Want to learn how to sing like a pro? Rachel Zegler is here to share her top 5 tips for elevating your vocal game! From warming up those vocal cords with trills (because a Broadway-level performance demands serious prep) to finding your unique voice the 'Snow White' actress breaks it all down with expert ease. In this video, Rachel dives into the power of finding your own style like Lady Gaga or Chappell Roan and shares how pop artists like Billie Eilish showcase the magic of their vocal versatility. Plus, she spills the secret to adding that extra sparkle (hello, vibrato!) before wrapping it all up with the most important step—just sing!
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00:00Can I get the lights please?
00:05I'm Rachel Zegler.
00:09I'm going to teach you the basics to become the greatest singer in the world or wherever
00:14you live.
00:16This is singing 101.
00:20Step number one, warm up.
00:23The most important thing to do is to warm up your voice in any capacity whenever you
00:27are going to use it.
00:28The way to do that is usually through a bit of lip trills going up and down the scale.
00:37And then you go up.
00:42I like to warm up for about 30 minutes.
00:44People think that you can only just warm up for 5 to 10.
00:47If you have a certain warm up that works for you that way, go for it.
00:50But if you're going to be doing some strenuous activity, say doing a Shakespeare play eight
00:54times a week or singing a Disney score for 87 takes in an hour, you should warm up for
00:59a really long time.
01:00Make sure that you're not overdoing it, but also don't underdo it because both things
01:03can be really detrimental to your voice in the long run.
01:05It's a muscle.
01:06Treat it like a muscle that you're working out.
01:08Treat it like rolling out before going on a run.
01:11It's the same thing.
01:12And it's also very easily damaged, very easily injured, and you don't want to do that.
01:16If you've ever gone out to karaoke, which I do not, and your voice feels hurt, strained,
01:23gravelly, groggy the next day, it's probably because you didn't warm up.
01:27So the next time you're doing Silver Springs by Fleetwood Mac at your favorite karaoke
01:31bar, 20 minutes of vocal trills on the way there.
01:34The taxi driver will thank you and your Uber rating will go down.
01:37Step number two, find your voice.
01:40This could also be referred to as placement.
01:43Where are you placing your voice in a song?
01:45A lot of times that has to do with a character that you're playing, if you're doing musical
01:48theater the way that I have for most of my life.
01:50I feel pretty, oh so pretty, I feel pretty and witty and bright.
01:58Or even if it just means you're not sure where to place certain things in your voice when
02:02you're singing your favorite Sara Bareilles song in the car.
02:04There's a real misconception about singing that it's all here.
02:07Not at all.
02:08You have something called chest voice, which feels like it's coming from here.
02:12You have something called head voice, which feels like it's coming from here.
02:15Or people use a nice mix, which feels like you're doing both at the same time.
02:19A lot of times my vocal coach, Joan Lader, has had me equate sounds to animals.
02:24So a lot of times you'll be doing something like a goose being like, that's your chest.
02:33Sometimes you're doing things and it's like a little mouse where you're going, that's
02:38your head voice.
02:40Anywhere in between that is a mix, but that does take a long time to kind of figure out
02:43because we have something called the passaggio in our voice.
02:46That is when you are switching from your chest to your head.
02:49It's a very sensitive point in the scale that you're using while you're singing.
02:53A lot of times it takes a lot of training in order to iron out your passaggio so it's
02:58not as easily noticeable when you're singing a song.
03:00But there are ways to flip through both.
03:02So all of those things, very simplified, can be seen as yodeling.
03:08So when you're yodeling, if you just go like, is a very donkey sounding quality to your
03:15voice.
03:16You're going from your head to your chest and that actually requires a lot of skill.
03:20A lot of people actually can't achieve that, which is why yodeling is such an amazing skill
03:23when you see Julie Andrews doing up on the hill was a lonely goat herd.
03:34Speaking of sound of music, if you're going to sing in your chest voice, you want to do
03:39do-re-mi, do-re-mi.
03:45That's in your chest.
03:46If you're doing your head voice, it would be do-re-mi, do-re-mi.
03:54That's in your head.
03:55But there are ways to mix that so it sounds more like you're tricking the audience into
04:01thinking you are belting, but it's much healthier for you because in order to belt something
04:05like that requires some crazy skill and also a lot of strain if done too many times or
04:10done improperly or without warming up.
04:12So a lot of times you'll want to mix.
04:17It's a mix of both.
04:18I'm not fully in my chest.
04:19I'm not fully in my head, but I am using both in order to achieve a certain sound quality
04:24that I want to.
04:25Step number three, style and not the song by Taylor Swift, though we love that song.
04:33It's very important when you are singing to understand what you're singing for.
04:37That sometimes means understanding your audience or understanding the material to a certain
04:41degree.
04:42Do you want to sing it like a pop star?
04:43Do you want to sing it like a rock star?
04:45Do you want to sing it like Creed?
04:46Do you want to sing it like you're doing opera for the 18th time?
