Singing For Dummies

Contents

• Introduction 1
• About This Book 1
• Foolish Assumptions 3
• Icons Used in This Book 3
• Beyond This Book 4
• Where to Go from Here 4
• Part 1: Exploring Singing Basics 5
• Chapter 1: Preparing to Sing 7
• What You Want to Know Right from the Beginning 7
• Determining your voice type 8
• Locating the notes on the staff 8
• Considering posture, breath, and tone 10
• Developing Your Singing Voice 10
• Working the Different Parts of Your Voice 11
• Applying Your Technique 12
• Having Fun 13
• Chapter 2: Determining Your Voice Type 15
• Sifting through the Ingredients to Figure Out Your Voice Type 16
• Identifying the Fab Four 17
• Highest range of the dames: Soprano 18
• How low can she go: Mezzo 20
• Highest range of the dudes: Tenor 21
• He's so low: Bass 23
• Comparing voice types 25
• Chapter 3: Aligning Your Body for Great Singing 29
• Evaluating Your Posture 30
• Creating Ideal Posture 32
• Feeling grounded on your feet 32
• Engaging your legs 34
• Releasing your hips 35
• Lengthening your spine 36
• Balancing your head and shoulders 36
• Releasing Tension 37
• Letting go of tension in your upper body 37
• Opening space in the head 38
• Walking with ease 39
• Projecting confidence through posture 40
• Chapter 4: Breathing for Singing 43
• Tackling the Basics of Breathing 43
• Inhaling to sing 44
• Exhaling to sing 44
• Posturing yourself for breathing 46
• Practicing Inhalation 46
• Opening your body 47
• Breathing, slow and steady 51
• Catching a quick breath 52
• Practicing Exhalation 54
• Blowing in the wind 54
• Trilling for exhalation 55
• Recognizing resistance and suspending the breath 57
• Testing Your Breath Control 58
• Releasing abs and then ribs 59
• Singing slowly 60
• Chapter 5: Toning Up the Voice 63
• Defining Tone 63
• Creating unique tone 64
• Identifying factors that affect tone 64
• Considering tone, pitches, and notes 65
• Flexing Your Singing Muscles 66
• Discovering your own bands 66
• Making the first sound 66
• Dropping the jaw 67
• Matching Pitch 71
• Sliding up and down on pitch 72
• Developing muscle memory 73
• Recording yourself and singing along 74
• Releasing Tension for Better Tone 74
• Checking for neck or jaw tension 75
• Bouncing the tongue and jaw 75
• Part 2: Improving Your Singing 79
• Chapter 6: Acquiring Beautiful Tone 81
• Creating Tone 81
• Starting the tone 82
• Creating back space 83
• Coordinating air with tone 83
• Sighing your way to clarity 84
• Releasing Tone 85
• Inhaling to release tone 85
• Letting your throat go 86
• Sustaining Tone 86
• Connecting the dots with legato 86
• Trilling the lips or tongue 87
• Working your breath control 87
• Finding Your Vibrato 88
• Moving from straight tone to vibrato 89
• Imitating another singer's vibrato 90
• Chapter 7: Exploring Resonance 91
• Understanding Resonance - Good Vibrations 92
• Identifying resonance in different styles of music 92
• Exploring your resonators 94
• Ringing it out 94
• Eliminating Nasality 95
• Getting the feel for soft palate work 95
• Coordinating your soft palate and tongue 96
• Moving air through the nose 97
• Debunking Common Misconceptions 98
• Misconception: Tone resonates in your sinuses 98
• Misconception: You have to place every tone in the same location 99
• Misconception: You're supposed to keep your tongue completely flat 99
• Misconception: You need to open your mouth as wide as possible 100
• Misconception: The more forward the sound, the better 100
• Misconception: You have to smile to stay on pitch 100
• Chapter 8: Shaping Your Vowels for Clarity 101
• Getting Your Backside into Shape - Back Vowels, That Is 102
• Exploring the shape of back vowels 103
• Lipping around your back vowels 104
• Singing the back vowels 105
• Mastering the Front Vowels 106
• Exploring the shape of front vowels 106
• Speaking the front vowels 108
• Singing the front vowels 109
• Chapter 9: Exercising Consonants for Articulation 111
• Saying Voiced and Unvoiced Consonants 112
• Making Tip Consonants 113
• Shaping tip consonants 113
• Singing tip consonants 116
• Making Soft Palate Consonants 116
• Shaping soft palate consonants 117
• Singing soft palate consonants 118
• Working Lip Consonants 118
• Shaping lip consonants 118
• Singing lip consonants 120
• Working Combination Consonants 120
• Shaping combination consonants 121
• Singing combination consonants 122
• Chapter 10: Crafting a Practice Routine 123
• Knuckling Down to a Practice Plan 124
• Getting Answers to Your Practicing Questions 124
• Where should I practice? 125
