Monday, 20 December 2010
Step By Step Guide To Help You Get Better At Singing
There are many different exercises that can be used to improve singing. Depending on which aspect of singing you wish to improve exercises can be categorized in the following manner.
1. Timbre
2. Articulation
3. Coloratura
4. Support
These are the basic areas of singing that will help you get better at singing.
Timbre
The timbre or tone of the voice is important in that you want the voice to be as seamless as possible. What this means is that the same vocal quality is evident throughout the voice and there are no ugly breaks or register changes in the voice. The only way that this can be accomplished is by slowly and repeatedly using the Italian vowels, “a”, ”I”, “e”, “o”, “u” in slow exercises that will help with the placement of the voice.
To consistently produce the same sound, firstly the support has to be in place. By doing scales on each one of the vowels throughout the range of your voice, you establish the placing of the vowels in your voice. An important tip for when you are practising is to record yourself. This helps in being able to establish which sounds you are producing that is not correct.
Articulation
The important of articulation is paramount in singing. Firstly you are singing words, and people need to be able to hear those words. If you have bad articulation, not only will nobody be able to hear what you are singing about, the sound will also be muffled and will not carry, whether you are amplified or not. When practising a song, it is important to say the words first to establish if the articulation of the words are correct. While there might be some vowel modification as you go to the upper register of your voice, it still needs to be clear. Speaking the words out loud, and in rhythm to the song will help you. Again recording yourself while doing this will help you ascertain whether your articulation is clear.
Coloratura
Coloratura or agility is important in a voice. Not all the songs that you will sing will be slow, so you need to be able to get better at singing fast, but also clear. The key to this is using the exercises that is outlined in the timbre section, and start to do them slowly. When the timbre and articulation is seamless, you can start increasing the pace of the scales. It is important that the increase of speed be gradual, because if you start going too fast without the articulation and timbre being in place it will come out uncontrolled.
Support
All of the above exercises that is used to improve your singing is based on being able to support the voice properly. If the support is not correct the timbre of the voice will not be even, articulation will not be good and coloratura will be nonexistent. In the same way if a house is built on a foundation that is not correctly placed or is unstable, cracks will begin to show in the walls. In the case of your voice, if the foundation of your support is not correct, then your voice will crack and wobble.
An easy way to make sure that you are breathing correctly is to lay on the floor with your body entirely relaxed. Concentrate on breathing in and feeling the expansion of the breath in your rib cage all the way to lower abdominal muscles. When you sing you gently lean on this air cushion that is supplied by breathing in. The louder you sing, the harder you lean. The same applies to singing softly. It is more difficult to sing softly as opposed to singing loudly. To sing softly you need the same amount of support as when you sing loudly.
These are then vocal exercises that you can use to get better at singing. Remember that if you feel pain or discomfort in your throat it is possible that you are doing something wrong so stop immediately. It helps tremendously to work with a vocal coach or singing teacher that can guide you in the correct techniques to use for your voice since each persons’ voice is unique.
Free lessons on How To Warmup Your Voice
The first thing to remember is that your body is part of your voice. If you are going to do any warm up vocal exercises it is best to approach it from the point of view of an athlete. If you are an athlete training for any sport, you would start by warming up the different muscle groups slowly, thus making sure that there is no chance of straining or injuring any of the muscles in your body.
No athlete gets up first thing in the morning and starts running. The body needs to be warmed up first. The same in this case applies to the voice. You do not wake up in the morning and immediately start singing at the top of your voice. You would be in danger of straining or doing some damage, or at least putting terrible stress on your vocal chords.
In ideal circumstances you would only start the vocal warm up process an hour or two after you have woken up. This will give your vocal chords some time to wake up. In most cases in that time you would have spoken to someone or at least have some sort of conversation.
Starting the warm up process for your voice is like warming up different muscle groups. Your voice has different segments. This can be divided up into three segments. Although for vocal training purposes the voice is regarded as seamless from the bottom of the range right to the top, it can be divided up for easier understanding:
1. Chest Voice (or lower voice)
2. Middle register
3. Top register
Each one of these segments of your voice is important. If you use the analogy of an athlete that does high jump, the athlete does not immediately set the bar for the highest possible height. The process starts from the height that is most comfortable for the athlete to get the body into the swing of things.
In this case when you warm up your voice you can start with a gentle humming exercise that consists of more air than actual vocalizing. The aim in this case is too gently wake up the vocal chords by having gentle sustained humming in the lower part of the voice. In this case it does not have to be a specific note. Just something that feels natural in your voice range.
