The Impact of Strength Training on Vocal Performance

There is a common belief that strength training can be a hindrance to activities that require fine motor control, such as playing the piano or singing. Many vocal instructors warn that weightlifting could negatively affect vocal performance. However, this perspective may not fully consider the potential benefits of strength training for voice control and resonance.

Recent discussions have highlighted that targeted exercises can actually help improve vocal quality. For example, some individuals have observed noticeable changes in their voice after performing specific movements that release tension in certain muscle groups. One such case involved an individual who experienced an immediate deepening of their voice after releasing tightness in the quadratus lumborum, a muscle in the lower back. This suggests that muscular restrictions in the body can influence vocal tone and projection.

A practical approach to understanding this co...

Singing High Notes Softly and Easily

Singing high notes without being too loud was a long journey for me. My voice was naturally low, and I struggled to expand my range. Even when I did, I had to push too hard to reach high notes, making them unusable in songs. Simply "relaxing" wasn’t enough—I had to find a structured way to soften my voice while maintaining stability.

 The Process of Softening the Voice

1. Start Loud: Establish a strong, stable sound.
2. Gradual Softening: If you just back off the volume, the voice can collapse into falsetto or instability. Instead, maintain compression while reducing volume.
3. Refinement: Initially, the softened voice may sound "Dopey" or overly compressed. The next step is to brighten it without losing stability.

Training a Singer Through This Process

• The singer I worked with struggled to keep his voice from flipping. Many would think he was switching between chest and falsetto, but he was actually transitioning between two types of chest v
...

The Truth About Relaxing Your Voice

One of the biggest misconceptions about singing is that to relax your voice, you need to do less. Many believe that by backing off, their voice will naturally become more effortless. However, in 99% of cases, the opposite is true.

Strength Before Relaxation

To truly relax while singing, you first have to go through a phase of rigorous strengthening. At first, this might feel like:

• Straining
• Squeezing
• Over-gripping

This stage is necessary because it builds the muscular strength required to support your voice. Once that strength is in place, you can then ease off, and your voice will remain stable.

The Common Mistake

Most singers try to relax their voice prematurely. As a result:

1. Their voice becomes shaky and starts to fall apart.
2. To compensate, they try to sing louder, but then feel like they are straining.
3. They go back to relaxing, but it collapses again.
4. This cycle continues—stuck between straining and losing control.

Findin...

How to Develop Your Singing Tone: A Measurable Approach

When it comes to singing, tone can feel like a subjective concept—everyone has a different idea of what sounds good. But how do we turn something subjective into a clear, measurable goal?

The Key Elements of Great Singing

1. Range – You need to have the notes required for the songs you want to sing.

2. Control and Ease – The notes should feel stable and effortless; otherwise, they likely won’t sound good.

3. Volume Control – Singing softly and loudly should be within your control because volume impacts tone.

4. Consistency – You should be able to sing your favorite songs all the way through, in one take, with good pitch and confidence.

If you can achieve all these elements, you're on your way to being a killer singer. By the time you reach this point, you will either have the tone you desire or know exactly how to tweak it without sacrificing control.

Why Chasing Tone First Can Lead to Problems

Many singers ...

Do you really need to be born with a high voice if you want to sing high songs?  

As you can hear by my voice, I don't have a naturally high voice.

And if I kind of speak a little bit more, you can kind of hear that my voice is quite low naturally, right? Yet, I've been able to train my voice and develop it to sing crazy high songs.

When I first started singing, my highest note was F. The very first note in a song, I couldn't even sing. When I say my highest note was F, I don't mean I could like sing up there. It was like I had to yell up and I could just touch it for one second.

I know what it's like to be born with a voice that doesn't have talent, right? A voice that's just kind of low, and every song feels like it's too high. Every song feels like it's too high. You put on the radio, and you want to sing along, and it's just like, "Oh, it's too high." The range I can sing in is just ridiculously small, and it's really frustrating because it's like…

A lot of people say thing...

I'm just going to put it really simple for you. You really only need to worry about chest voice and falsetto.

