Why I Love to Sing?

    These are a number of breathing exercises that supplement the posture exercises from my last post.  Everything in these posts builds on materials and information from other posts.  I know I have already included a lot of different Breathing Exercises but you REALLY can’t ever have too many, honestly.  Breathing is the “FUEL” for all singing, just as gasoline is the fuel for your car.  When breathing is not “connected” to your singing, singing is adversely affected.  These exercises work well to help you learn to “connect” your breath with your singing.  Be sure to practice them often and for a significant amount of time.  Have fun and enjoy the results!     Here are your exercises: * HUGGING - This is a favorite of mine and I feel it is appropriate because music really does release positive endorphins into our systems.  By wrapping your arms around an “imaginary” tree in front of you, you press your hands together...

In order to build a strong Vocal Posture and then, maintain that positive Posture, here are some, hopefully helpful exercises.  Please let me know what you think about these and how successful they are for you.  There are a couple of different TYPES of exercises here.  The first exercises are “Visionary”; the second are simply “Physical”.  Have fun with these! * 1.  VISIONARY 1 - “Pretend” or “See Yourself” as if you were  a “Sumo Wrestler”.  If you are not familiar with this term, these are Japanese wrestlers who are “well-fed”, trained from early in life, and they stand with their feet far apart and their knees bent.  As you “become” imaginary Sumo, you will assume a very wide stance with your knees bent as deeply as you can “comfortably” maintain balance for your body and lower back.  From the lowest position possible, you will begin singing a favorite song, anything from “Happy Birthday” to “The Star Spangled Banner” to “Amazing Grace”, o...

     You may wonder why I’m including posts about singing posture.  Well, it’s because SINGING POSTURE IS A QUINTESSENTIAL ELEMENT FOR EVERY STYLE OF SINGING!  Crazy, huh?  Great singing requires the coordination of  a number of different elements; proper posture being one of the MOST IMPORTANT.  It is a stabilizing feature that helps create an energized, realistic portrayal of any given song.  Think about it for a second.  Rarely are songs performed from a lazily, relaxed stance.  Most are communicated, at the very least, from a strong standing position where the vocalist has a stable spine and a confident tone.  Even heavy metal singers perform with an almost angry self-possession.  The spine is pretty straight, the knees are slightly bent, and the only “tension” is their self-imposed demeanor and intensity.  Posture aids breathing and control, which is a significantly positive trait.  I’m going to start f...

Here is one last BREATHING post for you.   This was originally titled a “Five-Minute Breathing Warm-up” but, truthfully, it takes more like 7 or 8 minutes to complete.   You can also PICK and CHOOSE a few of the individual exercises after you’ve done all of them a number of times.   The goal, of course, is to increase your overall breath.   Let me emphasize again at this point, in case I haven’t made it clear enough up to now, the important thing is NOT so much increasing your inhale; increasing your EXHALE IS OF THE MOST OPTIMAL IMPORTANCE!   Okay, so here are the actual exercises: ·       Slowly Deep Breathe .   Your GOAL is to inhale for a count of 10 and exhale for a count of 10.   HOWEVER, this may be WAY too much to start with.   Once again, the MAIN GOAL in all this is increasing your breath and breath CONTROL BUT NOOOOOOO TENSION!   Seriously, NO TENSION!   Therefore, start this exercise with...

So, MORE about breathing…at least a few more breathing exercises to try.   You can never have too much breath support or control, and you should always be on the lookout for more and different and better ways to expand, challenge, and develop your ability to be in control of your breath, rather than your breath controlling you.   I read something very interesting that I want to include here before I detail the actual exercises.   Most of the time, when we think about taking a deep breath, we think of taking the breath VERTICALLY, when we should be thinking of it HORIZONTALLY, too.   By this I mean that when you draw in a strong inhale, yes, your lungs fill vertically, from the bottom to the top but they also fill horizontally, expanding the rib cage, the lumbar spine, and all of the abdominal muscles surrounding these areas, so that the lungs can fully inflate.   When you take ANY breath, your shoulders or chest should NOT rise, other than the minor eff...

If you want to sing, then you need to begin to set aside time for DAILY exercises to help prepare your voice.   However, these are NOT really Vocal Exercises; these are PHYSICAL and ARTICULATORY exercises mainly that condition your body, your breathing, and your overall control.   They require very little time but you will see that this small investment yields great reward.   - PHYSICAL WARM-UPS AND STRETCHING: ·       Bend over and hang from the waist for 2-3 deep breaths – slowly rise, swaying form side to side to avoid dizziness ·       Roll shoulders backwards two times; Roll them forward two times ·       Squeeze shoulders up to ears and hold for two breaths ·       Press shoulders down to floor and hold for two breaths ·       Squeeze shoulders forward to try to touch them together; hold for two breaths · ...

So, here's the final segment of my performance "rules and suggestions".  I hope you find them helpful and easy to apply to your life.  As always, send me ANY questions or concerns.  All of these posts are intended to be of practical use to you, not just regurgitating my "inner thoughts", so, "work with with people"!  "Help Me Help You!"  Enjoy! ·       Have Fun! – Everything I’ve said up to now has been about temperance and moderation but you must certainly MAKE SURE you also set aside time to have FUN along the way.   Pretty much everyone has a Smart Phone now.   Take LOTS of pictures and videos but also take time to MAKE MEMORIES!   We’ve gotten into such a mentality of photographing everything with our phones that we oftentimes forget to actually EXPERIENCE what we are doing.   I can tell you I didn’t have a Smart Phone when I was touring.   I got some pictures but I have MANY incredible memories fr...