So many singers feel like they have a breathing problem.
And while that can sometimes be the case, what often feels like poor breath “support” is actually incomplete vocal fold closure — air leaking through the sound instead of being efficiently used.
When the vocal folds don’t connect fully and efficiently, phrases can feel breathy, unstable, and exhausting. You may feel like you’re constantly running out of air, when the real issue is coordination at the level of the folds.
In this episode of Vocal Tips in 10, we break down one of the most foundational skills in singing: vocal fold adduction. Strong, balanced closure is essential for efficiency, stamina, tone clarity, and stylistic freedom — even (and especially) for highly stylized contemporary singers.
Inside this episode, you’ll learn:
• How incomplete vocal fold closure can mimic poor breath support
• Why “leaky valve” singing makes everything feel harder
• Practical exercises to improve vocal fold adduction
• How to use vocal fry, glottal onsets, and consonant-vowel combinations strategically
• How to strengthen closure without adding tension
If singing often feels air-heavy, unstable, or more effortful than it should, this episode will help you identify what’s really happening — and give you practical tools to build stronger, more efficient coordination.
00:00 Understanding Breath Control Issues
01:48 The Importance of Vocal Fold Adduction
02:26 Exercises for Vocal Fold Closure
05:15 Utilizing Vocal Fry for Technique
07:50 Consonant-Vowel Combinations for Vocal Health
09:39 Conclusion and Resources
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So many singers come to me, they're either reach out or singers that I work with, singers that I see in the vocal pro membership, singers across the board. So many of you complain about breath issues, feeling like you don't have enough breath to support you through the phrase like you want it to, feeling like you can't keep a hold of the breath, it escapes, your tone is too breathy, your tone is too squeezed, just breath comes up all the time. So according to most singers, the majority of you are really poor breathers.
And I don't think that's the case. We're not gonna be talking about breath support, quote, end quote, in today's episode. Now, don't get me wrong. Can there be functional breathing issues? Maybe it is a more beginner singer who doesn't quite know yet how to effectively work the mechanics of their breathing and their voice to have them work ideally together. Maybe it is a singer who has not focused on some of those baseline functions in a while.
and needs to relook at some of that. Maybe there is a physical issue, tension or hypermobility or something that is affecting your breath. Maybe there is a health issue, of course, all of those things can be the case. Another thing that I find to be the case that we're not gonna talk about today is tension. I find that so frequently in singers. When they say to me, especially the combination of, I just never feel like I have enough breath.
along with I get tired really quickly and sometimes it kind of feels tight and my throat gets sore. That to me, again, doesn't always mean everybody is different, but that to me raises a red flag of let's check for tension, whether that is over constriction at the vocal folds, whether that is over retraction of the tongue cutting off access to the vocal tract, which then doesn't let you get access to your air fully and then put some of that air pressure back on the vocal folds. That is a big piece of the puzzle with breathing too.
But what I want to talk about today is such a foundational singing skill that greatly impacts everything we do as singers. And I see hugely impact that feeling of ineffective breath. And that is vocal fold adduction. adduction means closure.
to connect together. So your two vocal folds, your two vocal chords connecting efficiently together. That's what I want to talk about today. And that's what I want to give you all exercises for.
so you can focus on good vocal fold adduction, good closure of the vocal folds. That is the foundation of everything we do as singers. You want those vocal folds to close.
efficiently so you can get the sound and the feel that you want. And then we add stylized things on top of that really healthy, efficient function. So exercise number one that I want to give you is a glottal onset. Glottal, glottis just means your voice. Glottal onset is like in the word apple. Can you hear that? apple.
What's cool about it too is you can kind of feel, you get that sensation of the vocal folds connecting together. We can turn that into a vocal exercise. ⁓ apple. Let's put that on a pitch. apple.
And if you hear this and think, ⁓ Amber, vocal fry, I know that's bad for you. Vocal fry gets a bad rep. Let me tell you why there's nothing wrong with it. We use it in contemporary music styles, pop, rock, country, R &B, soul, musical theater, put them all in there. We use it all the time for stylistic effect, to add emotion, to add drama. It's a fantastic tool. We also use it very frequently in vocal habilitation and rehabilitation work.
keeping a healthy voice healthy and getting a voice that has had troubles for whatever reason back to full function. Vocal fry can be a fantastic tool. is the vocal folds connecting in such a relaxed way, vibrating so slack and so slowly that you can hear that fry. Why fry gets a bad reputation is if people speak there all the time.
