How To Do An NG Hum
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How To Do An NG Hum (Transcript)
How to do the NG. Hum. NNNGGG that’s the NG hum. If you want a richer, fuller, warmer sounding voice on the high notes, then the NG hum is going to help you open up that head resonance. And it’s the key to really unlocking freedom in those high notes. So when would you use the NG when you’re singing, you would use the NG as an ideal warm-up sound so you can use it on scales. Anytime you want to target and open up that head resonance. And of course you could use it on your song melody before you sing again, to help guide you into that head resonance. So you’re not pushing and reaching for higher notes. Cool. So in this video, you’re going to learn how to do that NG hum. But before we get started subscribe to this channel on this channel, you’re going to find loads and loads of singing tutorials that guide you through the singing process from a singer’s perspective,
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Hello and welcome. I’m vocal coach Dylan. And I’ve been teaching people to sing now for well over 20 years now, before we get into that NG, I want to cover three types of hum that you may have heard of before you may have heard of the M hum. MMM, as in the word mummy, the N hum, NNN as in the word nose and of course where abouts do the NG hum as in the word sing it’s that bit on the end NNNGGG Cool. Now why are there these three main types? Actually there’s many variations of hum, but these three main ones keep cropping up. So what’s the difference and how can you use them in singing? The M hum gives you more of a chesty forward quality. The N hum more of a mixed voice quality and the NG hum, more of a heady voice quality. And that happens very naturally just by the resonance being in those three different places.
So let’s explore them quickly go. MMM. As in the word mummy. MMM. Do you feel the buzzing sort of around here if you’re not sure to it a little bit. MMM. And you’ll feel like a buzzy, a tickly feeling around here somewhere. Now do the N as in the word nose. So start say nose, nose. NNN NNN. Do you feel the buzzing more round here? So you, see already we’ve got different sensations of resonance and that N is more in a kind of mixed voice quality. So we’ve got the, MMM M hum more chesty NNN more in the nose area for a mixed voice. And then the NG SINNNGGG is right back here. Some people feel it sort of there, but definitely everyone feels it. This kind of section of the head. Cool. So quickly run through them N,M and NG and you’ll feel that.
MMM NNN NNNGGG
Cool. So that’s different sensations of resonance. So how does that sound in the context of singing well like I said, the M hum gives us more that chesty quality naturally the N, more of a mix. So it’s lighter. And then the NG gives us a lightest quality and also it guides us really nicely for the higher notes. So I’m going to sing now on the M the N and then the NG so you can hear the difference. So firstly, let’s get started with that. M hum. But shall we deal with the elephant in the room first as if by magic, my Rhodes NT one a has appeared that’s because when I did the examples, first time round the overhead mic, didn’t pick up those subtleties in the voice. So I’m hoping that my Rhodes and one a, but I know my road’s NT one a will do a much better job.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Cool. Maybe I should start working with this a bit more because at the end of the day, what you hear is crucial on your journey to learning, to become a better singer. All right. So another thing here, when I go through the M the N and the NG, I’m going to try and keep a singing very clean and very basic. So you can really hear how the M hum the N hum and the NG hum, where they resonate the placement of them, how that affects the sound, because just by resonating in those different places, it sets up the breathing and the vocal folds in a different way. Cool. And at the end of it, I’ll just sing it the way I would sing it because what you want to understand about the M the N and the NG and all humming and all trilling and all that sort of stuff is they’re only there to help guide you. They’re not actually the end result of singing for me personally, when I sing and for my students, it’s about emotion, but the journey to getting there includes M,N and NGs and trills and things like that. They’re great for helping getting you back on track. If you lose your way. All right. Enough of the lecture, let’s do it. Here we go on the M hum to start with
MMM so that was all the resonance. There, I’ll do it again.MMM well, my mom is sad.
That was the M hum. Now the N hum.
NNN well, my mama said now the NG NNNGGG well mom said
You hear the difference between the three. So how would I sing it? I would sing it more like this. Well, my mama said, cool. So it’s the three different resonances. The M the N, and the NG. You can see how each one gave a slightly different quality to the voice. So it’s important when you’re using these sounds that use them all because each one imparts different quality, which means there’s a strongly different setup in your voice, which translates into having a nice, flexible, open tone, rather than just working the M or the time where you’d get an overly chesty quality. Cool. You want balance through the voice? The overly chesty quality then would make it much harder for you to go higher through your voice top tip there. So before we get started on that NG, hum, make sure you have a mirror handy cool or that you’re standing near a mirror. All right.