From there you gently increase in range of the humming to extend into the middle range of the voice. The key thing to remember at this point is that there must be absolute minimum pressure on the vocal chords. The point is not to start a full warming up process, but to initially gently stretch the vocal chords.
Remember that the jaw has to be relaxed.
The tongue should be in a natural position in the mouth. This will enable the vibrations to go into the natural resonance cavities in the mask and chest. This is one of the key factors in how to warm up your voice. The humming exercise can then be used throughout the entire voice making sure that the voice is evenly warmed up before starting any vocalize exercises.
How To Increase Your Vocal Range
All voices have a natural range. When referring to range it means which notes are in the voice, i.e the lowest note to the highest note. Depending on the voice type it is possible to increase the vocal range either up or down by one or two notes.
Using head tones and the sounds that resonate in the portion of your upper cavity while singing is the only way to properly extend your vocal range completely without harming you or your singing organs.
When you sing with your head voice, make sure you are not straining yourself or your voice. If you look into a mirror as you practice, pay not only attention on the placement of your tongue and lips, but be sure that you do not see strain, which can be noticed by the appearance of veins that stick out in the neck and forehead.
A youthful singer who can reach the highest of notes can do so not only because of the elasticity of their vocal chords, but because they will easily move into the higher head tones without reflecting on how it is being done.
The other hand, when an adult learns to sing he or she will be able to consciously consider on a higher level what he or she is attempting to do. So, in some regard, it might be better if you are just now learning to sing, rather than when you were young. Now you have the discipline, know-how, and willingness to practice and learn on your side.
Basically, to learn how to increase vocal range, you must learn the 2 muscle coordination’s that allow you to sing in your higher vocal registers. These registers are called:-
1. Head voice
2. Mixed voice
In order for you to be in that select group of people who can easily hit a higher vocal range, you need to learn which muscles control your higher vocal registers, known as head voice and mixed voice. Using your mixed voice properly is really the primary issue.
Your mixed voice will allow you to sing higher notes, but with the richness and fullness you usually sing lower notes. That means, essentially, that you will no longer sing in a falsetto or nasal sounding voice when you try to sing notes in a higher vocal range.
If you’ve tried vocal range extension exercises in the past, only to get a sore throat and many wasted hours for your trouble, you may think vocal warm-ups are a waste of time. However, if you use the right vocal warm-ups and vocal training tips, you can be singing high notes easier in no time at all.
Once you understand some simple vocal warm-ups and vocal training tips, singing in your upper vocal registers will become so easy that it’s automatic. You’ll wonder why you were unable to do so before. Your vocal chords will easily adjust to allow you to continue singing higher notes.
Again it is important to note that to increase vocal range you have to be very careful that you do not do damage to your voice.
The Best Place to Learn To Sing Online
There are a variety of courses and programs that offers learn to sing online courses. You as the student have to decide which will work best for you.
Most online singing lessons or home lesson packages come with video and audio. Depending on what you want to learn there is a wealth of material out there. offers an entire range of music knowledge as part of the Singing Success package. Not only does it take you through the basics of singing and support but also on music theory, pitch, harmony and possible vocal problems that you might experience while learning how to sing.
Due to demand online singing lessons has become more readily available and more affordable, as opposed to going to a private teacher for lessons.
Due to the sheer amount of information on singing that is available online, it becomes more important for the student who wants to learn singing online to do research on what exactly it is that they expect to accomplish with singing lessons. Most of the courses offer a combination of hobby and aspiring singer courses with video and backtracks.
On Singing Success it is possible to learn to sing like a professional in the comfort of your own home. The package is comprehensive in terms of what it offers the singer. With all of these programs that are available you have to take into consideration the following:
1. Make sure that you are getting your money’s worth from the program. There are some reputable programs that offer money back guarantees if the program does not work for you. Make sure to research exactly what the program offers before you buy the package.
2. Research the coaches that provide these online singing packages. With a lot of the programs you can get an initial free lesson to see if the program corresponds to your needs and requirements.
3. Do not try something that teaches you to imitate other voices out there. Each person has a unique voice and the moment you start imitating, you are forcing your vocal chords to do something that is not natural.
While for most people who want to learn singing as a hobby such programs will work and be informative and fun, for the singer who truly wants to be a professional the best path is to work with a good vocal coach on a one on one basis. In this way you lessen the chances of doing damage to your vocal chords and learning incorrect singing methods.
Learn to sing online programs can however teach you the basics of singing and impart a lot of knowledge that is useful to the fledgling singer who is just starting out. It will give the singer a good idea of what is out there and what to avoid.
