Vocal Techniques to A Better Voice

If you ask the top vocal coaches in the music industry about the best vocal techniques to a better voice, the long list of tips and tricks up their sleeve from years and years of voice lessons and vocal training will take more than just a “singing tips” article.

If you are up for learning the vocal secrets of the singing elite from the same teaching methodology learned by Geoff Tate, Layne Staley, Chris Cornell, Ann Wilson and more importantly, how to apply them to your own voice, then you should give Vocal Athlete Intensive a try. It’s a 5 day conference where you will learn the best tools that will forever transform your singing career. In the meantime we’ll challenge ourselves to create a short list of the Top 5 singing techniques that will help you improve singing.

Practice

Do you notice that if you don’t practice often your voice gets tired, or sometimes even cracks or loses range? You know that practicing will improve your singing, but you don’t always find the time to fit a full practice session into your day?

The good news is that if you vocalize for 20-30 mins everyday (gigs or band rehearsals don’t count), you will be surprised at how much more ready to sing you will always be. Find a private place where you feel most comfortable to sing out, free and without worrying about who might be listening. During this half an hour, do so slowly and give yourself the time to relax before you start, because nothing is a bigger enemy of meaningful vocalizing than haste.

Healthy Body = Healthy Voice

The voice is an instrument inside your body and you have to learn how to use it to get the most out of it. The environment and the lifestyle excesses such as smoking, drinking or lack of rest can have tremendous negative impact on your vocal health and your ability to perform at peak. Limiting your alcohol intake and avoiding recreational drugs is a must. Alcohol can affect your hearing sensitivity, throwing off your sense of pitch timing and rhythm, while taking drugs is not a threat only for your voice, but for your life as well.

Pamper your throat, back of neck, ears, and chest instead, keep them warm and protected from cold and viruses, and don’t forget to stay hydrated all the time. This will help keeping your vocal cords lubricated and conditioned therefore your voice supple and the tone consistent.

Essential Advise

Eat healthy, sleep well, and ideally exercise daily! This way you will enable your body to achieve a state of relaxation and vocal-cord readiness and will benefit your singing more than you’ve expected. Comfortably upright posture is the key for a for maximum support. Just imagine the sound that you want to create and then release it . . . Sing it using all resources available, the entire physical being, emotions, and spirit.

Breathing Techniques

Even though your abdomen is a starting point, it’s not even half of the battle. If you want to learn how to sing like a superstar, first of all you’ve got to breathe into your ribs and back. Let your diaphragm work for you instead of against you. Open your throat! Here’s a great exercise for that: Put your fingers across the top of your throat. Open your jaw. Do you feel that your throat is moving down? Now lay your fingers across the top of your throat and pinch your cheeks between your teeth hard. Repeat. Did your throat move further down? Practice this daily to stretch and open your throat.

Think “Horizontal” instead of “Vertical” for High Notes

Think of your ascending vocal scale as moving behind you and over your shoulder. And as you descend, think of the vocal scale as moving forward. Change your perception of “high notes” as NOT “up & down” or “higher & lower”. Imagine them as “forward & backward”, or on a horizontal orientation.