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Overview
Go from singing in the shower to taking your audience’s breath away
Whether you picture yourself as the next Ariana Grande or just feel like picking up a new hobby, Singing For Dummies walks you through the surprisingly straightforward steps you’ll need to take to develop your voice. It’s a practical guide to every important aspect of singing, from vocal techniques to performance tips.
You’ll learn exercises and practice songs that gradually improve your craft and receive instruction on the latest technology and recording devices to capture
and play back your songs. Singing For Dummies also shows you how to:
- Understand and use important singing techniques, improve your tone, upgrade your posture, and maximize your breath
- Maintain your voice with preventative self-care that keeps your vocal cords in tiptop shape
- Sing with instrumental accompaniment or with a partner in a duet
Perfect for men, women, boys, and girls, Singing For Dummies is the most intuitive and accessible resource on the market for anyone who hopes to find their voice.
The craft of singing requires you to do several things at one time starting with aligning your body and breathing. Whether you’re preparing for an audition or a performance, the successful presentation of any song includes preparing yourself as well as your song. Posture checklist for better singingThe next time you watch a professional singer, observe their posture.
About The Author
Pamelia S. Phillips is a professional singer with over 35 years of teaching experience. She has designed curriculum for high school students, college BFA programs, and professional training programs, helping thousands of singers refine their singing technique.
Articles From The Book
3 results
Voice
Articles
Your biggest job as a singer is to say something when you sing. Standing up and singing memorized words is just the beginning. Apply your acting skills to a song for a powerful performance. Give your audience a reason to look and listen to your performance
If the song has an interlude, a passage in the music when you're not singing, you need to figure out how to handle that period of time.
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Answering fundamental questions about the character singing your song leads you to some specific details about how to portray that character when you’re alone onstage.
You want to uncover the facts given in the lyrics. Some basic questions to answer include these:
What is the character’s name? The character in a radio song is you.
Voice
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Before singing a song, you want to know a few things. You want to know what happened just before this song to motivate your character to sing and say the words. Why does your character sing, and how does your character intend to overcome any obstacles?
Some songs aren’t from a musical or opera. For these songs, you need to do enough work with the text that your imagination leads you to the right answers.
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You want to make your performance well rounded and interesting to the audience, so you need to do some detective work on your song. Take a close look into the character singing the song. Every song has a character and a story to tell. Sometimes the character is just like you and sometimes it’s someone very different.
Voice
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Acting while singing is a must. Your acting preparation of your song needs to be as detailed as your musical preparation of the audition. You want your audience to watch you during your audition, and if you aren’t acting, they have no reason to look at you.
At an audition, your choice of where to direct your eyes is similar to where you direct your eyes if you’re telling a story.
Voice
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Don’t worry if you aren’t sure what to do when you practice. Students frequently ask questions about practicing, so here are some answers before you start practicing. Knowing where to practice, when to practice, and what to use when you practice puts you on the right track for technique work.
Where should I practice?
Voice
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This singing exercise helps you explore the sensations of moving into the lighter singing sound of falsetto from the heavier feelings of chest voice or middle voice. The benefit of this exercise is that, with practice, you can figure out how to make the transition up to falsetto or your head voice.
Your head voice will be stronger because you’ll know how to sing the notes without adding heavy pressure or thickness, as if you were pulling a rubber band and it remained thick.
Voice
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Although you knew your audition wouldn't be a private affair, its important to know who the attendees are and the role they play in the audition. For every musical production from a video to a musical to a singing contest, a producer, musical director, stage manager, choreographer, director, casting director, and general manager run the show.
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The big tip to use on singing auditions is to know the typical behavior for your style of music. Pop-rock auditions are more laid-back than opera auditions. The way you dress for the opera audition is very different from how you dress at the pop-rock audition. Knowing these specifics increases your chances of getting the gig.
Voice
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Picking songs for your audition that highlight your talent is a fundamental task to success. It’s the wrong audition song if one of these conditions applies:
You don’t like the song.
It’s out of your league as a singer or musician. For example, the song is out of your range, most notes sit too high, or it’s too difficult musically.
Voice
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When you sing, you need to know how to breathe properly as you sing the phrases of a song. As you sing, you inhale quickly and exhale slowly to gain the breath control you need to sing efficiently. Controlled breathing doesn’t come naturally, so train your body to breathe for singing.
The easiest way to find out how to breathe for singing is simply to feel it.
Voice
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Listening to some technically savvy belters can be helpful when you’re figuring out how to make the right sounds. Here are some great suggestions of belt songs to try for yourself.
Male belters
For some skillful male belters, listen to
Chuck Berry singing “Roll Over Beethoven”
Elton John singing “Philadelphia Freedom” or “I Guess That’s Why They Call It the Blues”
Bobby Lewis singing “Tossin’ and Turnin’”
John Cougar Mellencamp singing “Hurts So Good”
Rod Stewart singing “Tonight’s the Night” or “Do You Think I'm Sexy”
You may not think of those guys as belters, but they’re using the same qualities you explore when belting out a song.
Voice
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Belting is such an exciting sound for a singer. Belting is the high-energy sound that singers make in pop, musical theater, and rock music. It’s similar to yelling on pitch, but with more of a singing tone than yelling.
Many different styles of music use belting. You’ve undoubtedly listened to the sounds of belting — you just may not have known how to define it.
Voice
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Gaining coordination of the muscles that control breathing takes time and consistent practice, but is essential to improving your singing. Athletes know that they have to train consistently to teach the muscles in their body to respond exactly the way they want, singers are no different.
Over time, the muscles remember how to move and you don’t have to think about it.
Voice
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You probably already figured out that you have to pay attention to your breathing when you sing. In fact, proper breath control can make the difference between singing successfully and failing.
Knowing how to breathe when you sing is a great skill. Taking your breathing to the next level in a song means breathing with the intent to say something when you sing.
Voice
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Breathing is breathing, right? Not so with singing. For singers, good breath control and strong lungs contribute to powerful performances. It all begins with knowing how to breathe from deep within your body — from your diaphragm, actually, which is a membrane of muscle and tendons located between your lungs and abdomen.
Voice
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You don’t have to remember the number of ribs to understand their role in breathing for singing. You do want to remember that the top of your rib cage has more movement from front to back in your body and that the lower ribs open more laterally, or out to the side of your body
Knowing how your ribs move, you can visualize the side-to-side opening near the bottom of your ribs to get the most air into your body quickly.
Voice
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The goal of proper inhalation for singing is to open the body quickly so the air drops in quietly. If your muscles don’t know how to open quickly, you can slow down with this exercise and find how to open the muscles.
When you were a kid, your mom probably told you not to suck air through your straw, right? It makes that horrible slurping noise after all the liquid is drained from your glass.
Voice
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Many singing teachers feel strongly about the movement of the abdominal muscles (abs) and singing. You may have been told to control your abdominals to control your exhalation. That idea is a good one, but you also want to control the other muscles in your torso, because the abdominals aren’t the only muscles that control exhalation.
Voice
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Singers often think that they can control their diaphragm movement and achieve great breath control, thus managing resistance and suspending breath. What most people don’t know is that the diaphragm is passive during exhalation. Your diaphragm moves down as you inhale and as your lungs expand to fill with air, but the diaphragm isn’t active when you exhale.
Voice
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Learning how and when to breathe is an important ingredient in singing properly. Learning to catch and time your breathe for each song you sing is critical to a quality performance.
Catching your breath
If you’re singing an up-tempo song with quick-moving words, you have to know exactly how to get the breath in quickly to make the next line come out clearly.
Voice
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Each section of a song must have a distinct feel or tone. To convey different tones in different sections, you need to make a change of thought to create a change of tone. Look through your song and determine how many sections it has.
You know it’s a new section because one of these things happens: A piano interlude (a solo section for the piano in between the vocal section) often leads to a new section, the music changes and adds different rhythms or moves to a new key, or the text changes and a new topic arises.
Voice
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Exploring chanting helps you understand the close relationship between a resonant tone for speaking and a resonant tone for singing. To explore chanting, you sing some pitches, chant the same pitches, and then speak the same pitches.
This exercise uses the opening three notes to “Three Blind Mice.” You may want to sing a bit of the song just to refresh your memory before following these steps:
Sing the first three notes of “Three Blind Mice” and notice the feeling in your throat.