Important FactorsYou Should Know To Help You Learn To Sing Well
To learn to sing well remain the same. As with all musicians you have to spend time practicing and learning your instrument. In this case your instrument is inside your body. As a result it is more temperamental than any There are many approaches to singing. Depending on which style of singing you are doing the basic principles instrument you would otherwise have control over.
In this case when learning your instrument, you have to know the factors that will influence your voice.
There are a few basics that apply to singing that is universal.
1. Make sure that the material that you are using is suited to your voice type. If a song is not right for your tessitura then you put strain on your voice and may damage it.
2. It is important to warm up your voice before you start singing and then also after you finish singing to warm down the voice.
3. It is important to do vocal exercises every day. The vocal chords are muscles and will improve with exercise and will grow stronger.
4. Do breathing exercises. Make sure that when you breathe, there is no lifting of the shoulders. If the shoulders are lifted there is a tensing of muscles and will constrain your breathing.
5. When breathing in, expand your rib cage to enable you to take in more air.
6. To ensure that you are breathing correctly, practice breathing in with both hands positioned on your lower back just above the hips.
If you breathe in and there is an expansion of the lower back muscles as well as the lower abdominal muscle, your support will then be in the correct position. Another method of making sure that your support is in the correct place without using your hands is to make use of a belt so that you can get use the feeling of breathing that low down in your body.
When all of these points are applied and practiced diligently everyday you can learn how to sing well. It is however always better to work with a vocal coach or teacher.
The reason for this is that as a singer you cannot always hear the things that you are doing wrong, and you can therefore learn wrong techniques that might damage your voice. It also helps to record your lessons and exercises so that you can hear what it sounds like. When you sing the sounds that your voice is producing is different to what you can hear on a recording.
This will then help you to hear the mistakes that you are making and put those together with the physical sensation of singing.
Learn To Sing Better Instantly
When learning singing whether it is a song or an aria there are different methods that you can use to help you sing better instantly.
Remember that your vocal chords are muscle and as with any muscle in the human body it grows stronger with exercise. A person does not wake up one day and decide that they are going to run a marathon that same day. Their body has not built up the stamina that is necessary to complete the race. They have no experience in marathon running and therefore will not be able to complete the race before their muscles give in and start cramping.
The same principle can be applied to your voice. You do not wake up one morning and decide you are going to sing an entire Wagner opera or a West Side musical. Your voice needs time to develop and build up the stamina that is necessary to do what you require.
There are a few ways however that you can use to improve your singing immediately. The basis of good singing is breathing. If you cannot control your breath then there is no way that you can control the sound that you make when you sing. If you want to sing better, you have to think of your voice resting and being supported by a cushion of air.
As long as that cushion of support is there you will be able to do consistently produce a good sound. The basis of singing other than support, is articulation. The purpose of doing exercises is that every time you sing a specific note or vowel is to consistently produce that same sound when you sing that note. To enable this to take place there are a few things that you can do to immediately improve the quality of sound that you produce:
1. Do breathing exercises. Make sure that when you breathe, there is no lifting of the shoulders. If the shoulders are lifted there is a tensing of muscles and will constrain your breathing.
2. When breathing in, expand your rib cage to enable you to take in more air.
3. To ensure that you are breathing correctly, practice breathing in with both hands positioned on your lower back just above the hips. If you breathe in and there is an expansion of the lower back muscles as well as the lower abdominal muscle, your support will then be in the correct position.
Another method of making sure that your support is in the correct place without using your hands is to make use of a belt so that you can get use the feeling of breathing that low down in your body.
The next step is to practice articulating properly. The following is a few tips to help you:
1. Practice using the Italian vowel “a”.
2. Do scales with this vowel and ensure that your jaw and tongue is completely relaxed.
3. When your support is in the proper place the tongue will automatically adjust as you go higher in the scale.
If you practice these exercises everyday you will build the stamina necessary to ensure long vocal health. When you breathe properly and support correctly, this is your key to singing better instantly.
Voice Training For Singing
There are many approaches to singing. Depending on which style of singing you are doing the basic principles to learn to sing well remain the same. There are essentially three voice types to sing voice training.
1. Opera
2. Belt
3. Lieder
As with all musicians you have to spend time practicing and learning your instrument. In this case your instrument is inside your body. As a result it is more temperamental than any instrument you would otherwise have control over.
Depending on which fach you wish to sing in there is a difference in technique. You have to decide which type of training you wish to do and with the help of a teacher decide what your voice type is.
There are a few basics that apply to singing that is universal.
1. Make sure that the material that you are using is suited to your voice type. If a song is not right for your tessitura then you put strain on your voice and may damage it.
2. It is important to warm up your voice before you start singing and then also after you finish singing to warm down the voice.
