How to do a vocal exercise effectively is something that every singer MUST know. In this singing tips for beginners article you will learn how to make your vocal warm ups and workouts more efficient.
Singing Tips For Beginners – The two main areas for an effective vocal work out
There are two main areas that you should always be focused on when doing a vocal warm up or workout to maximise your efficiency and reinforce great vocal technique. Everyone is aware of the first area but the second area is far too often over looked to the detriment of the singer.
The two main areas are:
1) Building correct muscular coordinations
2) Mental awareness of those correct muscular coordinations
Building INCORRECT Muscular Coordinations
If you are singing scales and doing vocal exercises correctly then this will build good muscular coordinations, strengthen and improve your pitch and tone. As long as you can copy a sound you can vocalise and build your voice. One of the problems with this is that not everyone can copy a sound well. In fact most people don’t, picking the wrong way first as there is always more than one way to make the same sound.
So we have lots of singers out there doing their daily vocal exercise, just copying sounds incorrectly, and they don’t even know it. Yes sometimes it will still improve the voice, but only for a short time, and then they will need to work out the voice again. Lip trills, tongue trills and hums are some good examples of sounds that can be done wrongly and will make the voice worse than no vocal exercise at all.
The truth is that if you are not aware of the correct sensations that you’re supposed to be monitoring when you are vocalising then you are wasting your time but more importantly you could be building muscular strength in the wrong coordinations, which will be only be evident when you then go to sing!
How to build CORRECT muscular coordinations
Building correct muscular coordinations starts with understanding the correct sensations of singing, and an understanding of theoretical vocal technique so as to be able to guide the voice correctly through the vocal exercises. If you don’t know why or what you are trying to achieve from a vocal exercise then you should not do it! Just warming up your voice every day without this awareness is ineffective, but more importantly can be damaging for the voice!
Mental awareness of correct muscular coordinations
To build mental awareness we need to know what we need to be aware of, the list below covers the 4 main areas to be aware of when you are doing your vocal exercises.
1) Open Throat
2) Resonance
3) Breath Support
4) Vowels
Once you have this awareness, you will no longer be doing your vocal warm ups incorrectly. You will know how it feels when it’s right, but more importantly you will also know how it feels when it’s wrong and what to do to fix it. This is the only way to build a voice safely and efficiently.
Please watch the video for more information on singing tips for beginners. I hope that you found it helpful? If you would like to see more of my stuff then feel free to check out my youtube channel: Vocal Coach Dylan
I’ve sung over a period of years without some success but people tell me that I have a Countyr – American sound – I really didn’t think so- but as I have listened to myself recorded just lately they are correct- because of this I am trying sing with an ‘english’ sound- and then listening back but I can’t seem to sound like people think I should. I have told them I am not American I am English but some don’t really like my singing because of this problem I seem to have. Is it that I am singing the vowels wrongly or differently I have some fans, and they can hear my words. how can I learn sing my vowels in a proper way. I am o.k in the exercises I think! but my vowels I have been aware lately that I do American. I can reach all of the notes, I don’t seem to be able to belt – don’t think I am a belter. How can I change and come across better than I do. I love the you teach I have learned more from you in the last two days since I found you on U tube than I have learned in the 5 months that I have been singing scales – I found you again today and I’ve learned such a lot in a short time I can’t quite believe it the difference in your teaching is that you show me how to sound instead of just explaining in a technical way and leaving me to find out how I should sound. you hit the nail on the head. the first video I found was how to forward the voice it was fantastic – I started to do it. singing on my lips – I kept on doing it afterwards. you make it fun instead of tedious. you are spot on with the emotion teaching I’m not gonna be singing dummy like any more x lol- I loved it- my emotions have been opening up anyway just recently in my open night performances- and there is difference happening to me. I am so glad I have found you your technique is really exciting. I used to have terrible stage fright which I have sometimes but not so often lately. I sing once a week publicly. I don’t have a website.
Hi Denise,
Thank you for your comments 🙂 That is a difficult one that really needs a bit of one on one lesson time with someone that can point out the wrong sounds.
Alternatively try this, say the words clearly first just spoken. Then slowly start to hold the vowels for longer keeping the singing very much in a spoken way, so then your singing voice is just an extension of the spoken one articulation wise. The other thing to do is to record your voice down one line at a time and then listen back to yourself and keep recording that line over and over experimenting with the words.
Hope that this helps you, as I said it would be best to get a vocal coach to help you with this.
Regards
Dylan