I love to sing, and I do it all sorts of places and times. But sometimes, I don’t feel like it when I’m supposed to. It is unfortunate when those times coincide with a concert or important rehearsal! Waking up the body and brain can wake up enthusiasm, or at least get us a step […]
Tag: practice
Warming up your own way
Everyone has their own way of warming up to sing. Because I’m an analytical teacher with a tendency to overthink, I need to direct myself toward more primal, spontaneous sounds to get my singing self going. Orderly sequences of scales and arpeggios are great for the heart of a practice session, but not for the […]
Fixing things – heart and head
Singing involves the whole singer – the physical and nonphysical. It is common advice that we should do the thinking and analysis in the practice room and studio, then on stage, we should have background habits in place so that we can direct our energy toward expression. No argument there, but how to handle the […]
Sneaking up on yourself in the practice room
I enjoy taking a voice lesson with an excellent teacher. It is a wonderful experience to switch back to the other side of the teacher-student equation, and I can often sort out a vocal issue more easily with another teacher than on my own. But all singers who practice must learn how to work on […]
Outsmarting the Smart Student
The way to get to free, un-self-conscious, non-manufactured singing is to elicit spontaneous responses that move toward easier ability. In functional teaching, it is my goal to get a spontaneous vocal response through exercises, in teamwork with the singer. [Sidebar: “teamwork” is crucial. I’m not imposing “good singing” on a singer.] When something “works better” […]
Potential in Every Note
The messa di voce is the act of beginning a single pitch softly, making a crescendo, then a diminuendo. It was considered important both as an expressive device and as a training tool in many Old School singing methods. It is found in the method books of Garcia (Hints on Singing #29), Marchesi (exercise #174), […]
Spontaneous Vocalism
In training we often get the spontaneity trained out of us. We end up with an over-cultured, manufactured, formed, packaged, and delivered vocal product. It might be an attractive sound, although usually it is not so good, but it isn’t free. Why not cultivate singing that is free, easy, joyous, and spontaneous? Spontaneous? How can […]
Shortcuts to Singing Success?
There are a lot of people on the internet with a “method” for singing that they claim will teach you to sing like a professional quickly and easily. I was just looking at a website of one such person who claims to have helped hundreds of performers to become excellent singers with with rock-solid confidence […]
How to Learn a Song
In his book “Music and the Flute” Thomas Nyfenger quoted another master flutist, Julius Baker, who said this about slow, deliberate practice: “If you never make a mistake, you’ll never make a mistake.” This is a really difficult thing for beginners to truly understand. Below is a section from a typical classical flute piece, “Trois […]
How to practice – for singers
What should I practice? When should I practice? How much should I practice? WHEN AND HOW MUCH I often use sports skills as an analogy to singing. To improve, you should practice regularly. Five or six days per week is good. Shinichi Suzuki, the great pedagogue, said “Only practice on the days you eat.” I […]
When “real life” interferes with art
Many of my students are very busy people. They have demanding jobs, family responsibilities, or school homework that make time management complicated. I myself have days when there is so much “to do” that practice time is diminished or relegated to very late at night, which seems to be the “only” time I can practice. […]
Tips on using recordings in the practice room
When I record myself in practice sessions, I find that I have to beware of the tendency to want to record the same thing over and over, trying to fix it once and for all. If you find yourself doing that, it’s important to step away from the microphone and take a break! What are […]