Singing: tune your voice from the inside out
I love to play the guitar. When I take my guitar to play, the first thing is to check if it is in tune. With the tuner in my phone, I can adjust the tuning really quickly. But when you’re a singer, how do you tune your voice if your voice and your whole body are your instruments?
The reality is that most people skip his part and then wonder why do they not sound as good, or why do they get tired.
When we are singers, our whole body is our instrument. For a healthy and strong voice that you are in control of, you need to bring into alignment different factors to tune your voice successfully. I’ll talk you through them:
Prepare your posture for singing
Posture is often neglected, and it is crucial for our singing. Our posture modifies our breathing, which is the fuel of our voice. So we want to find a posture that works with us rather than against us.
For singing, a good posture is one that allows your diaphragm to move freely to inhale and to support the air when you sing. Also, it is a posture that allows your upper body muscles to be relaxed and available to support your sound instead of blocking it.
When you’re warming up to sing, make sure that you are aware of your posture first.
Prepare your breathing for singing
Photo by Fabian Møller on Unsplash
As previously mentioned, posture modifies breathing.
And breathing is the fuel of your voice. When you warm up your voice, take a moment to locate your belly breathing first.
Here it is a little checklist of things to consider when you’re warming up your voice:
- Check that you are allowing “belly breathing”
- Check that your inhale is silent
- Check that you are inhaling enough air
- Check that you do not involve your chest breathing when you are singing.
- Check that you are supporting the air when you exhale or sing (the diaphragm comes to its relaxed position slowly)
For more information about breathing, click here
How to prepare your voice production
No matter what your level of singing is when you are warming up your voice, make sure that you are allowing the right muscles to do their thing. To simplify it, make sure that you are not tensing your neck when you are singing.
And the reason why I talked about posture and breathing (in that order) before, is because without a good posture and good breathing you are going to tense up your neck, and that is bad news for the voice. It can make you feel like your voice is powerful, but it is not. It is basically yelling and straining, and in the long (sometimes short) term, it will affect your voice in a very obvious way.
A true strong voice doesn’t damage your voice. The throat is our expression channel, so if we are closing it, there is no true expression because we are damaging it. If we “open” it, true expression can start finding its way, with its numerous benefits not only for the voice but also for every area of our life.
How to prepare your resonators for singing
Photo by Josh Sorenson on Unsplash
When you’re warming up your voice, make sure that the main speakers of your voice are on 🙂 in other words, make sure that you keep the space in your throat and also in your mouth.
A really common mistake is to sing with the mouth closed.
There are lots of things to check that will improve your voice more and more every time. But for now, let’s focus on that for the purposes of this post.
How you open your mouth to sing is also essential. Use our good friend gravity to open your jaw in a relaxed manner, instead of tensing up to open the mouth.
Tune your voice and your whole instrument
To correctly tune your voice, you can check these elements by themselves, and of course, also while using your voice. You can practice your scales and voice warm-ups while you check how you’re using your posture, breathing, voice production, and resonators.
Last but not least, when you tune your voice remember that your whole body is your instrument. Actually, you are your instrument! Your whole being. So, if you want to be in control of it and make the most of it, you have to get to know it. Build body awareness. Learn to feel what is going on inside. Learn to feel the difference between shallow and deep breathing, open and closed mouth. Not from looking in a mirror (although it can be useful when you are just starting), but from feeling them. Feel how your voice changes too, with any small change you make to your body. And even to your thinking and emotions. Feel how different the voice sounds, but also how does it feel in the body to sound like that.
It sounds like a whole lot of things! And it can be like that when you’re just starting your singing practice. But you can practice these things one by one, and eventually, you are going to be able to put them all together at the same time.
Want to learn to sing? join us for singing lessons in Auckland – North Shore (adults, kids and teens), group singing classes in Auckland (North Shore) and online singing lessons (NZ residents)!
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I help people to develop their voice and singing from a holistic approach. I teach vocal lessons in person in Auckland, NZ, and online. Also stay tuned for my new online singing programs!❤️
My greatest passion has always been the voice, music and energy arts.
My personal and artistic journey has led me to understand that the voice and the body are fully connected, and that includes not only the physical body but also the mental, emotional and spiritual body.
Through holistic vocal training you not only learn to become a great singer while taking care of your voice, but you also improve your mental and physical wellbeing❤️
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