• What's the best time to practice? 125
• How long should I practice? 126
• What do I need besides my voice? 126
• Warming Up 127
• Stretching to warm up your body 127
• Warming up your voice 129
• Exercising Your Voice 130
• Picking exercises that work for you 130
• Breaking it down 131
• Practicing Correctly 133
• Recording yourself 133
• Applying information and exercises 134
• Using the online tracks to practice exercises 134
• Part 3: Advanced Techniques to Improve Your Voice 135
• Chapter 11: Developing the Parts of Your Singing Voice 137
• Finding Your Middle Voice 138
• Noting your middle voice range 139
• Singing in middle voice 140
• Checking Out Your Chest Voice 142
• Zeroing in on your chest voice range 142
• Feeling your chest voice 144
• Aiming High with Head Voice 145
• Finding your head voice range 145
• Feeling head voice 146
• Figuring Out Falsetto 148
• Discovering your falsetto 149
• Experiencing your falsetto 150
• Making a Smooth Transition 153
• Maneuvering in and out of chest voice 153
• Mixing It Up 157
• Making the most of your mix, man 157
• Getting into the mix, gals 158
• Chapter 12: Expanding Your Vocal Flexibility and Range 163
• Tackling Register Transitions 164
• Working On Your Range 165
• Taking your range higher 165
• Varying the dynamics 166
• Moving between registers 167
• Taking Your Agility to New Levels 168
• Moving along the scale 169
• Picking up the pace 169
• Skipping through the intervals 170
• Improvising for a Better Pop Sound 171
• Mastering patterns in pop music 172
• Singing pop riffs with chords 173
• Chapter 13: It's a Cinch: Belting Out Your Song 175
• Playing around with Pitch 176
• Talking to yourself 177
• Chanting and speaking 177
• Finding your optimum speaking pitch 179
• Increasing your speaking range 180
• Using body energy to find clarity of tone 181
• Defining Healthy Belting 182
• Comparing belt and chest voice 183
• Knowing your limits as a beginner belter 184
• Noting the difference between the sexes 184
• Coordinating breath and energy 185
• Preparing for Belting 186
• Speaking in a mix 186
• Calling out to a friend 187
• Moving Resonance to the Front 187
• Exploring vibrations of resonance 188
• Being bratty to feel resonance 189
• Combining Resonance and Registration 189
• Increasing your belt range 190
• Belting up the scale 190
• Advancing Your Belt 191
• Sustaining belt sounds 192
• Exploring different vowels 193
• Belters and Belt Songs You Should Hear 194
• Male belters 194
• Female belters 195
• Belt songs 195
• Chapter 14: Training for Singing 199
• Defining Training Requirements 199
• Crooning as a country singer 200
• Jazzing it up 200
• Making your mark in musical theater 201
• Performing pop-rock 202
• Opting for opera 203
• Showing your range with R&B 204
• Training to Sing at Any Age 205
• Recognizing differences between young singers and teens 205
• Developing long-term technique in teenagers 206
• Understanding that voices change with age 207
• Training with a Choir 208
• Enjoying the benefits of singing in the choir 208
• Singing in the choir versus going solo 209
• Chapter 15: Finding the Right Voice Teacher 211
• Searching for the Best Voice Teacher 211
• Finding a prospective voice teacher 212
• Identifying what you want 212
• Interviewing a prospective teacher 213
• Knowing What to Expect from a Teacher 217
• Feeling good when you leave the lesson 217
• Working with imagery and other tools 218
• Applying tried-and-true singing methods 218
• Knowing What to Expect from Yourself 219
• Developing your own practice process 219
• Avoiding overworking your flaws 219
• Making Your First Lesson a Success 220
• Part 4: Preparing to Perform 221
• Chapter 16: Selecting Your Music Material 223
• Choosing the Song 223
• Finding songs at your level 223
• Determining the appropriate key for you 229
• Selecting a suitable song style 229
• Singing to your strengths 230
• Shopping for Sheet Music 231
• Downloading sheet music 231
• Ordering music books 232
• Checking out music at your local library 233
• Chapter 17: Mastering a New Song 235
• Tackling a Song in Steps 235
• Memorizing the lyrics as text 236
• Tapping out the rhythm 239
• Singing the melody (without the words) 240
• Putting words and music together 241
• Using Vocal Technique in Your New Song 242
• Giving voice to vowels 242
• Backing into phrases 243
• Breathing heavy: Fogging up the windows 244
• Changing the tone for each section 247
• Using Musical Elements to Create Your Arrangement 248
• Comparing songs 248
