how do you practise vocals?

[coren]

assuming of course that you sing, are there any little techniques you like to try when practising vocals?

breath excersizes, warm up routines, etc?

[Harp Heaven]

Lets see:

 

Play a normal C Major chord. Then sing every note in it, ex. C...E...G...E...C.

 

Sing this with different vowels, "ooh", "aah", "mm", and so on. Be care ful not to sing through your nose. If you are unsure, put your finger up to it, and try to feel if there`s air coming through it. If there is, you`re singing wrong.

 

Note: An exception is the vocal "mm". When you`re singing it, you`re supposed to sing nasal.

 

When you`re doing this, search for the point where you can sing freely without any restraint, a kind of room, where you have an infinite amount of breath. You`re supposed to sing with your stomach, not your larynx. You`ll understand what I mean when you start practicing

 

Your shoulders are supposed to be loose. If you ever feel tired and stiff in your shoulders after singing practice, you`re doing it wrong.

 

You should do this with at least 10 different chords.

Hope that helped.

 

Harp.

[fv_dup1]

Hi,

 

Check out Seth Riggs' website (www.sethriggs.com). I believe that he sells a book which may give you lots of good advice for practicing. I'm taking lessons right now from a qualified instructor (of the speech level technique). Simply singing an arppegio does not necessarily help if you are singing incorrectly.

 

Your larynx should stay down if you are singing properly. There should be no tightness around your vocal chords your tongue should sit behind your lower teeth as it is naturally except for making certain cononant sounds.

 

HTH and good luck,

fv

[SFOracle]

I actually think the "nasal" sound comes from NOT singing through your nose. That is, if you plug your nose, you get a nasal sound. Your nose and sinuses are part of your natural resonance chamber in your head. You get a thin "nasal" tone when your nose of sinuses are congested or blocked.

[Ian Dorsch]

Originally posted by SFOracle:

I actually think the "nasal" sound comes from NOT singing through your nose. That is, if you plug your nose, you get a nasal sound. Your nose and sinuses are part of your natural resonance chamber in your head. You get a thin "nasal" tone when your nose of sinuses are congested or blocked.

 

Not true. The sinuses and nasopharynx CAN be used as resonators, but should be avoided as a matter of course when singing. Nasality tends to weaken the voice and reduce the pharyngial resonance that a singer should be striving for. You should be able to sing or speak with your nose plugged with no noticable difference in basic timbre (except, of course, for nasalized consonants like 'm' or 'n').

 

As far as learning vocal technique out of a book...that's kind of akin to learning ballet out of a book. You would be much better served to take one or two lessons with a legitmate voice teacher and get some personalized feedback. A warmup routine that is tailored for your individual strengths and weaknesses is a MILLION times more valuable than a generic one taken from a book.

 

My two cents

 

Ian

[jimbyjoe]

after doing vocals at school and privately, i was taught many things. then a few weeks ago when i took a lesson from my brother-in-law, who happens to be in our state opera organisation, he dismissed a lot of things but also re-iterated things:

 

1)diapraghmic breathing - giving support to your sound from down around your belt area. definitely helps you get those top notes

2) smile/brace technique - no. i was taught to get a nice bright sound by having a smiling posture with my cheeks. only problem with this (according to b-i-l) is if you're an opera singer and you're singing "tu se morte" (you are dead), you don't exactly want to have a little smirk on your face.

3) twang - you know how you say "na na na na na" (with the approx notes G E A G E and a swing rhythm) when someone hurts themselves, well you can sort of feel a bit in your nose. this helps me immensely. though if your tone is bright enough you might not need heaps of twang.

4) exercises - C-D-E-F-G-F-E-D-C (and transpose), doing la, na, nyaa (the above twang thing). when doing these exercises, i was able to get to a C above middle C without too much straining, due to factors 1 & 3. then my b-i-l said, "well there you go - you can get those notes doing exercises. if you can't get them whilst singing a song, you're obviously doing something wrong." i found that to be true. sometimes it's a mental thing.

 

there's my 2 dollars worth.

 

pray for peace,

kendall (currently drinking coffee and about to do vocal takes - sorry you vocal purists....)

[Ian Dorsch]

Originally posted by jimbyjoe:

1)diapraghmic breathing - giving support to your sound from down around your belt area. definitely helps you get those top notes

2) smile/brace technique - no. i was taught to get a nice bright sound by having a smiling posture with my cheeks. only problem with this (according to b-i-l) is if you're an opera singer and you're singing "tu se morte" (you are dead), you don't exactly want to have a little smirk on your face.

3) twang - you know how you say "na na na na na" (with the approx notes G E A G E and a swing rhythm) when someone hurts themselves, well you can sort of feel a bit in your nose. this helps me immensely. though if your tone is bright enough you might not need heaps of twang.

4) exercises - C-D-E-F-G-F-E-D-C (and transpose), doing la, na, nyaa (the above twang thing). when doing these exercises, i was able to get to a C above middle C without too much straining, due to factors 1 & 3. then my b-i-l said, "well there you go - you can get those notes doing exercises. if you can't get them whilst singing a song, you're obviously doing something wrong." i found that to be true. sometimes it's a mental thing.

 

1. Proper breathing is maybe the single most fundamentally important aspect of voice technique, not just for high notes but for everything. The more solid your breathing is, the more consistent your singing is, and the longer it takes for your voice to get tired.

 

2. The problem with teaching young singers to smile is that you are generating a bright tone by bouncing the sound off of your teeth rather than by properly placing the tone. Besides, a singer should strive for total relaxation in the muscles of the vocal mechanism, and that includes the face. A perma-smile represents unnecessary muscular activity.

 

3. Twang is good, but you want to feel the tone resonating behind your nose (in the mask), not in your nose. It's easy to mistake one for the other.

 

4. ALWAYS it's a mental thing Unlike any other sort of musician, a singer has NO conscious control over their instrument...control of the human voice happens entirely on a subconscious level. "Mental" has at least as much to do with singing as "physical" does.

 

My additional 2 cents. I knew that BMus in vocal performance would come in handy some day...

[lovenara]

yes i really want this thread

being a selftaught jack of all trade ( taught myself doing everything,sing,play all instruments,compose ,arrange ,seq )

Singing is the only thing i found to be like what someone said

" the more i learn,the lesser i know ,the lesser i know the more i'm stupid!!!"

i know that i have to practise all muscles and tissues in mouth and peripheral head cavity so they become strong enough to resonate my voice out and have good quality

Now after all those were mastered

i'm lost!!!

i found that i can resonate my voice at many places ,head chamber,mouth,nasal even outside of head cavity

and i don't know which one is correct

For uptempo song i'll be fine using outside head resonating technic,the voice is bright and clear with lot of hi-frequencies,only one thing i hate about this is that the hi-freq make it sound too sharp to be in any ballads or popslow tempo songs

( i can point you to my mp3link for this example if you're interested )

So here i am,getting stuck for many months trying to sing my only ballad in a warm pop style with any technics known to men

i resonate with head,mouth,nasal,stomach,sing with a smile,sing with saliva swallowing action,falsetto....

none gave satisfying track

Then i change the song key fromA to G,F,E now exploring C

I'm now pondering about throwing this track out of my demo!

anyone wanna help?

thnx in advance

istyle

www.mp3.com/istyle

PS someone please explain " TWANG "in singing,i'm a foreigner

and i know this word in guitarplaying only,thnx again