Wondering how to not to sound nasal when you sing? Well, first, let’s understand what’s happening when you sound too nasal. A nasal sound happens when too much of your voice exits your head through your nose and not enough exits through your mouth. Now, why would sound exit through your nose rather than your […]
Do you ever feel like you’re never going to be a great singer? Do you find yourself wondering, “Who would ever pay to listen to that?” Do you ever feel like your voice… well… it sucks? Yep. So do I, sometimes. It’s totally normal. Here’s what to do. Think of a spiral, like a Slinky […]
One reason untrained singers sound untrained is when vowels go splat. Splatting is when the vowel spreads out and flattens, like a paintball hitting a wall. This is a huge topic, but I’ll boil it down into three words: Vertical. Not horizontal. Click here to hear a vertical ‘ee’, where the lips are stretched into […]
You’ve heard it milllion times… “Breathe into your diaphragm.” “Breathe into your belly.” “Your belly should expand first, then your chest.” Well, what if you JUST CAN’T GET IT TO WORK THAT WAY? What if, no matter how you try, you can’t breathe into your belly first? Here are some more ideas for how to get […]
Lots of illness goes around in the fall and winter, and it’s hard to sing. You certainly should not strain your singing voice when you have a sore throat or a head cold. So, are these days and weeks simply lost time? Hardly. Here are a bunch of ways to keep learning and growing even […]
Does this sound like you?… “I’ve been singing along with the voice exercises, and I can do them and it’s all good, but I just feel that I don’t GET it. I don’t see how doing these scale-based and word-based exercises (ya, ha, ee, etc) will get me to where I want to be. […]
Here are six ways to greatly speed up your progress toward becoming a great singer. I’ll get the obvious one out of the way first: Practice almost every day. At least a few minutes. (Your brain will chew on it overnight.) A day or two off per week. ‘Nuff said. Slow […]
Sometimes I’ve been asked which key I prefer to sing in – not just for one song, but in general. That’s an absurd question and tells me that the person asking doesn’t understand much about voice or music. You don’t have one key you sing in. What really matters is where the melody lies in […]
Here are some quick, down-to-earth, immediately applicable set of singing tips today: Five vocal technique checks you can do to make sure you’re singing with good technique, and not making some of the most common mistakes that beginning singers make. 1 – Is your larynx moving up and down? Check that your larynx is not moving […]
Vocalists, like cellists and trombone players, have instruments that can produce infinite gradations of pitch – unlike pianos and guitars, which produce exact pitches according to their tuning. In order to sing in tune, singers must rely on muscle memory, “in-the-zone” hearing, and an accurate mental concept of where pitches live. Sometimes a flat or […]
