How to Prepare Your Body for Singing

Series Summary

The piano is easily one of the most recognizable musical instruments in the world. Since the early 18th century, musicians have used the piano to compose a myriad of musical compositions. Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and Haydn all created sublime masterpieces for the piano. Singing techniques are also helpful in the piano playing, as it aids in the songwriting process. Creating unique music on the piano is a challenging and rewarding endeavor, given the incredible octave range of the piano and dynamic adjustment. In this free video series on piano songwriting, a singer, songwriter and pianist demonstrates singing and piano techniques. Learn about basic piano posture, keys and practicing tips, and find out how to accompany the piano with a singing voice. Get advice on developing a better singing voice through vocal exercises and scales. Be a creative lyricist with tips on how to avoid cliches and come up with truly original lyrics. Having singing, songwriting and piano playing skills opens up creative opportunities for the serious musician.

Video Transcript

"This is Tom Kenaston. I'm a singer song writer pianist living in West Palm Beach, Florida and also New York City. In this clip we're going to be talking about how to prepare your body physically for singing. The first thing you need to do is just stretch everything out. If I were standing I would actually do my back rolls, I would do a tip and roll from the back all the way down touch the floor. That kind of stuff. But sitting at the piano the easiest thing you can do is start with your shoulders. I would roll them backwards eight times, forwards eight times. You want to lift them up and relax them, and lift them up and relax them. Do that some. The point is you want everything from here to here especially to be relaxed and stretched out, and energized. And this is the best way to do that. I would do some breathing exercises. In and out. In and out. I would roll, do head rolls like this. Be careful when you go back not to crunch on top of the spinal column but to be thinking about a string pulling the top of your head at an angle around the circle. And even do your jaw. Make sure you're loose here. You can warm up your voice too while you're doing this. Ahh, that kind of thing. Sometimes I will even massage the mask here because when you sing you want to feel the vibrations through out all of this part of your face. Now if you're going to be playing the piano accompanying yourself while you sing obviously you want to physically prepare your hands, the rest of your arms, message this out and get that all relaxed. You might even sort of like beat on the muscles of your forearms. That sort of makes you go like oh neat I'm ready to do stuff. So that's really, I mean that's really it. Anything else that you can think of that you like, it's just important that all of this is relaxed and energized at the same time. This is Tom Kenaston and this has been how to prepare physically for a performance."