Tag Archives: exercise

Why am I singing flat?

What are the main reasons people sing flat?

Developing singing skills is just like learning any instrument. To be able to sing on pitch and not sound flat you need to develop your singing technique,

be able to hear whether you are singing on pitch or sounding flat, and you require the confidence, energy and songs suitable for you to sing.

Poor breath support

Without steady airflow, the vocal folds don’t vibrate efficiently, causing notes to sag below the correct pitch.

Signs:

  • Notes start in tune but drift flat.
  • Long notes get lower as they continue.
  • The voice sounds weak or breathy.

Making sure you practice regularly to build good breath support is very important.

Ear training

A lack of ear training can have a lot to do with singing flat.

Sometimes the singer simply isn’t hearing the pitch accurately enough to match or maintain it.

Signs:

  • Difficulty matching a single note.
  • Trouble noticing when singing is out of tune.
  • Better pitch when singing with others than alone.

Your singing is boring

Flat singing can happen when the singer isn’t fully committing to the sound.

This is common with shy or inexperienced singers that aren’t adding enough energy, even when singing softly.

Signs:

  • Singing quietly or hesitantly.
  • Pitch improves when singing confidently.
  • Better tuning during energetic songs.

Song range is too challenging

Trying to sing notes that are too low or too high can make it difficult to maintain accurate pitch.

Signs:

  • Lower notes lose resonance and go flat.
  • High notes become strained and drop in pitch.
  • The voice feels uncomfortable.

Sing like Adele: Easy on me

Today we are going to have a look at a very small section of Adele’s song Easy on me.

We are just going to do the very beginning of the chorus:  Go easy on me baby.

There are a couple of things to look at in this small section of the song.

It’s a great song, and if you haven’t listened to the whole song you can click on this link to listen to it on you tube.

The song is in F major, and this phrase begins with the tonic note, which is the beginning not of the scale -F and then you sing up a fifth, or leap up, which is the fifth note of the scale which is C.

You will find fifth intervals in lots of songs. Intervals are important to practice so that when we sing them, we land accurately on them.

Practice on the sound ng, which is the sound at the end of the word sing. The sound is closed (the tongue and soft palate are together) but you can open your mouth when you sing. This aims the sound into the front of the face.

You want to glissando (slide) up and down.  As you go up, think more like you are landing on the note rather than revving up a hill.

 

Onsets

When you are attacking a phrase, especially one that begins with a vowel, there are a number of different ways you can sing it.

  1. Clean onset: the vocal chords come together cleanly with the sound to make a smooth, light and clear sound. To do this, connect the two words go-easy, like one word to keep it smooth.
  2. Aspirate/breathy onset. Air is pushed through the vocal chords to make a breathy, airy sound. Adding a h also makes it even more breathy.
  3. Glottal onset. The vocal chords come together quite hard to make a very strong and hard sound.

 

 

A great book for beginning singers

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SINGING PRACTICE

5 Things you can do to improve your singing practice.

You can listen to this blog post here:

5-tips-for-better-singing-practice

As singers, we all want to be able to practice regularly to improve our skills. But sometimes we are not sure about what we need to make our practice sessions worthwhile.  Below you will find 5 tips to help you make the most of your practice time and achieve success.

Tip Number 1:

Make sure you have all the materials you need to practice.

  • Use sheet music when practicing, not just lyrics. We are musicians and should be able to read music.  The sheet music also gives important  clues about things like tempo and dynamics.

 

  • Invest in a music stand. It is important you have something to put your music on that you can stand at. You can get collapsible stands that fold away neatly.  I have a manhasset music stand which is more expensive, but is really easy to use and very solid. You can click on the pictures if you want to order them online.

    stand-foldupmanhasset-stand

 

                              fold away stand                                               Manhasset stand

 

  • Make sure any device that you use for playing backing tracks is loud enough to sing along with.  You might need to invest in some speakers if you are using an ipad or phone.  Don’t practice using headphones. This is a bad habit to get into as you can’t hear yourself properly.

 

headphones  Headphones are great for listening to music but not so good for practice.

Tip number 2:

Have a designated place to practice.

  • Have a special, clean, private ready to start in space.  Having a space always ready for singing makes it much easier to get started. If you are always having to pull things out to get started, or have to practice in a space where other people are, you are less likely to get going.

    practice-room

Tip number 3:

Be clear about what you need to practice.

  • Always have a plan about what you want to work on during the week between lessons.  Make sure you have discussed with your teacher what will be required and then have some way to record what you have done. This way you can account for your practice sessions.

Tip Number 4:

Make it part of your routine. EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.

  • Singing practice should be a part of your every day routine.  Just like brushing your teeth or having a shower, we need to find time each day to practice our singing. If you start this from the beginning it is easy to reinforce. For young students, parents really need to be present in the beginning to encourage this routine.  Make a time and stick to it, whether it be in the morning or afternoon. If no time is dedicated to practice, it simply will not happen.

    practice-poster

Tip Number 5:

Warm up, then chunk it.

  • Make sure you warm up well. Have a warm up routine that you can do in about 5 minutes.   Here is a link to a website with some great ideas on warming up. Click here.

  • Don’t try to do it all at once, break it up.  Hopefully your teacher has highlighted what needs to be worked on.  Focus on those small sections and get them correct, then put it all together.

  • A couple of 10 minute sessions each day is much better than trying to do an hour at a time. Committing to 20 – 30 minutes each day is quite achievable – this equates to at least 3 hours practice a week.

Use these five tips you are guaranteed to have success with your singing.  Remember singing is a skill and can be developed like any instrument.  Your success depends on your practice!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Mary Mirtschin

Mary Mirtschin

How to get back into a practice routine

boy singingIt’s the beginning of 2016 and you haven’t practiced any singing since before Christmas.  Does that sound like you? I am a little bit guilty of this too.  The Christmas season was so busy for me I hardly had any time for anything else. It was a wonderful time celebrating with family and friends and I did sing heaps of Christmas carols, but most things like practice got put aside.  Now with the new year we find ourselves back into more of a routine, but finding the motivation to get back into practice can be a bit challenging.
You might want to start by sitting down and writing out a couple of goals for your singing this next couple of months.  My goal at the moment is to come up with a list of ten songs I would like to start learning as I need to build up my repertoire for performance and auditions.
However, it is important that I don’t start singing all these 10 songs straight away. Over this week all I am trying to do is get my voice back in shape.  I need to do my vocal “push ups”. Just like the rest of our body, if we don’t exercise consistently, things get out of shape.  My vocal chords and the surrounding muscles need to get a good work out.
I need to do this slowly, a bit to start with and then lengthen my sessions later on in the week.
So to start I will just do some light warm ups.  Sirens, bubbling lips, humming etc.. through my vocal range. Then some exercises to extend my vocal range and work on my resonance and then get into learning songs.
Starting with 15 –  20 minutes and then gradually increase this time over the week.
Just like the rest of your body,  if you go out and exercise full on straight away, you will most likely be very sore the next day or may even do some damage.  Your voice is the same.  Go slowly and gradually build up your strength and stamina.
Here are a couple of exercises to get you started:

Breathing:

 

5 note scale on ah:

 

practice makes perfect