Singing Exercises For Dummies

Contents

• Introduction 1 About This Book 1 Conventions Used in This Book 1 What You're Not to Read 2 Foolish Assumptions 2 How This Book is Organized 3
• Part 1 : Preparing Your Body for Practicing 3
• Part 2 : Making Your Music Magical with Variety 3
• Part 3 : Working Out Your Range 3
• Part 4 : Advancing Your Singing Technique 4
• Part 5 : the part of Tens 4 Icons Used in This Book 4 Where to Go from Here 5
• Part 1 : Preparing Your Body for Practicing 7
• Chapter 1 : Warming Up for Singing 9 Preparing Your Instrument: Stretching Out from Head to Toe 9 Opening and Positioning the Lower Body 10 Connecting your feet to the floor 10 Balancing on the ankles and knees 12 Distributing weight in the legs and hips
• Chapter 2 : Practicing Breathing Exercises 19 Moving the Breathing Muscles for Singing 19 Opening the ribs 20 Releasing the abs 21 Moving the sides 21 Releasing into the hips 22 Take It In: Shaping Inhalation 22 Controlling the movement of your ribs 23 Ad
• Chapter 3 : Shaping the Tongue and Lips for Vowels 33 Coordinating the Tongue and Lips for Back Vowels 33 Shifting the arch around for ooh and ah 34 Altering your lip shape for oh and ah 35 Tackling the tricky vowels aw and OOh 36 Singing through the five
• Chapter 4 : Articulating Consonants Accurately 47 Touching on the Tip Consonants 48 Exploring the voiced consonants L, N, and D 48 Distinguishing between voiced D and unvoiced T 49 Sounding out the voiced R 50 Singing unvoiced S and voiced Z 51 Moving the
• Chapter 60 Moving air through SH and ZH 61 Singing through the consonants J, CH, SH, and ZH 61 Songs for Singing Various Consonants 62
• Part 2 : Making Your Music Magical with Variety 63
• Chapter 5 : Singing Precise Intervals for Musical Accuracy 65 Recognizing the Most Common Intervals 65 Major intervals 66 Minor intervals 67 Perfect intervals 68 Hearing the Small Intervals 68 Minor and major seconds: m2 and M2 68 Minor and major thirds:
• Chapter 6 : You've Got Rhythm: Conquering Rhythmic Notation and Tempo 85 Rhythm Basics: Notes and Rests 85 The whole note 86 The half note 87 The quarter note 88 The eighth note 89 The sixteenth note 90 The corresponding rests 91 Practice piece: "The Rhyt
• Chapter 7 : Adding Diversity with Dynamics, Articulation Marks, and More 99 Singing Dynamically 99 Reading the markings 100 Making a smooth crescendo 100 Gradually singing softer with a decrescendo 101 Mastering dynamic contrast 102 Articulating What's Wr
• Part 3 : Working Out Your Range 109
• Chapter 8 : Checking Out Chest Voice 111 Getting Familiar with Chest Voice 111 Exploring the sounds of chest voice 112 Varying the heaviness in your chest voice 112 Strengthening your chest voice 114 Modifying vowels in chest voice 115 Practice Piece: "Fi
• Chapter 9 : Soaring into Head Voice and Falsetto 119 Figuring Out Falsetto 119 Working out your falsetto 120 Taking falsetto down 121 Exploring various vowels in falsetto 122 Songs for singing in falsetto 122 Discovering Your Head Voice 123 Getting a feel
• Chapter 10 : Mixing Up Your Sound with Middle Voice 135 Discovering Your Middle Voice 135 Distinguishing male and female middle voice 136 Getting to know your middle voice 136 Strengthening your middle voice 137 Finding clear vowels in middle voice 138 So
• Chapter 11 : Coordinating Register Transitions 149 Moving Smoothly between Registers 149 Dropping into chest voice 150 Changing back and forth from chest voice to middle voice 151 Climbing from middle voice to head voice 152 Leaping to and from Falsetto 1
• Part 4 : Advancing Your Singing Technique 161
• Chapter 12 : Developing Your Vocal Tone 163 Touching on Tone Basics 163 Practicing the onset of tone 163 Opening the space to change the tone 165 Releasing tension to enhance tone 167 Coordinating breath to improve tone 167 Eliminating intonation issues 1
• Chapter 13 : Expanding Your Vocal Agility 177 Exploring the Art of the Quick Breath 177 Catching your breath quickly in fast songs 178 Taking a quick breath 178 Howdy, Neighbor! Working on Stepwise Motion 179 Giving up control to get a feeling for agility
• Chapter 14 : Belting It Out with Exercises from Beginner to Advanced 193 Getting Started with Belting Basics 194 Feeling belt transitions in the voice 194 Making a plan to develop your belt 195 Resonating All the Way to the Back Row 195 Chatting It Up 196
• Part 5 : the part of Tens 211
• Chapter 15 : Ten Tips for Practicing Like a Pro 213 Set Aside Time to Focus on Singing 213 Plan What to Practice 214 Use the Exercises in This Book 214 Record Your Practice Sessions 215 Track Your Progress 215 Cool Down after Practicing 216 Know When to R
• Chapter 16 : Ten Questions Singers Ask Frequently 219 What Style of Music is Right for My Voice? 219 When is a Song out of My Range? 219 Am I Tone Deaf or Just Singing Out of Tune? 220 How Do I Blend with Other Singers? 221 How Do I Blend My Voice with In
• Appendix About the Website 225 Listening to the Audio Tracks 225 Customer Care 228