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Breathing For Singing..

Why is breathing for singing so important? Because without breath, without air, we have no voice... we have no sound! We need breath in order to produce the sound that is our voice. This is why most vocal instructors would emphasize on breath training right from the very beginning, putting students through rigorous breath training in order to build a good strong foundation for singing. However, before we move on to even the most basic of our breathing exercises, we need to first know how to execute good breathing for singing. This would involve a certain muscle in our body called the Diaphragm, as well as other supporting muscles around the diaphragm. Our diaphragm is actually a thin sheet of muscle separating our rib cage from the rest of our organs below it (including our stomach and intestines). Its function is to regulate the flow of air in our body, by contracting and relaxing whenever we inhale and exhale respectively. You may have noticed by now, that you can't really control your diaphragm when you breathe. It moves involuntarily, meaning you can't tell it to go up or go down like other muscles like your biceps or triceps. What you can do though, is to inhale and exhale, and this causes the diaphragm to contract and relax automatically. So, how do we practise our breathing exercises if we can't control how our diaphragm moves? We can control the muscles surrounding the diaphragm, namely the intercostal muscles around our ribs, as well as our abdominal muscles. These muscles are under our conscious control, and we will be practising some basic exercises for these muscles when we do our breathing exercises for singing. Now, let's begin by first drawing in a deep breath of air! Imagine that you are sucking in a strand of noodle (for example, when we are eating Japanese Ramen.. we need to suck the noodles noisily...) or sucking a deep breath of air through a tiny straw, and letting the air go directly into your abdominal area. Try it now and feel the air being drawn into our abdominal area, moving downwards as well as sidewards. Of course, our air does not actually enter our stomach when we breathe. This is only for visualization and instructional purposes! (For those who do not know, the air goes into our lungs...) Some important points to note: Our shoulders and chest area should be relaxed when we inhale. If we find that our chest area lifts up high or our shoulders are raised when we inhale, then just rest both hands on your chest and repeat the inhalation exercise with our hands resting on a stationery chest. Raising our chest and shoulders is a common habit, but it really causes us to draw a shallow breath, and this creates problems later when we need more breath to support our singing, especially for high notes or for long phrases in a song. Once we have understood how to take in a proper breath of air, we can proceed to some basic breathing exercises that will teach us to control our breath for singing, as well as strengthen the diaphragm and its surrounding muscles, so as to be able to provide better breath support for singing!

Bad Singing Foods

Good Singing Foods

"Good Singing Foods" is a term that i coined personally, to refer to foods that are beneficial to our vocal health. These foods allow us to build strong and healthy voices, as well as protect our voice from harmful organisms or diseases. Often when we eat, we do not think about how our food affects our voice or our singing. We may consume caffeine or spicy food which may be harmful to our voices and cause irritation as well as dry our throats! If we sing immediately after consuming these foods, we increase our risk of damaging our vocals and causing unnecessary pain to ourselves! Learning about the various "bad singing foods" and why they are bad for you will help us to avoid these foods and avoid potential vocal abuse or damage! One of the major "Good Singing Foods" is actually a liquid, and it is WATER. It is extremely important for us to drink lots of plain water, in order to keep our bodies well-hydrated and to also cleanse our bodies of the toxins that may build up in our tissues and cells. This will also keep disease and infections at bay, and help us maintain a great level of personal health. Apart from hydrating the body, water also keeps our vocal cords moist, and this is very important for a healthy voice. This is because when we are singing, our vocal cords are vibrating at an extremely fast speed. If our vocal cords are dry, they will be more prone to irritation when vibrating, and this may cause some pain and discomfort when we sing. One useful voice care tip is for us to have a glass of lukewarm water beside us whenever we are singing or performing, or just to drink some warm water before we sing! This helps to soothe our vocal cords and our throat, and also moistens the tissues and muscles involved, reducing the risk of vocal damage. This is what i always do whenever i have to perform, or whenever i have to take several singing classes consecutively. (In fact, I drink a lot when i'm performing!) Water is so very very important to us singers! Other than taking in lots of water, we should also consume a balanced diet for our meals, and take lots of whole grains, fruits as well as vegetables. These foods contain high levels of Vitamins A, C and E - Vitamin A helps cells regenerate normally, Vitamin C helps prevent the common cold and sore throat as well as improve immune functions of the body, and Vitamin E is a powerful anti-oxidant that protects cell membranes and also improves immune functions of the body. These foods also help to keep the mucus membranes in our throats healthy, so that we avoid irritation in our throats when we sing. Another one of my favourite 'good singing foods' is Honey! My personal favourite is actually Manuka Honey, which has anti-microbial properties, meaning that bacteria will find it hard to survive and reproduce in honey. This also means that when we have a sore throat or just feel some discomfort in our voice, we can just take one spoonful of pure Manuka Honey, and let it drizzle down our throats. This will help to keep the bacteria away, and will also help our sore throats to heal faster! Manuka Honey has yet another wonderful healing property, which is that it is antiseptic and anti-inflammatory! This means that it will help to prevent any infection from spreading, and will thus speed up the recovery of our sore throat! Many singers swear by honey being a wonderful remedy of sore throat as well as a great singing food for protecting our fragile vocals! One great singing food that may be specific to Asian countries is a cough syrup called 'Chuanbei Pipa Gao', which translates to Fritillaria and Loquat Syrup. The loquat leaf is often used to reduce "lung heat" syndromes, or other infections for example sore throats. Fritillaria is a potent cough suppressant and can also be used to treat swollen glands and nodular swellings. When used in combination in 'Chuanbei Pipa Gao', it is very effective in alleviating cough symptoms and curing sore throats! These are just some of the good singing foods that we can take to preserve our voices as well as to prevent unnecessary vocal damage when we sing or when we are sick or have sore throats. Of course, we have to constantly practise great breathing habits as well as great vocal warmup exercises before we sing, so that our voices will be flexible, healthy and strong!

Voice Care Tips

When it comes to singing, most of us do not really observe good voice care measures on a daily basis. In fact, we would not give a second thought to eating certain foods or taking alcohol or caffeinated drinks just before we sing! In fact, there are many important voice care tips that we can learn, so that we can maintain a healthy and strong singing voice, as well as not do too much damage to our fragile vocals! These tips range from which foods we can or should eat for a good singing voice, as well as which foods we should avoid in order to take proper care of our voices. There are also various voice protection tips and techniques that we can follow in order to ensure proper vocal health. Check out the corresponding links to find out more about how to exercise proper voice care! Many of us would probably know some of the general guidelines that we can follow to take care of our voice: 1. Maintain Good Posture and Proper Breathing Control When Singing - Always make sure that we maintain an upright and neutral posture and practise proper breath support when we sing! Practise these basic breathing exercises in order to establish better breath control in our singing. If we wish to, there are also other more advanced breathing exercises that we can practise in order to be more proficient in our breathing control! 2. Practise Vocal Warmups Before We Sing - We should always be sure to warm up our voices before we start to sing, so that our diaphragm and our vocal cords are ready to support and produce the sound that we require during singing. Check out some useful vocal warmup exercises in order to achieve better voice care and protect our singing voice. 3. Regular Exercise and Proper Diet - This point applies to our voice care and also to our bodies in general. Achieving a good level of personal health is certainly beneficial to maintaining a great singing voice. This is because when our bodies fall ill, we may feel fatigue, experience blocked noses, sore throats or may not even practise proper vocal technique when singing. This will cause unnecessary damage to our voices, and we would do well to keep ourselves healthy so that our voices will be healthy too! 4. Keep Our Neck, Jaw and Face Relaxed During Singing - When we sing, we control our breath using our diaphragm and the surrounding abdominal and intercostal muscles, and our voices with our vocal cords and supporting muscles. We should always take care not to involve other muscle groups into the picture, for example our neck muscles, jaw muscles and facial muscles. These muscles should be relaxed when we sing, as they will affect our voice by increasing the amount of tension in our throats and in our vocal cords, and making it more difficult for us to sing well! Understand more about some common singing problems by clicking on this link, and you will know how to overcome these problems with some simple tips as well as constant effort on our part! 5. Placing or Focussing Our Voice Appropriately - There are a great variety of vocal registers and positions that we can sing from, and knowing which register to use as well as which position our voice should resonate from will be beneficial to general voice care and avoiding vocal damage. For example, we would not wish to place a very high note in too low a position, or to use a low register to stretch and reach for a high note! Do check out the rest of this website for more information on vocal registers as well as positions! 6. Reduce Speaking Time in Noisy Environments - When we are in extremely noisy environments, for example at a busy construction site or at a crowded club or pub, we would find that the overall noise level in these places are far higher than what we usually encounter in our daily lives. As such, when we try to speak in these noisy conditions, we cause a lot of strain on our voices and may hurt our vocal cords in the process. Reducing our speaking time in these noisy environments will help to avoid unnecessary damage and aid in protecting our singing voice!

