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More control is something every singer wants. This fantastic little exercise works like a charm. It is gentle and soothing to the vocal chords and offers a clear voice with a lot of control.

The smallest sound possible

For the purposes of this exercise, we will assume that you are already familiar with diaphragmatic breathing and have it under control. (If you don’t, go ahead and learn that first.)

We will choose to sing the vowel “E”. So to begin with, you want to make the smallest sound possible. Once you’ve done that, add power to that “E” and crank it up until you get a big, powerful sound. Then lower it back down, with the same small sound you started with.

You should feel the swelling in your abdominal muscles as well as in your diaphragm. You should have the feeling that your whole body swells with each note. Make sure you have a nice strong swell at the top.

what you are trying to achieve

First, focus on getting a tiny, tiny sound. Depending on where you are in your singing development will determine how much difficulty or ease you have. It’s nice to have someone by your side telling you to aim for a smaller and smaller sound. If you don’t have anyone, it’s helpful to sign up. The sound should be barely audible.

His second point of focus is on the smoothness of his waves. Imagine a round shape with a point, like a Christmas tree ornament, that is the shape of your sound. You want your swell to be smooth and even, so gradual that it’s difficult to detect where its volume is increasing.

Split it into two halves, the first half of the swell and then the second. Most singers find the second much more difficult. They barely have much curve in the second half, the shape of the sound would be like a crooked Christmas tree ornament. So after you’ve perfected the first half, focus on the second half.

And again, most find the ending more difficult than the beginning, so I usually focus on the latter, after the rest start to come.

So for the exercise you play a note and then after the note you sing the note and swell. Then he plays the second note and then he sings. This way you go up the ladder. Singing after the note and not with it allows you to hear clearly and focus on getting that tiny sound. I usually just use “doh” to “soh”, instead of the whole scale.

So depending on how difficult you find each focus point, you may want to spend weeks on one point, for example, perfecting the level of the entry note. It varies a lot from student to student.

Level one

At level one, go very slowly and take a long time on each swell. Spend approximately 6 seconds in each swell. When I first start a student on this exercise, I usually don’t do it for more than five or ten minutes, due to the high concentration required.

level two

Once you are achieving some success and have practiced all the focus points, you are ready for level two. At level two, we move much faster through the ladder, spending around two seconds on each swell. Because we are going faster, the magnitude of the swell is also reduced.

Benefits of this exercise

Besides the wonderful benefit of gaining control over your voice, this exercise has a very special benefit. It can soothe a scratchy, raw throat. I have brought an almost hoarse voice to the point where it can sing, using the swell scale exercises. It takes time, hours if your throat is in very bad shape.

So if you’re already singing or just learning to sing, these “swollen scales” are a little gem. Keep them in your bag of tricks and use them often. You will be amazed with the results.