All Of Me Video Transcription
Hi, Max from Sonic Crew London here.
The song I’m going to cover in this video tutorial is “All Of Me” by John Legend.
If you’ve already given it a try, I’m sure you’ll agree with me this is an amazing song to sing, but also a tough one. Well, I’m going to share with you some tips and vocal exercises that hopefully will make your life easier and help you to master this emotional ballad.
Challenges
In my opinion “All Of Me” presents two main challenges: there are lots of embellishments spread throughout the song, some of which extend to as much as 5 notes, like in the bridge for example when he goes like: “Give me all of you”. [click on the player below to hear the demonstration]
Some of the top notes are pretty challenging too and the exercises I’m going to cover will help you to hit those high notes without straining your voice and to increase your vocal agility so that you can nail all the licks John Legend sings so gracefully.
How To Sing The High Notes
There are some pretty high notes in the chorus and bridge of this song, the top one being Ab4. Now, there are a few things that need to happen simultaneously in order to be able to sing those high notes in a comfortable way: first of all we need to make sure that our breathing is under control, using our diaphragm, making sure that the sound is kept away from our throat. The easiest way to control that we’re breathing properly is to place our fingers under our last rib and to expand out when we breathe in, and come back to the start position when you breathe out, keeping chest and shoulders relaxed. Also, we need to make sure that the muscles around our larynx are as relaxed as possible and that we lift the soft palate when we’re hitting the high notes, so that we can create more room for our voice to resonate and also stabilize our larynx, which shouldn’t move too much when we’re singing. Now, if you’re wondering: “how do I move my soft palate”? That’s exactly what happens when you’re yawning: the roof of your mouth goes up, your larynx moves down.
You can also think about swallowing a whole apple, the effect that you get is pretty much the same: your larynx is going to drop slightly. And the exercise I recommend to work on all this are the arpeggios. This is how an arpeggio sounds like [click on the player below to hear the demonstration]
What I want to show you is that if I put into practice what I mentioned before I’m going to be able to sing an arpeggio hitting the top notes in my range without getting tense or without straining my voice. [click on the player below to hear the demonstration]
Vocal Agility
There are quite a few spots in the song where being able to rely on a good vocal agility can allow us to sing some pretty lovely licks, the way John Legend does. The exercise I recommend to practice for this purpose is this one [click on the player below to hear the demonstration]
In this case too, we need to make sure that when we hit the high notes they sound as relaxed as the bottom ones.
Stylistic Tip
“All Of Me” is a moving ballad, and in order to give a credible performance it’s very important to create a connection with the lyrics. Read them carefully, find a memory or a personal experience that can help to relate to the song, to mean the words you’re singing and ultimately to convey the emotions through your voice. [click on the player below to hear the demonstration]
I hope my tips and techniques will help to improve your singing. And if you’ve found the tutorial helpful, please like it, share it and subscribe to our YouTube Channel, there are more tutorials on your way!
Thank you for watching, happy singing and see you next time!