Breath Support and Singing

We all instinctively know that breath support is important for our singing. The question on everyone's lips is: "How Are They Related?" Also, how do our breathing exercises aid us in our singing? Basically, breath and singing are like food and our stomach. One can't do without the other - our stomach cannot live without food, and food can't be digested without our stomach. In fact, we can't sing without breath! We need breath in order to vocalize even the slightest sustained word or note, and breath support is vital in helping us to produce a well-supported and stable sound. So, how do all our basic breathing exercises, advanced breathing exercises as well as breathing control tips help us to be able to sing better? (Because as we all know, our ultimate goal for practising these breathing exercises is to be able to sing better!) Let us look at our basic breathing exercises, and draw a relation between the various exercises and the way we sing. Do click on the various links provided if you need to revise the various breathing exercises previously explained in this website. For basic breathing exercise 1 , we practised how to produce a sustained 'ssss' sound with our breath, controlling the volume and stability of the sound produced. This is extremely important for our singing when we need to sustain a long note, for example when we sing an 'AH' for 10 counts, and we need to keep the sound stable and not shaky. This breathing exercise also helps us to be able to vary our singing volume, by varying the amount of pressure we apply when we produce the 'ssss' sound. A slight increase in pressure in our abdominal area creates a louder 'ssss' sound, and when applied to singing, will create a correspondingly louder word or sustained note. For basic breathing exercise 2 , we practised how to produce a LOUD 'SSSS' sound with our breath, teaching our diaphragm and abdominal muscles to withstand greater tension and pressure. This is vital for our singing when we need to produce a loud sound, or when we need to sustain a high note, since our muscles need to be able to generate and maintain a greater amount of pressure in order to be able to produce and sometimes project that note or sound outwards to our audience! One way for us to feel the tension required when we sing high notes is for us to try to lift up a PIANO with both our arms! Try it and feel the core muscles in your abdominal area contracting and becoming tense! That is the kind of tension that we would need to be able to support when we sing and project our high notes or when we wish to be able to produce a louder sound when singing. As for basic breathing exercise 3 , when we practised how to produce bouncy and light 'ssss' sounds with our breath, that would be extremely useful to us whenever we need to sing fast songs, or when there are many words in a phrase, or when we need to sing staccato in a song. (Do check out the upcoming section on musical terms in order to understand more about the common musical terms used when singing.) Basic breathing exercise 3 teaches our diaphragm and its surrounding muscles to be more flexible in their breath control and usage, and this is vital whenever we sing fast songs, or even light and happy songs, which sometimes require us to be lighter and bouncier when we sing! This is in stark contrast to the slow love ballads that we may sing, which will require us to use more of the techniques taught in basic breathing exercises 1 and 2, where we sustain long notes, and also vary dynamics gradually from soft to loud and vice versa. Ok! So, now that we understand how our breath support aids us in our singing, and how the various breathing exercises help us to vocalize better, we can move on to producing sounds with our voice!

Advanced Breathing Exercises

Breathing Control is extremely important when singing, and these Advanced Breathing Exercises build on the knowledge imparted in our previous section - Breathing Exercises For Singing. Check out the above link if you have not already done so, in order to ensure that you have sufficient knowledge as to how to breathe properly for singing as well as how to perform the basic exercises involved, bearing in mind the important breathing control tips for greater efficiency! Now, you have already learnt the following basic breathing exercises: 1. Breathing CONTROL - sustaining a simple 'ssss' sound as long as you can. 2. Breath TENSION - maintaining a greater level of tension and force when expelling breath. 3. Breath FLEXIBILITY - creating light and bouncy 'ssss' sounds for flexibility training. Let us combine some of these exercises to enhance the flexibility and strength of your diaphragm muscle, as well as the surrounding intercostal and abdominal muscles. For our 1st advanced breathing exercise, let us combine basic breathing exercise 1 with breathing exercise 2, by creating a slight crescendo (gradually build-up in volume) with our breath, from a soft 'ssss' sound to a relatively loud 'SSSS'! Your focus should be on our abdominal area, and you should 'imagine' your diaphragm going downwards and flattening outwards as you expel the air from your body. You would also notice that your abdominal area will expand sideways slightly when you use more force to create the loud 'SSSS' sound. This will teach your muscles to be able to withstand more tension, and also to vary the tension from a soft sound to a loud sound. Our 2nd advanced breathing exercise will combine basic breathing exercise 3 with exercise 1, beginning with 3 bouncy and light 'ssss' sounds, and ending with the sustained 'ssss' sound, keeping it there for as long as you can sustain it for. Try it now! This exercise will teach your diaphragm and its related muscles to be more flexible, and yet be able to maintain tension at the end with the sustaining 'ssss' sound, and also to control the amount of breath in your 'air tank' or 'air balloon', so as to be able to sustain a long 'ssss' sound at the end. Our 3rd and final advanced breathing exercise will combine basic breathing exercise 3 (for flexibility), with advanced breathing exercise 1! (Now, don't get confused.. just follow my instructions and you will be fine..) Begin with 3 bouncy and light 'ssss' sounds, followed by a sustained but soft 'ssss' sound, then gradually increase the volume of the sound to a LOUD 'SSSS' sound, expelling all your breath at the end of this exercise! Try it now! The purpose of this exercise is to teach your muscles to be flexible, and yet also to be able to sustain and towards the end, create greater tension to expel all remaining air, even when you have already used up much of your breath for the beginning part of the breathing exercise! This is why you need to fully understand the previous basic breathing exercises before you practise these more advanced breathing control techniques! Now, to be able to understand how these breathing exercises relate to how we sing, check out this link and do be sure that you practise your breathing exercises diligently in order to create the desired results! Let us move on to learning how we can vocalize properly while using the breathing techniques we have learnt!

Breathing Control Tips for Better Vocals!

In order for us to achieve the desired effect from our breathing control exercises, here are some important tips, so that our exercises become more focussed and effective. For those who need to refresh their memory on the breathing exercises for singing, just click here to revise the basic breathing exercises taught in the previous sections of this website. You can also apply the breathing control tips on this page to the advanced breathing exercises for singing, which would be building on the skills that you would have acquired from practising the basic breathing exercises and breathing methods for singing. Now, in order for us to practise our breathing exercises effectively, we need to bear in mind the following points: 1. Downwards and Sidewards Motion Whenever we do our breathing exercises, we should 'imagine' the movement of air as coming in from our mouth and moving downwards towards our abdominal area in a downward and sideward motion. The muscles surrounding our diaphragm area, as well as our abdominal muscles, should expand slightly in all directions, more noticeably sideways. The reason behind this is that our diaphragm separates our rib cage from the rest of our organs below it (including our stomach and intestines). When our diaphragm contracts and flattens during inhalation (when we breathe in), it pushes down on our vital organs and compresses them slightly, resulting in a slight bulge all round in our abdominal area, or as we commonly call it, our waistline. 2. Maintaining Tension in the Abdominal Muscles When we exhale during our breathing exercises, our task is to focus on maintaining a certain level of tension in our abdominal muscles (since as I previously mentioned in the earlier section on 'Breath', these muscles are easier for us to control, compared to the diaphragm muscle itself). We should not let our abdominal muscles collapse inward too quickly, and should try to maintain an outward tension, letting our abdominal muscles contract slowly as our breath is expelled from our body. This will allow us to train these muscles to be able to withstand greater tension, and also to be able to control our breath more effectively. 3. Feeling the Movement of our Muscles as we Practise: As we practise our breathing exercises, it is vital that we feel the movement of our muscles, especially our abdominal muscles, so that we know whether we are doing the exercises correctly or not. If we find that our abdominal muscles collapse inwards too quickly, or that they are not expanding sideways/all round whenever we practise our breathing exercises, then we would do well to try to achieve the desired movements. We can test the tension in our abdominal muscles by 'poking' the front of our abdominals a few cm below our belly-button, and making sure that this area is tense whenever we perform our breathing exercises. As long as we bear in mind these simple breathing control tips whenever we practise our breathing exercises, we will definitely achieve great improvements in our breath foundation for singing, especially for those who may not be able to sustain long notes, or for those who find themselves constantly out of breath when singing long phrases in a song!

Our Vocal Cords - The Origin Of Our Voice!

