How To Sing

Singing can be a great pleasure when done correctly, both for the performer and for the audience. There is nothing sweeter than the sound of a pure soprano trilling away or a deep baritone crooning about love lost and hearts broken.

Many people wish they could be singers, hoping to be that person standing onstage who melts the audience’s hearts and provides their ears with some sweet, warm vocal chocolate.

If you’ve had your sights set on singing for a while now, chances are you’ve been dutifully going to vocal lessons, meeting with your singing instructor, and learning music theory. You’ve been practicing your “tra la la la las” while visualizing the swooning crowds, moved to tears by every quiver and pulse of your silky vocal chords.

But before you get to the big stage from your solo performances in front of your mirror, you’ll need to do some work. And perhaps one of the most important elements of a vocal performer’s skillset is preparing their voice to hit those high notes out of the ballpark. It’s like stretching before a big game; if you don’t do it correctly, you’re bound to pull something and end up on the bench. So let’s quickly review some key concepts for doing vocal warm ups and getting your voice into pitch-perfect shape.

1) Posture. This is incredibly important, as all of the power and strength for singing comes from the body’s capability to channel oxygen from the lungs at a controlled pace. By making sure you have perfect posture, a ramrod straight back, and a clear lane for oxygen to be dispensed, you ensure a consistent, clear, crisp sound coming from your vocal chords.

2) Dexterity. Singing fluidly and smoothly requires a flexible mouth that can enunciate quickly, transition easily between words, all while calibrating volume, tone, and pitch. An excellent vocal warm up exercise is to sing a series of open vowels such as “Mee,May,Mah,Moe,Moo”.

This gets the voice used to a wide range of vowel shapes and brings an element of rich warmth and suppleness to the voice that can be heard immediately after these exercises.

3) Breath. If you are involved with vocal coaches in any capacity, you most likely know how much they emphasize correct breathing. All singing instructors advocate controlling the outflow of breath through careful use of the diaphragm. You can tell if you’re doing it correctly by placing a hand over your diaphragm while breathing in and monitoring to make sure it expands outwards. Accurate diaphragmatic breathing control can take months, if not years, to fully master. However, once this crucial technique has been learned, the vocalist’s job becomes a lot easier and the final product much more aesthetically pleasing.

Ultimately, remember that correct vocal warm ups are of paramount importance before going on stage or preparing to do a performance. Straining or losing your voice due to improper technique can damage your vocal chords and in some cases even have lasting consequences. Always ensure that you’re doing your vocal warm ups correctly and you will have a strong voice that will blow people away.

So you want to learn how to hit high notes? If you are able to sing these really high notes your music career will jumpstart and the people around you will finally start to really admire you.

Still singing well in the upper vocal range isn’t that easy and most singers fail to learn how to sing in the upper registers. But if you’re motivated you can do it! Take my advise and never forget that practice is the foundation of a professional singer.

How To Sing High Notes Easily?

#1 Warm up your voice. I can’t express how important that is. Without proper vocal warm up exercises used before you practice or perform on stage you can easily damage your voice and your vocals will sound ugly.

#2 Master the basics. Take your time. Allow yourself to make mistakes and master these damn singing basics! Learn how to stand in correct singing posture, adapt a good practice habit, do any vocal training lesson you can find in the internet and care about your vocal health. Don’t try to sing high notes when you don’t even know how to begin with singing.

#3 Don’t sing too high. Take note by note and not octave by octave or you will hurt your voice. If you train with scales then stop if you break and consider WHY that happened. Then, try it again.

#4 Care about your vocal health. If you want to reach and sing high notes your voice needs to be healthy and in it’s best condition.

#5 Start believing and gain confidence. Most “social” skills like dating, speaking or singing are heavily influenced by psychology. If you fear to sing because other people could hear you then you have to work on your confidence first.

#6 You have to know which muscles produce the sound you are craving for. Inside your throat there are two membranes stretched horizontally across the larynx. That are your vocal folds (often also called vocal cords). If your vocal cords vibrate you are producing sounds (no matter if you are humming, singing or speaking).

The vocal cords have the great ability to zip together to allow you to sing higher notes. If they are “open” you are going to produce deep notes and the more they “close” the higher your sound becomes.

So everything you have to do in order to learn singing high notes is to zip up your vocal cords.

#7 If your voice breaks constantly there could be two reasons. Either your vocal cords can’t hold together anymore and your voice shifts into falsetto (light airy sound) or you are producing too much tension.

