My Thoughts On Becoming A Singer
Who told you that singing was easy? The person who’d been learning for 20 years?
Who told you singing was difficult? The person who had tried a couple times to sing but couldn’t get it right, so quit?
Who told you “With a set of lungs like that, you should be a singer”!? The person who was annoyed at your crying as a child, who didn’t know anything about singing?
And, who told you that only ‘the lucky one’s’ know how to become a singer? Those who had given up on their dream because they couldn’t think of a way to MAKE it happen other than to rely on someone else to give it to them? Read More
Singing Terminology
A Cappella: Singing without any form of instrumental accompaniment.
Accent: Giving a particular note or phrase more stress than the ones before or after it.
Accompaniment: The instrumentation that plays beneath or in support of the singing.
Accompanist: An instrumentalist who plays music beneath the singing.
Alto (or Contralto). Timbre tends to be heavy and full. Vocal Range: E, below middle C, to B below High C. Read More
How to Practice Singing
When it comes to getting the most out of your practice sessions, there are many approaches you can take. However, in my 20 years of teaching and singing, I have experimented with almost all of them. What I have found is that, when you have a formal structure to the elements of vocal health and technique you choose to cover, the following practice session layout tends to cover everything that you need to optimize your results.
Firstly, here are a couple of things you should know… Read More
Singing And Dealing With Performance Anxiety
Sedating The Butterflies
So, you’re a fabulous singer or at least on your way to becoming one, right? However, even though your dreams are big and your determination to achieve them are even bigger, there is one thing which may be creating doubt in your mind as to whether you REALLY want to move forward – PERFORMANCE!!!
Being nervous about getting up in front of an audience of a couple of hundred people – or for some of us, even ONE person other than the one that looks back at us from inside the mirror – is surprisingly common. In fact I reckon it’s safe to say that no-one who has ever performed can say they’ve NEVER felt nervous about it!
Believe me, you are SO not alone when it comes to nerves. I still get nervous EVERY time I perform – no kidding!
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To BE or NOT to be? by Rae Henry
Over the past 12 months, I have been looking much more closely at why some of my singing students achieve great vocal success and others seem to experience very little. Why is that? Why do some people find learning to sing easier than others?
Do the ones that learn readily and make steady progress continuously, possess something MORE than those who experience very little progress do? And seriously, ARE some people just born to do it and some aren’t? Read More
How To Sing High Notes
How To Sing High Notes
One of the most difficult hurdles for a singer to tackle, is learning how to sing high notes. This can be a daunting task, given that we don’t often use this area of our voices during everyday speech. However, one of the most common reasons that singing high notes can be challenging, is due to tension in the larynx and lack of focus in the resonators.
So, here are few singing tips and tricks that will help you release tension, make a more resonant sound and access your upper register with more ease than you thought possible! Read More
How To Sing – Fixing Breaks In The Voice
One of the most common issues that singers experience when learning how to sing, is a ‘break’ in their voice. This usually occurs when you’re singing from your lower register – namely the ‘chest’ register, where you use your ‘speaking’ notes – up to your ‘middle’ register, notes you might use in more animated or excited speech.
Experiencing a break in the voice, is one of the main reasons that alot of singers feel that they don’t have a wide vocal range that allows them to sing many different vocal styles and colours. This is beacause most people feel, that at this point, their voice is trying to alert them to the fact that it is pushed to it’s limit – that there are no more notes to sing.
In actual fact, the potential vocal range of these voices is usually considerably larger and in most cases, the singer is only limited because of a misunderstanding of how the voice and vocal muscles actually work – and DON’T work. Read More
How To Sing For Beginners
Studying the voice and learning how to sing well takes time, patience and above all, PRACTICE! You must allow your body AND your voice time to develop a ‘muscle memory’ so that it can remember how to respond when singing. Repetition is the key to developing a secure technique and this is achieved through regular practice – every day, wherever possible.
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Singing – The Pursuit Of Happiness
…So I was just watching ‘The Pursuit Of Happyness’ on TV and was inspired to write this article…
During my life as a singer and over the last 18 years of teaching singing, I have had many people tell me that they can’t sing. They tell me they’d love to sing but believe that they ‘just don’t have the voice for it’. They go on to tell me their stories of how much they enjoy singing when no-one’s around and how embarrassed they’ve been when someone ‘catches’ them in the act. Needless to say, their happiness and enjoyment that singing brings to them, ends there… Read More
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