Seven Helpful Tips While Practicing Singing

Overall health along with intelligent practice is essential to improving singing. While singing may seem easy on the surface, it requires hard work and dedication. This article will discuss some tips that will assist beginners in becoming better singers.

1. Eat well before singing

If you plan to enjoy your singing practice session, make sure you consider the type and amount of food you eat. As is normal for overall health, start with the basic of eating healthy foods and drink plenty of water. Being too full or being hungry is not beneficial to energy or simply the
comfort and physical balance of the body. Some singers recommend staying away from foods that cause mucus build-up, meaning milk and such other dairy products, for example.
Absolutely singers should avoid alcohol and smoking. Both of those dry out the vocal mechanism resulting in higher risk of vocal damage.

2. Breathing properly

Breath control is integral to successful singing. Not only used a warm up and a necessity for efficient phonation (making a sound), proper breathing is great for overall health.

3. Range extension

Singers often think extending their range comes from “pushing” their voice. This only does damage and does nothing for extending the notes you can hit. The best practice is to sing through your assigned songs or your vocal exercises that emphasize technique (placement,
vowel modification, etc.) as you move higher or lower. The best practice is to just develop your mid-range and the outer notes will follow. You really should dedicate at least 30 minutes a day of dedicated practice.

4. Opening your mouth!

Many beginning singers don’t realize that by just opening your mouth more when you sing will allow more sound to come out! Beginning singers are so self-conscious that they hesitate to let their voice shine. While we don’t want to open too far, that causes unnecessary tension too!
“Two fingers” is about the distance between your teeth is all that is needed.

5. Keep your chin level with the floor.

Many people wrongly consider high notes as higher in your instrument and therefore “reach up” to them. This is wrong on every level. This usually shows itself with a raising of the chin and straining in the head and neck. This puts stress on the vocal folds, tongue, and all the musculature of the vocal system. Keep your chin parallel with the floor to allow for a more natural sound and much less tension in the sound.

6. Practice emoting

While this may seem silly, you need to practice being emotive during performances. Everyone can tell the difference when someone is singing from the heart compared to when someone is
just repeating the lyrics and melody. Sing in front of a mirror (better yet, even video yourself) to make sure the emotions in your heart are in your face and body. Imagine the audience in front of you and have eye-contact and practice being a performer.

7. Record your performance Recording your voice will allow you to know where you need to improve.

Often the most painful part of becoming a better singer is listening to yourself! We are often our worst critic, so just do it, and listen with that critical ear. You will easily be able to tell what is working and what is not usually before everyone else other than your teacher. You can record your voice with your computer or an excellent Smartphone. Some online free recording software (Audacity, for example) also allows you to record your practice. While this may be the toughest one of our seven hints it usually provides the most growth so just do it!

Final thought

Practicing how to sing isn’t as difficult as you may think. However, you have to remember practice doesn’t make perfect, it makes permanent. Perfect practice makes a perfect performance. So, practice well and these steps are a great place to start. At Cadenza Music Academy we can help you achieve your vocal training goals. If you, a family member, or a friend
are searching for singing lessons, Cadenza Music Academy is the place to call.