Often the way to solve both problems is to reduce tension by using basic exercises like vocal warm ups or standing in the right posture or reducing the air pressure. Yep if you want to sing high notes you will need LESS air then you would use to sing deeper notes.

The more your vocal cords zip up the smaller the gap between them and the more air you pressure through the folds the faster they have to vibrate. Yet if they vibrate 250 times per second everything is fine but if you shoot too much air through them and they suddenly have to vibrate 500 times each second they are going to “break” and switch into falsetto (to protect your voice). That’s what most singers recognize as a break in their voice.

So lower your air pressure and reduce tension! Also don’t be surprised when you suddenly lose the “singing feel” in your throat because in order to produce high notes you will sing through the resonance chambers in your head and not in your mouth or throat.

#8 If you still can’t sing high notes try to sing scales and use easy to sing words like “mom”, “gug”, “go”, “now”, “goo” or “no” they have a special throat opening effect and will help you to hit higher notes more easily.

You can learn how to sing well! Don’t give up .

I don’t know any skill that is surrounded by that many myths and half-truths than singing. Still millions out there believe that singing is something magic, something you either can or can’t.

Thank God more and more people realize that singing isn’t something magic. It’s a skill like any other. Okay maybe not like any other skill but still I am one hundred percent sure that you can learn how to sing good.

People ask me again and again: “Do you think I can learn how to sing?”. But the truth is if you can speak you can sing too. Recently scientists even speculate that tone deafs could sing with the right singing education.

What is this strange thing people call talent?

I claim that talent (no matter if you are a singer or a baseball player) is just a mix of passion, practice and technique.

You don’t have to be insulted if you have talent. Just think a moment about this: If you are very passionate about something then you are also motivated to take any risk to reach your goal.

Of course you are going to attain a church choir, get a singing teacher and study at home with online singing lessons. When you believe that you can reach your goal (and that’s what passionate people do) then usually you will reach it sooner or later.

On the other side people who think they don’t have any talent and who think without talent they will suck at singing are not going to learn how to sing (no teacher, no money for online vocal lessons and so on).

So the most important thing if you want to learn how to sing really good is to be passionate about your voice. It doesn’t matter how hard you suck at singing currently because if you are willing to invest much time and some money someday you will sing like a professional.

But what if you want to sing really good? Even better than the American Idol winners? Won’t you need at least some little magic talent? Nope! There is a difference between singers who know how to sing well and these singers who touch our hearts until we have tears in the eyes.

So if it’s not about talent what is this special difference? In my opinion it’s a mix of passion and emotion.

You can learn how to sing with a singing teacher and some good singing techniques but what really makes a crowd cheer is if you feel deep emotions while you sing.

Additional singers who are really passionate about singing practice much harder. And usual more practice equals a higher vocal range and if you can sing the real deep or high notes you sound much more special for your listeners.

What are my tips on how to sing better right today?

1. Start to believe that you can learn how to sing good. There is no magic. Repeat this phrase!
2. Practice like a madman. Learn anything possible about singing, get a teacher and study every website about singing you can find (including this one).
3. Keep it funny. Still singing should be a joy not a chore always keep that in your mind.

By the way a last word for all these people who want to sing good fast. Learning how to sing properly needs much time and peronal sacrafice – there is no quick fix.

If you can’t spare at least a hour daily for this beautiful hobby stay away from singing. Maybe the triangle is an instrument that fits your schedule better .

The average person in the USA faces two colds each year and I am pretty sure you had one too in the last months.

But how should a singer face this annoying condition? Your throat is sore, it seems like you have to cough all day long and anyhow – everything is mucilaginous.

You won’t like to hear that but the best way to deal with a sore throat or a cold is to prevent it from ever showing up. Below I will list some advise to strengthen your immune system and prepare for the next cold.

If you are already suffering from a cold don’t worry further below there are also some tips on how to deal with that.

How to save your voice? Here are five ways to prevent colds:

#1 Avoid excessive stress or anxiety

Both are bad vitamin killers and your immune system craves for that stuff! Learn how to become a cool singer and don’t be scared by challenges too much.

#2 Maintain a healthy diet

Not to mention the benefits for your overall health this will keep phlegm and colds away from your valuable throat. So what is a healthy diet? Fruits, vegetables and meat. Stay away from overprocessed food like fast food.