Voice
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The library is a great place to search for singing music. It’s free, and you can check out the book to try the song at home at your own pace. If you find that it’s not in the right key, you save yourself a few dollars and some frustration.
You can even take the music to a pianist to play through it for you if your music-reading skills are still pretty new.
Voice
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Choosing songs to practice is different than choosing songs for an audition. You want to practice songs that expand and challenge your vocal technique. But songs for the audition need to highlight your strengths and accomplishments from all those hours of practice.
When you audition, you need a variety of stories and acting choices, as well as multiple vocal colors and good range.
Voice
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The process of choosing a song which suits your accomplishment level can stump many singers. Once selected, starting a new song can be so much fun. Digging into the phrasing, the story, and the vocal challenges of a new song can provide hours of entertaining work. How do you select the right song for your level of singing?
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Finding songs that suit your interest and skill is not as difficult as you might think. The following list includes the three basic song levels from which you want to choose.
Beginner: Beginner songs have simple rhythms, a narrow range, an accompaniment part that plays the singer’s melody, a melody line and accompaniment that are the same, and simple articulation opportunities.
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When preparing for your audition try to find the song in the key that you want to sing it in. If you sing a song that’s in the wrong key, you may end up sounding more like Kermit the Frog than Kelly Clarkson or Renée Fleming on those high notes.
Opera arias are seldom transposed. You may find art songs in different keys in the music store, but the arias are usually sung as written on the page.
Voice
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Myths and misconceptions about resonance abound which will impact your singing, and most have to do with what is — and is not — a resonator. If you buy into these myths, the tone of your singing voice may not be as good as it can be.
Tone resonates in your sinuses
Sound may resonate in the nasal passages but not in the sinuses.
Voice
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Maintaining your posture while walking makes a big difference in your appearance and your ability to sing while walking or moving. You may actually have to sing while walking around the stage. Church choirs sing as they process, and backup singers groove to the music as they dance.
What if you have to cross the stage?
Voice
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The root of good singing posture is the position of your feet and the balance of weight on your feet. Seems like the feet are a long way from the singing process, but equal distribution of weight on the feet allows all the muscles to stay released so you can make gorgeous sounds.
Try this sequence to find the balance of weight on your feet.
Voice
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For singing, you want to engage the entire body in making sound. The legs are your support system, and you want them to hold you up without tightening. Try the following suggestion to discover how to engage your legs.
To feel the legs engage as you sing, use a plié as you take the breath. Plié means “to bend,” and you want to bend your knees as you inhale.
Voice
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Regardless of the width of your shoulders, for good singing posture you want to align your feet under your hips. A lot of people tend to put their feet at shoulder width, which may or may not work for you. Women tend to have narrow shoulders and wider hips, whereas men tend to have wide shoulders and narrow hips.
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Your best singing posture requires that you have your ankles open and flexible when you’re standing. Sitting in a chair or standing on one leg, move your foot around to feel the flexibility in your ankle. If your ankle feels tight, take your time and move it gently back and forth or in circles to stretch the muscles and release some tension.
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Part of a singer's excellent posture is a head that is well-balanced on the shoulders. Use the idea that you can lengthen the spine through the neck up into the head so that the head balances on top of the spine. Think of the bobble-head dolls that sit on the dash of the car: The body of the dolls doesn’t move, but the head bobs around.
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One way singers can improve posture and enable easy breathing is to release their hips to open the muscles. Open muscles means less tension and better singing.
To find just the right position for your hips, rock back and forward — that is, move your pelvis by pushing your buttocks back and then pushing them forward.
Voice
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You can’t choose a song just because you sing it well. If you just sing it well, you can sell a recording instead of asking an audience to watch you sing it. When you find a song that you sing really well, you need to figure out how to make it work for you as an actor. Keep these tips in mind:
Don’t sing a song if you don’t like the words.
Voice
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When you have your throat space open, you want to coordinate breath with tone to sing. You want the movement of the air to happen at the same time the tone starts.
Try these three ways of coordinating breath and tone:
Whistle: Whistling requires that you move some air between your lips as you make tone. This coordination of breath is similar to singing.
Voice
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Determining which song arrangement to add to your repertoire depends on many factors. When comparing songs you need to at least consider the storyline and strength, the performance venue, and what sort of accompaniment you will have.
“Get Down Tonight,” recorded by K.C. & The Sunshine Band, is a great song for dancing, but the lyrics repeat a lot and it doesn’t have a strong story.
Voice
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In singing, back space refers to the space in the back of your mouth and in your throat. Just opening your teeth or the front of your mouth (front space) shows off your gorgeous pearly whites, but it doesn’t do enough for your tone.
Yes, you do have to open your teeth to create enough back space, but the big opening has to be in the back of your mouth and your throat.
Voice
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Creating correct posture means finding out what correct posture looks like and feels like so that you can quickly make whatever changes you need. By changing your posture, you control what kind of impression you make on others — whether you’re on the stage singing or at the audition vying for the show’s lead. Good posture keeps energy flowing instead of trapping it in one body part, and it also aligns your body for correct breathing.
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When you sing, you want to create tones that are clear and ringing. But making a clear tone takes practice and know-how. You need to know how to control your muscles and the movement of air.
You don’t want to produce breathy or tight tones:
Breathy: A breathy tone is fuzzy and unfocused. To get an idea of what a breathy tone sounds like, pretend that you’re whispering a juicy secret to a friend.
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When you decide how you want to sing your song, mark your music with the directions so the accompanist knows how to follow you. You can highlight the tempo and dynamic markings to make sure that your accompanist sees them; if none are written in, write them within the piano part. You often see tempo markings above the vocal line.
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Creating an arrangement for your song involves many musical elements which you need to assess. Among these factors you need to experiment with are lyric articulation, dynamics and tempo.
Articulation
Sing through the song as you normally do, noticing the articulation and flow of the melody. Now sing the song again and change the articulation.
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Use vocal variety in your song arrangement through variations in registration and resonance. If you make the same exact sound throughout the song, it sounds repetitive after the first few phrases. Gradually changing the vocal sounds shows off your versatility and provides a changing and flowing journey of sound throughout the song.
Voice
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Tone is what’s known as the color or timbre of your singing voice. Every voice has a specific color, which can be described as warm, dark, or strident. Two singers singing the same song in the same key may sound different — the reason is tone.
If you turned on the radio, would you recognize your favorite singer?
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Moving out of your falsetto down to your middle voice and chest singing voice requires practice to be performed smoothly without straining your voice. The goal of this exercise is to use the easy feeling of falsetto and get your notes in your middle voice to have that same ease of sound without pressure.
The following illustration allows you to flip out of falsetto down into your chest voice so you can really feel the difference between them.
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The trick when picking music is to read music well enough to know whether the song’s notes are within your range. You don’t have to know everything about what’s on the page; you just need to know enough to discern the difference between the right key for you and the wrong key.
When a singer says, “I need this song in a higher key,” he means that he wants the notes of the song higher.
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When determining your singing level, you must consider several factors. These issues include how to battle fatigure, song speed, working effectively with your accompianist, story-telling, and working effectively with rhythm.
Battling fatigue
What causes you to get tired as you’re practicing? Many singers tire when they sing a song in which most notes stay at the top of their range.
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Three factors to consider when determining your singing level are your range, your ability to take leaps and your high note range. Assessing yourself honestly in these factors will help you pick appropriate singing material.
Considering your range
If your range is about eight notes, a beginner song works for you.
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To help you feel that forward resonance needed for belting out a song, imitate a little kid who’s about to tattle on his big brother or sister. You know that taunting, singsong sound, nya-nya-nya-nya-nya. Be a brat for a few minutes and find that tattletale sound — feel the vibrations as you make the sound. If you didn’t feel the resonance in your face, try again and be even more of a brat.
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Certain styles of music don’t require clarity in the tone, but you want to be singing a breathy tone by choice instead of having no idea how to sing clearly when you really want to. Sighing helps you focus on finding this clarity of tone. It allows you to make sounds without worrying about singing precise pitches, which you needn’t bother with for this exercise.
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For some folks, a link is missing between hearing the pitch and singing it. Developing what’s called muscle memory can bridge the gap, however. Muscle memory refers to your body remembering how to do a task — like riding a bike or typing.
In singing, your voice remembers how it felt to sing a certain note or exercise so that you can recall that feeling the next time you sing the note.