When we talk about singing, most of us rarely talk about our vocal cords, and would begin by emphasizing our breathing, since the first action that we do is actually to breathe before we even begin to make any sound! We believe that once we train ourselves to be able to control our breathing well, we will be able to sing well too. However, equally important is our set of vocal cords, which is the origin of our strong and healthy voice! Without them, we would have NO voice, even if we have a strong diaphragm and lots of breath in our lungs. Our vocal cords are actually housed in what we call our 'voice box' or larynx, also commonly known as our 'Adam's Apple', which is most easily seen as a bulge in most men's throats. These cords produce sound through rapid vibration with the passage of air between the set of cords. When the air passes through the cords, forcing them apart, the cords immediately close back, creating multiple vibrations at a certain frequency, and this creates what our human ear perceives as the sound of our voice. This also means that our vocal cords bear the brunt of the air pressure created when we sing! For a more detailed description, visit this webpage at Wikipedia which is packed with interesting information about these important cord muscles! Another fact that most people do not know is that these cord muscles actually can control our breathing too! Previously, our focus was on how our diaphragm and its surrounding muscles control our breathing, but it is also a fact that our cords can control our breath, by shutting completely and not letting any air out of our body! We can demonstrate this by pronouncing these words loudly: "HAK!!! Ah....." Make sure that you shut your cord muscles completely at the end of the word "HAK!!!", and only when you let some air pass through your cords, it will allow you to produce the next word, "Ah...." as a form of release... You can also demonstrate how our cords control our breathing by holding your breath and leaving your mouth open! It is this important set of muscles that is holding back the breath in our body, and once our cords are open, the breath will be able to pass through! One other important and useful fact about our voice is that for LOW notes, our cord muscles are relatively less tense and less stretched out. However, for HIGH notes, our cords are much more tense and more stretched out! This means that when we do our humming or lip trill vocal warmups and we do progressively higher notes, our cord muscles are actually being stretched out more and becoming more and more tense! This would mean that we need to be more careful when we start to sing higher and higher notes, as our cord muscles are subject to more and more strain, and they would then be more vulnerable to vocal abuse. Various vocal warmup exercises are available in this website to stretch out our vocal cords before singing to prevent unnecessary harm to our voice. There are also other vocal training exercises to help us to develop a strong and healthy singing voice! One very important point to note is that we should not be over-zealous when we are training our vocal cord muscles. Just as we would not want to strain our back or sprain our shoulders when we lift weights, we would also not want to hurt our voice muscles by over-training or subjecting them to much fatigue. A general guideline is that whenever we feel fatigue or even slight pain in our voice or throat, STOP and REST! This will prevent any unnecessary damage to these small but important muscles in our voice box!

Lip Trill Exercise

The Lip Trill, or what some vocal instructors call the "Bubble", is an extremely useful warmup exercise for all singers, be it to warmup before a performance, or to build a strong and healthy voice! Imagine you are swimming, and your head is submerged under the surface of the water. Now, when you blow air out from your lips, there will be a 'brbrbrbr' sound, and your lips will vibrate naturally and easily. Now try to repeat this motion out of the water, by letting your breath be released from your mouth, with your lips vibrating in a relaxed manner while you control the supply of air with your diaphragm muscles. (This is why vocal instructors also refer to the lip trill as 'bubble', because it is just like what we do when we are blowing bubbles underwater!) One important point to note is that you should not be blowing air from your mouth by pursing your lips. Your lips should be relaxed and the air should be controlled with your diaphragm, with your lips vibrating freely as the air passes over your lips. If you are unable to let your lips vibrate freely, place one finger from each hand on each side of your face (near where dimples would usually be), and gently push into your cheeks, then push your fingers outwards to support your lip muscles. This would relieve the lips of any tension that might be present, and allow them to vibrate more freely with your breath. Check out this audio clip to hear what the 'lip trill' or 'bubble' should sound like: Once you are able to produce the 'brbrbrbr' sound with just your lips and your breath, we can move on to producing just one note with your voice while doing the 'bubble' exercise. Just pick a comfortable pitch or note, and try to do the 'bubble' and produce sound for that note at the same time. Here is the bubble exercise demonstrated using a middle 'E' note: You can also practise the 'humming' warmup exercise to first understand how to produce a good sound , and then reproduce that sound but this time do it while you are doing your lip trill exercise! Your lips should similarly be relaxed, just as they were when you were practising the 'brbrbrbr' sound without any pitch or note! You can also practise this 'bubble' exercise with a variety of notes and pitches, as well as with some basic scales and intervals too. What are the advantages of this exercise and how does it benefit us in our singing? Well, firstly, it helps to warmup and relax our lips, so that we are better able to practise our diction when singing, as well as to wrap certain words or sounds with the vowels that we sing. Secondly, this exercise takes some pressure off our voice (our vocal cords), since some of the air pressure is placed on our lips for them to vibrate. This makes it easier and safer for us to do our warmups with our voice, since there is less pressure and tension on our vocal cords. Click here to understand more about our voice and our vocal cords! Lastly, the 'lip trill' exercise also helps us to warmup our diaphragm and its surrounding muscles for better breath control and support , since we need to be able to provide a steady supply of air for our lips to vibrate during the exercise. Click here for some great breathing exercises to strengthen your breathing control , if you feel that you need more practice in this area in order to be able to do the lip trill exercise! Once we are sufficiently warmed up and know how to develop a strong set of vocals, we can move on to singing songs for an appreciative audience!

Weak Voice? Singing Like A Whisper?

Breath Control When Singing Will Prevent You From Being Out-Of-Breath!

Many of us do not think about breath control when we are singing. In fact, we may sing in exactly the same way, regardless of whether we are singing a long or short phrase, or whether we are singing loudly or softly. Being out-of-breath when singing is one of the common singing problems that we may have, and it is also rather easy to correct. It just takes some awareness and adjustment in terms of breathing as well as vocalizing when singing. There are a variety of reasons why we may be out of breath when singing. Firstly, we may not have taken in enough air for us to be able to complete the respective singing phrase. Some of us may be practising shallow breathing, instead of proper diaphragmmatic breathing when singing! This will result in us not having enough air to be able to sing longer phrases, and also not being able to support our singing notes well. In order to correct this problem, do check out some tips on breathing for singing in order to understand more about how to breathe deeply for singing, and how to avoid shallow breathing. There are also some basic breathing exercises for us to acquire great breath control, and also to be able to use our breath to support our singing! A second reason why we may be out of breath when singing is that sometimes we may sing with an overly 'airy' voice! Our singing voice may sound like it is wrapped with many layers of air, making it sound weaker and less solid than other singing voices. This also means that each time we sing with this 'airy' voice, we are letting out more air than other singers, and this makes it more difficult for us to exercise good breath control. Instead, much more air is used up when we sing, and no matter how much air we may be able to take in when we breathe, we will find it difficult to have enough air to last a long phrase or sentence. We can solve this by making sure that we balance our Breath with our Voice, producing neither an overly 'airy' sound, nor an overly 'tight' or 'solid' sound. An overly 'airy' sound results in a difficulty in exercising breath control, and an overly 'solid' sound may result in unnecessary vocal cord damage. Do read up about our Vocal Cords in order to understand more about how our voice works! You can also try some useful vocal warmup exercises to stretch out our voice before singing, and also to strengthen our vocal cords for singing! Lastly, one reason why we may find ourselves out of breath when singing is perhaps that we forgot to breathe regularly during the song! You would be surprised to find out that some singers actually are so engrossed with their singing, that they may momentarily forget to breathe, especially at crucial points of the song! This results in the singer not having enough air to practise good breath control for the long or crucial phrases, and feeling out of breath when singing. This is an easy problem to solve, and we only need to mark out the points in the song at which we need to breathe, especially for crucial points in the song, for example just before long phrases or before parts of the song that require us to project our voices or to sing really high notes. This can also be referred to as 'phrasing' for the song, where a singer would mark out the breathing points in the song, so that he or she would be able to phrase the song well with breath and expression, and also be able to practise good breath control and support when singing! Now that we are more aware of how we can exercise good breath control when singing so as to avoid being out-of-breath, we can certainly solve one of the common singing problems that many of us may have when singing, and we would be well on our way towards improving our singing voice!

Singing Out Of Tune - How Do You Cure Tone Deafness?

As a professional vocal instructor, I have come across a great many students who sing out of tune. Some even thought that they were Tone Deaf and unable to sing in pitch at all! The truth of the matter is, it is very very rare to be purely Tone Deaf. I have been teaching singing for a number of years now, and I have not encountered a single tone-deaf student as yet! I'm not kidding! ;-p In fact, most of us are only tonally challenged, and we only need to do some pitching exercises, aural training as well as familiarisation with basic musical scales and pitches, in order to be able to sing in pitch consistently! There are a variety of reasons why we may sing out of tune. One, we may not be familiar with the notes or pitches that we are singing, or even the specific vocal range that the song is in. For example, a song may have a great number of pitch jumps, and we may not know how to sing these changes in pitch. Some proper training in musical scales and intervals will be able to strengthen our ability to sing different pitches, as well as know how to vocalize these various tunes in a song! Two, we may not be familiar with the vocal register or vocal positioning that we should use when we sing certain pitches. For example, if i were to ask a male student to sing a high 'E' or 'F' note, he may sometimes not be able to sing it and will probably go off pitch, because he is unfamiliar with his higher vocal registers or his nasal and head vocal ranges. Some exercises in finding these vocal registers and singing positions, as well as various vocal warmup exercises should be able to help these students to be able to hit these high pitches well, and not to sound too off key for those notes. We may also not be aware of the breath support necessary for hitting or even projecting certain notes that we sing, especially for the higher ranges of our voice. This may cause us to produce unsupported notes, resulting in our singing going out of tune! Some basic breathing exercises as well as understanding how our breath support affects our singing will be able to aid us in solving this problem. Three, we may not be used to listening to our voice and how it blends with the music while we are singing, which is actually an extremely important skill for singers! Sometimes when we sing, we focus too much only on what we sing, instead of making sure that what we sing matches the music accompaniment for the song that we are singing! This causes us to go out of pitch without us noticing at all! Some training in listening and aural awareness will be able to help these students to be more aware of their pitches when they sing, as well as to be able to listen to the musical harmonies in the song, and make sure that their voice is in tune with the music accompaniment of the song! Singing out of tune is certainly not incurable, and there are a great variety of pitching tips and techniques available to help us solve whatever pitching problem we may have!