Not possible? Okay if you are giving a dozen performances each month then you maybe can’t choose where to eat all the time. But just try to eat healthy as often as you can!

#3 Exercise

Ok I know you don’t want to hear this. But you have to keep your body in shape to prevent illness and give your voice the background it needs. A sick body produces a sick sounding voice.

By the way you don’t have to go to the gym three times a week. What about a weekly basketball game with your friends? Or walking to the supermarket instead of driving?

#4 Stay warm

This should be obvious. If it’s cold wear socks and a sweater. After a hot gig don’t jump outside in the dark night with just a t-shirt and a mini-skirt. Be extra careful when you were sweating heavily. Also keep an eye onto your alcohol level: When you are drunk you won’t notice when it’s getting too cold. Also avoid air conditioner and ventilators.

#5 Sleep long enough

The life of a singer can be damn exciting but don’t forget to sleep at least six hours daily so your body can regenerate and your vocal folds have some time to rest.

But what if the cold has already hit you? Can you nevertheless sing? Yes – you can sing with a cold. But you have to prepare your vocal cords in the right way before you sing or you will hurt them.

• Gargle with salt water and drink at least two liters of water to decrease the mucus in your throat.
• Start your vocal warm up exercises with low volume humming. Don’t force your voice to work and take an extra long vocal warm up session before you start to sing.
• Avoid dairy products like milk or yoghurt because they can produce extra mucus. If you are sick mucus is your number one enemy! There is only one exception to this rule:
• Before you go to sleep drink a glass of warm milk with honey and garlic. Tastes terrible but it helps.
• Sleep as much as possible. Without enough sleep your body can’t recover and you will be longer sick than necessary. Aim to at least nine hours of sleep even skip rehearsals if possible to take extra naps.
• Right before a performance try to use a throat opening gel. I have no experience with them but you can easily aquire them in a drugstore and maybe they help.
• Eat something small and healthy before you perform. That will coat your sore throat and give your body some much needed vitamins.

Okay now you are prepared to face the next flu season so keep going I want to hear your voice!

Often when we learn something new the first step is the biggest one. If you want to learn how to sing then you’ve likely read some articles about breathing, posture or vocal health. But how to really start with singing?

What is singing really? To sing well you just have to produce a certain sound at a certain time. Usually singing “good” is associated with hitting notes right.

Lets say you have five notes in one lyrics line and each of them is sung in another note then all you have to do in order to sound like a professional is hitting these notes well enough. Okay you also have to keep the rhythm (hit the notes at the right time) and you need to hold them long enough but that is not the point.

So the most important thing you have to learn if you want to sing properly is singing notes correct. But how to do that?

I am not a professional singing teacher but I can advise you two methods for your home studies:

#1 Singing by scale

You have an instrument right? If not you should start playing one as soon as possible because the benefits for your singing voice are really huge!

Not only will your ear become much sharper (very important if you want to sing correct) but also your timing and rhythm will become better.

Just be sure that you use an instrument that really helps you to learn how to sing. A flute for example sucks (obvious right?). The best instrument to train singing is a keyboard, a piano or something related. An acoustic guitar is also great.

So what to do exactly? To exercise your voice you need to know which notes you are playing on your instrument so you know “now I am playing a C” and then try to sing this note. If you are new to singing you can just hum or use throat opening words like “mom”. There are words that are easier to sing and words which are much harder. Mom is one of the easier ones .

#2 Sing along a song

Singing by scale is not that easy if you’ve never tried it and don’t have a teacher that can help you. So the even easier method to adopt a good sounding voice is to sing along your favorite songs.

But be careful about what you sing. There are hard songs (with many high notes) and easier songs. Don’t try to sing songs which are out of your vocal range (that does mean you can’t sing that high notes yet).

Also before you sing a song you should know the lyrics. Print them out or write them on a piece of paper. If you think that you can sing the song quite good try to reduce the volumen of the music without reducing your singing volumen.

Do this until you can switch the music of and sing the song a cappella (that means without background music or the voice of the original singer).

You will notice that it becomes easier to sing songs a cappella by time. Also don’t forget to do some vocal warm up exercises before you start either with scales or with singing a song.

So here is my final singing for beginners tip: Don’t be scared too much. There are many experts out there who claim that you can hurt your voice easily by not having a teacher or singing “wrong” but that are just half-truths.