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Music preference may be the most obvious difference you encounter between a young singer and a teenager, but other differences exist. Young singers and teenagers are different in the following ways:
Range: Young singers have a limited range; they need songs with a narrow range that focus on subjects they enjoy.
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As a man, if you’ve ever imitated a woman, by either speaking or singing, you’ve found your falsetto. Your falsetto voice may not be really strong, but giving it a good workout for singing is important so that you can strengthen your head voice.
Listen to a singer using falsetto sounds. Notice that the falsetto is light, unlike your speaking voice; it’s similar to your voice when you were younger.
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When you sing, you have to drop your jaw much more than you do in everyday conversation, and you have to open your mouth and throat much wider. If you don’t drop your jaw and open your mouth, the sound gets trapped inside your mouth and can’t make it past the first row of the audience.
To properly open the throat and mouth for singing, you need to feel around a bit first.
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Most of your neck muscles are designed to keep the larynx high — which prevents singers from making a full, open sound. You have to figure out how to keep the larynx in a lower or more neutral position in your throat for singing.
To drop your larynx, you can use the beginning of the yawn. Avoid intentionally pushing down the back of your tongue, as most people do when first trying to drop the larynx: If you push your tongue down, you also feel the larynx push down and you feel a tightening of the muscles under your chin.
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The irritating nasal sound, or nasality, in some singing voices is a result of a soft palate which is not lifted properly. Your soft palate is the soft tissue on the roof of your mouth. A soft palate that lifts helps create the ringing sound that you want. If the soft palate doesn’t lift, the sound is nasal. Exercise your soft palate so that it lifts on command and you avoid that nasal sound.
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Progress happens because of each step you take. After every singing performance, look at how you did and how you felt. Because everything in your life affects your singing, decide what steps worked well for you and modify the ones that didn’t.
Looking at preparation and performance issues
Check the technical aspects of your performance to discover what you can improve upon.
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Your singing posture can mean a full, open voice or a tight and strained sound. Which singing sound do you produce? Evaluate your posture in front of a full-length mirror. Notice the way you hold your body, especially your head, chest, hips, knees, arms, and hands. More than likely, after you looked in the mirror, you changed your posture.
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A lip trill is an itchy exercise, but it’s great for feeling the movement of the exhalation. The vibrations of your lips may make your nose itch after a few minutes. No problem — scratch your nose and keep going. What’s a lip trill? Ever see a horse blowing air through his lips? The horse’s lips flap in the breeze.
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Experiment with creating resonance (sound vibrations) to improve your singing. For this singing exercise, think of your head as divided into three segments. To really feel the vibrations of resonance in the front of your face, you want to explore the vibrations made in the very back, middle, and front of your face and head.
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You may have noticed that most song belting exercises use the vowels ay (the ay sound as in day) and a (as in cat). Those two vowels help you find the forward resonance you need for belting. Of course, you have to sing more than those two vowels in belt songs, so you want to find the same resonance on other vowels.
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When you sing, you want to open the space in your throat and mouth to generate sound in all your resonators (mouth, throat, and nasal passages). Opening the space allows the tone to resonate in the space, but tone needs to move forward when you sing for everyone to hear you; otherwise, you’re just staging your own private concert inside your head.
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Explore your back vowels and learn to sing them clearly. You make back vowels by arching or raising the back of your tongue near the roof of your mouth, while keeping the tip of your tongue behind your bottom front teeth and keeping your lips rounded.
You may be familiar with these vowel sounds (such as ooh, oh, and ah) because of how you shape your lips.
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Your tongue arches in the front of your mouth to sing front vowels. Your tongue does most of the work shaping front vowel sounds, but make sure that both your lips and tongue are released and free of tension. The front vowels don’t require as much lip action as the back vowels.
The front vowels are much less open than the back vowels.
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The shape and size of your body and your body coordination partly determine your tone. In addition, your tone changes with your moods or emotions. Check out the following list for factors that affect tone:
Body coordination: Coordinating the muscles in the body is important for creating lovely tone for singing.
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Think of a voice type as a series of ingredients mixed together to create a unique-tasting dessert. For singing, the ingredients combine to create a unique-sounding voice. The four common voice types are soprano, mezzo-soprano (often called mezzo), tenor, and bass.
These five ingredients determine a voice type:
Age: Many singers are assigned a voice type as young singers, but voices change with age.
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Feeling good about your singing lesson is a two-way road. The purpose of a lesson is to gain more information about singing, so you want your teacher to focus on the work. However, you need to able to shoulder criticism well.
During a voice lesson, you’re doing plenty of singing, and your teacher needs to give you feedback on the sounds you’re making and offer suggestions on ways to improve those sounds.
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You may already know what’s supposed to be your chest singing voice, but maybe you still aren’t sure what it actually is. The best way to tell is to feel it. Try some of the following exercises so you can feel those chest voice vibrations.
The pattern in the following illustration gives you your first opportunity to find your chest voice.
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The higher part of your singing voice is called head voice because most people feel the vibrations in their head or skull while singing in head voice. Having a head voice for singing is necessary to access those really high notes in the song. For women, the notes in the middle part of your voice may not feel much different from the higher notes.
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You can hear some terrific women demonstrate a mix of head voice, chest voice, and middle singing voice. Listen to Mary Martin sing mixed voice in “Why Shouldn’t I?” or Barbara Cook sing “Chain of Love.” Barbra Streisand is another famous mixer. Listen to her singing “Memory,” from Cats. In the very beginning of the song, she’s mixing; later in the song, you can hear her belting.
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Have you ever heard a woman sing notes that sounded higher than any note on the piano? Those wicked high notes that females sing have several different names: flute register, bell register, flageolet, and whistle register. The term whistle is useful because in the beginning, you feel that the sounds are squealing out of your body like a whistling teakettle.
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The male voice has three singing registers, similar to the female voice: chest voice, middle voice, and head voice. The difference for the male singer is falsetto — the lighter part of your singing voice that sounds feminine.
The notes in your falsetto are in the same range as your head voice, but the vocal cords are thin, like a stretched-out rubber band.
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Just as women struggle with the transition between the chest voice and middle voice, men have a tough transition moving into head voice. With some practice, men can successfully maneuver in this area of the voice.
The following illustration shows the average female head voice range. Ladies, you may not feel much difference between your head voice and your middle voice until you get quite high in your head voice, because the vibrations gradually move up into your head as you go higher in pitch.
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Your middle singing voice is the bridge between your chest voice and head voice. For women, middle voice feels like a lighter version of chest voice and a fuller, thicker version of head voice. For men, the middle voice feels lighter than chest voice or head voice and fuller than falsetto.
You can explore your middle voice or even build one if yours is missing in action.
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Finding your optimum singing pitch starts with finding your optimum speaking pitch. You can move from singing to chanting to speaking and apply your same breathing technique and tone production when speaking or singing. In exploring chanting, you find the pitch that sounds the best in your voice, called the optimum pitch.
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Consider taking singing lessons from a qualified voice teacher to improve your vocals, regardless of your experience. You can find a qualified a voice teacher in many ways. The following list makes finding a good teacher simple.
Get recommendations from friends who take voice lessons. Keeping in mind that no teacher is perfect, ask your friends what they like and don’t like about the teacher.
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Within your head and neck, groups of muscles help create tone. The brain sends a message to those muscles that create your singing voice: The air in your lungs begins moving out and the vocal cords move into position to create the pitch. The color of the pitch is the tone. Does it seem complicated? Well, it isn’t — this is exactly what happens every time you speak.
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Belting is different not only between women and men, but also for different voice types. Keep reading to discover the differences for yourself and develop a healthy belting technique, custom designed for your voice.
Women
A healthy belt for the female voice means using a consistent flow of air, high resonance (especially nasal resonance), and a strong speaking voice sound that sustains into sung tones.
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The audition pianist can be your friend or foe, based on how you behave. Most of the time, the pianist who is at the singing audition is a really swell person who plays like a dream.
A few simple actions that seem harmless to you can really set off an accompanist, so here are a few tips:
Don’t try to shake hands with the audition pianist, even if you think it’s good manners.
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Singing bass, the lowest range of the voice types, is a deep matter. The bass is the person who sings all the cool low notes in the barbershop quartet.
Range: His range is usually F (below the bass clef staff) to E (first line treble clef) but can be as wide as E-flat to F (see illustration below).
