Vocal Exercise | Improve Your Pitch with 5th Jumps (video)

With this vocal exercise, you’re gonna improve your pitch with 5th jumps up and down.

When singing an interval, like the 5th here in the video, you’re working on ear training but also vocal flexibility. Your pitch is going to improve with the repetition of this interval because of the muscle memory.

What happens is that by repeating a movement, like a professional athlete, you develop some kind of souvenir in your muscle. You repeat and your brain remembers how to do this movement. The more you do it, the more your brain remembers and the more your gesture becomes natural!

That is the reason why every athlete or professional vocalist keep repeating their gestures. To achieve perfection.

OK, so let’s say you’ve sung the 5th interval for a while and several days in a row. What happens then? Well, you’ll be able to go straight to the upper or lower note without hesitating and it will be on spot! That means you’ll be on pitch. And that even means you’re becoming a better singer.

The only thing you have to do to sing more on pitch is to repeat musical patterns like the 5th interval (and there are a tons of patterns). Repeat them every day for let’s say 6 days and include them in your warm-up routine.

Then, for the next 6 days, include another musical pattern in your vocals routine and come back to this exercise 5th jumps at one moment.

If you’re serious about your singing, you have to train your voice so you can use it at its best when you want to use it.

VOCAL EXERCISE: IMPROVE YOUR PITCH WITH 5TH JUMPS

Here is how you should do the exercise

1. check your body alignment
2. check your mouth aperture
3. listen to the interval
4. sing my blue bird with me
5. sing it with eyes closed
6. sing it focusing on a far away point
7. routine example

1 / check your body alignment

Whether you’re singing standing or sitting, always check your body alignment.

For example, your chest should not collapse and if it does during the exercise, because we all can get tired, well adjust your posture again. If it is something you feel you have to work on, remember to think about it during the exercise and, on a general note, each time you sing.

2 / check your mouth aperture

In the exercise, we are singing the words My Blue Bird.

My must be a vertical opening, Blue is projected straight forward, Bird is also vertical. Try not  to sing in your mouth as if you were mumbling.

Use the M and Bs to project your vowels…

3 / listen to the interval

Listen closely to the 5th interval, listening means you don’t sing or even hum but just listen. If you learn to listen well, you’ll improve faster, believe me!

4 / sing my blue bird with me

The 1st time, sing the exercise with me, watching the video. Try to adjust your alignment, your mouth aperture, stretch your vowels (here we are not singing staccato but legato), listen to the interval.

Go straight from one note to another jumping up and down. I show you in the video how you should do it and how you shouldn’t (sirens).

5 / sing it with eyes closed

The 2nd time, sing with your eyes closed so you shut down the eyesight and focus more on the interval and on your voice.

6 / sing it focusing on a far away point

The 3rd and last time, sing focusing on a far away point in the room you are in. It could be a poster, your window or your cat but it has to be far away. If you’re sitting and singing watching your laptop or desktop, you will not project your voice 😉

7 / routine example

As a routine, here is what you could do:

• sirens humming / sirens and scales lips bubbling: see this warm-up
• 5th jumps (the 3 ways I mentioned above)

For best results do the exercise for 6 days in a row. Then sing another interval the week after. Then come back to the 5th.

VOCAL EXERCISE | IMPROVE YOUR PITCH WITH 5TH JUMPS

A professional vocalist trains is voice his whole “musical” life. Let’s make the 5th a friend or a companion cause you’re gonna hear it (and sing it) a LOT 😉

See you next week for another vocal tip or exercise or warm-up! If you don’t wanna miss it, SUBSCRIBE TO MY NEWSLETTER and you’ll be the first to know when a new video or post is on the blog.

Cheers,

–Vahn

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