The creation of this week’s video was prompted by my observation of many singers struggling with high notes and a beautiful, resonant sound.
And yet, sometimes all it takes is a small adjustment to have a big impact on the quality of our singing!
Watch the video to learn more:
While natural talent plays a significant role, there’s one quality that can make all the difference in achieving vocal excellence: persistence. Just like any skill, becoming a good singer requires dedication, commitment, and consistent practice. In this newsletter we’ll explore the importance of persistence in practicing vocal warm-ups and how it can transform your singing abilities.
Building Vocal Strength and Endurance:
Much like athletes warm up their bodies before a rigorous workout, singers need to prepare their vocal cords and muscles for the demanding task of hitting challenging notes and sustaining melodies. Regular vocal warm-ups not only improve the overall flexibility and strength of the vocal apparatus but also enhance endurance, allowing singers to deliver flawless performances without strain.
Persistence is key in this process. By incorporating daily warm-up routines into your practice sessions, you condition your vocal cords and muscles over time, gradually expanding your vocal range and achieving greater control over your voice. It’s through consistent effort that your vocal strength and endurance will soar, helping you conquer even the most complicated melodies effortlessly.
Improving Vocal Technique:
Beyond mere physical conditioning, vocal warm-ups are an opportunity to refine your singing technique. The repeated practice of various exercises, such as scales, arpeggios, long tones, and so on, allows you to focus on specific aspects of your voice, such as breath control, pitch accuracy, and resonance. Persistence in practicing these exercises helps develop muscle memory and trains your vocal instrument to perform with precision and consistency.
By persistently working on your vocal technique, you can address any limitations or challenges in your voice, gradually eliminating weaknesses and enhancing strengths. Over time, this meticulous practice will mold you into a well-rounded singer with great vocal control and a magnetic vocal presence.
Expanding Vocal Range and Flexibility:
One of the most sought-after abilities for singers is the expansion of their vocal range. While some individuals may have a natural inclination towards a wide range, others may need to put in more effort to develop it. Here, persistence plays a vital role.
Through consistent and focused warm-up exercises, you can gradually extend your vocal range, reaching higher notes and delving into lower areas of the range (yes, don’t forget your low notes!). Persistent practice enables the vocal cords to stretch and become more flexible, allowing you to access previously uncharted territories in your voice.
Please do remember that pushing too hard or attempting to force your voice beyond its current capabilities can lead to strain or injury. Persistence should be balanced with patience and the guidance of a knowledgeable vocal coach to ensure healthy progress and avoid potential damage.
Cultivating Confidence and Performance Skills:
Persistent practice of vocal warm-ups not only enhances your technical abilities but also nurtures your confidence as a performer. The more you practice, the more comfortable you become with your voice, allowing you to express yourself fully and authentically during a performance.
By consistently engaging in vocal warm-ups, you train your mind and body to overcome performance anxiety, enabling you to deliver your best even in high-pressure situations.
Remember, persistence is not about instant results but about the long-term journey of improvement. Embrace the process, enjoy each milestone, and celebrate the progress you make along the way. With unwavering dedication and a commitment to daily vocal warm-ups, you’ll unlock the full potential of your voice and embark on a transformative journey towards becoming an extraordinary singer.
Happy journey!
If you’ve ever done any singing (which I’m sure you have), you’ve probably noticed that, as you move from low to high notes, you reach a point where the voice seems to hit like a ceiling, and in order to continue, you have to push your voice out, or it will break.
This happens because the voice has reached the end of that register, and in order to go higher without strain or tension, you need to know how to shift to another register.
Otherwise, it’s very much like trying to drive faster and faster without shifting from first gear: the engine will be on high RPM and won’t work properly.
There are two main registers in singing: chest register (also called “chest voice”) and head register (or “head voice”).
Most people use their chest register when they speak and when they sing in the lower range. That’s the area of the range that usually everyone is comfortable with. However, the chest voice alone doesn’t allow you to cover your whole vocal range, just like the first gear doesn’t allow you to drive at any speed the car is capable of.
