Improve Your Singing Voice

Improve your singing voice

Here are a few free singing tips to help you develop your voice. I've chosen to write about a few important singing points that will help you to sing with less vocal tension, and expand your vocal range. These clues may sound a little bizarre at first, but you will soon understand their meanings when you put your voice to work!

Use a slight Irish accent when you sing. Sound weird?! I agree, it does sound a little strange to put on an accent when you sing. But there is a reason for this strange technique.

What would you say if I told you that the Irish accent is the perfect accent for singing? It has a few built-in-functions that allow the voice to release, keeping singing very easy and relaxed. Singing this way will engage only the correct muscles required to sing. The troublesome muscles (that try and interfere with the process) will sit perfectly still.

Here's an example....

If you say the word "Are" with a exaggerated wide mouth, you will feel the muscles under your chin begin to tense up. These are the muscles that you don'twant to play a part in the singing process. Give it a try......really exaggerate the "A" and feel your chin begin to get really tight. Ouch!

But if you say it in an Irish tone, kind of like how a pirate would say "Arrrrrrr matey!" When you say "Arrrrrrr", can you feel how your mouth stays quite narrow and very relaxed? You get this relaxed feeling because the Irish accent prevents the incorrect singing muscles from interfering...

...Good news if you're already Irish!

Use a cry-like-tone when you sing. This technique is used by some of the greatest singers in the world. Next time you hear Michael Jackson, listen to how he places a slight cry at the beginning of each note.

Placing a slight cry underneath your voice will dramatically sweeten your tone quality. It will also allow you to sing with much less vocal tension, making it easier to hit high notes. Such a simple exercise, yet so effective!

You can practice your crying tone by singing "hoooo" as in "Boo Hoo". Try to really exaggerate the crying tone, and feel the ease at which this allows you to produce your tone.

Personally, every word I sing benefits from this crying technique. Not only does it add sweetness to the tone quality, but it adds emotion to the performance as well.

Keep your tone slightly dopey to hold your larynx in a still position.

Your larynx is your "voice box" that sits in your throat. It is a grouping of muscle, cartilage, and ligaments. Inside the larynx are the vocal folds, or vocal chords. These are the muscular folds that vibrate to produce the initial sound. The sound that then passes up into your facial structure becoming amplified by the resonant spaces...

It is very important that the larynx is very stable when you sing. Singing with bad technique seems to engage the muscles that surround the larynx......the outer muscles of the larynx. When this happens, these muscles force the larynx up and down. This makes it incredibly difficult to sing high notes, and it also destroys tone quality. In other words, to sound any good, you must learn to disengage these outer muscles.

A very effective technique to achieve this is to use a slightly dopey tone when you sing. This dopiness will offset the larynx just slightly, gently pulling it down by a small amount. This slight offset will allow the larynx to hold it's position when you sing.

Singing with your larynx in a stable, central position is one of the most important singing techniques. When you can do this, you are halfway to singing at speech level ie: singing with the same ease as speaking. Of course, with the technique I just explained, the larynx isn't completely central. Because of the dopey tone, the larynx is a fraction lower than the central position.

As you continue to master this technique though, you can abandon this slight offset. The dopey tone will train the outer muscles of the larynx to relax. Once this is happening, you can reduce the dopey tone until it is completely normal. The larynx, which has now been conditioned to sit still, will not move.

In Summary

Here are the key lessons to remember from these free singing tips.

1) Sing with an Irish accent

2)Use a cry-like-tone to sweeten tone quality

3) Add a dopey tone

Let us know your top singing tips