Register transitions: The bass changes from chest voice into middle voice around A or A-flat just below Middle C and changes into head voice around D or D-flat just above Middle C.
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The soprano has the highest range of the female voice types, in fact the highest range of all the voice types. The following aspects are characteristic of her voice type:
Range: Often Middle C to High C, although some sopranos can vocalize way beyond High C and much lower than Middle C (see following illustration).
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Thanks to the Three Tenors, the Irish Tenors, and even Three Mo’ Tenors, you probably have a good idea of what the tenor voice type sounds like.
Range: The tenor range, shown in the illustration below, is about two octaves, with many singing a little lower than C (second space in bass clef) and a little higher than the male High C (third space treble clef).
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How long it will take to learn to sing is a great question — and there is no blanket answer. If you know nothing about singing, you’ll start to hear improvement after a few weeks of consistent practice. You may not be ready for your debut at the Grammy Awards, but you’ll hear improvement in your tone and your ability to transition between registers of your voice.
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The difference between the mezzo-soprano (or just mezzo) voice type and the soprano is often tessitura. (Tessitura refers to where most of the notes lie in a song — the notes that a voice feels most comfortable singing.) Many mezzos can sing as high as a soprano, but they can’t stay as high as a soprano.
For example, some roles in operatic literature require the mezzo to sing as high as the soprano lead, but the mezzo usually doesn’t have to sing as many high notes as a soprano does — thank goodness — because the mezzo comfort zone is usually different than the soprano; mezzos prefer to live in their middle voices.
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Believe it or not, tension in the head and face is pretty common in singers. You can see tension in the face when the eyebrows lift or the brow furrows. The facial muscles may also hold tension, even though you may not see the face wrinkle.
Look in the mirror at your face. Tighten your face so that you can see the muscles squeezing together.
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Savvy singers release tension in the upper body to allow for a more open sound and easier breathing. To release any tension in your arms and hands while singing, you also want to check in with the areas surrounding the arms and hands.
Chest: Check the position of your chest to make sure that it’s open and lifted, not pushed up.
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All voices change with age, whether you sing or not. That’s why, on the phone, you can easily tell whether you’re speaking with a younger or older person. The following list describes a few types of voice changes that may affect singing and offers tips on how to work around them.
Puberty: Letting young men who are going through puberty sing is okay.
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Three specialists can help you prepare your song or help you with singing technique. They have different skills and strengths; read on to figure out which one is right for you:
A pianist or accompanist is someone who plays the piano for you to practice singing but doesn’t offer advice on singing technique. An accompanist usually charges less than a coach does because this role isn’t as demanding.
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The object of this singing exercise is to make a candle flame flicker by exhaling and not blowing it oout. This breathing exercise helps you develop control of your exhalation, which is critical when you sing a long phrase of music. Make sure that you exhale with a steady, slow stream of air — just enough to bend the flame.
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Because your speaking voice is so closely related to belting out a song, using the speaking voice to develop a healthy belting sound allows you to use a balance of muscles to create the sound instead of just using full chest voice.
Belting is controversial among singers and voice teachers. The most common statement you hear is that belting is dangerous and can ruin your voice.
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Many singers try to conquer all the details of a brand-new song in one session. But picking up an unfamiliar song and getting the words, rhythms, and melody right at the same time may take more than one session. The process goes much quicker if you take some time to scan the song, break it down into manageable pieces, and then conquer it one piece at a time.
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Your singing voice is subject to many threats everyday. Be sure to recognize potential abuses to your voice and throat, and keep them at bay before a big performance. The following list shows just some of the threats; you may find other factors that greatly affect your vocal health over a period of time. In particular, keep these in mind:
Alcohol: Alcohol dilates blood vessels in your body, which isn’t good for your vocal cords if you plan to sing.
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Singers who have good coordination of breath and open space usually have vibrato which you can imitate. Think of a singer (probably someone you’ve heard singing opera or classical music) who makes a huge sound when singing. Now imitate that singer.
Find a quiet place where you can make plenty of sound. Hear the singer’s voice in your mind and then imitate that singer.
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To create great tone, your tongue needs to be just as released as the rest of your body while you sing. The tongue is a huge muscle, and if it’s tense or bunched up in the back, it blocks the tone or squeezes the tone, making it sound tight.
Your tongue should just lie like a rug — relatively flat — in your mouth except when you’re making consonant and vowel sounds that require you to arch your tongue.
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A loose jaw and flexible tongue is important to good singing. The tighter your jaw, the tighter the sound — and the tighter your tongue, the more difficult it is to make your song understood. Become aware of the back of your neck and jaw as you sing so that you can monitor whether you have a flexible jaw and tongue.
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A good way to improve your technique is to work the phrases backward. No, don’t try to sing your song backward — just work from the last phrase you find difficult and gradually add the preceding phrases as you master the hard one.
Sing the last few measures of a song until your phrasing is solid. When you can do that easily, make another grouping with the preceding few measures.
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One tricky part of singing is knowing how to cut off a note that has a consonant at the end of a word. Some people think you have to squeeze to cut off the last note of a phrase. Squeezing creates a tight grunt to cut off the last note of your beautiful song. You have several options, depending on the last sound in the word.
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Nasal resonance is different from a nasal sound even though both involve moving air through your nose. Nasal resonance involves taking advantage of the sound resonating in the nasal passages. If all the sound resonates in your nasal passages, the sound is a nasal sound or too nasal.
Air shouldn’t be moving out of your nose unless you’re humming or for the split second it takes for you to make a nasal consonant (M, N, NG).
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Releasing a tone doesn’t sound nearly as important as singing the tone. You sing a tone and then release it or stop singing. Singing requires that breath move out of your body (exhale), and releasing the tone simply requires that you inhale.
Sounds easy doesn’t it? Practice the following two exercises a few times to get the feeling in your body.
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To shape and clearly sing soft palate consonants, keep the tip of your tongue against your bottom teeth, lift the back of the tongue to touch the soft palate, and shape your lips for the vowel sounds before and after the consonant. The K consonant is unvoiced, and G and NG are voiced.
While shaping the soft palate consonants in the following table, see to it that
The back of your tongue rises to meet the roof of your mouth at your soft palate, while the tip of your tongue continues touching your bottom front teeth.
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Knowing how to move the soft palate and coordinate that movement with your tongue is important for speaking and singing, because you want the soft palate to lift for a resonant tone. If the soft palate doesn’t lift, you make a sound that has too much resonance in your nose, or a “nasal sound,” as you may have heard someone say.
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Sustaining tone is a singing must. Have you ever run out of air before the end of the phrase in your song and then had to sneak in a breath? Sneaking in a breath is legal when you sing, but you should sneak a breath because you choose to, not because you have to.
Among the times you ran out of air, you may even have had to take a breath in the middle of a word.
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When you sing, you can choose to create tone that has variation in pitch (vibrato) or not (straight tone). Absolutely nothing is wrong with straight tone singing, as long as that’s your choice. Your choir director may have asked you to sing straight tones when performing some styles of music.
Many people sing with straight tones because they have too much tension in their neck or throat.
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When you listen to pop singers on the radio, they sound like a million bucks. After all, they have all those instruments and backup singers behind them. At home, you probably don’t have a professional sound engineer to record you every time you sing.
So how do you get your voice to sound like a million bucks without an engineer?
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Your speaking voice directly affects your singing. By taking good care of your voice while speaking, you ensure better health for your singing voice. Try making your speaking habits more healthy with these tips:
Apply your knowledge of breathing while talking — including talking on the phone. Use your body as if you were singing; pay attention to your posture and the pitch of your voice.
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Some people think that you can belt only to a certain pitch because that’s how high they can take their chest voice. Belting is a combination of forward resonance plus mixed registration. Because not every voice is the same, some singers have an easier time with belting and increasing their belt range, whereas other singers find it tricky.
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One step in your quest of a singing belt is to practice speaking with a tone that uses forward resonance and high energy on various pitches. By knowing your optimum speaking pitch and exploring that sound and feeling, you’ll be more prepared, because you’ll understand the pitch in your speaking voice. When you’re ready, try this:
Try being monotone.
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Some people use the singing terms belt and chest voice as if they’re the same. Belt and chest voice may be related, but they’re not the same. Belt uses some chest voice, but it’s not pure chest voice. Mix just means that you’re mixing or combining registers — combining or using head voice and chest voice at the same time and using qualities of both.