3. It is important to do vocal exercises every day. The vocal chords are muscles and will improve with exercise and will grow stronger.
4. Do breathing exercises. Make sure that when you breathe, there is no lifting of the shoulders. If the shoulders are lifted there is a tensing of muscles and will constrain your breathing.
5. When breathing in, expand your rib cage to enable you to take in more air.
6. To ensure that you are breathing correctly, practice breathing in with both hands positioned on your lower back just above the hips.
If you breathe in and there is an expansion of the lower back muscles as well as the lower abdominal muscle, your support will then be in the correct position. Another method of making sure that your support is in the correct place without using your hands is to make use of a belt so that you can get use the feeling of breathing that low down in your body.
7. Make sure that you always have enough water. Water hydrates the vocal chords and is essential for vocal health.
When all of these points are applied and practiced diligently everyday you can learn how to sing well. It is however always better to work with a vocal coach or teacher. Remember that each voice is unique and therefore sing voice training is unique to the individual.
The reason for this is that as a singer you cannot always hear the things that you are doing wrong, and you can therefore learn wrong techniques that might damage your voice. It also helps to record your lessons and exercises so that you can hear what it sounds like. When you sing the sounds that your voice is producing is different to what you can hear on a recording.
This will then help you to hear the mistakes that you are making and put those together with the physical sensation of singing.
Vocal Exercises to Help Improve Singing
There are many different vocal exercises that can be used to improve singing. Depending on which aspect of singing you wish to improve exercises can be categorized in the following manner.
1. Timbre
2. Articulation
3. Coloratura
4. Support
These are the basic areas of singing that will help to improve singing.
Timbre
The timbre or tone of the voice is important in that you want the voice to be as seamless as possible. What this means is that the same vocal quality is evident throughout the voice and there are no ugly breaks or register changes in the voice. The only way that this can be accomplished is by slowly and repeatedly using the Italian vowels, “a”, ”I”, “e”, “o”, “u” in slow exercises that will help with the placement of the voice.
To consistently produce the same sound, firstly the support has to be in place.
By doing scales on each one of the vowels throughout the range of your voice, you establish the placing of the vowels in your voice. An important tip for when you are practicing is to record yourself. This helps in being able to establish which sounds you are producing that is not correct.
Articulation
The important of articulation is paramount in singing. Firstly you are singing words, and people need to be able to hear those words. If you have bad articulation, not only will nobody be able to hear what you are singing about, the sound will also be muffled and will not carry, whether you are amplified or not.
When practicing a song, it is important to say the words first to establish if the articulation of the words are correct. While there might be some vowel modification as you go to the upper register of your voice, it still needs to be clear. Speaking the words out loud, and in rhythm to the song will help you. Again recording yourself while doing this, will help you ascertain whether your articulation is clear.
Coloratura
Coloratura or agility is important in a voice. Not all the songs that you will sing will be slow, so you need to be able to sing fast, but also clear. The key to this is using the exercises that is outlined in the timbre section, and start to do them slowly.
When the timbre and articulation is seamless, you can start increasing the pace of the scales. It is important that the increase of speed be gradual, because if you start going too fast without the articulation and timbre being in place it will come out uncontrolled.
Support
All of the above exercises that is used to improve your singing is based on being able to support the voice properly. If the support is not correct the timbre of the voice will not be even, articulation will not be good and coloratura will be nonexistent.
In the same way if a house is built on a foundation that is not correctly placed or is unstable, cracks will begin to show in the walls. In the case of your voice, if the foundation of your support is not correct, then your voice will crack and wobble.
An easy way to make sure that you are breathing correctly is to lay on the floor with your body entirely relaxed. Concentrate on breathing in and feeling the expansion of the breath in your rib cage all the way to lower abdominal muscles. When you sing you gently lean on this air cushion that is supplied by breathing in. The louder you sing, the harder you lean.
The same applies to singing softly. It is more difficult to sing softly as opposed to singing loudly. To sing softly you need the same amount of support as when you sing loudly.
These are then vocal exercises that you can use to improve your singing. Remember that if you feel pain or discomfort in your throat it is possible that you are doing something wrong so stop immediately. It helps tremendously to work with a vocal coach or singing teacher that can guide you in the correct techniques to use for your voice since each persons’ voice is unique.
Step By Step Guide To Understanding Warm Up Vocal Exercises
The first thing to remember when doing warm up vocal exercises, make sure that you know what the purpose of the exercise is. Each warm up vocal exercise should have a specific purpose in mind. It serves no purpose if the exercise is done wrong, and you have the potential of harming your vocal chords.
