“Breathe through the diaphragm! Sing through diaphragm, not through your throat! Tuck in your butt when sustaining high pitch! Imagine the voice is going out from the back of your head! Change into falsetto! Control your wind pipe!” etc. etc. … …
Sound familiar? Ever wonder what do all these mean, or how to achieve them? The mouth is on our face, and the vocal cords are in the throat. How does one sing ‘through diaphragm’, and why must one ‘tuck in the butt’? Using the same mouth and throat to speak, why is singing so different from speech?
If you ask Alice, singing is simply correct speaking at various pitches.
Speech Level Singing™ (SLS) technique is a revolutionary vocal training technique created by Seth Riggs from USA Hollywood, used by many professional singers and award winners like Natalie Cole, Philip Webb, Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, Josh Groban (1st album only), Barbara Streisand, Rain (K-Pop), Wang Lee Hom (latest album), etc. Of course, SLS does not mean that you sing as if you're speaking (because there are people who do not speak correctly), but it can train your voice to sing healthily, with a much wider range, and no “cracks’ / “breaks” in between.
Many traditional vocal teachers over-emphasised in diaphragm support, resulting too much air being built up in the singer's body. If the vocal cords are not strong enough to withhold the amount of air gushing out from the lungs, they could be blown apart resulting an airy and light head voice, thus creating an abrupt change in tone quality, and limiting the vocal range of the singer. In some extreme cases, where singers tried to belt all the way through their bridges, vocal cords may be tightened too much and cause damage to the cords.
Although we agree that breathing is part of the process of singing, we believe it is a result of good vocal production, rather than the cause. In SLS, we train you to balance everything: from vocal cords, to vowels, to air, in all registers. Specific vocal exercises will be designed for your voice type, to achieve a connected voice with a low stabilised larynx (which is important to enable one to sing at ease).
The SLS technique has also been practiced by Academy Award winning actors and industry leaders to perfect their vocal presence and empower them in speech. Alice Wong has been a professional stand-up trainer before she embarked her career in teaching SLS. This technique has evidently improved the way she use her voice not only for her singing, but also for her presentations!
All in all, SLS is not teaching you what to sing, but how to sing with a balanced voice from bottom to top range. Thus it can be applied to any genres of songs you like to sing. SLS is a way of using your voice to sing freely and clearly with maximum power and clarity.
"You don't sing like you speak, but you need to keep the same comfortable, easily produced vocal posture you have when you speak, so that you don't reach up for high notes or press down for low ones. This takes time and patience to coordinate. A teacher needs to know how to get each of his students to sing through his or her range in a connected, easy manner, without any “breaks” or sudden changes of tone quality. This is Speech Level Singing.” -- Seth Riggs
For more information about SLS, please visit www.speechlevelsinging.com
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