Preparation

We won’t go into great depth on Singing technique here, as our goal is solely to master the fundamentals of singing in tune. So we won’t be covering the details of your throat and lungs anatomy, or exercises to “upgrade” your vocal instrument, etc.

However, your singing voice is a physical part of your body, so it’s important to cover some basics of posture, breathing and how to warm up. This will both set you up for easiest results, and help to prevent any possible negative effects such as over-straining your voice.

There are many schools of thought when it comes to teaching Singing technique, but all agree on one thing, which I want to put front-and-center as the most important rule of thumb to keep in mind:

Singing should never feel physically strained or painful.

You may be pushing yourself emotionally, you might run out of breath sometimes, you might need to work a little harder at the far ends of your note range. Some occasional light discomfort is normal, but you should never keep pushing through discomfort or a sense of straining.

Since we’re not aiming here to sing for extended periods of time or at great volume, the only real “danger zone” is trying to sing outside your natural range.

If you’re working on the exercises below and it feels like you’re really having to push hard or strain your voice to reach the note, you may be trying to sing in the wrong octave/register, or too far outside your comfortable range. There is no need to force it.

We’ll talk more about range below, but for now just know that to use Singing as a tool for musicality, you almost certainly have a wide enough comfortable range already to hit any note you need in some comfortable octave. No straining required.

Note: If you’re not yet comfortable singing at all, feel free to wait until the “Matching Pitch” section below to start actually trying out the suggestions below. That will get you singing your first notes, and you can then start incorporating the information below about posture, breathing and warming up as you continue.

Posture

If you choose to go further with singing, posture can be a huge topic. For our purposes, there are just a few basic things to keep in mind:

• Overall, try to minimise tension in your body. Your back, shoulders, neck, and facial muscles should all be relaxed.
• Whether standing or sitting, you want your back to be straight (not slouched).
• Your neck should be straight and aligned with your head and your back. Don’t have your head leaned forwards or pulled backwards.

Breathing

Singing is powered by your breath. To be able to reliably and easily produce strong, clear, well-pitched notes, it is essential that your body is providing enough air to the voice, and in the right way. The speed and concentration of how air is released through the mouth and nose is called the “breath support” for your voice.

Breathing is another huge topic in Singing, but again, for our purposes we only need some basic principles under our belt.

Aspects of Breath Support

Here are some key aspects of breath support, and a couple of simple exercises that will help you become aware of them naturally and easily.

1. Posture

Allowing more air to go through your throat at a slower rate is key to vocal control. To help open your throat, make sure your neck and shoulders are relaxed, and that your head is in a natural position in line with your spine, with your back held comfortably straight. If you’re standing, your weight should be on your heels, not the balls of your feet.

You can also use the “artificial yawning” trick to open the throat: as you breathe in, pull your tongue back. You should feel a cold sensation on the back of your throat which is identical to what it feels like before you yawn!

2. Inbreath

Breathe deeply, and fairly slowly, so that you’ll have a good oxygen supply each time you sing a series of notes. The more air you have in your lungs, the stronger a foundation you have for a good sound. Over time and with practice, you will learn how to breathe more deeply at a quicker rate in a useful way.

3. Outbreath

If you think of a sneeze, you tend to breathe in quite slowly (“aaaaaaaah”), but then the nose and mouth constrict and cause the air to come out extremely quickly (“choo!”). For Singing, it’s better to have more air passing your throat at a slower, more consistent rate than less air passing through faster and more abruptly.

Your lungs, diaphragm, nose and mouth all respond differently to different speeds of air flow, and when singing you want to make sure you don’t force the sound out through your nose and mouth too quickly.

A big secret is that singing quietly requires just as much air as singing loudly. Singing quietly is also a lot harder to sustain than singing loudly, because for loud sounds you can use projection techniques to make your voice carry. For our purposes you’ll generally want to be singing at about the same volume you would speak at when talking to a friend sitting nearby.

4. Efficiency

If you want to sing louder, you breathe out more quickly, sending more air through your throat more quickly. You already understand instinctively how to do this—it’s the same way you raise your voice when speaking, to talk louder or even shout.

You can get control over that airflow pressure in many ways. Your breathing mechanism acts like a balloon and where you push it increases the pressure.

According to the research, some version of “belly-in” breathing is the most mechanically efficient way to increase your pressure. That just means pulling your belly in gently as you’re singing.

Don’t Overthink It!

How are you going to focus on delivering a beautiful song when you’re worrying about your lining up your head and back, opening up your throat, how fast or slow your air is moving, whether it’s time to add more breath support or…?

The answer is, you don’t need to worry about it. All we want is to be able to breathe in freely and easily, and then tailor our air use to what we’re going to sing. For example, if you’re singing just a few notes to use Singing as a tool, you don’t need to take a huge breath in each time.

You’ll only need to increase pressure actively if you’re singing loudly or at the end of a long phrase and your breath supply is running low. In most cases if you just get the musical intention right, and your vocal control is on track in your throat, the breathing will probably take care of itself.

Warming Up

You probably wouldn’t think of Singing as particularly physically demanding, compared to something like sports. You don’t move around that much, you only use a handful of muscles, you needn’t get out of breath or work up much of a sweat.

And yet, Singing is surprisingly similar to a sport, and as with sports, it’s important to warm up the body beforehand.

Since this chapter is focused on using Singing as a tool, doing dedicated warmups is probably overkill. However, if you find yourself starting to sing a lot during practice, or if you want to really develop your singing voice, then it will be well worth learning some simple warmup exercises you can do to best prepare your voice for the task at hand. We have included a guide with beginner, intermediate and advanced warmups, with accompanying audio demonstrations in the Additional Resources.

One simple tip worth mentioning here is to make sure you’re well hydrated. Drinking some water before or periodically during singing practice can help to ensure your vocal muscles will perform at their best.