Turtleneck Singing Hinders Your Vocal Prowess!

Turtleneck Singing refers to sticking your neck out when singing, especially when we need to hit the higher notes during a song or during a vocal warmup exercise. As the term suggests, the singer will resemble a 'turtle', which is able to extend and retract its neck when it moves around. The reason why singers may extend or stick out their neck when they are singing is because we have this false notion that we have more conscious control over our voice whenever we control our throat muscles. That is why we may strain our throats when singing, creating throat tightness and making it even more difficult for us to sing the high notes well. As with other common singing problems like throat tightness, turtleneck singing also involves straining certain throat or neck muscles whenever we sing or practise our vocal warmup exercises. In this case, we are actually straining the muscles in the back of our neck, stiffening these muscles as we sing and making us behave like turtles, causing the back of our neck to become tired after singing for some time. In order to solve this problem and learn how to relax our neck more, we can do some simple neck stretching exercises before we sing, so that we reduce the level of fatigue and strain in our neck before we begin our vocal warmup exercises for singing. A very simple neck stretching exercise would be for us to keep our heads facing front in a neutral level position with our eyes at regular eye-level, and slowly pivot our heads horizontally to the left, and then back to the centre again. We can do this for our right side as well, keeping our necks in a neutral position, feeling as though our head is perfectly balanced on our neck! Another neck stretching exercise would be for us to keep our bodies upright, and just gently drop our heads downwards, keeping our chin tucked in. We should feel a good stretch in the back of our neck, and this will help to remove the strain that we may feel if we were a turtleneck singer. At the same time, when we are straining the muscles at the back of our neck during turtleneck singing, our jaws also stiffen and to stick out when we sing, and this actually causes us to look like turtles with their necks outstretched. As singers, our jaw should be relatively tension-free, and we should be able to open our jaws without much stress or strain on the mouth or jaw muscles! Check out these simple exercises to keep our jaw strain-free, and also to prevent our jaws from locking or stiffening! Another useful solution to prevent us from sticking our necks out when we sing would be to just gently place one finger on our chin whenever we are singing or when we practise our vocal exercises or our song repertoire. Placing a finger on our chin will help to keep our chin and jaw in check when we sing, and whenever our jaw begins to stick out, creating the turtleneck effect, we can just gently restrain it with our finger on our chin and keep our jaws in a relaxed and neutral position. We can also practise our singing in front of a mirror, standing sideways so that we can check the side profile of our jaw and neck when we sing, and make sure that our necks do not stick out during our vocal exercises. We can also face the mirror directly in order to check the strain on our throats when we sing, and keep our heads in a neutral level position during our exercises. As a general rule of thumb, keep our eyes level and maintain them at regular eye-level whenever we sing, so as to prevent some of the common singing problems that may occur! In order to fully resolve turtleneck singing and other singing problems, we need to also always practise good breathing for singing, and keep up a regular practice schedule for our breathing exercises as well as vocal warmup exercises like the lip trill, in order to gain full mastery of our set of vocals. Other general guidelines include keeping our bodies upright and maintaining a good body posture when we sing so that we are able to support our voices well! This will reduce our need for unnecessary support from other muscles like our neck, jaw and throat muscles when we sing!

Head Lifting - Singing To The Skies?

Head lifting when singing is one of the many common undesirable vocal habits that singers may have, and it is also one of the easiest to rectify too. Many amateur singers or students of singing raise their head whenever they move from low notes to progressively higher notes. The rationale is that as the notes get higher, the student or singer feels that they need to raise their head in order to visualize the higher notes and to be able to sing higher! This is in essence a reflex action, since the singer thinks that by raising his or her head, they will be able to reach higher and higher notes and avoid going out of tune when singing. Some students move their heads according to the pitch that they sing, lifting their heads when they sing high, and lowering their heads when they sing low! This results in a 'head bobbing' action that really looks quite amusing at times... In fact, head lifting is absolutely unnecessary and it can even be an obstacle to good singing! The reason being as we lift our heads when we sing, we are actually straining and stretching the front portion of our throat, as well as pressing down on the back part of our throat. This subjects our throat to additional strain, and activates some of the muscles in our throat, possibly tiring them out unnecessarily. Some head lifting is still acceptable if it is required for performance purposes or for visualization purposes, and it does not involve too much throat strain or jaw tightness! If these occur, it would mean that our throat is not relaxed when singing, and this could hinder our ability to manipulate our voice to the best of its potential. Click on the respective links to understand more about these two undesirable vocal habits! When we sing, we should try to keep our head at eye-level, without raising our heads too high when we sing. In fact, for higher notes, we might wish to slightly lower our heads and pull in our jaw when we sing, so that our throat will be more relaxed and our vocal cords have more room to stretch and produce the high notes needed! Learn more about our vocal cords by clicking on the link provided! Practising some general pitching exercises and tips in front of a mirror or a live audience will help to rectify our head lifting problem by helping us to observe our head movements when we sing the basic singing scales or musical intervals! If we find that we are moving our head up and down too much, then we should stop ourselves and start again with the basic scales until we are able to keep our eyes at normal eye-level when we sing! We can also practise our vocal warmup exercises in front of a mirror as well, in order to rectify our undesirable vocal habits from the very root, before we even begin to sing actual songs! Once we begin to sing songs with lyrics, there will be a lot of information going through our minds and we may forget to keep our heads level when we sing! This is why it will be good for us to practise all our vocal exercises as well as pitching exercises with proper technique in order to solve the problem at its root! Just remember to keep looking at yourself in the mirror at eye-level, and you will be on your way towards achieving a more relaxed throat and jaw for great singing!

Throat Tightness When Singing

Many of us experience a certain throat tightness when we sing, especially for the high notes in a song. We may start to strain our throat muscles, or even squeeze our throat unnecessarily as we start to sing higher and higher! As a vocal instructor, I have to teach my students to relax their throat when they sing, so as to avoid unnecessary strain in the throat and to work their way towards releasing their full singing potential! The reason why we may experience throat tightness is because our voice originates from our vocal cords, which are situated in our larynx or voice box in our throat. When we sing, we subconsciously feel that we need to control our voice with muscles that we can consciously control. This results in our throat muscles being activated, and some slight strain in our throat occurs as we try our best to 'control' the notes that we sing. In order to overcome this problem, each time we sing or practise our vocal warmup exercises, we should preferably practise in front of a mirror. In this way, we are able to monitor our throat movements when we sing, especially when we sing the high notes, telling ourselves to relax our throat more as we reach higher in our singing. One way to understand more about throat tightness is just to swallow and to yawn! When we swallow, our throat constricts slightly, and this is the sensation we should try to avoid when singing. Imagine singing when we are swallowing! It is really really difficult, and not very productive for us to sing like that! However, when we yawn, our throat is at its most open state, allowing more air to enter our body through the throat. In fact, we can easily make a loud sound when we are singing, and this is what is commonly referred to as our yawn! Some people can really yawn very loudly, and I am sure we have observed that some time in our lives. When we sing, we should try to achieve throat relaxation similar to the extent of a yawn, allowing our throat muscles to be fully relaxed so as to allow our voice to pass through without obstruction! On the contrary, if we were to try to control our voice by straining our throat when we sing, we will find that we are unable to sing as well, and most probably will also be unable to sing the high notes properly! This is also because our vocal cords are situated in our throat, and whenever we sing, our vocal cords are subject to muscle tension as well as air pressure, having to withstand the breath that we apply on our voice in order to sing! Once our throats also begin to strain and tighten, we unknowingly also squeeze our vocal cords, making it difficult for them to stretch properly and fully in order to hit the higher notes. In order for us to be able to hit the high notes, we need to relax on our need for more control, and let our vocal cords do their work! To some extent, some of our throat tightness can also be attributed to a lack of breath support when singing. Whenever we run out of breath when singing, we start to support our voice with other related muscles, and our throat muscles start to strain and tighten up. Practising some breathing exercises for singing as well as understanding how to achieve good breath support when singing will go far in preventing the need for throat tightness when we sing!

