Examples of our teachings listed below I still get stage fright, I really have to close my eyes to focus and concentrate otherwise I just totally pretend there's no one in the room Warm-ups, the more you can make your vocal folds think they've already started to work before you actually sing, the better they will operate It also helps to vary whatever you do so that your voice doesn't become used to the same old exercises Your interpretation of a song will improve once your technique is developed. Practice! A good singer makes the song appear easy to sing to the audience Become more than a singer become a musician too Introduce yourself to an instrument (preferably not a melodic one) This will give you an opportunity to learn how to read sheet music and notation and follow rhythms Correct vowel sounds are essential for quality singing Emphasise your vowels Relaxing the throat muscles (larynx, voice box) will give you more singing control Don't waste time over any song that is too big for your voice, or is in an uncomfortable key to sing Be gentle when singing and don't force sound from your throat. Keeping your neck muscles and surrounding shoulder muscles relaxed will increase volume when singing Forcing your voice may cause vocal damage Singing requires the same relaxed process you use as when you speak Singing is just not use of the voice but also the spirit, mind, senses, soul and complete Breathe properly Ever wondered why babies don't get a sore throat from screaming? Because they scream from their stomachs and diaphragm, not their throat To do a song justice you have to tap in to what it means to you Locate your inner performance bubble 
This is a virtual space in which you need to mentally position yourself to perform
Writing a Song A Song needs to draw the listener in with interesting lyrics The hook is a phrase that catches your audiences mind and if the listener remembers anything of the song, it's usually this part it Some songwriters let the music take there songs forward where others prefer words and then music Impact - is it going to stand out in its first listen?
It's about getting your feelings or viewpoint on paper without thinking about it, this you can do later but to be creative at the start is paramount
Melody - is it catchy?
Lyrics - will people be able to sing along/will people relate to them?
Structure - does it "make sense" musically? Does it sound complete?
Musical Setting - is it set in the right genre? Does it use sounds that are in fashion?
A song will usually have a structure i.e verse chorus and middle 8 / break away and if you do some studying on poetry you will learn that one sentance can have more than one meaning
One of the hardest things to write a song about is anything other than love or a relationship, although love songs are very popular, try to write a song about something different to open up your experience and mind set
One of the top selling albums of all time is Sgt.Peppers Lonely Hearts Club band currently at over 32 million sales, we have listed the lyrics below from one of the songs on the album and would like you to think about what is being said and what the meaning is
I read the news today oh boy
About a lucky man who made the grade
And though the news was rather sad
Well I just had to laugh
I saw the photograph
He blew his mind out in a car
He didn't notice that the lights had changed
A crowd of people stood and stared
They'd seen his face before
Nobody was really sure
If he was from the House of Lords
I saw a film today oh boy
The English Army had just won the war
A crowd of people turned away
but I just had to look
Having read the book
I'd love to turn you on
Woke up, fell out of bed
Dragged a comb across my head
Found my way downstairs and drank a cup
And looking up I noticed I was late
Found my coat and grabbed my hat
Made the bus in seconds flat
Found my way upstairs and had a smoke
Somebody spoke and I went into a dream
I read the news today oh boy
Four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire
And though the holes were rather small
They had to count them all
Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall
Click on the album cover to hear the song via You Tube
Contact us at SingerAudition.com if you'd like to know more about song writing
Breathing Why is breathing for singing so important? Because without breath, without air, we have no voice
We need breath in order to produce the sound that is our voice
This is why most vocal instructors would emphasize on breath training right from the very beginning, putting students through rigorous breath training in order to build a good strong foundation for singing
However, before we move on to the basics of our breathing exercises, we need to first know how to execute good breathing for singing
This involves a certain muscle in our body called the Diaphragm, as well as other supporting muscles around the diaphragm
Red shaded area on picture above shows diaphragm
The diaphragm is a thin sheet of muscle separating our rib cage from the rest of our organs below it including our stomach and intestines Its function is to regulate the flow of air in our body, by contracting and relaxing whenever we inhale and exhale
You may have noticed by now, that you can't really control your diaphragm when you breathe It moves involuntarily, meaning you can't tell it to go up or go down like other muscles like your biceps or triceps. What you can do though, is to inhale and exhale, and this causes the diaphragm to contract and relax automatically
So, how do we practise our breathing exercises if we can't control how our diaphragm moves? We can control the muscles surrounding the diaphragm, namely the intercostal muscles around our ribs, as well as our abdominal muscles
These muscles are under our conscious control, and we will be practising some basic exercises for these muscles when we do our breathing exercises for singing
Now, let's begin by first drawing in a deep breath of air
Imagine that you are sucking a deep breath of air through a tiny straw and letting the air go directly into your abdominal area
Try it now and feel the air being drawn into our abdominal area, moving downwards as well as sidewards
The shoulders and chest area should be relaxed when we inhale If we find that our chest area lifts up high or our shoulders are raised when we inhale, then just rest both hands on your chest and repeat the inhalation exercise with our hands resting on a stationery chest
Raising our chest and shoulders is a common habit but it really causes us to draw a shallow breath, and this creates problems later when we need more breath to support our singing, especially for high notes or for long phrases in a song
Imagine that there is a balloon full of air in your diaphragm area
You can also call this your personal air tank First, fill this balloon or air tank with air, employing the techniques taught to you regarding proper breath inhalation
Now slowly release the air from that air tank or that balloon of air bit by bit through a very small hole on the balloon's surface
In order to do that, I would like you to just produce this sound - 'ssss' - using your breath as well as your teeth and tongue, do make sure that the sound produced is a single 'S' sound and not a 'Shhh' sound
Let's work on our first exercise, which is to produce this 'ssss' sound but focusing on making the sound stable and keeping the volume constant
This trains our diaphragm and its surrounding muscles to be able to maintain a constant amount of tension when we sing and also trains our breath control so that we will be able to manipulate the dynamics or the loud and the soft of a song with greater ease
Try it now
This first exercise should have been relatively easy Now, the second breathing exercise builds on the first one but requires more tension in the diaphragm as well as the abdominal muscles
Produce the same 'ssss' sound but this time try to do it as loudly as you can expelling the air through that small hole from your air balloon as quickly as you can
You will find that you should be unable to sustain this loud sound for too long but you would be using more force in your abdominal area when you are producing this sound This trains our diaphragm and its surrounding muscles to be able to handle greater levels of tension which would be necessary for us to support the high notes in a song
Our 3rd exercise for singing is slightly different from the first two exercises. Look at this series of 'ssss' and see if you can produce the sounds that we need "sss sss sss sss sss"
If you produced a series of light and bouncy 'ssss' sounds that is exactly what we would like you to do
This helps us to be able to train our diaphragm to be more flexible and to be able to sing fast songs and staccato sections of a song with greater ease