Hey Songbirds! 
I want to reiterate that Pillar 1 of my 10 Pillars of Successful Singing is all about Weekly Lessons.
Section 1 of Pillar 1 is: Finding the Right Voice Teacher or Coach
Let’s go over some of the things I mentioned in Part 1, last week:
- Do your research to find someone who is the right fit for you
- Once you decide, be prepared to stay for the long-haul
- Choose one who understands the art and science of vocal technique
- They also should have a strong performance background so they can also coach you
Last Wednesday I took a poll to see what kind of music many of you are most interested in. We have hundreds of singers in this community and those of you who answered seem to be leaning towards choral and classical singing.
Like many singers and teachers of singers, I’m formally trained in opera/classical and I also am a proponent of being as versatile a singer as you can be, and training the voice as such: understanding how the voice resonates within each style of music you perform, keeping your voice and body healthy with proper diet and exercise, and doing regular vocal exercises and implementing the technique in your repertoire (this is the most important part!!).
Whatever the style or genre of music you choose to sing, there isn’t much difference in training the voice and having a teacher with both a classical background AND a background in other genres will provide you with a very deep and clear understanding of how to sing healthily across genres.
The 12 Heritage Exercises I teach are hands-down the best exercises I have ever learned and the advantage of these exercises are that you are using movement while singing. Why is it an advantage? Because you learn to relax your voice while kinesthetically using mind-body-breath connection simultaneously.
Here’s the thing: a lot of people think if you are singing classically, you should remain still and stable. While yes, alignment and posture are essential to healthy singing, you should NEVER remain completely still. When you are standing still, you run the risk of tension in your body and this can create all kinds of issues.
I’ll talk about those kinds of issues in another post but for now, just know that the body is fluid but the mind should remain in control and aware of this fluidity at all times, until you embody muscle memory.
Some quick tips about choral and church singing:
- When singing choral music, proper alignment (which includes NOT LOOKING DOWN AT YOUR MUSIC — For goodness sake, look at the conductor 80% of the time and GLANCE at your music 20% of the time!)
- Follow the director and all that he/she wants you to do because you’re not singing solo in choir; the choir should be “one voice”. This is a big one and I will likely do a whole post or even a FB live about this!
- Warm up AND cool down with your usual routine and then do the routine your director is having you do.
- I always recommend to take a day of vocal rest after any rigorous performance or a lot of rehearsing your voice to calm the vocal folds and muscles, just like you would with heavy weightlifting.
As I said in the last post: no matter the style or genre of music you’re singing, keep your voice in shape with almost-daily HEALTHY singing, proper rest, proper diet and exercise.
If you are looking to find a voice teacher no matter the genre, you are definitely in the right group!
If you have any questions or comments, post them below!