Jaw Tightness

Some singers experience jaw tightness when they sing, feeling the jaw strain and tense up whenever they open their mouths or lower their jaw when singing. This problem sets in especially during high notes, and singers may start to experience jaw tension as they try to reach higher and higher notes in the song, or even when belting or projecting their voice with an open mouth or lowered jaw. As with all other undesirable vocal habits or singing problems mentioned in this website, the keyword is for us to RELAX our muscles when we sing. This includes our throat, our jaw, our neck muscles and so on! When we talk about our jaw, we want to achieve an open jaw without too much strain, able to open easily as well as close without tension. This means that when we sing, our jaws should not be tightly clenched together, so that we can open our mouths easily. Our jaw should also not be forced open too widely beyond our comfort level, as this will mean unnecessary jaw tightness, possibly causing related tension in our neck muscles, as well as create too much throat tightness as well! Our jaw should feel free to move up and down as well as sideways, and we can test this by opening our mouths and jaw, and gently shifting our jaw from side to side while our mouths are open. We should be able to do this without too much tension or strain on our jaw muscles, and this will mean that our jaw is relaxed when it is open. Another way to overcome jaw tightness is for us to imagine 'lifting' the top part of our head off from our jaw, whenever we open our mouths to sing! This will enable us to concentrate on the top part of our mouths, without putting too much strain on our lower jaw, which is the source of much jaw tension. If we place one finger from each hand just below our ears, we should be able to feel our jaw gently 'unhinging' itself as we open our mouths! This should take place naturally and in a relaxed manner, and imagining the top part of our mouths lifting off the jaw will help us reduce unnecessary tension in our jaw muscles! We can also try another jaw-opening exercise: In a seated or standing position, lean your head as far back as is comfortable to do so, and then gently open your mouth, letting your jaw drop in a relaxed manner. Keeping our mouths open like this, gently return your head to a forward-facing and neutral position, with our eyes at regular eye-level, and feel how our jaw is open in a relaxed and tension-free state. Now that we understand how to open our jaw in a relaxed manner, we can try some simple singing exercises that help us to practise opening and closing our jaw easily. Gently place one finger on our chin, and with our head in a relaxed and neutral position and our eyes at normal eye-level, say this: "Yah Yah Yah...", all the while practising the opening of our jaw in a relaxed manner, visualizing our mouth lifting up and our lower jaw dropping comfortably as we say these words. We can also sing these words in a simple musical scale for warmup, so that we are able to reduce jaw tightness at various notes when singing, especially for the higher notes in a song. Our finger is placed on our chin to keep our chins relaxed, and we can gently pull our chins in when we say these "Yah" words, so as to get our jaws to gently pull in as we sing. This will help prevent us from also sticking our jaw out when we sing, constraining our singing voice. While we open our jaws to sing, we should also try to keep our tongue in a relaxed state, resting flat in our mouths and just gently touching the back of the teeth on our lower jaw. This will help to prevent our tongue from rolling back when we open our mouths, and obstructing some of the wonderful sound that our vocal cords would be producing when we sing! We can monitor our tongue position by feeling it in our mouths, as well as observing ourselves in the mirror when we do the jaw exercises above. Also, as with all other undesirable vocal habits, a strong foundation in breathing for singing, as well as strong breath support from doing regular breathing exercises, will certainly be beneficial in helping us to take the tension off our other muscles, reducing unnecessary jaw tightness and achieve a relaxed and powerful voice!

Do You Have A Singing Problem?

Everyone has their own unique singing problem, even professional singers or vocal instructors like me! But is that supposed to stop us from having the singing voice that we want? Definitely NOT! The most important reason why we need to understand our problems better is so that we learn to overcome them, and that is what will drive us to improve! Knowing more about the common problems we commit when singing will help to clear up the uncertainty of what is causing us to sing badly! It will also help to show us SPECIFICALLY what we need to work on to improve our singing! There are many singing resources that provide us with the solutions we need to solve our problems during singing and improve our voice! Check out some of these useful singing books by clicking on the link provided NOW! There are 5 basic problems we may commit when singing, and they are as follows: 1. Singing Out of Tune 2. Lack of Rhythm Sense 3. Running Out of Breath When Singing 4. Soft or Weak Voice 5. Blur or Slurry Words When Singing Check out the links for each of the 5 Basic Singing Problems to find out more about these basic problems and how we can solve them! You can also read up more on the Basics of Singing, in order to understand more about these 5 basic elements of great singing and how we can master them! Apart from the above problems when singing, there are also some common undesirable vocal habits that many of us commit when we are singing. They are: 1. Straining Your Throat 2. Locking Your Jaw 3. Raising Your Head 4. Turtleneck Singing Each of these undesirable habits will hinder us in our quest for great singing, and stop us from having the singing voice that we want! That is why it is so important for us to note one thing: Habits Can Be Changed! Singing habits can certainly be corrected over time with hard work and determination, and of course, lots of practice! Be sure to always practise proper vocal warmups before you sing, so as to avoid unnecessary harm to your voice! You may also wish to try out some of the vocal exercises introduced on this website that target the main areas of vocal training - Singing Power, Vocal Sustain, Vocal Smoothness and much more! Remember, ALL our problems and undesirable vocal habits are only there to challenge us, and once we overcome them, we become even better singers than we are now!

Ear Training Exercises

Ear Training is one of the absolutely essential forms of training a singer must undergo, in order to develop a great singing voice! It helps the singer to develop his or her listening ear, so that they will be able to monitor their own singing pitch, hear when they go out of tune, and correct their pitch as they sing! There are also many useful ear training books and CDs that we can get in order to improve our aural awareness that keeps us singing in tune. I will be introducing you to some useful ear or aural training exercises in this section, and these will touch on the following topics: 1) Absolute Pitch 2) Relative Pitch 3) Melody Repetition 4) Interval Recognition 5) Major and Minor Sounds Click on the links provided in order to find out more about each of the above topics! You may also wish to check out some basic pitching exercises to improve your singing pitch, or to learn about some basic vocal exercises to improve various aspects of your singing voice! Now, just to give you some basic pointers before you proceed with the various ear training exercises: 1. Practice makes Perfect! Developing a great listening ear for singing takes time and practice. There is certainly no short cut to it, especially if you have been unable to listen to your singing pitch, or if you cannot tell whether you are singing in tune or not! Practising the various exercises provided above will help to improve your aural ability, but regular practice is a must. Just use the practice music that i have uploaded and you will certainly go far! 2. Training Buddy Try to get someone who can practise with you, and who is preferably better at singing in pitch than you are. This person will be able to tell whether you are singing out of tune, or whether you are relatively on pitch. If you are unable to get someone to be present with you when you practise, you may also record what you sing together with the practice music, and play it to someone with a good ear for pitches to do an assessment of your singing. 3. Humming For An Accurate Pitch! For those who are unable to catch the pitches that are being played in the practice music, or who are unable to sing in a correct tune at all, try to hum before you sing the note that you need. Just play a certain note on a musical instrument (either a piano, guitar, keyboard etc.) and keep that note sustained while you try to hum to the correct pitch. Once you are certain that the resonating sound from the instrument matches the sound that you are humming in your head, then just open your mouth and sing that note out using an 'Ah' syllable. This should help you to get the correct pitch most of the time! You may also wish to check out some humming warmups available on my website, if you find that humming does work for you! 4. Warmups are Important! Always be sure to do your vocal warmups before you do any singing or vocal training. This will help to prevent any possible vocal abuse or harm to your voice. Doing your warmups regularly will also help to keep your voice supple and well-stretched, and it will certainly develop into a better singing voice over time! To improve your voice further, you should also practise the free online vocal exercises provided on my website, or check out some of the vocal training packages available in the market that train the various aspects of your singing voice, including vocalization, pitching, listening and performance! Ear Training is certainly vital for Singing In Tune, and it will help you to work towards performing various song repertoire with a pitch-perfect singing voice!

