Singing tips for Beginners and Professionals. (PART 1)

To my knowledge, the majority of people love to sing. Even those who cannot sing and others who can and have a perfectly good full-time job and respected profession, would drop all of it without any hesitation in the nick of time to make their living doing what they love the most – Singing. 

So let’s say, out of 90% of people who would do the above, only 1% or 2% realize their dream. We all know that it is extremely difficult to succeed in the music business and make a living out of it; however, it is not impossible.  If the person has the true music talent, good voice, positive attitude and the vision of their future success, they could do it.

However, they have to understand that with all of the prerequisites described above, if they don’t possess the right vocal technique, they may ruin their precious voice right before succeeding in their vocal performance career. 

A lot of Ballet Dancers and Figure Skaters also initially possess their talent for their fields. However, Mikhail Baryshnikov, one of the best Russian dancers of all time, would not become the greatest well-known dancer if he did not attend the prestigious Vaganova Ballet Academy of St. Peterborough(a.k.a., Leningrad). He has learned the best techniques available to him and, combined with his enormous talent, he became a very famous and very well-known dancer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOAFsU2kWPw

However, in the singing field, it is presumed that the talent for music and singing is enough to embark on a successful vocal performance career. And strangely enough, sometimes it is enough; but what happens later could turn into complete tragedy. In the midst of the, seem to be successful career, tours, performances, recordings and etc, the precious voice suddenly gives out and sometimes disappears altogether. 

So the contracts are signed, the record deal is executed, but the singer cannot produce what was expected from him/her. Look at the British singer – Adele, who ended up with bleeding polyps on her vocal cords. Obviously, the vocal cords were overused and over-abused and, in my opinion, it has happened due to the poor vocal technique. Great girl, beautiful personality, enormous musical and song writing talent, but the lack of the knowledge of proper voice application nearly killed her career and her health.

I’m sure, my reader that you would agree with me that, after that polyp removal operation, Adele never sounded the same, and clearly to me, sounded very timid and very scared. Please view her video during her performance at the Oscars shortly after her vocal surgery.

So these are my tips:

Do not ever embark on any singing unless you know how to power your voice efficiently and with no pain or strain on your vocal anatomy. I don’t think that somebody like Patrick Chan would embark on jumping a triple axle or quad without knowing, in details, and first in theory, how to execute it properly without breaking any parts of his anatomy.

So whether you are a beginner or a professional singer, you still need to know what you are doing and learn all the secrets of your trade, if you want to avoid a great disappointment and even a loss of your singing career all together. In my next blog, (Part 2), I will talk more about the actual vocal technique which should be applied at all given times when the person opens up their mouth to sing and, of course, to speak, as the wrong application of a speaking voice could easily kill the singing voice.

But I will talk about that in the next blog to come.