Building Relaxed Confidence and Healthy Singing Techniques  

 

Many blessings to you in your quest to bring out your unique singing voice.  
         
In this post, I will give you some free basic vocal tips that I have learned over many years of studying voice at various schools including The Royal Conservatory of Music and the Canada Christian College and School of Graduate Theological Studies' Sacred Music Worship Leadership program.  

VOCAL HEALTH  

I will help you to develop a relaxed singing technique and to maintain vocal health. 

VOCAL RANGE

I will give you a few tips on how to assess your vocal range.  

INCREASING RANGE VOCAL RANGE

I will give you a few tips on how to assess your vocal range.  

 

Basic Vocal Health:       

Here’s a list of 👍 “Yeah! Let's Do These!” 😀 

✓ Do a  few gentle range of motion exercises, including gentle stretching and yawning. Yawning helps to open the soft pallet at the back of your throat, which with careful training can help you with your high notes later on.  

✓ Gently raise and drop your shoulders to release tension, and help your shoulders to be low and relaxed where they should be. 

✓ Gently massage your jaw with the back of your hands. 

✓ Drink plain water (either cool or warm).  

Practice Good Posture 

✓Stand up straight but relaxed with your shoulders back and down. 

✓Feet shoulder width apart 

✓Knees relaxed and slightly bent  
 

Learn Deep Abdominal (Diaphragmatic) Breathing 

 

 

Learning deep abdominal breathing and singing with breath control helps to prevent vocal strain and increase power. This is easier than it may sound and can be quite relaxing. 

✓Put one hand on your lower ribs and the other hand on the lower part of your belly with your thumb over your belly button. 

✓As you breathe in a relaxed way through your mouth, let your belly drop out. You can pretend that your belly is filling up like a balloon. 

✓Feel how the air makes your lower ribs expand. 

✓Then slowly release the air on a hissing noise like a balloon with a slow leak. 

✓Feel how your belly and lower ribs slowly get smaller as you breathe out. 

✓When all of the air is out, feel how the air rushes back in deeply to make your belly drop again. 

✓Do this exercise gently, and don’t do it too many times in a row, you don’t want to hyperventilate.

✓Arms at your sides 

✓Look straight ahead 

✓Keep your chin level with the floor, not lowered or raised. 

✓Open your mouth and drop your chin. 

✓Let your tongue be lazy and touch the inside of your lower front teeth.

 

Vocal Warm Ups 🎤 🧣  

 

 

✓Do vocal warm-ups like lip trills, humming, and singing slides on a “hung” or “ah” sound. To do a lip trill: take a deep breath into your lower ribs, and let your belly drop out. Put your lips close together with a tiny bit of space in between. Then bubble your lips, and let the air out through your mostly closed lips until they buzz and sound like a motor boat or a cell phone buzzing. 

✓Sing a vowel like “ah” starting on the notes middle C, E, and G (on a piano 🎹 this is every other white key up from middle C to G.) This is a C major triad chord ascending. If you prefer, these notes in solfeggio starting on the middle do they are: do, mi, sol. Then go back down the C major triad (descending): G,E,C or sol, mi, do. 

 

Assessing Your Vocal Range 

 

✓Once you are warmed up, getting a voice teacher to assess your vocal range is a good idea. 

✓Assessing your vocal range involves starting on the middle C of a piano and singing up the C major scale as high as you can comfortably go without straining: do, rè, mi, fa, sol (and if you can make it comfortably) la, si, do. If you feel a strain you have gone too far, for now. 

✓Then from middle C sing down Do, Si, La, (and if you can make it comfortably) So, Fa, Mi, Re, Do. These are the notes: C, B, A (and if you can make it comfortably …G, F, E, D, and C.) 

A good vocal teacher can help you to gradually and safely expand your vocal range over time.

 

Increasing Your Vocal Range

 

 

✓One way to gradually increase your vocal range is to run some Major triad scales on different vowels with the sounds “au” (like awesome), “eh” (like egg), ee (like see), oh (like open), and oo (like soon). 

✓Other vowel sounds you can sing in sequence are: Tay (like egg),  ee (like see), ah (like autumn), and oh (like open). 

✓And then when the student is ready we can choose songs together in the appropriate range and vocal level for you to sing. 

✓Students can start learning songs either by ear, or I can teach them sight reading.  

✓Lip trilling, humming, or singing the melody on a vowel at first can help you learn the melody and rhythm in a more relaxed way.  

 

A Few Things to Avoid

🛑 Perhaps It Would Be Healthier for You… If You Don’t Do These 👎  

 

 

X   Don’t drink alcohol or smoke: it can dehydrate your throat and make it horse Smoking also hurts your lung capacity which makes singing a lot more difficult.

X    It is better not to have caffeine around the time you are going to sing, because it is a diarrhetic, and can be dehydrating. 

X    Don’t strain your voice by screaming or whispering when you speak or sing. In time I can help you to learn intermediate and advanced vocal techniques. Some of these techniques involve learning how to sing in what is called “mixed voice”. Mixed voice helps you to more easily bridge the gap between high notes (“head voice”) and low notes (“chest voice”). 

 

I can also help you to improve vocal tone, pitch,  and resonance. Music is a gift to give and to receive. The joy of learning music can last a lifetime. Music is a universal language that can bridge gaps between people. In my work in community arts with music, I have seen it help to heal people and bring peace. 

Blessings to you as you learn to add your voice to the eternal song. 

Laura