Vocal Warmup Exercises

In our quest for better singing, we need to learn some important vocal warmup techniques that will help us to maintain our voice in a healthy condition. These warmup exercises will also help us to build a strong set of vocals, as well as train a very important set of muscles called our "Vocal Cords". Understanding our Vocal Cords and how they work is vital if we want to do proper vocal warmups! You may also wish to find out more about some useful singing books that not only teach us various vocal exercises for warmup, but also educate us on the many aspects of singing too! Now, you may ask, why do we need to do warmup exercises before we sing? The answer is very simple once we think of the various other activities we do, for example running, jogging, swimming, weight-lifting and so on. Before we perform these activities, we will usually do a warmup exercise to stretch out our muscles, as well as to warm them up so that they will be able to handle the strain and tension involved in these various activities. Well, it is the same case for singing! Whenever we sing, we put a lot of strain and tension on our voice as well as our diaphragm muscles, and we need to do these warmup exercises to stretch out these muscles, as well as to warm them up to a certain level before we subject them to the strenuous activity of singing. One important point to note is that our vocal cords (VOICE) and our breath (AIR) should preferably be in balance with each other when we are singing, and one cannot do without the other. This means that we cannot produce sound without air going across our vocal cords, and vice versa, if we do not have our vocal cords, we would be unable to produce sound even if we have more than enough breath for support! Now, most vocal coaches advocate the following vocal warmups: 1. Humming 2. Lip Trill 3. Scale Singing Click on the respective links above to learn more about each of these vocal warmup techniques, as well as how they help to build a strong and healthy voice for us to be able to sing better! I have also compiled some easy-to-apply tips for warming up your voice, and these will help to prevent any damage that you could do to your voice if you do not follow these tips religiously! Our vocal cords are very tiny and brittle, and any form of abuse wil definitely be harmful to our vocal muscles.

Breathing Exercises For Singing

Before we begin practising some simple breathing exercises for singing, i have to make sure that you have read my section on 'Breath', and that you understand how to breathe properly when singing. If you have not read it, please click here to read about how to practise better breathing habits for great singing! You can easily return to this page through a link on the bottom of the page on 'Breath'. Ok, now that you know about diaphragmmatic breathing as well as how to inhale a good breath of air for singing, let us proceed with some basic breathing exercises for singing that anyone can do anywhere without scaring away the people around us... Imagine that there is a balloon full of air in your diaphragm area. You can also call this your personal 'air tank'. First, fill this balloon or air tank with air, employing the techniques taught to you regarding proper breath inhalation. I would now like you to slowly release the air from that air tank, or that balloon of air bit by bit, through a very small hole on the balloon's surface. In order to do that, I would like you to just produce this sound - 'ssss..' - using your breath as well as your teeth and tongue. Do make sure that the sound produced is a single 'S' sound, and not a 'Shhh' sound. (A 'Shhh' sound would be releasing too much air and would not teach our muscles proper breath control.) Now, let's work on our first exercise, which is to produce this 'ssss' sound, but focusing on making the sound stable and keeping the volume constant. This trains our diaphragm and its surrounding muscles to be able to maintain a constant amount of tension when we sing, and also trains our breath CONTROL, so that we will be able to manipulate the dynamics or the loud and the soft of a song with greater ease. Try it now! That first exercise should have been relatively easy. Now, the second breathing exercise builds on the first one, but requires more TENSION in the diaphragm as well as the abdominal muscles. Produce the same 'ssss' sound, but this time, try to do it as loudly as you can, expelling the air through that small hole from your air balloon as quickly as you can! "SSSS!!!!!!!" You will find that you should be unable to sustain this loud sound for too long, but you would be using more force in your abdominal area when you are producing this sound. This trains our diaphragm and its surrounding muscles to be able to handle greater levels of tension, which would be necessary for us to support the high notes in a song. Our 3rd and final breathing exercise for singing is slightly different from the first two exercises. Look at this series of 'ssss' and see if you can produce the sounds that i want. "sss! sss! sss! sss! sss!" If you produced a series of light and bouncy 'ssss' sounds, congratulations! That is exactly what i would like you to do! This helps us to be able to train our diaphragm to be more FLEXIBLE, and to be able to sing fast songs and staccato sections of a song with greater ease! If you wish to learn more exercises, or feel that you need more breath training, check out this link for more advanced breath exercises that combine the above 3 exercises in various ways to further challenge your diaphragm and its surrounding muscles! Do practise these exercises for singing at least once everyday, allocating a minimum of 5 - 10 minutes and making sure that the basic breathing techniques are adhered to strictly. There are also some important breathing control tips to note when practising these exercises, and these tips will help you to make your breathing training more fruitful! You may also be wondering how these breathing exercises actually relate to how we sing! Do check out this link to find out how each of the above exercises for breathing will aid us in various songs as well as singing techniques!

Master the Basics of Singing and Achieve Great Vocals!

Here, you will find some of the most effective pitching exercises that use musical scales and intervals to target our problem pitch ranges, and help us sing more in tune! This is a training method that many vocal instructors use to keep their students from singing out of tune! Singing these exercises work to familiarise your vocal cords with the various pitches and scales and sing them with greater ease! To further strengthen your pitching ability, I have also personally recommended some great aural training books that I have found to be useful to my students! Also for your benefit, I have provided some useful pitching tips for everyone to learn how our ears are just as important as our voice whenever we sing! (See how I always have your welfare in mind? ;-p) Now, in this section on 'Pitching Exercises', i will introduce the various musical scales and intervals that we can use in order to practise our sense of pitch and to keep us singing in tune. These scales and intervals are as follows: 1. Major Scales 2. Minor Scales 3. Major and Minor Arpeggios 4. Arpeggio 7ths 5. Major Intervals 6. Minor Intervals 7. Pentatonic Scale 8. Chromatic Scale I will also show you how these scales are created, in a simple and concise manner! (not to confuse you with too much information...) There will be detailed charts for you to be able to play these scales on a piano, keyboard or guitar, and practice them at your own convenience! For those who do not have any musical instrument or do not know how to play any, do not worry! I have uploaded lots of practice music right here on this website, so that you will be able to practise your scales from your computer! IMPORTANT!! Beginners should begin with the major scales and the major arpeggios ONLY. Only after you have become more confident and are singing more in tune, then should you progress to the minor scales and minor arpeggios! These scales have a higher level of difficulty and will challenge your pitching progressively! Of all these scales above, the Chromatic Scale has the highest level of difficulty, and should be the final scale that you attempt. For those who always go out of pitch when jumping pitches in a song, you should practise more of the Major and Minor Intervals. These pitching exercises will help you to be more familiar with the various distances between the pitches and sing them more confidently! So, what are you waiting for? Click on the above links and challenge your pitching ability now! Just remember to practise good breath support when singing, and to do some vocal warmups like the lip trill before you commence any singing or vocal training. This will help to prevent unnecessary abuse to your voice and also help to build a strong and healthy singing voice!

Develop a Smooth Singing Voice!

Singing Exercises are useful in targeting the various aspects of our singing voice, and in this section, I will introduce to you a simple exercise for you to develop a Smooth Singing Voice! If you would like to learn about the various vocal exercises that target your singing power, vocal range, vocal sustain and so on, click on this link provided. Now, a smooth singing voice means that there are no obvious breaks in our vocals as we move from low to middle to high notes and back down again. By this, we mean that the tone of your singing voice sounds connected, and does not suddenly become airy or change drastically in volume as you move through your various vocal positions. We can use a simple 5 tone scale consisting of 5 basic notes (Doh, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol), sung using an Ah vowel, to train and develop our smooth singing voice. Here is an incorrect demonstration with an obvious break in the singing voice as the singer progresses towards a higher vocal position: I am sure you noticed that the singer in the example suddenly sang in a very airy tone as he moved into his higher notes! Here is another incorrect demonstration with the singer straining his voice, trying to reach the higher notes in the scale: You probably noticed that in this example, the singer got louder and sounded strained in the throat as he sang higher and higher. The quality of his voice also started to sound constricted or tight as he went higher and higher. Some possible singing problems here would be either that his throat was too tight and strained, or that his jaw began to lock, affecting his ability to reach for the high notes. Here is the correct demonstration with a smooth and connected singing voice with little strain as the singer progressed towards the higher notes: The aim of this 5 tone scale is actually to get us to try to bridge the various vocal positions that we sing with, and to be able to sing from low to high without strain and without losing the strength in our voice too! It should all sound like one connected voice, and is certainly possible as shown in the demonstration above! Now, here is the practice music you will need to try this scale for yourself! You should also record yourself while singing this scale, and play the recording back to yourself so that you can understand more about your voice, and whether you are straining excessively or losing too much vocal strength at the high range! Male Vocal Smoothness Singing Exercise Female Vocal Smoothness Singing Exercise Once you are able to sing with the practice music in a connected voice from your low to your high notes, you should try singing in even higher keys to challenge yourself and to train your higher head voice sounds! I have intentionally kept the keys for the practice music relatively lower, yet with a certain level of challenge, so that it is easier for beginner singers to practise with. There are also many other pitching exercises available on this website and you can try them out to challenge yourself more! One VERY IMPORTANT RULE for all singers to follow: If you experience pain or fatigue in our vocal cords or throat, STOP and REST immediately! Do not risk any form of vocal abuse by over-practising your singing! One other simple tip for you to discover a smoother singing voice is just to sing this word, "OOH...."! As you sing this word, bring your pitch from low to high, and back down to low again, much like you would actually say "Ooh" in everyday conversation! You will find that with this word, you should be able to go from really low notes to rather high notes without much difficulty or break in your voice, and you might even feel your voice moving from the back of your head! Master these Singing Exercises for Vocal Smoothness, and you will begin to develop a smooth set of vocals that can transition from low to high notes with greater ease!