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Belting is such an exciting sound for a singer. Belting is the high-energy sound that singers make in pop, musical theater, and rock music. Belting is like any other singing skill; it takes time to master it. If you’re just beginning to belt, make it part of your daily routine — but not the only part of your daily routine.
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Because you can’t see your singing voice, you need some tools to help you make changes. One way to obtain these tools is to make sure that your lesson involves work with a variety of techniques, such as imagery.
The teacher may use images to help you understand how to make the best sounds. The teacher may ask you to notice the sensations as you sing, give you something to visualize as you sing, or give you something to listen for.
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Because the position of the larynx affects the tone of your singing, you want to know where your larynx is. The larynx can move up or down. A low larynx helps create a full, open sound. Raising the larynx too high creates a tighter and more strident sound.
Place your fingers on the middle of your throat underneath your chin.
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Voice types are easier to figure out if you know where to find the notes on a musical staff. The names of the notes are A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. Those notes repeat across the piano.
The treble clef spaces correspond to the notes F, A, C, and E. Beginning on the bottom of the staff and going up, the notes spell face.
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If you’ve never had a voice lesson, you may be nervous during your first lesson. The teacher knows that the first lesson is a little bit scary and may encourage you to be brave and try to make some new sounds. Admit that you’re nervous and know that feeling this way is perfectly normal.
After you choose a voice teacher and know what to expect from the lesson, check out the following list to get a few tips on how to make your first lesson go smoothly.
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The female singing mix is a sound that you can use when you want to make a thicker sound in the middle part of your voice. Mix is appropriate for almost any style of singing but isn’t as commonly used in classical music.
You can use the female mix when you want to make a thicker sound in the middle part of your voice, so you want to work your middle voice until it’s quite strong.
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Men, as your falsetto gets stronger, it’s time to mix it up to strengthen the notes that were once purely falsetto sounds. In the male voice, when the muscles that create chest voice and head voice work at the same time, it’s called a mix.
If you use a blend of 50 percent chest voice and 50 percent head voice, you’re describing what happens in the middle part of your voice.
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In the beginning of your audition quest, you may not have the opportunity to sing your entire song. For each song that you plan to sing at your audition, choose 16 bars or 8 bars (called a cut) in advance and prepare this selection. (Still, knowing the entire song is best, just in case you’re asked to sing it.
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You already can make singing sounds — you just may not realize it. Working through the sounds in the following steps can start you on the road to singing. Making these sounds helps you discover how to make tension-free sounds that explore your entire singing range.
Make the following sounds:
Try sighing — a nice, long sigh.
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Knowing when to make the middle-voice transitions can be tricky. As you sing each descending or ascending pattern, notice how it feels — you should be able to feel your chest voice wanting to take over or give up to middle voice.
Knowing what’s too low for your middle voice and what’s too high for your chest voice allows you to figure out where you need to make the transition from middle voice to chest voice.
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A good way to memorize lyrics is to look at the song as a monologue or a story. Write or type the words, including the punctuation, so you can examine the lyrics apart from the melody and take a look at the big picture. If the song has words that you don’t know, look them up.
Find the meaning and the pronunciation of all the words in your song.
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Mix is a sound commonly used in contemporary music that you hear on the radio or in musicals. If middle singing voice is a transition between chest voice and head voice and uses a balance of those muscle groups, then mix occurs when you choose to vary the balance. If middle voice is a 50/50 balance of head voice and chest voice, the mix may shift those percentages.
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When you have mastered the specific areas of your singing voice, you’ll want the challenge of moving between registers to improve your technique even more. The patterns just ahead move faster, involve larger intervals, and require you to quickly make smooth transitions between registers as you move up and down your range.
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Music written on the page is the same for any style of music. The notation is the same, but how the music is performed isn’t the same. In opera and classical music, singers sing exactly what’s on the page. They memorize all the words, notes, musical directions, and markings.
That’s a lot to memorize and to get exactly right.
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Knowing your style, choosing your song, and preparing your music are the most important steps you take in preparing for your audition. But you don’t want to let the small things fall through the cracks, either!
Depending on your selected genre of music or the size of your city, you may not have to do all these things.
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Organizing your practice session greatly increases your chances of accomplishing something. If you have only 30 minutes to practice, you don’t want to waste the first 20 minutes figuring out what you need to do. Make a plan.
Planning your practice time also keeps you from getting overwhelmed. If you think about all the details of singing, you’ll get discouraged.
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The punctuation in a song tells the singer where the big thoughts are. As with written and spoken text, periods indicate complete thoughts and commas point to lists and auxiliary phrases. Punctuation indicates an opportunity to take a breath, so a song’s punctuation can help you with phrasing and interpretation.
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When singing in a concert, knowing whether to acknowledge your audience or stick to your own little world is tricky. You can’t always sing intimate songs in an intimate locale, but you can imagine being in an intimate locale by creating a fourth wall in your mind: Pretend to be in a room alone, with a wall in front of the audience.
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In a normal concert, people cough, enter late, or leave right in the middle of your song. People in the audience don’t think about how it distracts the performer. When you practice at home, you may want to intentionally stage some distractions. Ask a friend to drop a book or walk into the room as you’re singing, so you can practice concentrating even while they’re bopping around.
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Keeping your hands at your sides during a singing performance is safest. It may not be the most interesting place for them, but you won’t go too wrong by erring on the side of calm and still. If you choose to gesture, make it a complete gesture and make sure that your elbows move out, away from your body.
You may look like you’re flipping burgers if you move just your hands and not your arms.
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As a singer, when you enter the stage from a doorway or wing, look at the audience and smile. You appear far more confident if you look straight at your audience as you walk across the stage. Practicing this is important. Your smile needs to look genuine even if you’re nervous and don’t want to be onstage. When you reach your position on the stage, pause in place to bow.
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Even if you’re a seasoned singing pro and you’ve been practicing on your own for years, you should have at least one dress rehearsal and several more practice rehearsals before a performance. At the first couple of rehearsals, you can sing while reading from the music. For the last rehearsal and the dress rehearsal, sing the music from memory.
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Microphones (mics, for short; pronounced like the name Mike) can be secured on a stand, held by hand, set on the floor, or hooked onto your body. Knowing how to handle this bundle of electronic wizardry takes a little practice.
Ask if you can practice with the mic before the instruments start playing. That way, you can hear the difference between too close and too far.
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Singing with an organ is different from singing with a piano and working with a band is entirely different from either instrument. The source and quality of the sound varies across accompaniment type and you will need to practice to take best advantage of your chosen accompaniment.
The organ pipes that create the sound often aren’t near the organ console, whereas the sound from the piano comes out the back of the instrument.
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The big question beginning singers ask is what to do with their hands. Well, what do you do with your hands as you speak? If your hands normally move when you speak, you may feel stiff if they remain frozen at your side during your song. Work the song as a monologue to discover what’s happening and how the character may react to the actions in the story.
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When you sing for an audience, the movements you make around a stage or around the room need to enhance your singing and the story. Being able to move and sing is important, yet starting small is best. Consider these tips on coordinating movement with music:
At home, practice singing while doing simple tasks, just to practice doing two things at once.
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If you’ve had some singing lessons, you may be confused by all the phrases and terms singers use to describe breathing. Your voice teacher or choir director may have said, “Support that note” or “Sing on breath!” If those commands make sense to you, congratulations! But many people think they are confusing, because the word support can mean so many things.
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Choose the singing exercises that appeal the most to you and write them in your practice journal. A practice journal is a notebook or journal (on paper or on your computer) that you use to take notes on your practice sessions. On each page, list the date and what exercise you need to work on. This is your to-do list for your practice session.
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Planning ahead and breaking your singing practice session into specific areas to work on allows you to grow in each of these areas without chucking your music out the window in frustration.
In any given singing practice session, you need a warm-up to get your body and brain ready to focus and sing. Following the warm-up, work on each area of technique: posture, breath, articulation of vowels and consonants, resonance, and tone production.
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A resonant speaking pitchs and range to makes your speaking voice clear and commanding which you can then apply to your singing voice. To get the most benefit from the these voice exercises work out your speaking voice so you go through each of these steps:
Explore the tones and pitch you currently use when you speak.
