Do you want to improve your singing? Would you like to feel better when you sing? Of course you would. Learning to sing is not “rocket science,” but it’s not necessarily intuitive either.
Ten Rules for Healthy Singing
1. Prepare Your Body
2. Prepare Your Mind
3. Avoid Sight Reading
4. Memorize Your Song
5. Sing with Good Breath Support
6. Maintain Good Posture
7. Sing with a Darker Tone
8. Balance the Tensions in Your Body
9. Sing in the Correct Register
10. Develop Your “Off-Stage Bit”
1. Prepare Your Body
Certain muscles affect your singing. Stretch your neck, shoulders, back, and legs. Don’t forget to stretch your face muscles so you don’t get what I call “frozen face syndrome,” which singers get from jitters or tension. Your body needs to be flexible, warmed and ready for singing.
2. Prepare Your Mind
Practice singing in a quiet place with no distractions. Don’t engage in any other activity, so you can focus on your technique. Not only will you pay attention to honing those healthy singing skills, but you’ll also be giving yourself the opportunity to get away from the craziness of modern life and the tendency to multi-task. Just focus on your music!
3. Avoid Sight Reading
Sight-reading causes you to tense your throat resulting in you singing in a constricted way. This is a common problem. Study the music first and then try singing it through. Look at the tempo markings, the meter, and the words.
4. Memorize Your Song
Once you memorize your song, you can “sell” your song in a more powerful way. Dig into the meaning behind the words. By not worrying about the words, you can focus on how you’re going to sing the song, building a real story and character. Understand the poetry and listen to the innate rhythm of the sentences. My voice teacher, Lois Hartzell, was fond of saying that there are no “vocal” problems, only “musical” ones.
5. Sing with Good Breath Support
Take a nice full breath. Expand your lungs and ribcage. Then use those muscles around the diaphragm and ribs to hold your breath, so you can use it to support your tone. We call this “singing with the inhaling muscles” since you are literally keeping those muscles in tension while you sing. Make sure you don’t hold tension in your throat or neck muscles.
6. Maintain Good Posture
Keep your spine and neck straight. Stand in such a way that supports being able to hold those inhaling muscles in tension. Make sure your back is not out of line and your butt is not sticking up in the air. Having your neck to one side, or your chin sticking up or down is another common problem. Remember, this will throw off the support!
7. Sing with a Darker Tone
Don’t let your tongue get flattened and held down by pulling your face muscles out to the side as you sing. This limits your range because you get stuck going up the scale, resulting in a shallow tone. In addition, many untrained singers draw their lips back when they sing. If you get your lips off of your teeth and out in front of you, your sound will project out in front of you instead of getting swallowed up. This allows for better resonance and a noticeable improvement in your range.
8. Balance the Tensions in Your Body
I have mentioned this a couple of times, because it is incredibly important. Balancing the tensions means holding on in some places and letting go in other places. You need tension to sing, but the tension cannot be in your neck, throat muscles, or upper shoulders. It needs to be lower down in your body such as your legs, intercostal muscles, and back. This helps you to sing with an open throat. Balance the tension of your lower body by singing vowel sounds with your tongue, lips and the muscles around your mouth. Sing casually to yourself, with no instruments, no room noise or other competing factors. If you want to be project your voice out more, you’ll need to balance the tensions as mentioned above.
9. Sing in the Correct Register
Although this can be an easy fix, it’s often a big problem for untrained singers. In fact, I recommend you seek the help of a trained voice teacher to make sure you’re singing in the correct register. We have two basic registers; speaking (also called belting or chest) register and head register. All sound first resonates in the larynx, but higher tones resonate in your sinuses, your pharynx, and your mouth. Singing too low in your head register will result in a weak tone, but singing too high in your belting register gives you the feeling of screaming! You must learn how to balance each register. As I said at the beginning, not rocket science, but not intuitive either. There are ways to manage the registers, especially in that tricky middle range – but someone with a trained ear and technical savvy will best help you navigate this.
10. Develop Your “Off-Stage Bit”
The “Off-Stage Bit” is a technique to make you stand out! Understand the story behind your song and develop your character, so you can give an intense, compelling and believable performance. “To learn more about this technique, watch my video blog.”
So there it is – my “Ten Rules for Healthy Singing.” Even if you focus on just one or two of these rules, your singing will benefit. Add them in one or two at a time to progress in your journey to be a better singer!
Malya Muth, professional soloist and voice coach, may be contacted at malya@nwvocalarts.com.