If you want to extend your range, and sing all the notes that your vocal cords can produce, you need to transition to your head voice. This transition happens at the top of your chest voice, right where things start to get hard. Tension building up in your throat is a signal that it’s time to transition to your head voice.
How do you make that transition? In general, the two most important factors in learning how to transition from chest to head voice are:
Usually, in the beginning the head voice will sound weaker and breathier than the chest voice. That’s completely normal and it’s just a phase. Also, initially the “break” between chest and head voice can be very noticeable. This is because the muscles whose function is to stretch the vocal cords (which allows you to sing higher notes, just like when you stretch the strings of a guitar), aren’t well coordinated and developed yet.
As you practice, it will gradually become stronger and fuller. It’s a sign of good vocal technique when a singer is able to transition seamlessly from chest to head, without any change in the tone. When it’s completely developed, your head voice should have the same tone quality, fullness, and strength as your chest voice.
Someone recently asked me to share something about stage fright and how it affects the voice when singing. So here you go…
Stage fright can affect your singing voice in many ways. While good vocal technique can make up for many of them, there are some workarounds to help you at least minimize the effect of performance anxiety.
When you’re nervous in performance you may experience some or all of the following:
1. Forgetting words is very common. There’s a lot going on in a performance, and a lot has to happen before the performance even starts. Often, by the time the concert starts, you’ve been running around quite a bit, figuring out last minute details and going over things one last time. So it’s not unusual to feel a bit flustered when the actual performance starts.
Besides the obvious suggestion to sing the song MANY times before the performance, to ensure the words all well etched in your mind, I recommend spending a few minutes sitting down and doing some deep diaphragmatic breathing right before the concert, to help your nervous system calm down and your mind to get centered and focused again.
2. When you develop a solid vocal technique you will be able to control a shaky voice. Make sure you engage your belly muscles, in order to have good and strong breath support, which provides a steady flow of air through the vocal cords, and, therefore, a steady sound.
3. The faster heartbeat, caused by stage fright, is often responsible for decreased breath capacity. You may find yourself running out of breath a lot more often, and in places where, in rehearsal, you didn’t need to breathe. If you know that you get performance anxiety, I suggest you plan on taking more breaths, during your songs, than you feel you need to. That way, you’ll be prepared and you won’t run out of breath during the performance, which would be distracting.
4. & 5. Spend a good amount of time doing some diaphragmatic breathing. Take long, deep breaths expanding your belly out, then exhale pulling your belly in. Diaphragmatic breathing helps you relax, lowering the harmful effects of the stress hormone cortisol on your body. It lowers your heart rate. It helps lower your blood pressure. AVOID caffeine before a performance! Besides making you dehydrated, it also increases your heart rate, which is what you’re trying to slow down with diaphragmatic breathing.
6. Take your time! The natural tendency, when facing difficult passages, is to speed up, probably because of the faster heart rate. Relax, sing consciously one note at a time, even to the point of almost slowing down. Often, it seems to you like you’re slowing down, but you’re not. It’s just that your brain is hyperactive and is moving faster!
If you catch yourself getting nervous again during the concert, before singing a certain song, do more diaphragmatic breathing. Deep breathing is your best friend in times of stage fright symptoms.
But overtime, the best weapon you have to counteract stage fright is a solid vocal technique. It gives you confidence and makes you able to hide or camouflage anything that might go wrong in performance.
If you’re like me, you’re probably going to have a fairly busy holiday season with concerts, various performances, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and New Year celebration involving music, and who knows what else!
Even though this happens regularly every year, it took me a few years to “get it together” and start gearing up (vocally speaking) to the holiday marathon early enough, so that my voice would be strong and resilient throughout the whole season.
I’d like to share with you what I do with my preparation (which is starting now), so that maybe you’ll feel inspired to do the same and avoid any vocal problems that may come from putting your voice under stress without adequate preparation.
First of all, if you haven’t been doing regular vocal warm ups, I suggest you start now. Spend at least 20-30 minutes every day doing some vocal exercises. Circle through various kinds of exercises: scales, arpeggios, long tones.
(If you don’t know any vocal warm ups, you can check out my Youtube channel, starting with this playlist. You can also join my free monthly live sessions of guided vocal exercises).