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The next time you watch a professional singer, observe the posture. Posture plays a large part in how well you sing. If you hunch over, your lungs can't inflate fully; and if you fidget, you distract your audience — and yourself. Use the following list to correctly position yourself for singing:
Feet are hip-width apart with feet parallel.
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Correct singing practice means that you’re making consistent improvement. Your vocal cords don’t have pain receptors, so you can’t assume that you’ll feel pain if you do something wrong. If you do feel pain, you may be squeezing too hard and constricting the muscles surrounding your vocal cords. Feeling tired after practicing is normal.
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To feel the vibrations necessary for belting out a song, you need to explore taking speaking voice sounds higher than you normally speak and explore some tones that aren’t very pretty. Belting isn’t about making pretty tones.
Belting sounds like yelling on pitch. Don’t think of yelling as a bad sound: Beginner belters often like the belt sounds of other singers but dislike the sounds in their own voice.
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Preparing music for auditions is a tricky game. Notebook preparation is a big part of your audition success. If your music is easy to read and the accompanist plays it well, your audition will run smoothly.
It’s common in all types of auditions to have a notebook with songs. For opera and musical theater, you’ll have copies of songs or arias.
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One way of discovering how to match pitch is to record yourself singing along with another recording. This exercise gives you a chance to compare the notes you sing with the notes that the singer on the recording sings.
Listening to yourself singing on a recording is different from listening to yourself singing live.
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Every well-written song takes the listener on a journey that uses text and music to tell a story. Well-written songs offer you an opportunity to create a partnership with the words and music. Working the text as a speech or monologue, you may find that the song doesn’t mean what you originally thought it did. Just as when reading a poem for the first time, you may not initially absorb all the meanings.
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Sometimes two consonants are combined to make a specific sound. Knowing how to articulate the sound makes it much easier to sing. The combinations of sounds listed in the table below are the few sounds that are made by closing the space in the front of your mouth when you’re singing.
They require special attention in practicing to be able to make the sound without totally closing down the space in the back of your mouth and changing the tone.
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Lip consonants require the lips to move instead of the tip of the tongue, which requires special consideration in your singing. The similarity is that you can move the tip of your tongue and your lips without moving your jaw.
Figuring out how to keep the space inside your mouth open as you close your lips helps you continue making those round tones as you articulate a consonant sound.
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Yes, variety is the spice of life, and your choice of songs should offer variety. A little variety gives you an opportunity to show off a well-balanced set of skills. Song number one can be a song that shows off glorious high notes, and song number two may have a sassy belt that shows off your ability to change gears quickly.
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Yes, you do have to take some responsibility for creating your own singing success. Although knowing what to expect from your singing teacher is important, understanding what you need to be doing in and out of your lessons is just as important.
Developing your own practice process
You may have a weekly lesson with your voice teacher, but you have to practice between lessons to apply the techniques discussed each week.
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Hearing a pianist play your song or aria before you take it to an audition is important. If you don’t read music, this is even more important. You may erroneously assume that your song is the exact same version that you heard on the radio, so it may come as quite a shock when you hear your song for the first time at an audition and have no earthly idea what those sounds are.
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The sound for the consonant R is the hardest to shape in speaking and singing. An R can be confusing because it sometimes stands alone as an individual sound and sometimes is closely linked with a vowel. It is a voiced consonant. When you sing words that contain a consonant R, you may notice that your
Tongue’s tip rises toward the roof of your mouth behind the alveolar ridge for this consonant.
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Singing consonants distinctly requires proper shaping. One special consonant sound, TH, is made with the tip of the tongue and can be voiced or unvoiced. Unlike the other tip consonants, the TH is made with the tongue tip touching the edge of the upper front teeth instead of the alveolar ridge.
In the following table, the first column uses a voiced TH sound, and the second column uses an unvoiced TH sound.
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To shape and sing the tip consonant sounds in the table below, the tip of your tongue touches the alveolar ridge. The voiced consonants are D, L, N, and Z. The T and S don’t require any voice, so they’re unvoiced consonants. While shaping these tip consonants, make sure that your
Tongue’s tip is moving from your bottom front teeth to the alveolar ridge behind your front teeth.
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The craft of singing requires you to do several things at one time starting with aligning your body and breathing. Whether you’re preparing for an audition or a performance, the successful presentation of any song includes preparing yourself as well as your song. Posture checklist for better singingThe next time you watch a professional singer, observe their posture.
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Breathing efficiently when you sing is a combination of great posture and skillful inhaling and exhaling. Remember the importance of good singing posture: It allows you to get a deep, full breath. If you slouch or you’re too rigid, your diaphragm locks and prevents you from getting a correct breath for singing.
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Of course you need your voice to practice your singing but there are other tools which will help to make your training sessions more productive:
Keyboard: Just about any new or used electronic keyboard works. A piano is fine, too, as long as it’s in tune. You don’t have to know how to play the piano to sing, but if you want to get a better understanding of what keyboards and musical notation are all about, pick up a copy of Piano For Dummies, 2nd Edition, by Blake Neely (Wiley).
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Think of a song that gives you trouble when it comes to managing the long phrases. It can be a hymn or familiar tune in which you just can’t quite conquer the phrases. Some familiar tunes with long phrases are “Danny Boy”; “Come Unto Him” from The Messiah; and “Over the Rainbow.” Sing through the song to refresh your memory of the words and the tune.
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Falsetto isn’t just for exercises — you can find songs that allow you to use those sounds. Check out these songs that use falsetto. You can find even more if you want an opportunity to use your newly found falsetto.
“Big Girls Don’t Cry” and “Sherry Baby,” as sung by The Four Seasons
“Bring Him Home,” from Les Misérables, by Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg
“Buddy’s Blues,” from Follies, by Stephen Sondheim
“Corner of the Sky,” and “With You,” from Pippin, by Stephen Schwartz
“Cryin’,” as sung by Roy Orbison
“Maria,” from West Side Story, by Leonard Bernstein
“Music of the Night,” from Phantom of the Opera, by Andrew Lloyd Webber
“The Old Red Hills of Home,” from Parade, by Jason Robert Brown
If you want to listen a performer using a variety of sounds, listen to “Ben,” “Billie Jean,” and “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You,” as sung by Michael Jackson.
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Being tired after a long singing rehearsal or after a series of rehearsals is normal. But a problem may be brewing if your voice isn’t returning to normal and you’re having trouble singing.
If your voice feels tired, notes that used to be clear are now fuzzy, you’re experiencing a loss of range, or your voice doesn’t feel normal even after a good warm-up, you may want to problem-solve for about two weeks before you head to the doctor.
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Students often ask about the correct pronunciation of words for singing and speaking. Knowing the difference between voiced and unvoiced consonants can help you figure it out.
Voiced consonant sounds are produced by adding vocal sound. An example is the letter M. If you say the word make, you have to add sound to the letter M before you even get the vowel.
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If English isn’t your first language, knowing which vowel or syllable to emphasize when you’re singing can be a mystery. In fact, people who speak English as a second language often stand out precisely because they emphasize the wrong syllable in certain words.
Sometimes a composer puts a weak syllable of the word on a very strong beat in the music.
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No matter how easy the day is, start your singing practice session warm ups by stretching out. You want to get your entire body ready to sing, not just your singing muscles. For the breath to really move in your body, you need to be connected to your lower body.
Try the following stretching routine, which begins with your head and moves to your toes.
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Practicing consonant shapes gives you not only the precision you need to sing, but also the confidence that you’re putting your best tongue forward while articulating the tip consonants.
You shape tip consonants with the tip of your tongue as it touches the alveolar ridge. If you slide your tongue along the roof of your mouth, you first feel your teeth, then a small section of gums, and then a ridge — the alveolar ridge.
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Your song may have a long phrase and then a very short rest to catch a breath. The struggle is to get in enough air in a short time. To understand how to catch a quick breath in your song, you want to know how to quickly open your muscles. Try this exercise to explore a catch breath.
Get yourself slightly winded by running in place, dancing around, or doing any other movement that gets you moving.
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The following exercises give you a chance to work your middle singing voice by itself. Use the vowels listed underneath to help you find your middle voice sound.
Guys: Middle voice for a male singer isn’t nearly as wide a range as the middle voice for a female. This exercise was designed with the female voice in mind.
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Singing a song in another language doesn’t let you off the hook with your responsibilities as an actor. You want to know exactly what’s happening in each phrase so you can deliver each word with conviction.
Create a word-for-word translation. The first step is to look up each word so you know exactly what you’re saying.