Fry has no resonant quality. So what that really means, I feel like I'm going very nerdy in this episode, but what that really means is we know all sound is waves. And those upper part of the waves that we can boost with different sounds, different ways of singing, different ways of talking, different ways of shaping our vocal tract, that helps carry the sound to people's ears. vocal fry has no resonant boosting quality.
So people that speak in that all day, it's not the fry that really is so problematic. It's that they generally end up pushing, overworking so that they can get the sound across. So fry is not bad. It's the pushing and compensating that happens much of the time because it's not a very resonant sound. We're not gonna sing a whole song on fry. That would not be very great, right? Nobody wants to hear that, but it's a fantastic stylistic tool. I know you.
and it's a great tool for vocal fold adduction, vocal fold closure. All we're gonna do here is we're going to vocal fry into a single note. If you find yourself either struggling with making the fry sound at all, I wanna give you a few different tools to play with. One I like is the creaky door and play is the key here, guys. If you're thinking, now I am singing, you're gonna have a hard time with this.
Just think about making sounds, sound production. It's the same voice. And I love play and sound production for better singing, better vocalizing anyway, but pretend like you are making the sound of a creaky door. right? A frog I love. Or a quintessential vocal fry song, Britney Spears. ⁓ baby, baby. Any of those that you wanna play with.
A zombie. I feel like a person, pass away, they wake up and realize they're a zombie starved for brains. Vocal fry, right? That's vocal fry on an inhale. Play with those just to try to get that relaxed fry first and foremost. Then if you find out you've got the fry, but it's hard to connect it to the note, that means you are likely squeezing. There's some overworking, somewhere. Try to just relax, relax, relax. And I'm going back to that ⁓ just for our
vocal fry is another great sound. And again, if you can do this up and down your range, fry into the note and that feels easy, then extend it. We can go back to our three note scale or let's do a five note scale.
The third tool that I want to give you is the G consonant. G-g-g-gum. Much like the glottal onset, I love that you get the sensation of the vocal folds closing. You can feel that nice closure work. G-g-g-gum. Take that onto an exercise again. G-g-g-g-g
G-g-g-g-g- or our three notes. You're getting good vocal fold closure with that great G consonant. And then finally, I love a good...
consonant-vowel combo for so many things. I love it for resonance. I love it for vocal tract shaping, which has much to do with resonance. I love it for stylistic quality. And I love it for vocal fold closure. Sometimes we have a hard time getting the vocal folds to fully close because we are shaping our vowel or approaching our articulation in a way that puts a lot of the sound back on the vocal folds. So they're getting pressure on top that they don't need or want.
that makes them have a really hard time effectively connecting. So I like the combination of a nice forward consonant. think something that uses the tip of your tongue, teeth and lips and a relaxed but brighter vowel shape. My, my, my, my, my. Yum, yum, yum, yum, yum. Nay, nay, nay, nay, nay. No, no, no, no, no. Again, you can take that into an exercise, any kind of scale or pattern that you want.
I love sliding intervals. Take that into your song. If you're finding you're not getting the connected sounds you want, try your song on a yum yum yum yum yum, on a my my my my my, on a guh guh guh gum, Try it on a a a a. Play with some of these different tools. See what
feels good for you. We want stylistic things like adding breathy tone, all of those things. They're fantastic if that's what you're going for, but you want to choose that. And what happens when our vocal folds can't completely connect as efficiently and effectively as they need to, as we want them to, we get this leaky valve syndrome. So constantly you're losing air. So you're feeling like I'm not getting enough. You very likely, not everybody, but this is what I see more often than not, you very likely have decent support.
are a fine breather. Have that air accessible to you, but without good vocal fold deduction, it's just leaking. We're wasting it along the way.
I hope you all found this helpful. If you want some other free, fabulous tools, I have a free five minute sing along vocal warmup audio. We are talking quality, not quantity here, friends. And then also one of my favorite belt exercises, which actually, spoiler alert, is fantastic for good vocal fold closure and adduction. And then...
one of my favorite places to be. If you've listened to this before, you've heard me rave about my Vocal Pro community and membership. You can try it out for completely free for two weeks. You get so much support and so much direct access for me for a fraction of the cost of even one lesson. And one lesson is one time. Vocal Pro is access 24 seven.
Check it out, those will be in the notes below. Thank you for being here. Thank you for listening and see you in the next episode. Bye.