The most common exercise and the simplest to do is humming. This does not require the use of a piano so it can be done at any time. In any exercise that you do there are a few things to remember:
1. Make sure that at all time the voice is properly supported.
2. Start at the lower middle part of your voice.
3. Make sure that the throat is completely relaxed and that the jaw is in a natural position. In other words make sure that you are not clenching your teeth.
You can do this exercise by gently humming up and down the scale of your middle voice making sure that no pressure is put on the vocal chords. Remember that even when humming it still requires that same amount of support as when you are singing at soft volume.
Even more important than the humming, make sure that your support is correct. The voice is supported by means breath. If you do not breathe properly you cannot sing properly. The humming exercise can be carried on for a period of ten minutes.
The second exercise that can be used after the initial humming exercise is to use the Italian vowel “u” again starting on the lower middle part of the voice. This can be used in the following ways:
1. Using the vowel “u” sing from the tonic to the dominant three times. At the end of each set of three move up a semitone on the scale until the top register of the voice is reached.
2. Next do major arpeggios starting at the tonic and returning to the tonic. The point of doing the arpeggios is that there has to be seamless integration of the voice from the bottom of the voice to the top of the voice. This can only be done slowly so that it is possible to hear if there are any changes in timbre that has to be corrected as you go along.
3. Next do octave jump, and then come down in the major arpeggio. Make sure that your support is enough to sustain the octave for three beats and then coming down the major arpeggio.
The purpose of starting off the warm up vocal exercise with the “u” vowel is to make sure that the vocal chords stretches gently as you go through the entire range of the voice. It is very important to make sure that your support is correct. If not, you will put strain on your vocal chords and it will get tired much quicker as opposed to when the exercise is done correctly.
The purpose of warm up vocal exercises is to make sure that your voice is warmed up gradually. It is not something that can be rushed! All of the above exercises can then be applied to the rest of the Italian form vowels.
Can Anyone Learn To Sing
Can Anyone Learn to Sing?
It’s one of those questions beginning singers struggle with: can anyone really learn to sing, or are some people just born with the innate ability?
If you ask me, there’s no question about it: anyone can learn to sing. It’s easy to expand your lung capacity, practice your range, improve your pitch, and become an all-around better singer through honest practice and dedicated hard work. Your body will change around your singing and so will your mind - as long as you have the persistence to keep working at it.
But that doesn’t mean that you will learn to sing. Why? Some people just give up on themselves. It’s the same story as in any other field: you can almost certainly learn the skill yourself, but whether or not you actually do is completely up to you and your level of dedication. What you put into the world of singing is exactly what you’ll get out of it. Work hard and your voice can really improve. Work hard over a long period of time and your voice can literally transform.
But if you give up after two weeks because you haven’t seen many results for practising, guess what? You’re probably not going to become a good singer.
Here are some other reasons people can learn to sing:
● Musical talent can be developed. Consider this: no one is born understanding how to play the piano. Even piano prodigies have to be taught at some point. For you, this means that there’s a lot of opportunity to develop the instrument you’re interested in - your voice. Now, your voice is definitely unique in that it’s an instrument that you always carry with you. But that doesn’t mean you can’t increase your lung capacity and improve the control you have over your vocal chords. In fact, you’d be surprised to hear how much change you can create in your own voice if you simply work at it.
● Many talented singers had to work - hard - at it, too. Some people might be more naturally inclined to be great singers, but without the practice to develop it, they don’t get very far. Read up on some of the great singers of all time and I’m confident you’ll find stories of extreme perseverance and dedication to their craft.
So what does this mean for you? Well, first of all - no excuses! If you really can learn to sing, guess what? The burden is on you to make it happen. Without your dedication and practice, no teacher in the world will be able to quickly solve your singing problems. There is no one special technique that can transform you into a great singer; instead, you’ll have to go through lots of practice if you want to get good.
The good news, of course, is that yes, it is indeed possible. Hopefully this is encouraging news to you if you want to become a singer and encourage you to work hard on a regular basis. Just don’t push yourself too hard - you don’t want to pass out!
Vocal Training Exercises
Vocal Training Exercises to Become a Better Singer
Becoming a better singer is less about talent than it is about determination and the drive to succeed. If you have those two ingredients, you’ll be able to push yourself through exercises and practice sessions that can completely change the way your singing sounds to others. If you don’t believe me, give a six-week singing program a try. You’ll be amazed at how far you come along in six weeks.
But before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s consider what you might do over one of these hypothetical vocal training programs. In order to do that, we have to look at individual training exercises that can really help you become a better singer by managing your breathing, your pitch, your volume, and other elements that play into the sound you create. Without any further ado, let’s consider some really great vocal training exercises that can help you become a better singer.