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Depending on how you want to explore your own singing voice, singing with a choir may or may not be for you. The choral singer has different needs, so before you join a choir, you may want to explore the differences between training with a choir and going solo:
You may frequently be asked to sing without vibrato when singing with a choir; going solo, you often sing with vibrato.
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You want to emphasize your particular singing talents whether you sing at your cousin’s wedding, at a family gathering, for an audition, in church, or as part of karaoke night at a local pub.
The following list highlights skills and strengths you can emphasize. If your strength is
A lovely tone, choose a nice ballad that enhances your tone.
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Your lungs, which are housed within your rib cage, allow the ribs to open as you inhale — and for singers, letting them stay open on the exhale is beneficial. This is also known as outie breathing, or appoggio (that’s Italian for “support” or “lean”). Don’t force your ribs to stay open, but allow them to stay open.
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Chest voice is that thicker, heavier sound in the lower part of your singing voice that makes vibrations in your chest when you’re singing. You may have felt it take over a time or two, whether you wanted it to or not. The trick to singing in chest voice is knowing how and when to use it.
If you need to find out how high to take your chest voice — or even how to find your chest voice, if you haven’t been introduced — continue reading to learn to have a strong but controlled chest voice.
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Most teenager singers want to know only what they can do today to sound fabulous. They may not know the long-term benefits of using healthy singing techniques, and they may not have the patience to listen. However, using healthy singing techniques and training their ears for singing is important for maintaining a great voice for a long time.
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Opening your back while singing helps your breathing — after all, your back (or spine) is connected to your ribs. So how does this help singers? Quickly opening your back helps air to fall into your lungs and aids inhalation. Remember that the lungs are connected to the ribs, so moving the ribs and the back moves the lungs.
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One way singers can maximize the air in their lungs is to "open" the sides of the body for better inhalation. For now, think of your ribs and your sides as separate. The sides are the love handle area — the area right below your rib cage and above your hips — the oblique muscles. This area may automatically open when you open the ribs, but you want to be sure.
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Performance anxiety happens to all performers—singers, actors, and dancers, to name a few. But what's the root (and the symptoms) of performance anxiety? Knowing what you’re afraid of is half the battle. After you pinpoint the source of your fear, you can take charge of it.
These are the most common fears that cause anxiety among singers:
Cracking during the performance and not being able to hit the high note
Looking stupid in front of friends
Forgetting the words to the song
Fearing success or failure, rejection, or the unknown
Naming the fear enables you to go after the problem and beat it.
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The four primary voice types are soprano, mezzo, tenor, and bass. Even though these names sound like characters in a mob movie, they’re nothing to be afraid of. Each voice type has specific traits: the range, register transitions, voice tone, and any subdivisions of that voice type, as well as the names of a few famous singers to help you put a sound with the voice type.
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Your anxious thoughts and fears may turn to the audience whenever you become concerned about what they think of you and your singing. You can’t get rid of the audience; after all, an audience is a necessity for your performance.
You can, however, pretend that the members of the audience aren’t really in the audience.
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Concentration and focus can ease your anxieties when it's time to sing during a performance. Have you ever been so focused on a task were startled when someone came up behind you? Having this type of focus when you sing is possible to learn.
To help you practice concentrating, try these suggestions:
Stage some distractions.
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For every singing performance, make a plan of action for success. Assuming that you’re going to succeed means that you will. Assuming that you’re going to fail is the same as giving in to those voices in your head. Reframe those stupid things people have said to you in the past about your performing abilities.
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It's showtime, and the prospect of singing during your performance is making you anxious. That stress brings negative thoughts into your head: Will I forget the words? Will my voice crack? All that anxiety can ruin your concentration and make you forget the words.
Sometimes you can use negative practice to find the extremes of your symptoms.
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For singers, the biggest key to overcoming alleviating anxiety is preparation. Preparing isn’t the same as overpracticing or aiming for perfection. Overpracticing is practicing so much that you lose sight of the joy of singing and focus only on singing perfectly. Aiming for perfection takes the fun out of singing because everything becomes a contest, if only with yourself.
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Projecting confidence while singing involves finding your correct posture and maintaining it throughout a performance. If you maintain that posture and a calm expression even if you forget the words to your song, many people probably won’t even notice.
It's been seen many times: The performer is onstage making up the words, but he looks as terrific as if he’d intended to sing those words.
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You may not have much choice in what you wear when you perform if you’re singing in, say, a musical theater production. The director usually decides for you, and costumes are made to fit. But if you’re a soloist at a wedding or you just got a gig as a lead singer in a local jazz band, the outfit you wear for the performance can make or break your evening.
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Voice cracking happens when the singing muscles stop working properly just long enough for the sound to stop. Maintaining a steady flow of air, especially on high notes, helps prevent the voice crack. Sometimes singers crack when they’re suffering from severe allergy problems or other ailments that make their voices feel different.
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Sliding up and down on pitch while singing gives you the chance to hear a pitch from an external source, such as a piano, and then sing that pitch or slide around until you match it. Sliding away from the right note allows you to hear the vibrations of your voice clashing with the wrong note and then match the right note.
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Onset of tone refers to starting a tone for singing. You can start a tone in two ways: with physical force or with air. You have to use some physical exertion to sing, but the exertion comes from energy moving to coordinate the muscles for breathing. Too much physical force results when the muscles in the throat press together with very little air flowing.
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Learning a new song to sing can be intimidating, but by using the following steps, you can integrate a new song into your repertoire without much difficulty. As with any new skill, learning a new song is a process, made easier if you break it into manageable steps:
Memorize the words as a story — write out the text as sentences with punctuation.
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Knowing where to make singing transitions makes it easier to figure out how to successfully sing a song. When you know the transition points, you can choose tactics, such as the following, to help you sing through the transitions when you practice:
Choose friendly vowels to sing. Closed vowels, such as in the words me, may, and to, are often easier to sing than open vowels such as ah.
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Auditioning for television is thrilling, but it may feel like a different world if you’ve performed only in small theaters or the church choir. Here are some basic guidelines for auditioning your song for a televised performance:
Self-confidence is a must. Being confident means letting go of your shyness but not being cocky.
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If you’re a jazz, country, pop-rock, or R&B singer, you may want to audition for gigs in clubs. If you have a chance to audition for a local bar or nightclub (or a similar venue), your audition works much differently than an audition for opera or theater.
In those genres, the show usually is already written; you’re auditioning for a specific part.
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In musical theater, you need to switch your style of singing with ease. Right after you sing your lovely head voice selection, such as “I Could Have Danced All Night” from My Fair Lady, you may be asked for your belt song (an example of a belt song is “Tomorrow” from Annie) or pop-rock song (such as “Take me or Leave Me” from Rent).
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The manner in which you take your bow after completing your singing performance depends on the concert. If you’re a famous diva, you may curtsy, but it’s better to wait on that until you arrive at one of the big opera houses. Until then, use the tried-and-true standard bow: Bend from the waist and bow your head to the audience.
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Singing fast scales develops agility — the ability to change notes quickly and easily. Agility is important no matter what kind of music you plan to sing. If your voice can move easily and quickly, you’re much more likely to enjoy singing faster songs, because you can sing them well.
Some voices are designed to sing fast.
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A great way to increase your singing range upward is by singing staccato, which means “short and detached.” Singing shorter, lighter notes helps you in singing higher notes, because you’re not using as much heavy weight. To sing staccato, keep your larynx steady and keep the muscles in your neck still.
If they flex or tighten, sing the staccato notes lighter, with less weight or pressure; that technique helps you figure out how to work the muscles inside your neck in your larynx.
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Even if you don’t read music well, you can tap out the rhythms. Just look at the rhythms on the page and try to tap them out without worrying about words or speed. The first time you try, it may be difficult, but after some practice, you get accustomed to certain rhythm patterns and can quickly master them.
For more help on reading rhythms, pick up a copy of Piano For Dummies, 2nd Edition, by Blake Neely (Wiley).
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Many people thoroughly enjoy being in a choir. You get a chance to sing different kinds of music, and you get to be around others who share your interest in music. Making music with a group of people may give you just the balance you need between practicing alone at home and singing with a group.
The following list details some of the benefits you gain from singing with a choir.
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How do all those singers project so much sound without microphones? They take advantage of resonance, the vibrations that create tone. Resonance is the glorious magic that allows a singer to fill a large hall with sound without electronic amplification.
