How to Sing: What You Need to Know Before Being a Singer!

Everybody knows how to sing! You just open your mouth and sing! Well, its not that easy. There is a right way and a wrong way to sing. Or more accurately, a healthy way of singing that you can maintain throughout your singing life, or an unhealthy singing that are prone to damages to your vocal cords and ultimately end of your singing life.

Whether you dream of becoming a professional vocalist or are a purely recreational singer, you want your voice to sound its best and that can last a lifetime. The best way to preserve your voice is to keep yourself physically fit and in good overall health. Maintain a healthy diet, have proper sleep, and moderate exercise. You have to avoid smoking, illegal drugs, and alcohol.

The stereotype of the hard-partying rock star isn't a reality in most cases. Most of the recording artists who have had the longest careers have taken good care of themselves and avoided the excesses that prematurely ended the careers of such talents as Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, and Elvis Presley.

Training?

You will need training on how to sing if you ever want to become a serious singer, be it professional or recreational. For all you aspiring professionals, it is essential. Just as doctors and lawyers have to go to school for their chosen occupations. You can either find a local vocal instructor or take lessons from online courses such as Singing Is Easy by Yvonne DeBandi or Singorama by Emily Mander.

No matter which method you choose, you need to learn how your voice box in your throat works and how to use it properly, and also how to deal or avoid with any kind of voice problems you might encounter. With the right instructor or course, learning how to sing can be very fun and exciting.

The first thing any good instructor or online course should do is to check your posture and breathing support, as it the most important aspect in singing especially if to allow production of the best vocal tone.

Posture Check

To check your posture, stand up with your back against a wall, and your feet parallel to your shoulders. Your back should be straight. This aligns your spine, allowing the vertebrae to be stacked on top of each other in a straight line. When the spine is out of alignment, your body will be out of balance, and you will create unnecessary muscle tension. Walk away from the wall while maintaining the same position and then wrap your hands around your neck. Stretch your neck straight up. This will give your head an elevated feeling. If you force yourself to hold this position, you'll only end up distorting your posture. If you find yourself slouching or forming any other distorting stance, recheck your posture. Allow yourself to physically feel the same as you did when you were against the wall with your spine straight and your head elevated. 

Here is an easy exercise to help you achieve good singing posture. Stand with your feet hip-width apart and your arms at your sides. Bring your arms in a rapid circular motion across your body and over your head, rising onto your tiptoes at the same time while taking in a good, deep breath.

Slowly start to exhale, bringing your arms down to your sides and coming down from your toes. As you exhale and bring your arms down, try to keep your chest and shoulders in the same position they were in at the top of your stretch.

Breath support enables you to produce a pleasant tone without straining your throat. When you inhale to sing, you should feel expansion all around your midsection. Your diaphragm, abdominal, and spinal muscles should all be working together.

Once you have taken in a good breath, breathe out on a hissing sound while trying to maintain the expansion of your midsection. It will take some time and effort to strengthen those muscles, but ultimately you will learn to sing in a healthy manner, with better tone and less vocal fatigue.

Importance of Posture and Breath Support

Posture and breath support are only the foundation of how to sing well. The next level is tone placement and quality. There are three primary areas where our vocal tone resonates: the chest, the pharynx (mouth and throat), and the head (sinuses). You use your "head voice" for higher notes, and your "chest voice" for the lower ones.

In most cases, you will want to use what voice teachers call a "mixed tone", which is a sensation that you feel when singing in head voice in its lowest pitch (and not a high chest voice). The sensation is called mask resonance, because you want to feel the sound vibrations in the area that would be covered by a half-face Halloween mask.

You can feel mask resonance with this simple exercise. Take in a good, well-supported breath. Starting on a high note with the syllable "hoo" or "hee", slide from the top of your range down to the bottom. It should feel a bit like yawning, and you should feel vibration in the soft palate (roof of your mouth) and in the triangle between your eyes and the bridge of your nose.

Bonus Tip!

Here's a tip for you guys out there. The Alexander Technique, (created by Australian actor and teacher Matthias Alexander) is a mind-body technique that enables the body to work freely and naturally flow as was originally intended, to release all unnecessary physical tension, postural imbalances, restrictive breathing habits and mental stress. It was originally developed as a method of vocal training for singers and actors in the 1890s. Alexander realized the direct correlation between singing, posture, and the need to retrain the body for natural breathing. The method expanded to incorporate and help all types of people from musicians, such as pianists who suffered with back pain from sitting at a piano stool; computer programmers suffering from cramped hands due to typing all day; factory workers who complained of aching feet and backs, and enabled each individual to correct their personal physical body imbalances and release muscle tension. This is an excellent method for establishing a perfect body posture and flow for singing and performing.

Mastering all this is the first step in learning how to sing. It will take time, effort, and practice, but if you work patiently and consistently, you will definitely see results.