Singing For Dummies
- Author: Phillips, Pamelia S.
Book
$27.25Contents
- 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