Scales
One of the most elementary forms of practice in the musical world is the scale. The scale is essentially a run-through of an octave of tones - in other words, eight tones. There are many different types of scales, with the most basic being, perhaps, the “Major” scale. If you know the tune to “Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Ti, Do,” then you know how to single a major scale. Can you sing one? Can you go to the upper “Do” and sing your way back down? If you can’t, this is a great place to start practicing your pitch.
Many musical teachers will warm up their students by having them go five notes - Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So - up and back down again. If you know what a half-step is, then you can practice like they do: you move the scale up a half-step after every completed five-note “scale.” When you hear choirs sing five “La” notes up and down, you’re probably listening to this practicing technique.
What good will learning scales do you? It will help you to recognize pitch and to be able to reproduce pitch yourself. If you need help identifying whether or not you’re in tune, try listening to yourself on a recording. This is a great way to keep yourself accountable to the way you actually sound. Remember: we all sound different than we think we sound.
Breathing
Breathing is one of the most important elements in the world of singing, because it’s the air in your lungs that provides the fuel to vibrate your vocal chords and actually produce notes. In other words, you can’t very well sing in outer space unless you’ve got access to some air.
In order to enhance your singing, gaining control over the quality of your lung capacity as well as your breathing technique can go a long way. Pay attention to the way singers breathe. If you listen to some songs, you’ll hear the singer quick inhalations - it’s one of those things many people never notice until they look for it.
Pay attention to when these inhalations come and ask yourself if you can become this effective at breathing while singing.
You can. To expand your lung capacity, try this a few times a day: bring in your breath, inhaling the air, and pause for just a second or two. Then exhale all the air back out of your lungs slowly, as if you’re breathing out of a thing straw. Don’t give yourself a headache; just push yourself a little.
Singing Breathing Techniques
Singing Breathing Techniques
Believe it or not, breathing is one of the most important things to pay attention to as a singer. The air in your lungs is responsible for moving through your vocal chords and producing the vibrations that create sound - you can’t sing in outer space. That’s why it’s so crucial that you concentrate on effective breathing in order to make sure that you’re singing at an optimal level.
One way to concentrate on breathing and develop your breathing skills as they relate to singing is to work on breathing techniques. These practice exercises and techniques can really help you to optimize your singing and make sure you’re broadcasting a clear, confident sound that will make people wish they could sing as well as you. But before we start with the delusions of grandeur, let’s concentrate on how you can improve your breathing and, therefore, your singing.
Lung Capacity
One of the most important ways to improve your breathing skills as it relates to singing is to boost your lung capacity. It’s been demonstrated over the years that you can expand your lung capacity simply through practice. Being able to sustain musical notes for a long time is a great way to to instantly boost your singing by improved breathing. So let’s think about lung capacity for a moment.
Improving your lung capacity can be as simple as practicing holding your breath. (Note: whenever you’re practicing with your lungs, you do want to challenge yourself, but not make yourself pass out. Slowly build up more lung capacity so that you’ll be safe.)
For this exercise, take a deep breath and hold it briefly. Exhale - but exhale slowly, as if you’re blowing through a thin straw. After doing this once or twice, do the same exercise, only produce a musical note as a hum as you’re exhaling the air. This will help you get used to producing notes for long periods of exhalation.
This exercise also helps you to keep your pitch constant. Sometimes in music the singer will be asked to sustain a note for beats and measures at a time - if you can’t do this at a moment’s notice you may find that your breath fades when it really doesn’t have to.
Singing on Short Breath
Another interesting exercise is to...well, exercise. But don’t just exercise - sing as you move. If you have a treadmill at home, this is ideal - it will help avoid the oddness of singing in front of strangers on the sidewalk. Without a treadmill, you can walk or jog in place at home as well.
Exercise moderately. Many health advisers say you should be able to talk as you exercise. If you practice singing as you exercise, you’ll get used to having to use more air when your capacity is running a little lower than usual. Keep things moderate - you don’t want to over-exert yourself.
As you get used to singing while exercising, you’ll find that singing at rest will become that much more easy.
Technique For Singing
Techniques for Singing Better than You Ever Have Before
We’ve all had that moment. Before it, we think we’re great singers. We love the sound of our own voice. We love the kind of acoustics we can get in the shower, and promptly shout our songs out over the sound of the shower water so that people can hear us all the way down the hall and in other apartments.
But when we have that moment, everything changes. You know what I’m talking about: the moment you hear yourself singing in a recording and asking everyone around you a simple question - is that really me?
