Early Singing Techniques
My name is Mandy Ebel, and I am an experienced professional Singer/Songwriter, and Music Teacher teaching at Elite Music Academy in Toronto, ON. I just thought I’d write an essential vocal tip that you can try at the beginning stages of learning proper singing techniques.
When I have a new student I feel that one of the most important things to start off with is tone placement. Mostly just to get the student in the habit of GETTING YOUR SOUND TO COME FROM THE DIAPHRAGM AND NOT FROM THE THROAT! A tone coming from the throat is not so clear, it will COMPLETELY restrict how HIGH AND LOW your voice can go, and it will damage your voice. So… I like to focus on doing the extreme opposite of getting your pitches out of your throat. I try to bring my students pitches to the front of their mouth, instead of the back of their throat. This is how you do it.
1. Take a proper breath into the diaphragm. (Drop jaw, take in air, your tummy should come out, and your chest should sink while you take the breath, YOU SHOULDN’T HEAR THE BREATH- OTHERWISE – it’s a breath into the chest and not the diaphragm!)
2. Press in your tummy in one long “hum” out…let the breath come out in pitch form ( a midrange one) kind of out of the nose. Your throat, tongue, jaw and mouth should be AS RELAXED AS POSSIBLE! Your airway up through the throat should try to be as open as possible, and you should be in proper singing stance. The tongue should be placed, more frontal, right behind the front teeth and sitting on the bottom of the mouth relaxed.
3. Focus the tone in the nasal, upper lip area while humming, and also between the eyes in the forehead area. You should feel a buzzing vibration happening in these areas, if you are doing it properly.
Singing and learning singing techniques is not just SINGING A NOTE…. IT’S SINGING A NOTE PROPERLY! Believe me… it’s hard to sing one single note thinking of all these millions of things… but it’s ESSENTIAL, if you want to succeed at it! All it takes is Committed practice and attention paid to your physical and mental body. After a while these techniques become fluent and familiar, they will become second nature for you : )
DON’T GIVE UP!
Try this technique moving up in pitches (semitones), until you can’t reach any higher.
If you would like to book a Free half hour consultation with Mandy Ebel at Elite Music Academy, please call 416-406-5355, ext.1 for bookings. For more info about Mandy check out her Music, Bio, Shows dates, Pics, and more at www.myspace.com/mandyebel, and www.myspace.com/opalstonemuzik.