I’ve got me mirror, I’ve got me mirror, show me the steps. Dyl!
Step one. Say the word sung sung. He sung really well the other day, sung,sung, you’ll go. Cool. Now what we’re going to do is hold that NG for longer. That’s the bit on the end of the word. Sung,sung, sung say it like this. If you want go sung, sung sung and make sure there’s good energy in it. You don’t want sung sung or it’s not really doing anything. Sung, sung, sung, sung. Don’t worry about the pitch. Wherever feels comfortable. All right. So keep having a go at that until you can hold that NG for a whole breath. I know we’ll move on to the next step. Okay. So now that you can hold that NG for a whole breath,
SUNNNGGG
It’s time to make sure that our face is nice and relaxed. Cool. Have a listen to this as my face is tense. SUNNNGGG When it’s relaxed, SUNNNGGG
Cool. And that’s why you need that mirror. You want what I call the zombie face and the zombie faces, uh, nice and relaxed. Cool. So I’m going to look in the mirror SUNNNGGG what does it look more like? Do your eyes look soft and relaxed? Are they like that? Or frantically, overthinking and controlling everything? Or are they nice and relaxed? Yeah. You know, I’m talking about, you relax it. If you’re going to overly concentrate and that’s owning an, a off your singing, relax cool. SUNNNGGG SUNNNGGG use your mirror siren. So that’s sliding up and down. SUNNNGGG did your face, stay nice and relaxed. Or as you went higher did it sort of start to go. SUNNNGGG
keep it super soft and relaxed. Your face has nothing to do with that pitch. So keep it out of the equation at the minute and keep it relaxed.SUNNNGGG, SUNNNGGG and if you’re struggling to do a siren, I leave a link in the description box below. So you can go and check out the tutorial on that. All right. So now we’re sirening through the voice on our NG and everything is nice and relaxed facially cool onto the next step. Okay. So now we’re going to pay particular attention to the lips. How are your lips setting when you’re doing that NG? Are they like this? NNNGGG, or are they like this NNNGGG or are they more neutral like this? NNNGGG, have a little play with that? Do you notice how hugely that affected the sound. And that will translate straight into your singing too little top tip here for you.
So if I’m going well, mama, well, mama, well, mama mama said have a little play around with that and notice that it has a huge effect on the tone of your voice. So in exactly the same way, it’s going to have a huge effect on the quality of your NG at the moment. We want everything super neutral. So we want SUNNNGGG so again, use that mirror. Just check what’s going on there. Yeah. All right. Keep it nice and soft. Soft Zombie Face lips kind of neutral and oval and relaxed. All right. That’s that step. Now I’d love to know how you’re finding these steps so far, which has been the hardest for you and which one’s given you the biggest kind of, Ooh, that’s interesting. I’m going to apply that to my singing and let me know if you’ve noticed some differences, stick it all in the comments below, because I’d love to interact with you and find out how you’re finding this exercise.
Okay. So the next step is where do you stick the tip of your tongue? This, Oh, right on the end there, that is the tip of your tongue. You don’t want it going into the gum. You want it touching comfortably the back of the bottom front teeth. So like this cool. Don’t press it firmly into the teeth. Just have it resting there. So that’s where the tip of the tongue goes. So next step, the back of the tongue. Where abouts does it sit? Well, those parts there, the back sides of the tongue, not the back side of the tongue, but the back sides of the tongue should be touching up on the molars at the back there. So the top set of teeth, your top row on those molars, top set of teeth. Suppose that makes sense. You get me. So how about top back teeth? It kind of covers the top back three. There I’m all over the place of these top back teeth, but you get me on those molars. All right. You want them on there on that NG?
NNNGGG, NNNGGG, NNNGGG,
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Cool. So that’s a starting point. What I want you to do once we’ve gone through all the steps is play around with moving the tongue back and forward. And I’ve got a super top tip at the end of this video about how powerful that actually is. All right. So we’ve got the tongue up at the back. NNNGGG,Well, you want to make sure that you don’t push the tongue up so hard into those teeth, that the tongue locks up and pushes down. Okay. So a top tip here for you just to make sure that you’re not jamming your tongue up into that NG tongue position. Cool, so those back teeth touching the molars, it should be light. So to make sure it’s light, take your thumb run it along your jaw bone until it goes into that soft bit under there. And then when the tip of your thumb touches lightly your throat, bring it forward a little bit. Now swallow as you swallow. There’s a point where you’re going to feel your thumb. Just gently melt up into the underside of your tongue at that point, try and keep that tongue that soft and say
SUNNNGGG, SUNNNGGG, SUNNNGGG
Stay soft. If we get
SUNNNGGG, SUNNNGGG, SUNNNGGG
That’s where I’m pushing hard against the molars. Can you hear the tone changes as well?