Go easy for the first 5 minutes, then start going higher and higher in the range, until you cover your whole range with each successive exercise.
After doing this daily for a week, sing a song or two after each warm up session. Warm ups are like the stretching exercises marathon runners do to prepare for a run; singing is like the actual running.
Gradually increase the amount of time you spend singing after each warm up session, until, about a week before the beginning of your holiday performances, you can easily sing for the same length of time as your performance.
If you don’t have enough time to sing for this long every day, you can break down your practice time into 2 sessions. But remember to warm up again at the beginning of the second session.
Another factor in singing during the holiday season – at least for those living in the northern hemisphere – is…cold.
Make sure you protect your throat from cold air, especially right after singing, when your vocal cords are warm. If you have to spend time outdoors, or even sing outdoors, wrap a scarf around your neck. Avoid breathing through your mouth when you’re outdoors, so that the air can get warmer before it reaches your bronchi and lungs.
Ok, I think I covered all the basics! Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions.
Have a wonderful preparation time!
| Do you know what slows down aspiring singers’ progress the most? (Drumroll please…)
Lack of self-confidence. You may think, “Well, after all, how can one feel confident about their singing when they’re still learning the ropes and they don’t sound so good yet?” But what I’m talking about here is lack of confidence in our potential and the general tendency to think that our voice isn’t that great, and that we’d rather sound like this or that singer. It’s completely unfair to judge our voice and to put a label on it while we’re still working on developing it. It’s really like comparing apples and oranges: our voice (a work in progress) and an accomplished singer’s voice (the finished product). But then ultimately, why compare at all? Each voice is unique, like our fingerprints. If we put down our voice because we don’t like the sound of it, or because it sounds different from so and so, we’re putting down our uniqueness, our individuality. Your voice expresses the qualities of your soul and, as such, defines you as an individual more than you may think. This is why, when someone undertakes some serious work to improve themselves as people, you always notice an improvement in the quality of their voice, even their speaking voice; it becomes smoother and sweeter. As singers, we should learn to accept how we sound, while we work on improving our technique. A better technique doesn’t make you sound “different.” It just optimizes how you use your voice, so that your true, innate sound can surface. And you don’t know what that will be like until the job is done. When you feel judgmental toward your voice, try telling yourself a different story. Remind yourself that this is the voice you were given, it’s part of who you are, and you’re working on improving it so you can use it to express your soul qualities. You don’t want to sound like someone else; that’s their unique sound and their individual soul qualities they’re expressing, not yours. Once your voice is completely developed, and you’ve sung for a while, you will see that there’s no other sound you’d rather have, because your own consciousness is imprinted in your voice, and no other sound could express it more perfectly. Here’s to your uniqueness! |
In one of my recent newsletters I talked about singing in an ensemble and the importance of tuning into other singers and blending.
As I promised, here are some practical exercises to help you do that effectively by expanding your awareness to include not just your own voice, but everyone else’s singing with you.
I suggest you practice these exercises with your group or choir, maybe at the beginning of your next rehearsal.
When you learn to sing this way, you feel great freedom inside. You realize that you’re not in charge, but you’re part of something bigger. It’s exhilarating! More and more, people in the audience will tell you how your performance has transformed and uplifted them.
I hope you’ll find these suggestions helpful. Try them and let me know how it goes!
Keep singing!
–Ramesha
A while ago I was listening to Beethoven’s 9th symphony, one of my favorite pieces of classical music. In the 4th movement there’s a section where 4 soloists sing together. They all had amazing voices, but I couldn’t help noticing how not connected with one another they seemed to be.
When I asked a friend of mine who’s an opera singer, he told me that in that genre of music the beauty and uniqueness of the tone is the most important thing. Singers aren’t interested in “blending.”
That’s well and good, if you sing Beethoven’s 9th, but if you sing in a choir or a small ensemble, one of the most important things is to BLEND!
What does that mean? It’s obviously impossible to sound exactly like another singer, because each voice is unique.
Here are some things that have worked for me over the years in terms of blending in a group:
In a future newsletter I will suggest practical exercises to develop some of the above skills to help you and the members of your ensemble to feel more connected as you sing.
