So you want to improve your singing?

You’ve chosen a song, you’ve bought the sheet music, you’ve probably listened to another singer perform it a few times on YouTube and you’ve probably sang along with the music in front of the mirror a couple of times too, but how do you improve?

The answer is simple. The best way to improve your singing voice is… practice. Ta daaaa!

I personally work with students ranging from absolute beginners to the seasoned professionals, both male and female, young and old. Some singers visit me to ensure they’re in peak condition for a concert, an audition or a recording session, others come to me for guidance on how to improve their technique or to achieve better levels of confidence and others come to me simply because they love to sing — and because coaching is seriously fun!

The one thing that the successful students share – no matter at what level they are at or what those particular successes are – is that they go home and practise. It doesn’t matter where they practise, or what they practise, but in my experience, the students who glean the most from vocal coaching are those who take their voice away and put what they have learned into practice.

Are you noticing a theme?

Whilst working with a singer together in the studio, we pick a song together and pull it apart and focus on technique, focus on what can be improved and how we can do this most effectively. I will frequently utilise various singing exercises to help master a section of music and I’m also a sucker for metaphor to guide you into using these techniques with ease (just wait and see as the blog grows!)

When you leave the lesson, I would love you to go home and have a look at that particular piece of music and practise it, especially for the intermediate levels, if you’re working towards an exam or audition, it’s important to get that particular piece right. However, it’s really important that you know: The techniques you learn in a lesson can usually be applied the other songs you sing too!

Think about that next time you start a new song, think about patterns you may have seen before, figure out the danger zones and think about where you may have to concentrate hardest in order to sing it correctly first time and then see how this helps you formulate a ‘smart practice’ each and every time you start working on a new song.

Your voice utilises a huge number of muscles to work. The more you sing, the more you will flex those funky muscles. In time this could help you expand your pitch range both higher and lower, it will improve your confidence, your stamina and your personal understanding of the noises you’re able to make. Learning to sing properly is akin to training to be an athlete. It takes a lot of effort, a lot of work and a lot of practice.

The quickest, simplest and most effective way to improve your singing: Put what you have learned into practice, no matter where or when. If you enjoy frequent practice it becomes inevitable that your singing skills will improve.