You go to sing your first note…
And what comes out is not what you expected.
It sounds bad and is super frustrating.
If you’re singing infront of someone then it can be
even more embarrassing.
I’ve been there and it’s not fun!
Use these 7 singing tips so it never happens to you.
1.Breathe Better (One Simple Change).
You’re getting close to the end of the line. Will you get there or need to take another breath and ruin the flow of the song?
So did you just finish a big meal?
Strange question?
Not really, you see having a big meal before you sing fills your stomach which stops your breathing from working correctly. Especially your ability to take a full breath.
So the next time you go to sing, don’t eat any food for at least 2 hours before you go to sing and see if you notice an improvement in your ability to finish song lines without needing to take another breath.
Top Tip: We’re all different so start at 2 hours as a rough guide and reduce it and see what you can get away with. If you really need to eat then make the meal small. For example an apple or a banana.
(Also try and stay away from dairy, and spicy food as both of these are mucus forming so will make you clear your throat. This will agitate the vocal folds. They then create more mucus, and so the cycle goes on).
Running out of breath could be fixed by this easy tip so give it a go before you spend time trying to work on different breathing techniques.
2. A Strange Place To Sing But It Really Helps.
Getting rid of that agitated, dry voice is actually really simple but is so important as without it all your vocal warm ups mean nothing.
Simply make sure that your voice is hydrated when you go to sing. This doesn’t mean have a quick drink just before you go to sing. Did you know it takes 14 hours for your vocals to rehydrate and that is why I like to get all my students into a daily routine of drinking lots of water. And sorry tea,coffee, and alcohol are not included as they all dry out the vocals.
I read somewhere that you know when you are hydrated enough when your pee is clear and not yellow (nice!)
Top Tip: My students and I all use a hot shower to help with the old “dry vocals” so go and sing in the shower until you feel the vocals are moving more freely.
Singing with dry vocals is no joke as it can really agitate your vocals so make sure to regularly drink water. My students will often walk around with a flask of water so they can just sip it when they need to.
3.Warm Up Your Whole Body
Singing is a whole body experience.
So we need to get the body moving so we can get that blood pumping. And I know of no better way to do this than dancing to your favorite songs (oh, it’s a hard life!)
Just make sure you don’t burn yourself out. Just dance around for a couple of minutes until your body feels away. I love to dance around to Erasure but feel free to pick a dance track or some good old rock music.
So the next time you go to sing, do this little experiment. Dance around first and then sing and see if you can feel the difference.
4. Sausages Are The Magic Ingredient…
Responsive breathing muscles are a must if you want your singing to feel supported, free and resonant (this is also crucial for that feeling of open throat).
A great exercise to achieve this is the good old pulsing SS
Here’s how to do it…
How to do the pulsing SS exercise:
- Say the word sausages (told you they were the magic ingredient).
- Hold the ss at the beginning of the word.
- Now starting slowly go from a quiet ss to a loud SS and then back again and keep repeating this (sounds a bit like a steam train pulling away from the station).
- Now play around with pulsing the ss slowly and quickly as this will help to really activate your breathing muscles on a deep level.
- Set a timer and do this for the next 3 minutes.
- Now sing a little and you should notice that your voice feels freer (less effort to sing).
And that’s how you do the pulsing ss exercise.
Top Tip: use this anytime you need it before singing or as a pre-warm up exercise, and you will supercharge your singing!
5. Balance Your Voice With Any One Of These 3
If your voice lacks balance you will get jaw, tongue, facial, and throat tension as these muscles try to get involved in helping out with the imbalance. This will result in a tight sound to your voice that you wont like the sound of or the feel!
So what can you do about it?
First, pick a sound from this list (if you can’t do any of them, pick one and click on it to be taken to a tutorial on how to do it).
Now you have a sound you can use to balance your singing voice you now need to do it on something. The best thing to start on is a small comfortable vocal range descending slide (sliding down naturally relaxes the voice). Then move onto sirens and slowly open up your vocal range, always increasing the range when the voice naturally starts to open up.
Once you’ve done that you can progress onto scales or straight onto song melodies. So take one line of a song at a time and use the sound you’ve learnt from the list above (for example the lip trill) and trill that line at least 3 times or until it feels open and free. Then sing it. You will be amazed at how different your voice feels and sounds!
That feeling is a balanced voice and is what you want to feel in every part of your singing.
6.Never Worry About That High Note Again
There is no point in picking a song that has a note in it that you can sometimes get and other times it locks up and goes out of tune. With all the nerves that you’ll be feeling – if you’re about to sing in front of someone – you will more than lightly lock up on the note.
If you’re not sure a note is easy for you to sing in a song, then take the song and sing it. When you get to the high note hold it, how does it feel? Is it easy for you to hold or do you just want to get out of there!
A note that is in your comfortable range will be easy to hold which translates into a note that you can actually control to make whatever sound that you want rather than a note that you can just hit badly.
Top Tip: One of the differences between an amateur and a professional singer is that a professional singer knows there singing range, and they sing in it.
7.Ruins A Performance Every Time!
If you don’t know the song well, then you really shouldn’t sing it for people. It’s fine if you want to just work on the song for you when there’s no one there.
There’s nothing worse for your confidence than someone saying it wasn’t so good just because you didn’t know the lyrics or you went out of tune because you weren’t sure of the melody. I know from personal experience that it doesn’t matter how confident you are this will start to chip at you.
Take the time to learn the lyrics. I will print my song lyrics out and stick them up all over the house and work on them like that.
For the melody, I will go over and over it humming the song before I sing it. Humming the melody gives you an opportunity to focus in on the melody line and make sure that you have no pitching problems.
Then I will sing it.
Top Tip: If you’re unsure of the melody or lyrics, it will make you hesitant as you sing which in its self will make you pitchy. Also, you’ll not be focused on what you need to focus on which is delivering a knockout performance.
There Are Your 7 Singing Tips For Beginners
Learning to sing can be a daunting task but it doesn’t have to be just make sure to have fun with the process and recognize that it’s the journey of learning to sing ( the experiences of correct and incorrect technique) that builds your singing voice, not how quickly you can learn to sing.
Oh, an extra little tip here is before you do the list above record yourself down, then go through the 7 beginner singing tips. Then record yourself down again and compare the two. Recording yourself down is a great tool for an unbiased opinion.
So there you have it 7 singing tips for beginner singers. Which did you find the most helpful? And which one will you use from now on?
Have a great day!
Nice one
Thank you
You are Welcome 🙂