Many people enjoy singing because it is an entertaining and fun way to express ourselves, not only to express our emotions and our tastes, but also an artistic medium that almost everyone can resort to. However, not all of us have a voice that can be sonorously pleasing to the ears of others.
It is then when learning vocal technique and tuning becomes essential for the person who wants to develop their voice, either to please the ears of others or to perfect, improve and develop their own vocal skills.
Many people think that to sing well you have to be born with a good voice. This is a myth, no one is born with the ability or inability to sing, at least not generally, unless there is some organic or psychological disorder that affects the development of a person’s voice and speech. But in general we can all sing and we can all learn how to sing better.
To develop our voice, the only important thing is to have perseverance and good sense. If we are aware and constant of how we are conducting our voice training, we will make the most of our talent by molding and developing it. To achieve this, we want to show you some indications that will be useful when learning to sing.
Before starting with the article and taking the advice that we will show you, you should consider that there are several factors that can affect your voice. These factors can range from the food we eat, the way we eat it, how we deal with our common illnesses (such as the flu or fevers), and even the formation of nodules in our throat.
What do you need to sing?
- Watch out
- Constancy
- Vocal technique
Instructions for Singing
- The first thing we must take into account are our common habits. As we mentioned at the end of the introduction, there are several factors that can affect the quality of your singing voice. For example, smoking, drinking alcohol, consuming irritating or high-fat foods are actions that can affect the quality of our voice. In the case of foods high in fat or other irritants such as coffee or spicy food, these affect us because by increasing the amount of gastric acid, when it goes up through our esophagus to our throat, it can wear down the vocal cords, hurting them.
- You have to understand that the vocal cords are a muscle like any other found in our body, the difference is that the vocal cords are not protected by a membrane as in the case of the rest of our body, it is the skin. The vocal cords are always at the expense of what may happen to them. For this reason, it is extremely important to avoid such customs or habits.
- A diet abundant in vegetables and white meat, low in fat, can help us maintain the health of our throat. It is also important to avoid cold or strong drinks such as soft drinks and liquors. In the same way, very hot foods must be avoided. Ideally, you should not eat cold food before singing and not eat very hot food in general. It’s not about skipping food or not being able to eat ice cream again, it’s just about eating wisely and consciously.
- It is important that you drink a lot of water. A person with an excellent prodigious voice and good vocal technique can sing horrible if dehydrated. The vocal cords need constant hydration so that when singing the voice comes out clean and with the right potential. Wanting to sing dehydrated is like stretching our skin after washing it without applying any cream or moisturizer, we will only wear it down. Many singers even spend whole gallons of water during the periods in which they record a record. That is why it is important to drink water constantly throughout the day and before singing, preferably 2 to 3 liters of water or whatever you need.
- It is very important that you warm up before singing. Sometimes the reason why our voice does not sound as powerful or powerful as before or as we thought it could be, is due to the imprudence of singing without first warming up our throat or preparing our lungs. It is important to warm up at least ten minutes before singing, and when singing, make sure that the songs we sing start out simple, and gradually increase the power. In this way we will not force our vocal cords, preventing it from being damaged unnecessarily. Making a sound very similar to a cat’s purring for 5 minutes is a very good way to warm up our throat.
- It is also important to take care of our respiratory system. Singing requires the retention and controlled expulsion of air. For this reason, part of the power and volume of our singing will depend on the amount of air that our lungs can retain. Because of this it is important that you do cardiovascular exercise. In this way we will be training our respiratory system at the cardiopulmonary level, which will help us control air retention when singing. It is not about exercising when we sing, but about exercising at a certain time of day, and that this helps us improve our body, which will make it easier for us to sing later.
- It is also of the utmost importance to learn how to breathe. Often when we speak the air inflates our chest. This should not be so when singing. When singing, our stomach should inflate naturally, in the same way that it inflates when we are sleeping. This will help us retain more air and in an easier way when singing. It is important to take at least 5 minutes a day to do breathing exercises. This just requires you to take in as much air as possible to fill your lungs as much as you can and slowly release as much air as you can. You need to repeat this process a few times. It is possible that you get a little dizzy, it is natural, but your body will get used to it in a positive way.
- Another very important thing is not to confuse the speaking voice with the singing voice. When we raise our speaking voice, what we get is screaming, and this may or may not hurt our throat. But when we raise our singing voice, all we achieve is make it sound louder or sharper, without this negatively interfering with the health of our throat. The singing voice is not the same as the speaking voice. The singing voice is one that comes out naturally, being able to scale volumes allowing harmony, while the speaking voice has a constant volume and when its intonation rises it sounds high, aggressive, there was hostile, not harmonious or melodic.
- There are two types of singing voices, the chest voice and the head voice. The chest voice is very similar to the speaking voice, it does not use a melodic intonation that can harmoniously scale the volumes, but a more potential voice that often requires belting. Belting is a singing technique in which we achieve treble by scaling volumes by forcing our voice a little. You will be able to tell a difference between belting and head voice if you listen for example to the singers Elyze Rid and Tarja Turunen. Singer Elyze Rid uses a vocal technique in which she often belts, while singer Tarja Turunen uses head voice.
- Depending on the genre you want to interpret, you may use head voice or chest voice. The head voice is more common in opera, classical singing and classical crossover, while the chest voice is more common in R&B, Jazz and Pop. You can develop both types of techniques, that is up to you. The most important thing is that you take care of your voice.
- If you wish you can also use a piano to refine your voice. For this you only have to imitate the intonation of the piano with your own voice. It can be a bit difficult at first if you have difficulty with low or high tones. Climb only those that are possible for you. Do not force your voice, let it develop normally and you will notice how you can advance in this step. This way you will not only be able to expand your vocal register, but you will also be able to help refine your voice.
Tips for Singing
- We hope that the advice that we have been giving you throughout this article has been very useful to you.
- Something you can also do to help develop your voice is to sing songs by artists that you like and that you feel you can relate to those songs.
- You can also use the songs as a ladder. Start with easy songs, until you can sing songs that require a more developed voice.