-
Step 1
The first step to singing is learning how to breath. Of course, I am sure you are breathing right now (I hope!) but a singer's breath is different than most people's daily breathing.
When you are learning to sing, you must breath using your diaphragm (Under your breastbone). When you breath, put your a hand on your stomach, and another hand on your lower ribs. Feel these places expand as you inhale. Once your diaphragm is full, feel your chest fill with air also.
When you exhale, flex your stomach as if you are doing crunches. This will help you control the amount of air you exhale, keeping a steady flow that ensures good tone and vibrato. -
Step 2
The second step to singing is relaxing your throat. Sometimes stress, diet, or dehydration can cause a tense, dry larynx, which leads to unneeded strain and cuts off your air flow. When your air flow and vocal chords are tense, it will show in your voice.
To relax your throat, try drinking lots of water, cutting out caffeine and milk products, and visualizing all of the muscles melting down until you feel your muscles relax. It takes practice so be patient! -
Step 3
The third step is to learn how to position your tongue. Many times tongues can cause tension in your throat as well. If you feel that you hold the back of your tongue up or back, let your lower jaw fall open and let your tongue relax completely. If you feel pressure release in your throat than you are holding tension in your tongue and need to practice keeping your tongue low and relaxed.
When you are singing, the tip of your tongue should be touching the back of your bottom teeth. Only when saying letters such as "L" can you bring your tongue up, but it should immediately go back down. A slow tongue makes enunciation sound sloppy. -
Step 4
The next step is to learn to let your sound resonate. Your goal is to feel the vibrations swirl around in the roof of your mouth while you are singing. That is the sign of GREAT tone! Sing into the roof of your mouth to create a resonating, rich sound.
-
Step 5
While you are learning how to sing, make sure you ALWAYS warm up first! Warming up your voice is often annoying, sometimes discouraging, and time consuming, but it is absolutely necessary to prevent damage to your vocal chords, and to advance your voice rapidly.
When you practice your warm-ups, don't worry about sounding good, just think about stretching.
Start in the middle of your voice on an "ah" and slide down to a comfortable low note, then up to a comfortable high note, then back down to your lowest note, and then finish by sliding up to your highest note. This will stretch your vocal chords to encourage their range and keep them limber.
Next sing some arpeggios up and down a few octaves to increase your range and help smooth out your breaking point. Your breaking point is wherever your voice feels like it is straining, but is near the middle of your range. -
Step 6
Once you have mastered these basic techniques, it is time to start learning some repertoire. Start with something simple and work with each note until you reach perfection with that piece.
Comments
sluna75 said
on 6/20/2009 WOW, This article give hope even to someone like me who sings more like a croaking frog. I'll remember this next time I'm in the car singing to myself.