How to Sing better right now!
HI guys! I’m Madeleine Harvey, and thank you for joining me today! We have a super exciting video planned! We’re going to be talking about how you can sing better right now! This video is intended to empower you to take command of your voice, and start singing better immediately! So if you’re finding that you’re getting frustrated with your voice, you can use the tips in this video as a checklist to keep you focused, moving forward, and of course improving. So if you like today’s video, be sure to give it a thumbs up and click the subscribe button below. I would love to see you here more often!
1. We’re going to start with the big one! And that’s creating space! Most of the tips that we’ll talk about today filter back into this one fundamental idea. And I feel that this is where you’re going to see most of your improvement. One of the very first things that you’ll want to do before you start singing is stretch your face. Singing is all about guiding your vibrations into tiny spaces inside of your face. It’s called resonance. You’re ability to do this will effect your tone quality, your power and your pitch. So bring as much aliveness into your face as you can stand! Make your eyes really big, flare your nostrils and feel the coolness of the air circulating into your nose space. Just get to know that feeling of openness. Then send a couple of sighs into your face and notice how you can feel the vibrations landing into the areas that you’re focusing on.
2. Pitch matching. If you feel that you may struggle sometimes with matching pitch in your singing that simply speaks to a lack of muscle memory that’s all. The ear bone is connected to the voice bone and that’s connected to the space bone. So get to know pitch and intervals by playing with small variations in sound. Humming works wonders because it moves the sound forward into your mask and allows you to register that resonance as well as the movement in the pitch. Bring that aliveness that we talked about our number 1 tip into it as well. That will allow for you to deliberately focus on the energy that’s needed to stay on pitch.
3. Articulation. Something a lot of singers do when they’re just getting started is mumble when they sing. Not only do we not understand what they are saying, but mumbling also creates a collapsed feeling in the face and there goes the neighborhood. Can you sense a pattern? How everything really relies on the need for space? Well done! So use articulation by over emphasizing your words. Notice how the articulation keeps the tone focused forward as well as your thoughts clear and projected. This is going to feel really weird. But signing is larger than life! So get used to it! Really, develop a sense of comfort with bigness.
4. Experimentation. Don’t be scared to look silly. Or play with a sound or a shape that may feel like it doesn’t sound like you. At the end of the day, it’s all about access to spaces. When you are exploring the space in your face where the sound needs to take place, you may need a little assistance from a crazy sound to get you there. I demonstrate crazy sounds all the time in lessons, and I will get a lot of resistance from singers who are just starting out because they don’t want to sound bad, or annoying. If you have a need for a specific tone quality, and refuse to play with sounds that are going to help you have access to bigger parts of your voice because those sounds take you away from that quality, you’re never going to have access to your potential. Of course you can have a vision for what areas of your voice you want to polish and use the most, but don’t be afraid to get really comfortable with the absurd and the unknown. All in the name of exploration. So adopt a playful frame of mind and see what new qualities you can discover. Feel those new sensations and get comfortable with the absurd that’s how progress is made.
5. Make good choices. When it comes time to perform, begin in your comfort zone. It’s so much better to build comfort and confidence with performing by choosing a simple song and doing it well, rather than sabotaging yourself with a song that you may need some time to develop. So choose a song that feels extremely natural and conversational to you. You want to wake up your voice with small progressions. Another benefit to choosing a relatively easier song when performing is you can anchor the feeling of comfort and simply enjoy the process of performing. And flex your performing muscles by focusing on communicating the lyrics and effectively expressing your point of view through the story.