SUNNNGGG, SUNNNGGG,
Cool. So it’s important to keep that tongue nice and soft. It’s gently in place as opposed to forced in place. All right, Groovy. That was a super top tip there for you. You may even notice it when you’re siren and you’re going
SUNNNGGG,
And it locks up all right on to the next step resonance, where should we feel this NG resonating predominantly you should feel it resonate anywhere from here up and all the way round to the back of your head. Cool. I tend to feel it quite strongly in my ears. Some of my students feel it more up the top. Cool. But anyway, from here up words, we’re going to call that head resonance. Alrighty. So give it a go. Remember earlier on we went through the M, the N and the NG. Do it again. MMM, feel that’s more here. NNN that’s more here than, NNNGGG, can you feel it’s more sort of round here? NNNGGG, so that’s what you’re doing with that. NG you’re encouraging and opening up that head resonance. All right, groovy. So that’s where you want that voice resonating. So what I want you to do is just play around a little bit with dropping the jaw and on those molars, just moving the tongue forward, as you drop the jaw and see if you can really open up that resonance. So it’d be like this. You go some
SUNNNGGG,
So this was me moving the back of my tongue, along those teeth at the top there, moving them forward. You notice the sound got really bright and twangy, and then I moved it back and it got fuller and warmer and. I felt more resonance at the back of the head. Cool. None of these positions are right or wrong. They’re just variations. But specifically we want to open up that head resonance. So we’re going to try and get the most buzz in the back of the top of the head cool, but you could be more sort of twangy sounding if you wanted by bringing the tongue forward more but experiment with it. As long as the throat feels open and relaxed, it’s all good. So you should feel quite relaxed from that zombie face and making sure that the lips were relaxed to where relaxed were relaxed too.
But there’s one other dude that can give us chip here. We’ve also relaxed the tongue now with the thumb under there, the other dude that can give us chip is that jaw. And I want you to see if you can notice a difference. Okay? So we’re going to do the “Oh, Dear!” face Take your hands, put them here. All right. Just clench your teeth together. Do you feel how the muscles push out? You want those muscles to relax. If you swallow again, you’ll feel there’s a point where it just softens a little try and keep them that soft when you’re doing your NG. So you go SUNNNGGG, SUNNNGGG, there. I softened under my hands. Did you hear the NG sound changed? Just play around with that a little bit. Okay. So onto that final step, we’re going to take the S and the UH away. So we get NG as apposed to sung cool now on that.
NG I like to start it off by thinking the word hung and what we hear is, HNNNGGG. HNNNGGG. So you don’t want to say hung, you want to say, HNNNGGG, HNNNGGG. As if you’re saying the word hung in your mind and what we hear is the H and the NG like this. HNNNGGG, HNNNGGG. HNNNGGG. You can feel that little puff of air if you put it just under your nose. HNNNGGG,HNNNGGG HNNNGGG. And that little puff of air is going to help you really connect your voice at the beginning of each NG sound that you make, which is going to help intensify that resonance in the back of your head. Groovy. You now know how to do an NG. Hum. HNNNGGG,HNNNGGG HNNNGGG. Good job. Okay. And my final top tip for you is as you siren higher and higher, there’s a tendency for the tongue to pull back and the jaws close. So make sure you use your mirror, but what you can do to counteract that tongue pulling back is just slide them along those top teeth a little bit more. So the back of your tongue slide it forward a little as you go higher and you’ll notice the resonance stays far more open. Okay. So it’d be like this some SUNNNGGG
So if you’d like me to help you on your singing journey, I’ve got a really cool course on how to sing, where I go into this kind of detail and quite a bit more to make sure that you understand exactly how to build and use your singing voice. So if that sounds like something you’d be interested in, then go and check it out in the description box below, So did you like the video? Did you give it a, like, share it with your friends and all forget to subscribe. Here’s a video. I think you might like, see you there!
Iām Vocal Coach Dylan š
Did you know that if you don’t like the sound of your voice it could be as simple as your tongue is tense! Do this quick test to see if you have some.
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