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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.