Vocal Exercises

When practising breathing techniques, using a child as a role model is perfect. They have the correct posture – head up shoulders relaxed and level and perfect alignment of hips, knees and ankles, everything required to breathe efficiently – just perfectly natural. Adults don’t have such a perfect posture – laziness, tight clothing and weariness, all resulting in us breathing less efficiently which impacts our speaking and singing.

However, it doesn’t have to be like this! Loosen that waistband, relax and follow these great steps to correct breathing.  I noticed the difference, will you?

#Good Posture

Posture is important. Practice good...

Singing is all about having a good technique. Like any other sport you can train yourself to become better at it. How do you do this? Simple, you need to use various breathing techniques related to singing which help you exercise and train your lungs, vocal chords, diaphragm and help you with breath control to enable you to make your voice more powerful which means you can hold notes for much longer.

Before using any breathing techniques to help your singing you first need to learn some basic breathing techniques to help you breathe normally. These basics will teach you how the lungs, diaphragm and trachea all work together to help you breathe.

When you...

Ask yourself a question. If a friend asked you to join them in a 10 mile run starting immediately, would you say yes straight away on your way to the start line or would you say ‘Let me warm up first and I will join you when I am ready’?

People seem to think that because they speak everyday they are exercising their voice so don’t need to bother with warm up exercises. How wrong they are! Talking on a daily basis is not the same as giving a speech. Neither is walking down to the post box to post a letter the same as running 10 miles. You may be using the same body parts but they are being used in an entirely different way.

If you are giving a speech...

Just like athletes, anyone who sings should warm up correctly before any practice session and main performance.  You should go through a variety of warm up vocal exercises to loosen your voice and limber up your muscles to be able to be in the best condition for the performance.  A good warm up will take about tem minutes to complete.  Always start off gently. Don’t try and reach the high notes straight away as you will likely cause damage to your vocal muscles. Here are a number of steps to get your voice ready to perform.

Perform light exercise to loosen and relax your body. Jogging on the spot, swinging your arms and stretching are all good forms of physical...

If your ambition is to be a good singer then it is essential you do some vocal warm up exercises. You might be thinking ‘I have managed just fine without them so why bother now?’ The reason is simple, doing some simple vocal exercises will put you on the first step of the ladder of becoming a singer rather than just ‘someone that can sing’.

When singing your vocal performance will improve dramatically if you do your vocal warm up exercises. Look at it from a different angle. Just like swimming, running and cycling require you to warm up your muscles to avoid straining and hurting your muscles, the same applies to singing. You have to properly warm up your...

One of the foundations of learning to sing correctly is knowing how to breathe correctly as well as learning how to correctly control the way you breathe so that when you are singing your breathing is being used to optimum effect.

As soon as we are born our breathing is naturally correct. A baby can breathe, yell and scream at optimum capacity because they are using their lungs without any conscious thought. However, as we grow older some people become lazy in how they breathe and breathe using only the upper part of their lungs – taking a shallow breath instead of a normal breath.

Understanding how to correctly breathe and use breath control,...

The One Show recently included a feature on breath control for singers. Presented by Carrie Grant, British vocal coach and session singer, the feature began – and ended - with two extraordinary facts: the longest note in UK chart history is held by Morten Harket from Aha who held a note for 20-seconds, in ‘Summer Moved On’. This record is followed by Bill Withers who held a note for 18-seconds in his song ‘Lovely Day’.

How do they do it? Is lung capacity the key?

Could lung capacity be the reason why one person is able to hold a note longer than another person? Does this have an impact on the length...

Not everyone knows this, but if you don't know the correct breathing techniques when singing you can seriously damage your voice and your health. Knowing how to breathe properly and knowing the right vocal exercises can improve your singing.

Anyone who likes to sing - be it in the shower or as a professional will know that singing is based on breath.  The number one rule any singer needs to know is if they want to sing properly then they need to adopt the correct breathing techniques and vocal exercises otherwise they will run into serious problems that could ruin their singing voice permanently.

Music teachers everywhere are...

There are people who are born with the talent to sing, there are those who struggle to sing but still, vocal exercises are needed in order to be a good singer. These exercises are needed to develop the singing voice and in order to carry a good tune. But what are these exercises? And are they easy enough to do?

The answer to both these questions is yes; these vocal training exercises are easy to follow and are very effective in terms of helping a person sing very well. Included in this kind of exercise are respiratory exercises, pronunciation and voice exercises. It can range from easy to difficult. These exercises will help you have a smooth and...

How do we perfect our breathing and vocal exercises for singing? Are there any magical breathing exercises that will fix all of our vocal problems?

The answer to the above is no. However adopting some breathing techniques will improve your vocals no end. Breathing is a complex event that no teacher can explain without getting into medical terms. Not only that, students will never understand completely when a teacher tries to explain about breathing techniques and why it is important to breathe correctly when singing.  When a teacher tells you to breathe from your diaphragm it isn’t easy, but with practice it will come naturally.

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