If you’ve seen any of the vocal instruction videos on Youtube you probably came across a Nay exercise. Strange sounding, yet very effective, it puzzled me for a long time until I figure out its purpose.
“Nay Nay Nay” (or simply “Nay”) is a very popular vocal exercise from Speech-Level Singing (SLS) school of vocal instruction. It was originally described in Singing for the Stars, and later in Singing Success course as well as many others SLS related courses.
Let’s take a closer look at the purpose of this great exercise as well as the best ways to practice it!
Purpose of Nay
Nay exercise has a very specific purpose. It helps students find coordination and cord closure in head voice, and get a feel for what mix of chest and head voice feels like.
Seth Riggs explains that “Nay” help with thinning the voice and getting cords to stay closed, and assists in seamless transition from chest to head, and helps to find release in the higher register.
It is also used to develop pharyngeal resonance (so called twang).
Like many other exercises “Nay nay nay” is exaggerated. With “Nay” larynx is much higher than we’d want it to be in singing. As a result the sound is sharp and piercing, whiny and annoying… and very ugly… sounds like like a bratty kid.
This is not a finished sound that we want to use in singing, and it is used only temporarily to fine tune the vocal mechanism.
Actually, in Singing for the Stars Seth Riggs says again and again that this exercise is only a temporary tool to help students find cord closure and maintain connection in their whole range, and it should be abandoned once that coordination is found.
Some use it for a vocal warm up, but following Riggs’s instruction I’d stir away from doing that, and would use it only to discover and refind balanced coordination when it is missing.
Why NAY?
Why not May or Day? Why not Moh or Doh?
N is a nasal consonant sounding that helps to balance air pressure and assists with cord closure. It also helps with placing the voice where it needs to be.
Make sure not to make the sound nasal on purpose. It will be fairly nasal naturally because of the N.
Like in many other SLS exercises consonant here serves as a springboard to the vowel. It is kind of a crutch, if we are talking about classical vocal pedagogie where most practice is spent on open vowels. But it is a great assist for someone who might be struggling with taming their voices. Besides that’s what we have in songs… a mix of consonants and vowels…
N launches the following Ay vowel. Ay is also used very strategically. It is narrower than Ah and Oh, two chesty vowels, but at the same time not as narrow as heady Ee and Oo. Because Ay sits somewhere in between chesty and heady vowels it works really well for maintaining connection between the chest and head registers.
How to do the Nay exercise
“Nay” exercise is very easy to do, just say “neighbor”, or say the “nay” as in the “horse says nay”… It might seem simple,but there are nuances that you should pay attention to.
Watch Chris Keller (ex Singing Success coach) talk about Nay:
Remember, relax, and almost just speak it. And don’t force it to be nasal, otherwise you will defeat the purpose of the exercise and will start pulling the voice.
Also watch Carl John Franz demonstrating and explaining the Nay exercise. Pay attention to him talking about compression (cord closure) and release!
To make Nay exercise work you need to find just the right balance on every single note. For some it might mean to lighten up, while for others it might mean to add more weight and closure to the sound.
Remember voice is made of air and cord closure. Keep these two components in mind and regulate them until you find the right balance. You might need more air and less closure, or less air and more closure.
Again, do not worry about how you sound. The sound of “Nay” is exchagerrated by design, and it is not the sound you will be using for singing…
Exercising with Nay
Nay is usually done on scales, but can be also used to substitute lyrics in a song.
1. Nay on an octave scale
Seth Riggs in Singing for the Stars recommends starting Nay exercise on G3 for males and around C#4 for females.
He starts of with octave-repeat scale (see next), but I found it a bit tricky to do repeats on the first go. I typically start on a simple octave scale with no repeats:
1-3-5-8-5-3-1
do-mi-sol-do-do-sol-mi-do
I’d progress to octave repeats once I feel more comfortable with the exercise.
Go as high as comfortable, but don’t reach for higher notes. Imagine that the notes are not higher or lower but all sit on the same plane, kind of like piano keys.
Go up to the highest note and then come back to where you started.
2. Nay on an octave repeat scale
Once you are comforable with the Nay on an octave scale, try and do the same octave pattern, but this time repeat “nay” on the top note 4 times like this:
1-3-5-8-8-8-8-5-3-1
do-mi-sol-do-do-do-do-sol-mi-do
You can start on the same note as the octave scale. Again, go as high as comfortable.
3. Nay on an octave and a half scale
This is where things start getting more fun. Octave and a half scale, also called Rossini, or long scale has a kind of a circular quality to it, as it doesn’t follow the same steps on the way down as on the way up:
1-3-5-8-10-12–11-9-7-5-4-2-1
do-mi-sol-do-mi-sol–fa-re-ti-sol-fa-re-do
Start slow on this one, and increase the speed as you get more comfortable with the pattern
4. Nay on a two octave scale
Similar to the long scale this one has a familiar pattern but it spans two octaves:
do-mi-sol-do-mi-sol-do-sol-mi-do-sol-mi-do
Since this scale spans 2 octaves you might not be able to move it up a whole lot. You might want to start it lower than the other ones.
Again just go as high as comfortable, and don’t reach for those high notes. Aim for light, but bright sound.
5. Nay in songs
Another way to use “Nay” is to pick a fragment of a song where you are struggling with finding coordination and balance, and change the lyrics of the song to nays. See if that helps you find the right placement and release, and substitute nays for lyrics to keep the same feeling.
Additional tips
We covered a lot of ground with Nay exercise. Hope it helps you understand it better. Here are some additional tips and reminders:
- Keep it whiny and ugly sounding, like a bratty kid
- Don’t force it to be nasal. Let it be naturally nasal
- Keep the firm cord closure, but don’t oversqueeze the vocal cords
- Find good balance of closure and air and keep all the way in your range
- Resonance will be shifting as you transition into head voice. Let it happen, and get used to the feeling… it might be a bit weird at first.
And a bonus clip of Seth Riggs himself working with Michael Bolton. Nay exercise starts on minute 3:00.
Again, like any other vocal exercise, use it careful and don’t over do it!
Happy singing!
