Hey there, this is John Henny and on today’s vocal tip, we’re going to talk about vocal compression.
What is vocal compression?
Well, in order to create a sound wave, your vocal cords need to close over your windpipe and as you start to press the air out, the cords don’t let it go anywhere. So these air molecules become more and more pressed together and they start to build energy pressure. At a certain point, your vocal folds pop open and that compressed air of the molecules expand and start bouncing around and you have your Soundwave.
Now compression will refer to how much the vocal folds resist the air. With very light compression, you’re going to get breathy sound. With really, really strong compression, you’re going to get louder and actually start to sound squeezed in overworked, the fancy term is closed quotient, the percentage of time the cord stay closed against the flow of air.
Now at zero percent, you have no sound. It’s just you letting air out at 100% you have no sound, the cords completely close over and block the air. So we want to find the right amount of compression for the intensity of the note that you want. It is that resistance.
Now I recommend being very careful as you begin to build more and more resistance or compression. Where a lot of vocal trouble happens is when singers are over compressing and over squeezing the vocal folds. You want to find this balance between airflow and voice resistance. It’s often referred to as flow phone nation phone nation is making sound you want the air to be flowing so that you never get bound up and squeezed and cause all sorts of vocal issues.
Hey, for more vocal tips visit my website johnhenny.com and be sure to subscribe to my podcast The Intelligent Vocalist.
Thank you so much!