EXPERIENCE:

Mari has worked as a private vocal coach and free lancer singer-songwriter since 2015. ​Her coaching tools include primal sounds, and she is also familiar with the Complete Vocal Technique. Past vocal coaches include: Dane Chalfin and Kim Chandler. (Both former Presidents of British Voice Association.)

Mari has performed as a pop singer-songwriter, recording solo artist Aino Elina since 2017. Her singles have been played on the national radio, both in the UK and in Finland. Mari has 5 years of performance experience in Musical Theatre, and a long history of (over 20 years) performing both solo and with choirs and vocal groups around the world.

​​Mari started taking classical vocal lessons at the age of 16, continued to musical theatre, and then found her vocal home within pop music. She still loves musical theatre, and helps singers with their higher education auditions yearly. 

FROM BEL CANTO TO PRIMAL SOUND

​This is a story of my vocal journey - from classical to pop via musical theatre.

First of all, some singers prefer not to use the terms "head voice" and "chest voice" since all voice is ultimately produced the same way - not from the head or chest - but by pushing air through vocal chords and making them vibrate. However, I prefer using them to the terms "M1" and "M2".

I have a classical soprano background so I was mainly using my head voice for a long time. That was my vocal identity. I could effortlessly sing fairly high and my voice was firm, flexible and beautiful -  but didn’t really carry around speech level or under. Also, as a default setting, my larynx was sitting quite low since that was what I had heard is the right way to sing. I had realised this different vocal setting of chest voice exists, but I didn’t really have the understanding of it - plus it didn’t go together at all with the classical ideal of voice.

When I started my musical theatre performance studies in my early 20s I came to the realisation that I can’t sing loud (excluding high notes) and I can’t even yell. I was introduced to belting and started to understand the difference between vocal settings.

From here started my looong journey towards being able to actually sing in the chest voice register. I was introduced to Complete Vocal Technique and my whole vocal world turned upside down. I felt like I could do nothing right anymore. The terms didn’t make sense to me. (What is curbing, what does it look like?) I felt my head voice started to weaken as my chest voice would grow louder and rawer. I lost my vocal identity - suddenly going from a strong singer to a weak one.

The journey was painful - change often is. And completely changing one’s singing habits is never easy. I had my eureka-moments and was excited about this new gear, but I was also scared I would lose my own voice, my personal sound.

I would see some people around me develop problems from wrong belting technique and it was scary. Trying to sing with the chest voice any higher than g’ would itch my throat, make me cough and sometimes I would feel like I was losing my voice afterwards. I actually did lose my voice completely for over a week a couple of times during those years. So of course I was resisting the whole idea, even though I was also excited about this new found sound. I was resisting singing higher than g’ with my chest voice, because it didn’t feel right. So I developed a habit of always flipping to head voice around e’-g’. It sounded good, but didn’t really work in musical theatre. I started thinking musicals were not for me, my voice wasn’t strong enough.

My vocal problems weren't the only reason I left professional musical theatre, but it played a big part. I didn’t want to change my vocal identity to something that clearly didn’t suit me at all.

I still loved singing and performing, and wanted a career out of it. I’ve always written and listened to pop music - and when I say pop here, I mean any popular genre - so I decided to study further in the popular music field.

To be honest I thought this would be my way to escape all this chest voice nonsense. (How wrong was I...)

I’m not sure what faith brought me to Leeds College of Music, but I auditioned for MA Popular Music Performance there and really felt like it was the right place for me. Amongst other great vocal coaches I was really lucky to get to work with two of the top pop vocal coaches in UK, Kim Chandler and Dane Chalfin (both former presidents of the British Voice Association).

The vocal coaches that I worked with In Leeds during that year were all referring to primal sounds. After learning about this method, I wanted to start spreading the word!

What are primal sounds?

Scroll down to Dane Chalfin explaining how he started to apply the method into pop singing.

​To me this was a completely new way of looking at singing - as something that we already know how to do, but just need to be tuned into again.

If you can yell at a certain pitch, you can also belt it, since the technique is the same. Your body knows what to do when you need to yell at a person who’s in danger. Or if you’re in a noisy bar and need more volume in your voice - you might naturally add twang. You don’t need to think about relaxing or contracting certain muscles (that you can’t see or even feel easily).

It’s been so great to realise that in a way all use of voice is singing, and nothing is singing. It’s all just communication - singing being more precisely pitched communication. If you can speak you can certainly sing with that exactly same voice. It’s our own personal voice that is very valuable and it shouldn't be formed into any unnatural technical performance. 

That was always a problem to me - we’re talking about little muscles that you can’t see. For me it is easier to access the right technique through emotion. Or through asking myself “how would I say/cry/yell this message” or “how does a child use their body when they are angry”. After finding the setting that feels good, I would then investigate the feeling from the inside - and remember it. With time and patience I’ve since then started being able to recognise the little muscle work and build the different settings into muscle memory. And now the position of the larynx, roof of the mouth, twang, resonation - and the whole body of course - have slowly started to really make sense.

I also understood that to be able to communicate emotions properly, you need to be able to master different vocal settings. You wouldn’t communicate everything in life with a light, beautiful, controlled voice. So singing everything with it wouldn’t make sense either (or would be very boring at least). So yes, I changed my mind. Communicating emotions in the organic way will get the message through. For that chest voice is an amazing tool. And soon after starting to apply this technique into my practice I could sign up to g’’ with it. So that’s an octave of improvement in range! Nowadays - on a good day - the sky's the limit!

So if you have similar problems to me, I would highly recommend studying primal sounds. Start with watching these Dane Chalfin’s videos for example.

I could also write a whole chapter on natural breathing, but for now I just want to pass on the two best pieces of advice on it I’ve ever heard: “Remember to relax your tummy completely while breathing in” & “Don’t think about it”.