in the middle of your chest
and head voice, or even just a pesky little speedbump, then your first
goal starts right here, right now today: Connect chest and head voice.

Hit the button below to watch the free training video:

FOUNDATION VOCAL