People often ask me how I learned to sing and how I was able to sing both the baritone role (Javert) and the tenor role (Valjean) in Les Miserables on Broadway.  Although this is a blog about singing, those actors among you who don’t sing should still find the discussion of vocal technique interesting as it applies to speaking on stage as well.

I began vocal lessons, as a baritone, with an opera teacher at age 16 but I grew up listening to rock and roll, jazz, R&B, funk and soul.  When my friends were starting bands I couldn’t figure out how to use the technique I was learning to sing the contemporary music I loved.  My voice training only equipped me to sing opera, operetta and some of the “golden age” musical theatre repertoire.

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My voice teacher warned me that “belting” was dangerous, would damage my “instrument” and should be avoided at all costs.  It was like telling a kid not to swim in the ocean because the under tow would pull you under and drown you.  It wasn’t going to stop me from exploring but it put a healthy dose of fear in me so that when I ventured into those forbidden waters I waded in with caution.

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At first I would imitate singers I loved like Lenny Williams, James Brown, Robert Plant, Freddie Mercury and Marvin Gaye, to disastrous results.  I would tire quickly and become quite hoarse.   To sing higher and sound like my role models, I would grip the muscles outside the larynx (which houses the vocal cords).  These outside muscles are the ones we use to swallow.

At the time, I didn’t realize that singers are wind instruments.  You don’t have to squeeze a flute to produce sound.  When you send the right amount of air the vocal cords come together and vibrate beautifully.  But when you send too much (or too little) air pressure, they can’t hold together resulting in that unstable “oh no! I’m not gonna make this note” feeling.  As a young singer, I tightened the muscles around the cords attempting to hold them together which forced my larynx up. All of this manipulation caused big time tension – a singer’s worst enemy.  Tensing the muscles around my larynx to adjust the cords made it impossible for me to access my upper register.  As you go higher, your vocal cords want to get shorter and thinner.  Like the long, fat strings (low notes) inside a piano get shorter and thinner as the notes go up.  In our voice it feels like the cords gently come together and zip up like a zipper.  Tension constricts the cords and prevents the zipper from zipping.

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Over the years I learned to relax while singing and let my upper body be free as a bird. I learned to adjust pitch using the appropriate amount of air pressure and leave the cords alone rather than “muscling” it up.  The fatigue, hoarseness and discomfort I experienced as a young singer disappeared and I was able to extend my baritone range to include the tenor range with equal ease.  My voice became free to express the music that was in my heart and singing in many different musical styles was no longer an obstacle. 

When an opening for the role of Inspector Javert in Les Miserables became available I was called in to audition.  I did great but, instead of offering me the role, they asked me to come back and sing for the role of Jean Valjean.  Because of the years I spent experimenting with how to push the limits of my voice in a healthy way, I was able to learn and perform that massive tenor role on Broadway and to later return to the show to play the baritone role of Inspector Javert as well.

Since then I’ve sung many roles, recorded a Latin-Jazz album called The Beat of My Heart and I’m now hard at work on a second album to be released in 2016. Today, a large part of my professional life is helping young singers and actors find their voice and that has been the most rewarding part of this journey.

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Need help choosing your next audition song?

All my best,

Philip

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Philip Hernandez is a respected acting teacher and singing coach in NYC. He is also the only actor in Broadway history to play both Jean Valjean and Inspector Javert in Les Miserables. He created principal roles in Broadway’s Kiss of the Spiderwoman and Paul Simon’s The Capeman. You may also know him from his many television appearances: The Blacklist, Gotham, Blue Bloods, The Path, Bull, Nurse Jackie, Elementary, Person of Interest, Law and Order, Hostages and Damages to name a few. For information about acting lessons CLICK HERE or singing lessons CLICK HERE. 

Follow him on twitter @philip24601, on Instagram @philip24601 and on Facebook at @philip24601.