You CAN hurt your voice by (for example) extensive yelling but if you are too scared your body will fall into tension and nothing more than a croack will left your mouth.

How to sing in correct posture? In order to create a loud volumen and produce a beautiful tone the volume chambers in your head and your stomach have to be relaxed.

The most common way for inexperienced singers to correct their singing posture is to “stand straight”. You should avoid such generalizations at any cost because standing straight causes tension in many body parts. And what’s singers worst enemy? It’s tension!

The most important point about good posture is to stand relaxed and natural. Just be sure that your natural posture is not influenced by your modern living standard like sitting all day long in front of a computer.

As a singer it’s always a good idea to visit the chiropractor from time to time to make sure your posture is as natural as possible.

Checklist for correct singing posture

• Place your chin about parallel to the floor.
• Make sure to breathe through the stomach and not through your breast. Practice this by holding your hand on your stomach, breathe natural and your stomach should move up and down slowly.
• Your hands should be at the side of your body. Don’t brandish around with your hands, legs or any other body part.
• Don’t lock in your knees. Keep them loose and relaxed but never squat (that would look funny eh?).
• Avoid rising your shoulders. Keep them down and back but hold your chest high.
• Place one of your foots a bit apart in order to balance your body weight slightly forward.
• If you feel tension or pain in any muscle parts you are either standing in a wrong posture or one of your body parts is hurt. Do not sing when you have a large wound or some of your muscles are cracked.
• Keep your neck loose, relax it! Do the same with your back muscles.
• Try to move fluently. Like when you are dancing. If you can’t dance (you know it when you can’t dance trust me) try to join a karate club or train any other self defense sport. Usually they will help you to exercise fluent movement.

Reasons which can be responsible for bad posture

• Lack of self esteem. Always think positive and confident and your body will adopt your thoughts.
• Overweight! Fifty pounds too much weight can crack even the most professional singer.
• Poor postural habits like sitting in front of a computer the whole day in a bad posture.

Always keep your correct posture even when you are not singing because this will help you to adopt the good position and also protect your body from injuries.

Additional standing in a correct singing posture will show confidence to your audience and improve your self esteem and this will help you to negate the fear of singing.

Exercises to control your posture

#1 Place a book at the middle of your head. Stand in front of a mirror and try to move your head to the left and to the right without losing your chin level and keep your movements smooth. You want to look your audience into their eyes while singing right?
#2 Sing in really bad posture and then sing the same song in good postur. Notice the difference!

Never forget that singing should be fun and if you want to learn how to sing properly don’t make singing a chore.

If you want to learn how to sing losing your fears will be an important lesson on your journey to vocal success. It’s that simple: 90 percent of all singing problems come from some sort of anxiety.

When you are afraid of singing in public (the experts call it decantophobia) or if you believe that you can’t sing really good you will fail. What is singers number one enemy? It’s tension.

We make huge efforts in order to stand in the right posture, relax our vocal cords and keep our voices healthy. Why? Because all these singing exercises will help your vocal muscles to relax.

But if you were once really afraid of something like public speaking, asking a girl for a date or because of this ugly spider in your bedroom you maybe know that fear creates tension in mass.

Going through the forest and suddenly a large and hungry looking lion approaches you will create enough fear to paralyze you. The same goes for the fear of singing: You fear what your audience could say or do and then your throat goes into tension mode and everything that comes out of your mouth will sound like a croak.

Maybe you already know this situation but how can you conquer your fear?

#1 Start believing

Start to believe that you can learn how to sing good, that you can sing beautiful and that your voice is an amazing tool.

When the fear comes back just remember the lines above and remind yourself that you CAN sing beautiful.

#2 Will your audience kill you?

Figure out what really will happen if you sing bad. We tend to exaggerate with the consequences. Your audience will maybe laugh a bit but that won’t be the end of your life right?

There will always be a new and fresh audience where you can try again. At least they won’t kill you and live goes on…

#3 Try at karaoke nights first

Your confidence is still not high enough to approach a real audience or you would like to make a “test approach” first?

Then use karaoke nights! There are so many singing fools who never ever had a singing lesson that you will sound good no matter how good you really are. What’s even better: You are a insecure singer under insecure singers. No one will laugh or throw tomatos.

Learning how to sing can sometimes be scary but if you never give up and keep learning how to improve your self esteem and your confidence one day you will sing like a professional. I know it and you should know it too!