Focus straight up, or up and out when doing vocalexercises or singing?

[JoshJ25]

BTW hi all, its been a while since I posted here, I hope you are all doing great!

I have read various books and dabbled with various programs and Im kind of confused about some things. When exercising/singing should I be focusing on sending everything straight up through the soft palate, or should my focus be to try to get as much sound to resonate outwards out of my opened mouth? Meaning like in a curved shape as of an arc rising up my throat (vocal cords) and out through my mouth?

Thanks!

[Robert Lunte]

Huh? Hi Josh, I think I understand what your asking. You seem to be hitting at the sensations of "covering". When you feel it "arching" as you say, are you usually singing around an E4 and above? If so, I most certainly would encourage you to continue to explore that sensation.

The Higher The Pitch, The Deeper The Placement.... pull back and go to a heady place as you sing higher... train away from singing forward. Stop belting your belts, shouting your shouts, shouting your belts and belting your shouts... belting and shouting are almost the same thing. The popular term "belting" we hear often in singing discussions is nothing more then a refined shout. Your vocal technique and path of enlightenment for singing is in learning to sit your resonant placments in the head voice with some good beefy intrinsic anchoring to lock and load your formant package... then you'll get the "boom-boom" your looking for in the overtones.

Allowing your phonations to pull back to your "arch" as you say, is going to greatly hasten your progress to sounding amazing. Sounds like your about to figure something out important in your training. Pull back, dump the larynx, hold the vowel... maintain your formant package and you'll be singing world=class.

[random1destiny]

I definitely thing upwards. I used to think of pushing the sound forwards and out my mouth, but found that led to a ton of unnecessary tension, mainly because you can't actively bend sound around the corner. I find thinking about just sending the sound straight up and letting the resonant chambers do their work in building and reflecting the sound the right way makes things go a lot smoother, especially on higher notes.

[VideoHere]

I definitely thing upwards. I used to think of pushing the sound forwards and out my mouth, but found that led to a ton of unnecessary tension, mainly because you can't actively bend sound around the corner. I find thinking about just sending the sound straight up and letting the resonant chambers do their work in building and reflecting the sound the right way makes things go a lot smoother, especially on higher notes.

with high notes, i agree completely.

[JoshJ25]

Isnt pushing the sound forwards actually pushing the air forwards? I have heard from vocal teachers say that one should try to visualize and project the voice forwards, by imagining to try and hit the back of the room with ones voice. Is this not a correct method?

[random1destiny]

No, pushing the air harder in a certain direction doesn't change how your sound projects. If that were true you wouldn't hear anything if you vocalize while inhaling. Once the sound is created at your vocal cord you can only have it resonate and reflect around your head and out. You can't actively 'push' it out with muscle or pushed air any more than you can by swatting it with your hand outside your mouth.