If you’re here because you want a taste of the vocal training professional Rock Stars get that teaches them the core skills needed to significantly improve their vocal quality and performance, then you’ve come to the right place!

So let’s break it down into what you’ll be learning over the next few weeks.

In this 5-part Video Minicourse, you’ll learn the secrets to becoming a better singer than you are right now! Think of this as the appetizer.

We’ll be covering vocal warm-ups and breathing exercises that will give you increased power and volume in your singing.  We’ll also be talking about posture, correct mouth, tongue and teeth position, annunciation, and basic rules for choosing songs and going to an audition. You’ll learn how to achieve perfect pitch to sing in key, when to use your ‘head voice’ so as not to strain your vocal chords, and how to breathe correctly in any song. And if you find these FREE lessons helpful and are even more serious about improving your singing, then we recommend a more in-depth vocal training program, like the FREE singing program from Singorama. So let’s get started, shall we?

LESSON #1: Singing With Power

Today we are talking about proper breathing. I can almost hear you now thinking: “what are you talking about “proper” breathing? I breathe all the time. I thought I was going to learn about singing with a stronger, louder voice.” Yes you do breath all the time and yes you will learn about singing with power but they are both achieved by breathing properly.  Proper breathing refers to the proper way the human body was meant to breathe. There is also a more shallow-type of breathing that most bodies will slip into on occasion – or more regularly. Shallow-type breathing is not recommended for singing.

What is proper breathing?

If you were to watch a baby’s chest while it lay there quietly breathing, you would notice that the upper abdomen expands (rise; get bigger) when the baby inhales (breaths IN), and constricts (lowers; goes down) when the baby exhales (breaths OUT). This is the proper way we are intended to breath. Nearly all children and adults will fall into proper breathing when they are relaxed or sleeping however many times while they are awake and conscience, they take on a shallow type of breathing. When you are shallow breathing, your shoulders will rise and your chest will expand on the inhale, then your shoulders will drop back down and your chest will constrict on the exhale. This is NOT the type of breathing you want to do when you sing.

Why is proper breathing so important?

The way you breathe has a direct impact on your singing voice. It affects:

• The power in your voice (volume, strength & intensity)
• Your vocal duration in a song (how long/how many beats you can hold the notes)
• Your stamina in a song (how you maintain tone, volume and strength throughout the song or basically how you last throughout the song. For example: are you weaker at the start of a song or do you get weaker at the end of it? This shows your vocal stamina)
• The health of your instrument (your singing voice is your instrument and is made up of: mouth, teeth, tongue, vocal chords, trachea, lungs, and diaphragm)

Watch this video clip of Lisa Smith, explaining the importance of breathing and follow along as she demonstrates how to use her favourite breathing exercises to strenghten your singing and add power to your voice.

Another favourite and challenging exercise is to sing the alphabet from start to finish on one note. This requires a lot of practice and a lot of breath control. If you find you are not able to get to the end without taking a breath, make a note of which letter you were at when you ran out of breath and the next time, try and increase it by one or two letters.  Before long you will be able to sing the full alphabet in one breath without becoming out of breath by the time you hit the letter Z.

Excellent!  You have just completed the very first basic fundamental in learning to sing with Lesson 1 in the 5-week Learn to Sing Video Minicourse, featuring Lisa Smith. By doing these proper breathing exercises, you will build a strong foundation to becoming a better singer. Keep up the proper breathing exercises and we’ll see you again in a week with your next FREE lesson.

What’s next…

Our next lesson will talk about mouth formation and what you can do to improve your annunciation and pronunciation that will also help your volume, along with more cool exercises to build upon the foundation you set in Lesson 1 with proper breathing. See you soon!

Your Personal Vocal Coach