• Articulation 249
• Dynamics 249
• Tempo 249
• Using vocal variety 250
• Style 250
• Accompanist 251
• Evaluating musical elements 251
• Chapter 18: Acting the Song 253
• Seeing the Song As a Story 254
• Chatting it up before you sing 254
• Recognizing musical responses 255
• Accounting for interludes 255
• Exploring Character 256
• Characterizing your character 256
• Discovering your character's motivation 258
• Planning actions to get something done 258
• Getting Physical 259
• Figuring out where to focus 259
• Gesturing appropriately 260
• Movin' and groovin' with your song 262
• Chapter 19: Confronting Your Fear of Performing 265
• Facing the Symptoms 265
• Alleviating Anxiety through Preparation 267
• Practicing well 267
• Playing to your strengths 268
• Managing your thoughts 268
• Getting up the nerve 269
• Building performance focus 270
• Performing to Build Confidence 272
• Devising a game plan 272
• Evaluating your performance 274
• Chapter 20: Auditioning a Song 277
• Tailoring Your Audition for Any Venue and Any Style of Music 278
• At the opera 278
• Onstage at the theater 279
• In the club 279
• On television 280
• Choosing Audition Songs to Highlight Your Strengths 281
• Showing versatility 281
• Connecting with the lyrics 282
• Avoiding the wrong audition song 283
• Choosing the key 284
• Making the cut 285
• Marking the music 286
• Rehearsing with an accompanist 287
• Preparing the Music 288
• Preparing hard copies 289
• Taking digital sheet music 290
• Bringing a recording 290
• Nailing the Audition 291
• Doing your prep work 291
• Dressing in the right outfit 292
• Knowing how to audition online 293
• Greeting the audition accompanist 294
• Acting at the audition 295
• Preparing mentally 296
• Part 5: The Part of Tens 297
• Chapter 21: Ten Performers with Good Technique 299
• Xiomara Alfaro 300
• Juan Diego Florez 300
• Lady Gaga 300
• Eddie Kendricks 301
• Bruno Mars 301
• Minnie Riperton 302
• Sofia Shkidchenko 302
• Meryl Streep 303
• Josh Turner 303
• Colm Wilkinson 304
• Chapter 22: Ten Frequently Asked Questions about Singing 305
• Is Belting Bad? 305
• What Should I Do If My Voice Feels Off? 306
• How Are an Accompanist, a Coach, and a Voice Teacher Different? 307
• If My Voice Is Scratchy, Do I Have Nodes? 307
• Do I Have to Be Big to Have a Big Voice? 308
• What's the Best Singing Method? 308
• Do I Have to Speak Italian to Sing Well? 308
• Can I Have a Few Drinks Before the Performance to Calm My Nerves? 309
• Why Can't I Eat Ice Cream Before I Sing? 309
• How Long Will It Take Me to Learn to Sing? 310
• Chapter 23: Ten Tips for Maintaining Vocal Health 311
• Identifying Everyday Abuses 311
• Incorporating Healthy Speech into Your Singing 313
• Knowing When to Seek Help 313
• Staying Hydrated 314
• Getting Plenty of Shut-Eye 315
• Making Sure That You're Well Nourished 315
• Preventing a Sore Throat or Infection 316
• Medicating a Sore Throat 316
• Protecting a Sore Throat 318
• Keeping Your Emotional Life in Check 318
• Chapter 24: Ten Tips for Performing Like a Pro 319
• Rehearsing to Beat the Band 319
• Wearing the Right Ensemble 320
• Finding Your Stance 321
• Singing with a Piano, Organ, or Band 322
• Making Your Entrance 322
• Roping in Your Audience 323
• Ignoring That Mosquito 323
• Handling Those Hands 324
• Using the Mic 325
• Taking Your Bow and Leaving the Stage 326
• Part 6: Appendixes 329
• Appendix A: Songs to Advance Your Technique 331
• Beginner Songs for Any Voice Type or Gender 332
• Intermediate Songs from Various Styles for Any Voice Type or Gender 333
• Intermediate musical theater songs 333
• Intermediate pop-rock songs 333
• Intermediate country songs 334
• Intermediate classical songs 334
• Songs to Practice Technical Lessons for Any Voice Type or Gender 334
• Spunky songs for practicing articulation and agility 335
• Songs with larger intervals to practice smooth register transitions 335
• Songs to practice breath coordination and legato phrases 336
• Songs to Work on Range and Registers 336
• Songs for low female voices 337
• Songs for low male voices 337
• Songs for higher voices to expand your range for any gender 338
• Songs for lower voices to expand your range for any gender 338
• Songs for Working Mix, Belt, and Falsetto 338
• Female mix songs 339
• Songs for working on male falsetto and mix 339
• Belt songs for higher and lower female voices 340
• Appendix B: About the Online Tracks 343
• Recognizing What's Available: The Track Listings 343
• Tackling Any Potential Issues 347
• Index 349