Resonance is vibrations that create tone through and within your mouth, throat, and nasal passages.
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Deciding what you're afraid of is the first big step in conquering stage fright, or performance anxiety. Some common fears include cracking your voice, looking stupid, or being afraid of audience rejection. Make a plan to eliminate the fear by following these tips:
Make a practice checklist to make sure you're technically prepared for your performance.
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Long-term vocal abuse — any activity that causes strain on your voice and impairs your vocal health — can change the quality of your singing. And your voice may not always be able to repair itself. Although most singers can minimize long-term problems with vocal rest, you need to avoid continued vocal abuse. Make your vocal health a priority now.
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Whether you sing just for fun or you dream of performing professionally, you can count on frequently encountering three terms: pitch, note, and tone. These three terms are often incorrectly used interchangeably, but understanding their true relationship to one another may make your journey through the world of singing less confusing.
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Country music has the good ol’ boy songs about whiskey and women, as well as heartfelt ballads about lost love. The artists put on quite a show at their performances and use a variety of sounds when they sing. The biggest common denominator in country music is the story being told. It describes how the singer feels, in a sound that’s similar to a speaking voice.
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Familiar jazz songs are sometimes arrangements of songs from other styles of music. When jazz singers create an arrangement of a musical theater standard, they usually change the notes and rhythms from the original music. Jazz singers create their style with rhythmic flexibility, and the singer and pianist don't always have to be together note for note (called back phrasing).
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Unlike the opera, the musical theater production is about the story first. Singing is high on the list of priorities, but it doesn’t rank first. Musical theater performers aren’t cast just because they sing well (although singing ability does count!); they’re cast because they look the part, can dance or move well, and can both act and sing.
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If you’re interested in training to sing opera, you have plenty of territory to cover. Training for opera usually requires a long process of lessons or study, which isn’t necessarily bad. Studying singing for a lengthy period isn’t a punishment: It gives you the opportunity to master your voice.
For many singers, the long process of studying also means starting early in life.
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The lines in the music industry are starting to blur, and rock music is connected with pop. The singing styles are similar vocally, both use a wide range, more belt than head voice, and tone that ranges from funky to pretty.
Rock singers have heavy guitars backing them up and make a variety of sounds, from screams to moans.
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The sounds of the R&B singer vary from agile riffs to high belt. Finding a voice teacher willing to work technique and apply it to this material is tricky. Most teachers insist on working classical or musical theater material to build technique.
The basic technical skills the R&B singer needs are the same as any other style: solid alignment, great breathing coordination, facile articulation, and balanced registration.
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Ascending to head voice while singing means that you have to let go of the thick weight of chest voice or middle voice and lighten up the sound. You may have to go overboard at first to lighten the sound without squeezing your throat. The key is to feel the sound vibrating higher in your head.
Ascending from middle voice to head voice
Taking the middle voice too high keeps the head voice from getting its fair share of the workout.
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Listening to popular music on the radio provides you with an opportunity to hear different types of resonance. Pop and country singers use much more twang — that sound that’s similar to a cry or whine. The resonance isn’t made with a wide-open throat and a low larynx, but it still can be a pleasant and enjoyable sound.
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Using body energy is really helpful to get a clear speaking or singing sound, especially for belting. Body energy,means that surge of energy in your body that helps you make the sound, such as when you’re about to lift something heavy or when you yell. When you apply this same kind of movement or energy to singing, you can take advantage of that purposeful flow of air to create clear tones on a specific pitch.
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When you start working on your new song, how do you create the arrangement that works for you? How do you make the song yours? You can start by listening to other arrangements to see and hear the elements each artist used to make the arrangement their own.
If you look at the music for “Hound Dog” as sung by Elvis Presley, the music on the page may look bland compared to the sounds that you hear on the recording.
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You’ve probably heard singers control the dynamics in their voice beautifully, whether they’re singing loudly or softly. As your flexibility increases in your upper register, you want to figure out how to vary the dynamics (volume).
The exercise in the following illustration is called a messa di voce, which means “placing the voice.
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Vibrato, the variation of a sustained tone or pitch, is one of the differences between singers and styles of music — how much vibrato they use and whether they use it all the time. A normal vibrato rate is five to eight pulses or fluctuations in the tone per second.Vibrato can be fast or slow, depending on the singer.
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You have one glorious singing voice made up of three distinct parts or registers: chest voice, middle voice, and head voice. As you may guess, the notes in the middle part of your voice make up your middle voice, the notes in the lower part of your voice make up your chest voice, and the notes in the upper part of your voice make up your head voice.
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In classical music or the opera world, voice types can be further divided into categories based on the size and agility of the voice. The first four terms are in order like the soda sizes at the fast-food joint. Light is the small, lightweight cup, and dramatic is the cup so large that it won’t fit in the cup holder in your car.
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When choosing a voice teacher, be sure to ask candidates where they studied or received their singing education. You want a voice teacher who’s had years of performance experience or years of lessons or training in a degree program that focuses on the voice.
The teacher doesn’t have to have a degree from an Ivy League school to be a good teacher.
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One of the first questions you want to ask a prospective voice teacher is “How many years have you been teaching?” You want to find out whether this person has been teaching more than just a few years. But don’t automatically assume that you don’t want to work with a teacher who’s just getting started. Consider the following:
Some brand-new teachers are really great because they’ve recently had so many lessons themselves.
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When looking for a voice teacher to help you improve your singing the financial implications of the relationship have to be taken into consideration. It is important for you to have all money matters clearly spelled out and understood.
Cost
The cost of voice lessons varies depending on location. The price of voice lessons in New York City or San Francisco may be $100 and up for an hour-long lesson, but you may pay only $50 for an hour’s instruction in a small town in the Midwest.
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When interviewing a prospective voice teacher, two of the topics you should discuss are their music style focus and the type of accompaniment there will be during the lessons.
Music styles
Find out whether the teacher focuses on different styles of music. For example, does the teacher understand belting and how to teach it for musical theater?
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When you hold out a note, you sustain a vowel sound. Therefore, making clear, precise vowel sounds is important if you want to be understood. And to make those precise vowel sounds, you need to know how to shape the vowels quickly, using a specific tongue shape or arch, forming a certain lip shape, and correctly opening the jaw or mouth.
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Remember, your singing voice is made up of muscles just like any other part of your body. These muscles need a specific type of warm-up. Baseball players spend time stretching before the big game, and you need to stretch your singing voice before practicing.
What’s the difference between practicing and warming up?
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You can’t get far choosing a voice teacher if you can’t identify what you want out of your lessons. You may have questions for prospective voice teachers, and they may also have some for you. To be prepared, consider the following questions before you begin chatting with prospective teachers.
What exactly do you want from lessons?
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At your singing audition, remember that other people are looking at you from the minute you walk in the door — not just when you sing. You want to show off your body and look great in your outfit. If you’re auditioning for a musical or a production with a specific character, think about what the character you’re auditioning for looks like.
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When you finally know what you want in singing music, you have to go shopping to get it. Choosing music may be the harder of the tasks. You have the choice of walking into a store and looking at the music or letting your fingers do the buying online or over the phone. You may be able to check out sheet music at your local library and purchase it later, if you like it.
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When singing a song, you can sometimes focus on one spot and sometimes have to look around. Knowing the story of your song helps you understand the type of song that you’re singing, and this understanding tells you where to focus your eyes. If you’re talking to just one person, you may focus on the back wall or a place out in front of you.
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Generally, singers should avoid consuming ice cream and other dairy products before singing. Dairy foods cause phlegm and mucus to build up. That mucus is thick and makes you want to clear your throat. Unless dairy products don’t bother your voice, avoid ice cream and any other dairy products before singing. Make the mad dash to the ice cream store after practicing.
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It’s going to happen sometime. You are going to catch that cold or sore throat which affects your singing, and you have to know how to deal with it. Use this advice for when your throat feels scratchy:
Avoid most nose sprays. Nasal sprays that contain antihistamines or decongestants are habit forming and can cause symptoms to worsen when you stop.
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A great way to keep all those germs out of your body and away from affecting your singing voice is to keep your hands washed and away from your face. Your mom told you to wash your hands — listen to her advice. If germs do start to attack and you feel the tickle from drainage, try one of these options:
Gargle with warm salt water.