The bad news is that, yes, that’s really you. The good news is that you can change and improve your singing voice and the first step to doing it is realizing that you have a problem. If you hadn’t accomplished that step already, you probably wouldn’t have even found this article - so it’s good you’re coming into this with a little momentum on your side. Let’s use that momentum and check out some techniques for singing better than you ever have.
Practice Your Scales
If you don’t know what a scale is, then you probably don’t have a lot of experience in music. Why? The scale is one of the first things you learn. You don’t, however, have to be learning the piano in order to practice a scale: vocal scales can also be great techniques for improving your singing voice and making sure that you are a master of pitch.
Pitch, of course, is essentially the frequency at which your voice is singing - how in tune you are with the song. The first mistake you can make is to sing a song out of tune, or out of pitch. So if you sound tone-deaf on those ghastly recordings, you’ll definitely want to concentrate on your scales.
You can try out a simple “Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Ti, Do” scale. Many music teachers advice you to try a scale and then continue to practice by moving the bottom “Do” note up a half-step. In music, a half-step is often simply the next highest note. If you have a piano to accompany you, you’ll find this is easy to locate.
Eventually, however, you should be able to recognize pitch to the point in which you can handle these scales all on your own.
Make Sure You Can Breathe
One of the best ways to ensure that you have a good singing experience is to properly manage your breath. If you aren’t breathing, you won’t be able to belt out those high notes or bring up your volume when need be.
Breathing is the “infrastructure” of your voice. Without the wind in your lungs, you wouldn’t be able to create a single sound, let alone a sound that’s attractive to whoever’s listening.
One good breathing exercise is simply to begin singing a song and practising the best spots to take a deep breath in between “musical phrases.” If you can plan out these times, you should be able to get a lot more out of your voice than you might have originally thought.
Exercises To Improve Singing
Exercises to Improve Singing
Everyone wants to be a better singer. Whether we’re making fools of ourselves on national television in an American Idol audition or simply singing in the car where no one can hear us, many of us have hidden aspirations of vocal competence.
Of course, our confidence doesn’t always match our competence, which is why it’s important to focus on developing your voice as an instrument just like you would develop your skill in any other instrument: with work, practice, and even vocal lessons.
But improving your singing doesn’t have to be a lifelong endeavor, a pursuit available only to the truly driven. Instead, you can improve your singing right now by following a few basic steps and employing some nice vocal techniques that many professional singers often use.
Let’s take a look at a few of these techniques and see if we can’t improve your singing voice in a short amount of time.
Scales. On a piano, you might practice a scale. When you sing, you also cycle through eight notes. The famous succession of “Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Ti, Do” is actually simply a major scale. Try to go up and down on one of these scales as a way of warming up your pitch and bringing out a stronger, fuller sound that is confident with each change of pitch.
Many times, this is not employed as a vocal exercise but a vocal practice - a way of practicing your pitch when the pressure of the performance is not imminent. Even so, you can hear whether or not you’re singing in tune simply by, well, singing a tune. Using different words on each note is also a way to practice the expression you need to fully sing each word you’ll be enunciating.
Breathing exercises. We forget that our voices are wind instruments - we think about the vibrations in our chests but not necessarily about the wind that our voice is utilizing in order to generate the vibrations in our vocal chords to produce musical notes. That’s why breathing exercises are ideal for singing: you really have to make sure you’re breathing slowly, surely, and properly in order to produce a relaxed, full sound.
If you don’t have your breath about you, you won’t be able to nail that high note.
You can also employ some breathing practice techniques to improve your ability to sing without taking a breath - increasing your lung capacity. The more you take your lungs out for a spin, the more they’ll be able to respond to the demands your singing places on them.
Here’s a nice little breathing exercise: try inhaling and exhaling as you count upwards from one. Notice how your using the air in your lungs - is most of it coming out as air or as sound? Try to make your breathing efficient so that you don’t lose all of your air by the time you get to “four.”
Also, take it easy. You don’t want to pop a vein!
Projecting. A great way to warm up for your singing is to make sure that your volume is appropriate. You can do this by consciously projecting a few notes and hearing how they sound. An old theatre trick is to concentrate on projecting your vocals against the back of your front teeth - it helps you to be conscious of the sound you’re producing. You might also want to think about the kind of crowd you’ll be dealing with. How far of a range do you want people to hear you from? Start projecting in that kind of voice, as long as you can do it in a relatively private way!
Warmup Vocal Exercise
Warm-Up Vocal Exercise to Deepen and Clarify Your Voice
A lot of us all want a deep, powerful voice. After we see Darth Vader - voiced by James Earl Jones - on the movie screen, the first thing we do is turn to our friends and break out in an impersonation of him.
But before you start saying “I am your father...”, it’s important to realize that you can take your voices to newer, deeper levels without having to do a James Earl Jones impersonation.