04:51It's very important to understand that stylistic quality because that affects the way that
04:55the audience is perceiving your performance.
04:57It also affects what you have to do with your voice.
05:00A lot of pop stars nowadays have many different styles.
05:03We have Lady Gaga's and Chapel Roan's in the world who use a very chesty voice and at times
05:08a very musical theater-y approach to singing.
05:11Also Chapel has a yodel quality to her voice, which is really amazing, but if you were going
05:15to be singing in a pop style, sometimes people are singing as what the internet dubs in cursive,
05:22and that's what a lot of pop stars do as well.
05:24It's very easy on the voice, but it also is a very hard thing to come across and make
05:29sure that you are doing it dynamically and make sure that you're doing it with diction
05:32so that people understand what you're saying.
05:34But it would sound a little bit like,
05:44That's more of like a Billie Eilish approach to singing a song like that.
05:47It's just a beautiful quality to her voice.
05:49She can do so much vocal gymnastics with what she does in all of her different records.
06:00But then if you were going to do a very operatic sense, a lot of that has to do with the amount
06:06that you use your jaw.
06:07It also has to do with your tongue placement.
06:09A lot of opera singers actually bring their tongue to the very back of their throat while
06:12they're singing.
06:17This is also common for a lot of musical theater singers because in order to achieve eight
06:21shows a week in proper voice, you have to treat it like an opera.
06:25A lot of opera singers really do treat their voice with so much care because you have to
06:29be able to sing for hours and hours and hours.
06:32So if you were going to sing,
06:42that would be in your opera quality.
06:44And then, you know, there are ways to add gravel, rasp to your voice, nasality, that
06:49will bring certain rock sounds, that will bring certain pop sounds.
06:54I definitely think that there's an element to creed songs that we call yarling, which
06:59like really is like going into the gravel of your voice.
07:03I don't recommend doing that solely because it does require a lot of skill in order to
07:08do it without hurting yourself.
07:10If you ever need an example of somebody who was doing everything right with their voice
07:14eight times a week, it was Alex Brightman in the musical Beetlejuice doing the Michael
07:19Keaton Beetlejuice voice while singing, dancing, doing acrobatics, and all of these stunts,
07:25but did it eight times a week.
07:31That requires an insane amount of training.
07:33Do not try that at home.
07:35Step four, add sparkle.
07:36There are times where you get to make things your own.
07:39There are times where you get to sing,
07:45It's fun.
07:45It's wonderful.
07:46It's not necessarily what you would be doing if you were playing Maria von Trapp on Broadway,
07:51but it's still really fun to do.
07:52So if you want to do that, I think this is a free world and you should absolutely feel
07:58free to sing however you want.
08:00Vibrato is your breath control.
08:02So if you feel like you can absolutely go for it.
08:04I learned how to do vibrato by listening to Sutton Foster sing Gimme Gimme from Thoroughly
08:09Modern Millie and Astonishing from Little Women on repeat.
08:12I would mimic her and that's the way I learned how to do it.
08:14I didn't learn the traditional way.
08:16So unfortunately I'm not necessarily the best person to teach it because I just copied
08:21my favorite musical theater actress.
08:24Step number five, sing.
08:26Now you have the opportunity to put all of these things together.
08:30Know that you've warmed up your body so you know where in your body your voice is coming
08:33from.
08:34Make sure that you're doing everything healthily and safely.
08:37It's very, very important to take care of this muscle.
08:40It is very sensitive.
08:42It's very delicate and you don't want to hurt it.
08:45Your next step is to find the style.
08:46Are you singing a musical theater song?
08:48Are you singing a pop song?
08:49Are you singing a rock song?
08:51Make sure that everything that you're doing for that makes you feel comfortable, makes
08:54you feel awesome, and then you get to just add your sparkle.
08:59And then you sing.
09:00Anybody have a question?
09:01Anybody in the class?
09:05Which song in Snow White was your favorite to sing?
09:08Oh, that's a good one.
09:09There is a song in act three of the movie where Snow White returns to her kingdom in
09:16an attempt to get it back.
09:18It's called Snow White Returns and it wasn't originally in the film until very, very late
09:23in the game.
09:24It was the 11th hour.
09:25Pasek and Paul wrote it for me to sing because we just felt the scene was missing something
09:28and it really just became the anthem of the film and the heart of it, truly.
09:33The lyric that moves me the most is,
09:35No more sending whispers to the water
09:41Cause you're everything you were wishing and waiting for
09:48Everybody needs to hear that, that the person you want to be has been within you the entire
09:52time.
09:53I'm very proud to have been a part of that process and it brings my heart a lot of joy.
09:58Now it's your turn.
10:00I'm so proud of you.
10:01You did it.
10:02Even though I'm not qualified to teach how to sing, I've been doing it for a very long
10:06time because it brings a lot of joy to my heart, as I hope it does for you as well.
10:10Thanks so much for coming to my class.
10:13Y'all.