PRACTICE TOOLS |
INSIGHTS & INFORMATION |
WHAT AND HOW TO PRACTICE
Be open to mixing up your warm-up and practice routine depending on how your voice feels on any given day: some days you might need extra breath work, others you might need more resonance or vowel placement work, some days you may need to spend more time with warm-ups than others. Listen to your voice and body, and do what's best for you and the demands of your repertoire.
PRACTICE EVERY DAY (shoot for that, a least :)
Depending on your skill level and discussions with your teacher, shoot for 20-60 minutes of practice every day. However, any practice, even 5 minutes, is better than nothing! (Example: 5 minutes of warm-ups, 5-20 minutes of technical exercises, and 15-30 minutes of repertoire work).
Depending on your skill level and discussions with your teacher, shoot for 20-60 minutes of practice every day. However, any practice, even 5 minutes, is better than nothing! (Example: 5 minutes of warm-ups, 5-20 minutes of technical exercises, and 15-30 minutes of repertoire work).
Relaxing, Stretching, and Exercising your voice:
1. Warm Up Body and Voice: Begin with gentle stretching, humming, sliding, and breathing exercises (+/- 5 minutes)
2. Work Out: Sing exercises up and down your range. Start in your middle/comfortable range then move up and down. (+/- 15 minutes)
3. Isolate: Focus on each of the following individually while you sing your regular exercises or create your own to address specific problems:
Practicing your repertoire
1. Always begin with warming up.
2. Isolate each part of the music: When first learning a song, practice the elements of the piece separately until each is comfortable before combining them together: clap the rhythm, speak the text, speak the text in rhythm, sing each phrase of the melody on a single syllable or just the vowel line. Once the song is learned, this step can be skipped.
3. What is the song about?: Translate the text if necessary. Do a word-for-word translation for songs in a foreign language. What is the narrative? The mood? What are you trying to convey as the storyteller?
4. Vowel Line: Know what vowels to sing on. Write them above the words (Use IPA or your own symbols). Practice singing the melody on vowels only. Add the consonants without disrupting the continuity of the vowel line.
5. Musicality: add in dynamics, accents, articulations (legato, staccato, etc...), emotion, nuances, etc . . .
6. Interpretation: Make the song your own. Be committed to your interpretation of the text. We are storytellers! This is the fun part!
Memorizing Lyrics
If the song is in another language, do a word for word translation. Figure out which words need emphasis. Listen to a native speaker sing the piece while looking at the words. Note their phrasing and pronunciation.
1. Know what you’re saying. Translate the text. Even if the song is in your native language, know what you're singing about - from the general mood to the meaning of each word.
2. Speak the text in rhythm with your phrasing/breathing/text comprehension until all rhythm and words feel comfortable.
3. Memorize phrase by phrase. Write the words out by hand while singing in your head.
4. Take the sheet music away - how much can you remember?
5. Repeat.
Practice every day!
1. Warm Up Body and Voice: Begin with gentle stretching, humming, sliding, and breathing exercises (+/- 5 minutes)
2. Work Out: Sing exercises up and down your range. Start in your middle/comfortable range then move up and down. (+/- 15 minutes)
3. Isolate: Focus on each of the following individually while you sing your regular exercises or create your own to address specific problems:
- Respiration: breath control and support.
- Phonation: onset, coordinating breath and sound, back pressure.
- Resonance: mouth and throat cavity shape, sympathetic vibrations, placement, back pressure.
- Registers: strengthening each register individually and creating a cohesive sound between high, middle, and low registers.
- Range: anticipating pressure adjustments between high and low range / accessing high and low notes without strain.
- Agility: accessing any pitch within your range with ease and precision; balancing and blending registers shifts with intention; tension free vocal production at fast and slow tempos.
- Coordination: putting all of the above together. Articulation (accents, tenuto, staccato, etc...), moving nimbly between the extremes of your range, dynamics (loud / soft), extended phrases, coloratura, musicality, and expression!
Practicing your repertoire
1. Always begin with warming up.
2. Isolate each part of the music: When first learning a song, practice the elements of the piece separately until each is comfortable before combining them together: clap the rhythm, speak the text, speak the text in rhythm, sing each phrase of the melody on a single syllable or just the vowel line. Once the song is learned, this step can be skipped.
3. What is the song about?: Translate the text if necessary. Do a word-for-word translation for songs in a foreign language. What is the narrative? The mood? What are you trying to convey as the storyteller?
4. Vowel Line: Know what vowels to sing on. Write them above the words (Use IPA or your own symbols). Practice singing the melody on vowels only. Add the consonants without disrupting the continuity of the vowel line.
5. Musicality: add in dynamics, accents, articulations (legato, staccato, etc...), emotion, nuances, etc . . .
6. Interpretation: Make the song your own. Be committed to your interpretation of the text. We are storytellers! This is the fun part!
Memorizing Lyrics
If the song is in another language, do a word for word translation. Figure out which words need emphasis. Listen to a native speaker sing the piece while looking at the words. Note their phrasing and pronunciation.
1. Know what you’re saying. Translate the text. Even if the song is in your native language, know what you're singing about - from the general mood to the meaning of each word.
2. Speak the text in rhythm with your phrasing/breathing/text comprehension until all rhythm and words feel comfortable.
3. Memorize phrase by phrase. Write the words out by hand while singing in your head.
4. Take the sheet music away - how much can you remember?
5. Repeat.
Practice every day!
- Practicing every day will keep your voice and body in shape and allow you to build and maintain muscle memory.
- Stop practicing before your voice gets tired!
- Take breaks. Keep hydrated.
- Remember that learning to sing is a slow, ongoing process. Our voices and bodies change with age, and day to day - weather, hormones, stress, sleep, allergies, all affect our instrument.
- Process not Product! The process of exploring, improving, and expressing yourself should be the goal, not a final product of an ideal voice.