How to Tune a Voice in Female Voice Training

Singing in tune is essential to sounding good. If you can't do this one thing, none of your other efforts are going to make a difference. Even non-musicians who cannot sing themselves can usually tell when someone else is singing out of tune. As you strive to train your female voice, learning the basic concepts of tuning yourself will pay off with huge dividends.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Piano, keyboard or tuner to help you match pitch
• Tape recorder or digital voice recorder (optional)

1. Take care of yourself and your voice, physically speaking. This means getting enough sleep, exercising regularly, eating well, refraining from smoking and drinking, and practicing good hygiene habits. Being sick, in pain, or in poor general health is going to hinder your ability to listen and to make sounds through your throat and mouth (obviously important aspects of trying to train the female voice).

2. Use a tuner or a properly tuned instrument like a piano or keyboard to make a particular sound.

3. Listen to that sound for a few seconds, and really ingrain it in your mind.

4. Imagine the note coming out of our mouth, perfectly in tune. Visual imagery is very helpful in voice training.

5. Hum the note, and then sing it full out. Keep playing the tone you used, and slide your voice up or down until you hit the center of the pitch. Keep it there for a few seconds.

6. Listen to the tone on the tuner or keyboard again, and this time really concentrate on hitting that note in the center, right on the attack. If you didn't hit it right away, stop and try again. Your goal is to learn to hear a note and then make that exact sound come out of your mouth, without having to slide into it on every syllable.

7. Pay attention to your breath support. As always, breathe from your diaphragm, not your chest, and sing the air out slowly. If you don't have enough breath support (usually due to longer phrases than you are truly capable of), you will likely find yourself flat, or singing to the left of the center of the pitch. If you push air out too fast when you are singing (usually due to singing either too high for your chromatic range or too loud for your dynamic range), you will likely find yourself sharp. Remember to aim for the center of the pitch at all times.

Tips & Warnings

• Try using a tape recorder or digital voice recorder to record yourself while doing this exercise. The instant feedback that you provide for yourself by doing this will be invaluable to you as you train the female voice and help you learn to sing in tune better.
• Listen to recordings of professional singers as much as you can. Just hearing people singing correctly can do wonders for training your ear. Try to stay away from mainstream pop music for this purpose, since much of those artists are auto-tuned digitally and sound wavy, especially on long tones.