So, what's chest voice and what's falsetto? In case you don't know, chest voice is the voice that I'm speaking in right now. It can be very soft, but it can also be very loud. You're using chest voice when you're speaking, yelling, or calling out. It's basically your real voice — your full, natural voice.

Falsetto is the voice that you use when you're speaking to a small animal or imitating a character like Mickey Mouse. It's higher and softer, but it can also be strong. It can be loud and clear, but it's still falsetto.

Basically, you've got those two vocal registers: chest voice and falsetto. These are the real registers you'll train.

Now, you might be wondering about head voice or mixed voice. Well, head voice and mixed voice are included in chest voice and falsetto. Let me explain:

Mixed Voice

Mixed voice is a term that often comes up online. You'll hear that mi...

In the video below you'll see how my student Spenser was able to dramatically transform his singing voice in about a year studying with me.

"Since training with Phil Moufarrege, I can easily access my mixed voice.  My vocal range, strength and stamina have increased a ton. I feel much more in control of my voice and can confidently sing notes I would have been nervous to even attempt when I first started.  I can sing seamlessly past my break and well into the next octave with more strength, compression and accuracy."

Before we started working together Spenser felt his voice was a big barrier blocking him from singing his original music the way he wanted. He had a limited range and felt like he didn't have the vocal freedom, consistency or stability to sing the way he wanted.

Now he can finally get his songs completed without his voice being a barrier and now he has the freedom to sing his songs the way he wants and he has been pursuing a professional career with his songs.  His ...

In just a few weeks I helped Greg Giraudo increase his vocal range up to D5 in a useable way and gain more freedom and dynamic control in his existing range.  Here is a cover he did of QUEEN's Show Must Go On after working with me for just a few weeks.

It takes a lot of vocal range to sing in the range of Freddie Mercury.  You don't just need to sing high either, you need to be able to sing high with POWER as well.

A thin, shaky "mixed voice" won't cut it either.  You need to be able to sing in a very chesty, solid full voice.

The way I teach this is by STAYING IN chest voice, not "smoothing the vocal break" or "hiding the transition".

Is it really possible to do that without getting stuck, losing your voice or straining or sound like you're shouting?

Yes!

When you have a voice with this kind of power, control, range and stamina it gives you a TON of options and versatility as a singer.  It opens up the doors for you to sing so many more songs with confidence. 

No longer do you have to...

I just did a vocal cover of Chris Cornell's song Gasoline. Check it out here:

When I first started singing, songs like this were absolutely impossible...even the notes in the verses would have been way out of my comfort zone.

I used to go to teachers, read forums and they'd all say the same thing: "bridge into headvoice! Don't worry if it sounds weak, it'll get stronger later!"

But it never did.

In this song I'm in chest voice the entire time, even the high B4 screams I do. It's all chest voice.

The distorted screams I do on those B4's all stem from pure chest voice. The way I developed those and teach it is by first being able to really lean in and powerfully hit those notes CLEAN and LOUD first in a lower larynx position (almost like an operatic kind of sound).

Yes it can be done safely. In fact, once it's strong you can sing for hours with a ton of stamina. One of my students who has been struggling through his gigs told me that once he started working with me his stamina has improve...

Today I'm going to show you how a student of mine, Yago, increased his full voice vocal range by 4 notes, from F4 to A4 in just 3 weeks working with me.

When Yago first joined my program, he sent me an email saying:

"I've been singing for years and I've tried so many different teachers and techniques and I always end up straining on F4 and losing my voice every time.

Whenever I reach F or F#4 I start to strain or immediately go to falsetto.  My goal is to develop a solid mixed voice, but no matter what I do it always seems impossible."

He started working with the program for a few weeks then asked for my feedback on some of the exercises.  I gave him a few adjustments and then told him to come to one of the group coaching calls I offer in the program.

He came in and told me that just off that single tip I gave him in the email, it made a huge difference in his voice.  I took him through one of the exercises to see how he's going with them and he zipped right up to the A4.  He t...