Singing Exercises

There are many Singing Exercises that can target our Vocal Sustain, or our ability to sustain our voice well when we sing, especially at the end of long phrases. I will be introducing to you a useful vocal exercise that you can practise with at home, so that you will be able to sustain your voice well and also produce a great singing tone at the same time! Before we begin, please make sure you do some basic vocal warmups before we embark on our vocal exercises, so as to avoid any vocal abuse or harm. You may also wish to practise some breathing exercises as these will come in handy for our Vocal Sustain Singing Exercises! Now, Vocal Sustain depends on a number of things: 1) Great Breath Support In order to sustain our voice when we sing, we need to ensure that our voice is well supported by our breath, and that our breath is not shaky or unsteady. If our breath is unsteady, the voice will definitely reflect this and our vocals will be shaky when we are sustaining or singing a long note or word. 2) Good Vocal Production We need to produce a solid and balanced sound when we sing, so that we are able to sustain the long note or word well. If our voice is too airy, we will be unable to sustain our vocals when we sing because there is too much air rushing out through our vocal cords! By keeping the amount of air passing through our vocal cords at an optimum level, we can create a good balance between Breath and Voice, and the sound that we produce will be a good and solid one! I have recorded a simple demonstration of the Vocal Sustain Singing Exercise for you to take reference from. Notice that the singer's voice is stable when sustaining the long note, and that the tone he is using is also bright and solid and not overly airy. The vowel used here for this exercise is an 'Eh' vowel, and will help you to also place your voice in a more forward position when you sing! Vocal Sustain Demonstration Also notice that the singer's voice is smooth as he moves from note to note in this basic scale consisting of 5 notes (Doh, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol) in an ascending and descending manner. There are no vocal breaks, and each scale is performed in one breath. Now, it is your turn to try it out! I have kept the keys for the singing exercises relatively low so that the risk of vocal abuse is lower, and also so that you would be able to master these exercises quickly. There is also always a risk that you may harm your singing voice when you practise on your own! This is especially if we have not developed the ability to listen to ourselves and to know whether we are doing the exercises properly or not. As a general rule of thumb, STOP and REST whenever your voice or throat begins to hurt or feel tired, and do seek medical attention if the pain persists. Here is the music for female singers to practise their vocal sustain: Female Vocal Sustain Exercise Here is the music for male singers to practise sustaining their voice on a long note: Male Vocal Sustain Exercise Remember to keep your singing tone in a forward position, with a slightly nasal sound produced. This will help you to be able to sing with a brighter vocal resonance, as well as allow you to project your voice more without using too much force or effort! There are also more pitching exercises for singing that you can try out if you wish to improve your sense of pitch when you sing! I sincerely hope that these Vocal Sustain Singing Exercises will be beneficial to you and will teach you how to sustain your singing voice in a stable and well-supported manner!

Develop Your Vibrato

The Vibrato intrigues many listeners, singers as well as singing students, and is usually a rather advanced singing technique to acquire and train for! It usually refers to how a singer produces rapid pitch variations in his or her voice when sustaining a single note or word. Most vocal instructors would prefer not to work on this aspect of singing with beginners, and would leave it till the student has acquired other basics of singing before embarking on this topic for training. The Vibrato sounds best when at the end of a phrase or the last syllable of a sentence, and it symbolises a certain kind of confidence as well as vocal ability if the performer is able to do it well! The simplest way to simulate a Vibrato would be to locate the area between the lowest ribs of your rib cage, somewhere in the certain of your torso. This is a soft and vulnerable area of your body which affects your breathing stability. Now, just sustain a single note using a simple 'Ah' vowel, and by gently pressing that vulnerable area in the centre of your torso inwards a number of times, you will be able to 'create' a vibrato while sustaining the note that you are singing. You can vary the speed of the pitch variations you produce by pressing quickly or slowly, and experiment with the kinds of sounds that you can sing using this method. Of course, this method is only an artificial method, and there are a number of natural ways to create your own rapid pitch variations in singing: 1) Using Your Diaphragm... Breathe... In the simple method described above, we are able to affect the stability of your voice by pressing the soft centre of your torso. The way it works is that it forces more air across your vocal cords and creates variations in volume, producing a similar effect to a 'vibrating' sound. By using your Diaphragm to vary rapidly the amount of air that goes across your vocal cords, we are able to create vibrations in dynamics in our voice when singing! Certain simple breathing exercises will be able to teach you how to achieve greater control over your diaphragm and your breathing in order to be able to do this well. 2) Controlling Your Pitch.. Up and Down.. Our Vibrato is actually defined as rapid pitch variations when singing, and so if we are able to vary our pitch quickly, we will be able to achieve the desired effect. This method is usually referred to as controlling our pitch variations with our vocal cords , as we usually feel our voice box rising and falling when we use this method of varying our singing pitch. It is usually employed by singers from an earlier era, for example Elvis Presley or classic Mandarin Singers like Yu Tian or Wan Fang. You can try to achieve this by sustaining a single note on an 'Ah' vowel, and gently vary the pitch of the note that you produce, bringing it up and down slightly as you sing it. Usually, our pitch variations should not exceed ONE semitone higher or lower otherwise the sound that we produce will be overly vibrating and will not sound so great. 3) Releasing Your Vocals! This is the most natural way of creating the rapid pitch variations we need, and it requires us to release all sensation of our vocal cords and voice box, and to stabilise our voice at one vocal position. Once we are able to truly release our vocals and to support our voice well with our breath, we will find that the sound we produce will naturally be gently vibrating in pitch, and this will be our most natural singing sound! We should feel as though our voice is vibrating without us consciously controlling it, unlike the previous method where we intentionally vary the pitch of our singing by controlling the movement of our voice box. Acquiring a good Vibrato sound usually takes some time and lots of practice, and will certainly require the guidance of an experienced vocal coach who would be able to help you to develop the voice that you want, without allowing you to acquire any bad vocal habits or singing problems along the way!

Vocal Exercises to Develop Vocal Flexibility!

sing the correct Vocal Exercises certainly can help us achieve our objectives in singing, and the exercises in this section target our Vocal Flexibility as well as Pitching Accuracy! These exercises provided will help us when singing songs with many pitch jumps or notes that go high and low in pitch very quickly. They also help us to understand how our voice has to manipulate itself in order to sing these variations in pitch, since this will involve using various vocal placements and singing positions! In a previous section, I had already provided everyone with many useful pitching exercises for self-practice, as well as practical music uploaded to aid everyone in practising your exercises at home! Here, we will use some of these pitching exercises and musical scales in our vocal training, in order to train our Vocal Flexibility when we sing! We will use a simple 'Gi' syllable to practise our Vocal Flexibility, as this will also aid in developing proper vocal cord closure when we sing. To find out more about other singing exercises using the 'Gi' syllable, click on this link now. For our Vocal Flexibility Exercise, we will sing a basic Major Arpeggio in an ascending and descending manner, using the 'Gi' syllable, making sure that we hit the various pitches accurately. We also should aim to produce a solid sound with a lowered and stable larynx, much like a yawn would sound. Here is a demonstration sound clip of the Vocal Flexibility Exercise: Notice that the voice is light and easy, yet not airy or weak. Also, the various pitches sung are accurate, and the singer does not force the notes at the top, especially the high head voice notes. Many of us would strain our throats when we sing the high notes, creating problems in our singing training. For female singers, here is the music for the Vocal Flexibility Exercise that you can use for self-practice. Remember not to force the high notes, and to progress towards your head voice smoothly. You may feel a little lightness in tone, but try to refrain from singing with too much air when your voice goes to a lighter position at the top notes. Female Vocal Flexibility Exercise For male singers, here is the music for your self-practice. Remember also not to force the high notes during this vocal exercise, and reduce the strain in your throat or jaw when you sing. The main aim is to hit the high notes accurately and with much ease. You may feel a certain lightness in sound as you sing higher, but as long as you keep it solid and not too airy, your voice should grow stronger with more practice. Male Vocal Flexibility Exercise Always remember to support your singing voice with your diaphragm and breathing, and also to do your vocal warmups before you sing or do any vocal training! Do make sure that you do not over-train your vocals as they are fragile and should not be abused! Remember this VERY IMPORTANT RULE: STOP and REST when you feel pain or fatigue in your throat or voice. Vocal Exercises, when done correctly and safely, will certainly help you to develop Vocal Flexibility and Pitching Accuracy for singing all kinds of songs and melodies!

