How to sing SIMPLE MAN by Lynyrd Skynyrd

Hit those high notes with the Formant Activation System!



simple - OE vowel migrated as EH

kind - AA but as 'lost' (rhotic accent) or 'learn' (non rhotic accent)

man - RVZ interchanges AY and AA, so "man" is really sung as "m-EH-n" where I would personally/I'm singing "m-AA-n" like the first syllable in "lateral" 

do - OE migrated to IH almost like "d-IH-OO"

It's becoming clear that your favourite singers AREN'T actually singing the sounds/words that you think they're singing, right?

I mean, the obvious example is "kind" here (or even the Temple of the Dog/Chris Cornell reference in the video of "My" and "time" both being AA vowels like that first syllable of 'lateral')

But it's deeper than that.

Your vowels are actually tuned to specific notes/pitches - meaning, they "like" to be sung at a specific note.

But that's not how Skynyrd songs work, right? These words are so important!! What a magic song with such a powerful message.

Instead of turning everything into "OH" like you'd expect an Opera singer to do (losing the word and meaning in the process) - instead, you need to find the right shade in the first formant of each of these vowels.

I know I know, that sounds like Jargon - but it's really not!

Singing songs like Simple Man is the exact reason I created the streamlined Formant Activation System here at Foundation Vocal Method.

I wanted something that ANYONE could take away and use to sing ANYTHING.

Seriously, you can sing ANYTHING if you can work out how the frequency of the pitch relates to the frequency of the vowel.

Gonna guess you weren't really looking at singing in this way up to this point though, right?

This is why you're not hitting those high notes.


Kegan DeBoheme
Founder - FOUNDATION VOCAL METHOD



5 star rating

This is how it's done!

Paul Johnston

Incredibly useful material. Within only a couple of days, this course has demystified the whole process of singing up through the registers, and given me the...

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Incredibly useful material. Within only a couple of days, this course has demystified the whole process of singing up through the registers, and given me the tools to do it myself. If you're having issues with inconsistency in your "mix voice" (or problems accessing it at all) then this should help to iron them out. Best of all, the process is actually quite simple once you try it. No weird exercises/techniques, just the stuff that works.

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The best course of all time

Davide Belleri

Literally game changer for me, one of the clearest possible explanations!

Literally game changer for me, one of the clearest possible explanations!

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Helping a very avergae singer find his mixed voice

Alexander Speakman

Sung for a while with no training, I've by no means locked down my vowel modification (just finished my first pass), but definitiely found this course made m...

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Sung for a while with no training, I've by no means locked down my vowel modification (just finished my first pass), but definitiely found this course made me a lot more comfortable singing in my mixed voice

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5 star rating

Kegan's vocal techniques are greatly helping me to fulfil...

akhil gada

I am a 39 years old male from India. Before I took Kegan’s course, it was difficult for me to sing Bollywood songs as high as F4. My upper range in chest reg...

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I am a 39 years old male from India. Before I took Kegan’s course, it was difficult for me to sing Bollywood songs as high as F4. My upper range in chest register when singing scales in the most open Aah vowel was limited to G#4 (just touching it quickly and coming down) and head voice was up to G#5, but there was a complete break between my chest and head voice. Kegan’s vocal techniques greatly helped me to be able to sustain notes as high as A#4 and also able to hit C5 in Bollywood songs that I never thought I would be able to sing so early on in my learning process with him!; when singing scales, I am now able to sing from F2 to A5 without any break!! Kegan has a lot of patience in teaching his students irrespective of their current level in singing. One great thing about him is that he doesn’t just teach vocal techniques but also teaches you how to effectively apply them in real songs just like how he himself does in his own songs, so that we can reach those high notes without straining our voice. He has a great understanding of vocal anatomy. My progress has been quite faster than I thought and I am getting better and better over time with practicing Kegan’s vocal techniques. Flashback: Since childhood, I always dreamed of being able to sing those high notes in Bollywood songs. I therefore started my singing training during my teenage years in Indian classical singing for 3 years. Unfortunately, I developed a vocal nodule during that time because of bad vocal technique. The nodule was cured by medicines and some speech therapy, however, I had stopped singing for long time until 24 years of age after which I started searching for good vocal teachers to learn western vocal techniques which has chest, head, and mix voice concepts which are somehow absent in the Indian classical singing which primarily just focuses on chest voice. I trained with 4 different teachers before Kegan (one of them in-studio and other three online) but couldn’t develop my voice, in fact I used to find my voice going hoarse from time to time and I used to fear developing nodules again. I consider myself so lucky that I found Kegan on Youtube. I listened to him singing real songs and I was just astonished by his range and quality of voice and that’s why I started learning his vocal techniques.

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Game Changer

Rob Chapple

This changes everything you thought you knew about singing. Cannot recommend this course enough.

This changes everything you thought you knew about singing. Cannot recommend this course enough.

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Sing higher notes NOW

With Vowel Modification 101
PLUS free Support Booster course!
$199 & 120 $47

Hit higher notes than you've ever imagined possible with the Vowel Modification 101 singing course. Your VOWEL and your PITCH are intrinsically linked as harmonics - change one... and you need to change the other to match!

THIS is why you've continued to struggle with high notes no matter how many exercises or monkey sounds you practice

Vowels are KEY to hitting higher notes