What situation might you be in that could use a warm-up vocal exercise? Just imagine how much more confident you’d feel with a deeper, more resonant voice if you were facing:
● A job interview
● A presentation to the boss
● A speech to an expecting crowd
● A first date
You’d be surprised at the impact a powerful, relaxed voice can have in these types of situations. Without further ado, it’s time to explore some vocal exercises that can take your voice to that level in a relatively short amount of time.
Concentrate on where your voice is coming from. Pick up a magazine or a newspaper and start reading. Pay attention to where your voice is coming from.
Huh? Where your voice is coming from? It always comes from your throat, doesn’t it?
Well, not exactly. Depending on how you use your voice, you might notice your voice is resonating in a particular area of your body. In a nasally voice, it will be far too high: either in the throat or even mouth and nose. If you’re doing it right, you should notice vibration in your chest, because that’s where you want your voice to becoming from. Your voice starts with the exhalation of air in your lungs and works its way through your throat and voicebox - it’s not as if the voice is only about the voicebox alone.
Many singers and even speakers consider breathing exercises to be valuable for this very reason. As you read the newspaper or magazine, see if you can try to bring your voice from a deeper, lower place.
Sing. Singing is a great way to warm up your voice. Singing requires you to form words, to project your voice, and to employ a big range of vocal expression. Singing won’t necessarily do everything you want to your speaking voice, but it’s a great way to warm up, loosen up, an get in that “vocal” mood.
Singing is also a great way to make you feel differently. When you’re in a different, more joyful mood, your voice should more naturally sound a little bit better. Granted, it won’t change your voice completely, but it should have enough impact that you’ll feel better about the speech or presentation you’re about to give.
Practice words and sounds. It’s not just about voice - it’s also about enunciation. Practising simple sounds like “may, mee, mah, moo” can sound a little ridiculous, sure, but if you give your brain a good tongue-twisting then normal words shouldn’t seem so hard to pronounce.
Stuttering or stammering over your words can often be caused by placing too much pressure on yourself to pronounce something correctly. Stay relaxed and confident and you’ll find out just how quickly you can change your voice to sound smoother, deeper, and more professional.
Improve Vocal Range
Improve Vocal Range Through Effective Practising
Believe it or not, your vocal range isn’t fixed. Though many people believe that singing is something you are born with, the truth is that singing is a highly malleable skill. You can improve your singing - and your vocal range - simply by practising and working hard at it. Results might not come right away, but over time, you’ll notice yourself becoming a more effective singer.
But before you think about improving your vocal range, we should first establish a definition for the phrase.
Vocal range: (Source:Warm up Vocal range is the measure of the breadth of pitches that a human voice can phonate.
In other words, your vocal range is essentially how high or low you can go.
This is very important in the world of vocalists. In essence, your vocal range determines the kind of singer you are. “The Three Tenors,” for example, were known as the Three Tenors because they had a very specific vocal range as compared to basses or sopranos.
But even in the confines of that vocal range, you’ll find there’s plenty of space for complexity. Luciano Pavarotti was famous for being able to hit particularly difficult high notes.
How can you replicate those results? Well, we can’t guarantee that you’ll sound like Luciano Pavarotti, but we can tell you that expanding your vocal range is entirely possible. Here are a few tips to keep in mind.
Tip #1: Employ falsetto to instantly expand your range. A “Falsetto” voice is a shift upwards that allows you to smoothly hit notes at a higher pitch than you could have otherwise hit. If you’ve listening to a song and suddenly a singer’s voice becomes light, airy, and higher in pitch, there’s a good chance you’re listening to them employ falsetto.
The falsetto is just under the “whistle” in terms of reaching the highest notes, so practising a falsetto voice is a good way to ensure that you can increase your vocal range.
Tip #2: Use the piano technique. In order to help you discover your pitch, it’s not a bad idea to sit down at a piano and try and sing as many notes as you can in a normal singing voice. This will help you evaluate at which range your voice sounds most natural, as well as identify some of your “weak spots” that you might want to improve upon.
For example, if you notice that the lower notes come natural, you might realize that you have a lower register and this is where you’re most comfortable. However, if you want to go higher, you can always practice the notes themselves by trying to hum or sing in tune with the piano.
One quick note: it’s important that you have a properly-tuned piano for this. It will help you make sure you’re maintaining proper pitch as you’re practising.
Building up a wider vocal range can really help you become a better singer. Even if you can singe E Flat beautifully, you aren’t much of a singer if you can’t sing another note. Range is one of the marks of an effective, developed singer. The more you try, the better you’ll do. Give it a whirl!
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