Singing Range

Singing Range is usually top on the list with most singers as well as vocal students, as most of us would love to have a wider vocal range in order to be able to hit ALL the notes in the songs that we sing, especially the really high ones! As a vocal instructor, I usually tell my students that the range of notes at which you CAN sing is usually not as important as HOW YOU USE what you are given. Many great singers do not have a really wide vocal range, but they are such wonderful singers because they know how to make their voice sound beautiful, touching, dynamic or powerful! I will be providing you with some useful vocal exercises here in this section on Singing Range, but before we do them, it is vital that we do our vocal warmups before we embark on our vocal exercises, to make our voice more supple and ready to sing. We should also take note to always support our voices well with our breath, and to practise our breathing exercises diligently in order stable breath support when singing! Now, we can use a simple 'Gi' syllable in our vocal exercises to extend our singing range. Using this 'Gi' vowel helps because the 'G' sound teaches us to be able to close our vocal cords better when we sing, and this will help in vocal cord adduction or cord closure, giving us a solid and strong singing voice! With good vocal cord adduction, our voice will be able to produce notes that we may never have been able to sing before, and this will definitely help us to extend our singing range and increase the song repertoire that we can sing! Do try to practise this 'Gi' syllable vocal exercise with a lower larynx sound, something like how you would sound when you yawn, or even like how opera singers usually sound! Here is a demonstration of the 'Gi' vocal exercise done correctly: Notice how we hit the top note of each key at least 3 times before going back to the lower notes in the scale. This is so that your vocal cord muscles learn how to close effectively at the top notes, thus increasing your singing range! Do also try to produce a solid and less airy sound especially on the high notes. Producing airy or weak sounds in the head voice range will not aid you in developing a wider range in your singing voice. I have provided some practice music for this vocal exercise in various keys for both female and male singers. Use the appropriate music so that you will be able to practise your vocal range effectively! For the practice music for female singers, I have begun on the A flat key, which should be suitable for most female singers to start with. The highest key in this exercise music is in the G key, with the top note maybe being slightly high for female singers, but it will allow you to practise your high head voice notes so as to be able to vocalize them well! For the practice music for male singers, I have begun on the B key, which is definitely within the average male vocal range. The highest key in this exercise music is in the B flat key, with the top note possibly slightly high for some male singers, but this will allow you to practise your head voice notes and produce them using a solid sound! Do check out some basic pointers to note regarding these vocal exercises, so that you will be able to practise effectively and avoid some of the pitfalls of training incorrectly! Also, do bear in mind the various training pointers that i mentioned earlier on this webpage and make sure that the 'Gi' sound that you produce is a solid and strong sound (not too airy or weak) with the larynx in a low and stable position. You may also wish to learn more about some common singing problems, as well as how to identify them, so that you may avoid these problems when practising these vocal exercises. Remember to STOP and REST whenever you feel pain or fatigue in your throat or vocals. This will help you to avoid vocal damage or abuse which may occur when you practise without proper supervision by an experienced vocal coach. Practise this vocal exercise diligently and safely, and you will certainly be able to extend your singing range and achieve a better singing voice!

Singing Power

Singing Power is one of the common concerns among vocal students, and many of us do admire those whose voices are so powerful that they can drown out everyone else, or even sing over an orchestra! I was actually inspired to write this section about developing powerful vocals after I received an enquiry from a reader who wanted to know how to train her choir members so that they could sing louder and project their voices better! I sent her a personal email to answer her queries, but I would also like to share with everyone here some pointers on building a more powerful voice! Now, before we proceed with learning more about singing power, do make sure that you practise some vocal warm-ups as well as simple breathing exercises for warmup so that your breath and voice are both warmed up and ready for more challenging training. Developing powerful vocals is actually a complex task, incorporating diaphragm strength, vocal cord muscle strength, using appropriate resonance, as well as jaw and throat relaxation! Failure to pay attention to any of these various aspects could result in vocal abuse or damage, because many of us may squeeze our vocal cords or strain our throats in order to get a louder singing voice. An IMPORTANT note for ALL to adhere to strictly: If you should find that your voice or throat starts to hurt during your vocal training sessions, STOP your vocal exercises and REST your voice immediately! This will help you to avoid any vocal damage that might occur during your self-practice. One very common mistake that singers may commit is to overblow or force too much air through their vocal cords when trying to increase singing power. This is usually achieved by using more force in the abdominal muscles, causing the diaphragm to expel air faster through the vocal cords. As I mentioned earlier in the overview on vocal exercises, what we need to achieve is a balanced sound, with a healthy mixture of breath and voice. In fact, we really need little air when we sing, and using too much air may result in too much tension being exerted on our vocal cords. On the contrary, we need to learn how to control our breath using our abdominal muscles and our diaphragm, instead of expelling our breath faster, as we would need to regulate the amount of air we use when we sing loud or project our voices. Another important point to note when developing singing power is knowing how to place our voices in order to achieve a brighter and stronger sound when we sing. One way to discover good vocal placement is to practise more humming exercises, making sure that when we hum, we feel the resonance and vibrations in our face or near to our nasal area, and also in our lips. This will help us to place our voice in a ‘forward’ position which is more suitable for vocal projection, allowing us to use less force when we sing. You can also imagine that you are ‘throwing’ your voice across a hallway or room, making it bounce off the wall on the other side and come right back to you. With a strong foundation in breath and vocal placement, we would still also need to keep our jaw relaxed and loose when singing, and also reduce the strain our throats by treating them as merely a passageway through which our voice is travelling. Practising some of the exercises provided in the links above will help you to achieve a relaxed jaw and throat when singing. Many singers project their voice by belting, which usually means singing high notes in a lower vocal position or placement, usually in the middle voice, with an open throat and relaxed jaw. This allows singers to sound strong and loud, and not be overly nasal or screechy in the high notes. Belting takes a lot of effort and practice to get correct, and is certainly one of the more difficult vocal techniques one can try to master. It will require the expertise of an experienced vocal coach who would be able to help you build up your singing power, and point out the bad singing habits you may have when you sing. The main point is for us not to use too much unnecessary force in our throat, jaw or other related muscles whenever we want to sing loud. This is especially apparent when we are unable to hear ourselves sing, and we try to force our voices to be much louder in order for us to hear ourselves over the noise! Singing Power certainly does not mean more strain or tension, but instead it means achieving good vocal placement with a relaxed body, with a strong foundation in breathing and diaphragm support!

Good Voice

1. Drink water to keep your body well hydrated, and avoid alcohol and caffeine. Your vocal cords vibrate very fast, and having a proper water balance helps keep them lubricated. Important note: Foods containing large amounts of water are excellent hydration-conscious snacks, including apples, pears, watermelon, peaches, melons, grapes, plums, bell peppers and applesauce. 2. Allow yourself several "vocal naps" every day, especially during periods of extended use. For instance, teachers should avoid speaking during the breaks between classes and find quiet ways to spend the lunch hour rather than talking in a noisy staff room with colleagues. 3. Don't smoke, or if you already do, quit. Smoking raises the risk of throat cancer tremendously, and inhaling smoke (even secondhand smoke) can irritate the vocal cords. 4. Don't abuse or misuse your voice. Avoid yelling or screaming, and try not to talk loudly in noisy areas. If your throat feels dry or tired, or your voice is getting hoarse, reduce your voice use. The hoarseness is a warning sign that your vocal cords are irritated. 5. Keep your throat and neck muscles relaxed even when singing high notes and low notes. Some singers tilt their heads up when singing high notes and down when singing low notes. "The high notes are on the ceiling and the low notes are on the floor," Rosenberg says. "Over time, you'll pay for that"—not just with strained vocal muscles but also by causing future limits on the vocal range. 6. Pay attention to how you speak every day. Even performers who have good singing habits can cause damage when they speak. Many skilled singers don't continue their healthy habits when they speak; indeed, says Herseth, "many people—including singers—should have much more breath flow when they speak." 7. Don't clear your throat too often. When you clear your throat, it's like slamming your vocal cords together. Doing it too much can injure them and make you hoarse. Try a sip of water or swallow to quench the urge to clear. If you feel like you have to clear your throat a lot, get checked by a doctor for such things as acid reflux disease, or allergy and sinus conditions. 8. When you're sick, spare your voice. Don't talk when you're hoarse due to a cold or infection. Listen to what your voice is telling you. 9. When you have to speak publicly, to large groups or outdoors, think about using amplification to avoid straining your voice. 10. Humidify your home and work areas. Remember, moist is good for the voice. Further, warming up the voice is not just for singers, the researchers say. Think of it like stretching and loosening up before exercise. Easy, daily warm-ups for your voice: 1. Do lip or tongue trills in the morning (try it in the shower or on your drive to work) to facilitate better use of airflow and breath. 2. Perform gentle humming and cooing to warm up your voice in the morning. 3. If you do more vocally complex warm-ups too, such as vocal scales, do the simple warm-ups first. 4. Repeat these exercises throughout the day to reduce muscular tension in the neck, shoulders and jaw. 5. At the end of the day, perform a cool-down of the voice with similar vocal tasks.