There is something magical about singing, from singing for fun in the shower to making it your profession. It is a way to allow your heart to speak without interference from your mind and enables you to break free raw emotion that might otherwise be locked away in the confines of your subconscious.
Nevertheless, to sing competently, you need to train your vocal cords to emit the perfect pitch and allow your body to temper your tempestuous emotions into something palatable for outside listeners. It is much easier to train your voice and become the singer you’ve always wanted to be than you might think, helping you turn a flat noise sound into vibrant, colourful notes that will delight your audience and fill your soul with joy. Or, at least, not smash all the glasses on your sideboard when you deign to sing along to the radio…
Warm Up Before Any Practice Or Performance
The first and most important aspect of learning how to sing is to warm up before starting any session. This includes practice sessions and performances. By warming up your vocal cords, you will be able to relax the most vital parts of your voice and drastically reduce the risk of overstraining your voice.
Although it may not seem like it when you start, warming up correctly is the best thing to improve your singing as it provides the bedrock you can build upon. So how exactly do you “warm-up” your voice, and what is involved? Because singing has been around since time immemorial, many methods have developed over the years to get you ready for a performance. Some of the more common techniques include:
- Yawning and sighing
- Humming a tune
- Straw vocalizing (you partially close your vocal tract while emitting air, creating resistance and helping your vocal cords to vibrate more efficiently).
- Lip buzzing
- Jaw loosening
- Sirens
- Slides
There are a few other methods you can use to warm up your voice, but these are the most used and provide the best results. The point is that your voice is like any other part of your body; you should avoid belting out sounds before you have sufficiently warmed and loosened up.
Enhance Your Ear Training
A finely tuned ear is essential for singers, not only to stay in key but also to harmonise and blend with other singers or instruments. Ear training can help you recognise pitch, intervals, chord progressions, and rhythms more accurately. Use apps or online courses to practice identifying intervals and pitches. Additionally, try to transcribe simple melodies by ear and sing them back. This practice will improve your musical ear and contribute to more accurate and confident singing.
Sing Every Day
If you already love singing, this step will be easy. As you are probably aware, practice makes perfect, and singing is no different. Therefore, you should take some time each day to practice as much as possible. You do not have to view this as actual singing all the time and driving your roommates crazy. Instead, you can practice warm-up routines, humming and perfecting your pitch. Nonetheless, the more you practice, the better you will become. Additionally, by practicing your warm-ups, you will develop a healthy habit that you will do automatically before every event you sing at.
Analyse Your Vocals By Recording Yourself
As the guys at TYX Studios, a music recording studio in London, tell us, you must record yourself singing to discover your strengths and weaknesses. Although many people don’t like hearing their own voice, listening to yourself sing has several advantages. It helps you develop your singing voice by identifying what you’re doing wrong and how to fix it. Additionally, if you are a musician or a producer, you can use it to find new styles of phrasing for your songs.
Finally, it can help you see how you present yourself when performing. For this, you will need to sing in front of a mirror or video yourself when doing so, which will help you understand your posture while you’re belting one out, which can help make you a better singer. Speaking of which…
Practising Good Posture Is Essential
To follow on from the last point about watching yourself sing, you should ensure that you carry yourself in the correct manner. Poor singing habits like bad posture can lead to many physical problems in the long run, such as chronic headaches, stiff neck, sore throat, and vocal cords. This is due to an improper posture while singing, which restricts the flow of oxygen in the vocal cords leading to a loss in voice quality.
Good posture ensures that the vocal cords are well aligned and stop tension in the neck muscles. It also prevents vocal fatigue caused by sitting for long hours in an improper position.
Learn How To Breathe Properly
People inevitably state that they already know how to breathe whenever this is mentioned. After all, it is something that people do every day! However, there are right ways and wrong ways to breathe, and it becomes even more relevant when you are learning to sing. Proper breathing will help you control the airflow to the vocal cords, which will produce a clearer sound. The following are some important aspects of breathing:
- Fill up your lungs and exhale before taking a breath.
- Breathe through your nose when possible to avoid any air from getting into your throat.
- Keep your stomach muscles tightened when you inhale.
- Inhale for a few seconds before continuing with singing to keep the air pressure in the lungs stable.
Relax Your Larynx
The larynx is a little organ in the throat of all human beings. It does not have any muscles, so it cannot move itself around. It is surrounded by muscles and ligaments controlled by nerves coming from the brain to keep it where it needs to be. It is also known as the voice box, and its primary function is to produce sound by vibrating when air passes through it. The sound made here becomes “voice” when the nose, tongue, and mouth shape these vibrations. The first step to singing correctly is to relax your larynx before singing. It prevents straining of your vocal cords, which can lead to injury or the inability to fully utilize your voice’s natural range.
Learn To Sing From Your Diaphragm To Project Power
The key to a successful singing career is to learn how to project your voice as clearly as possible. Shy singers will never achieve success beyond a very niche market. Therefore, you should learn how to sing deep from your diaphragm to allow a sufficient amount of air to pass over your larynx and remain clear and in tune.
Master The Art Of Phrasing & Dynamics
Understanding the nuances of phrasing and dynamics can transform a good performance into a great one. Phrasing refers to the way a singer shapes a sequence of notes to convey emotion and meaning, much like a speaker uses intonation to express feelings in speech. To improve your phrasing, pay close attention to the lyrics and the story they tell. Practice singing with different emotional intents and experiment with where to take breaths to enhance the narrative of the song.
Dynamics, on the other hand, involve the variation in loudness between notes or phrases. They add expression and can dramatically affect the impact of a song. Work on controlling your volume and intensity; practice crescendos (gradually getting louder) and decrescendos (gradually getting softer) to add depth and interest to your singing.
Explore Different Genres & Styles
Versatility is a valuable asset for any singer. By exploring a variety of musical genres and styles, you can learn different vocal techniques and find new ways to use your voice. Each genre has its own set of stylistic nuances, from the twang in country music to the melismatic runs in R&B. Experiment with songs outside of your comfort zone to challenge your vocal adaptability. Not only will this make you a more well-rounded singer, but it may also inspire you to bring elements from one genre into another, creating a unique blend that can set you apart.
The Bottom Line
From ensuring that you warm up sufficiently to using your body to project your soulful sounds to the world, there are plenty of things you can do to become the singer that you’ve always wanted to be.
Next up, and still on the subject of music (kind of), we’re off to take a sound bath. Care to join us?