Table of Contents

Introduction 1

About This Book 1

Conventions Used in This Book 2

What You’re Not to Read 3

Foolish Assumptions 3

How This Book Is Organized 3

Part I: Exploring Singing Basics 4

Part II: Improving Your Singing 4

Part III: Advanced Techniques to Improve Your Voice 4

Part IV: Preparing to Perform 5

Part V: The Part of Tens 5

Part VI: Appendixes 5

Icons Used in This Book 6

Where to Go from Here 6

Part I: Exploring Singing Basics 7

Chapter 1: Preparing to Sing 9

What You Want to Know Right from the Beginning 9

Determining your voice type 10

Locating the notes on the staff 10

Considering posture, breath, and tone 12

Developing Your Singing Voice 12

Working the Different Parts of Your Voice 13

Applying Your Technique 14

Having Fun 15

Chapter 2: Determining Your Voice Type 17

Sifting through the Ingredients to Determine Your Voice Type 17

Identifying the Fab Four 19

Highest range of the dames: Soprano 21

How low can she go: Mezzo 22

Highest range of the dudes: Tenor 24

He’s so low: Bass 25

Chapter 3: Aligning Your Body for Great Singing 27

Evaluating Your Posture 27

Creating Correct Posture 29

Feeling grounded on your feet 29

Engaging your legs 31

Releasing your hips 32

Lengthening your spine 33

Balancing your head and shoulders 33

Releasing Tension 34

Letting go of tension in your upper body 34

Opening space in the head 35

Walking with ease 36

Projecting confidence through posture 37

Chapter 4: Breathing for Singing 39

Breathing Basics 39

Inhaling to sing 40

Exhaling to sing 40

Posturing yourself for breathing 42

Practicing Inhalation 42

Opening your body 43

Breathing, slow and steady 47

Catching a quick breath 48

Practicing Exhalation 49

Blowing in the wind 50

Trilling for exhalation 50

Recognizing resistance and suspending the breath 52

Testing Your Breath Control 53

Releasing abs and then ribs 54

Singing slowly 55

Chapter 5: Toning Up the Voice 57

Defining Tone 57

Creating unique tone 57

Identifying factors that affect tone 58

Considering tone, pitches, and notes 59

Flexing Your Singing Muscles 59

Discovering your own bands 60

Making the first sound 60

Dropping the jaw 61

Putting your larynx into position 62

Matching Pitch 64

Sliding up and down on pitch 65

Developing muscle memory 66

Recording yourself and singing along 67

Releasing Tension for Better Tone 68

Checking for neck or jaw tension 68

Bouncing the tongue and jaw 69

Part II: Improving Your Singing 71

Chapter 6: Acquiring Beautiful Tone 73

Creating Tone 73

Starting the tone 74

Creating back space 74

Coordinating air with tone 75

Sighing your way to clarity 76

Releasing Tone 77

Inhaling to release tone 77

Letting your throat go 77

Sustaining Tone 78

Connecting the dots with legato 78

Trilling the lips or tongue 78

Working your breath control 79

Finding Your Vibrato 80

Moving from straight tone to vibrato 80

Imitating another singer’s vibrato 81

Chapter 7: Exploring Resonance 83

Good Vibrations 83

Exploring your resonators 85

Ringing it out 86

Eliminating Nasality 87

Getting the feel for soft palate work 87

Coordinating your soft palate and tongue 88

Moving air through the nose 89

Debunking Common Misconceptions 90

Misconception: Tone resonates in your sinuses 90

Misconception: You have to place every tone in the same location 90

Misconception: You’re supposed to keep your tongue completely flat 91

Misconception: You need to open your mouth as wide as possible 91

Misconception: The more forward the sound, the better 92

Misconception: You have to smile to stay on pitch 92

Chapter 8: Shaping Your Vowels for Clarity 93

Getting Your Backside into Shape — Back Vowels, That Is 94

Exploring the shape of back vowels 94

Lipping around your back vowels 96

Singing the back vowels 97

Mastering the Front Vowels 97

Exploring the shape of front vowels 98

Speaking the front vowels 99

Singing the front vowels 100

Chapter 9: Exercising Consonants for Articulation 103

Saying Voiced and Unvoiced Consonants 104

Making Tip Consonants 105

Shaping tip consonants 105

Singing tip consonants 107

Making Soft Palate Consonants 108

Shaping soft palate consonants 108

Singing soft palate consonants 109

Working Lip Consonants 109

Shaping lip consonants 110

Singing lip consonants 111

Working Combination Consonants 112

Shaping combination consonants 112

Singing combination consonants 113

Chapter 10: Crafting a Practice Routine 115

Knuckling Down to a Practice Plan 115

Getting Answers to Your Practicing Questions 116

Where should I practice? 116

What’s the best time to practice? 117

How long should I practice? 117

What do I need besides my voice? 118

Warming Up 119

Stretching to warm up your body 119

Warming up your voice 121

Exercising Your Voice 122

Picking exercises that work for you 122

Breaking it down 123

Practicing Correctly 124

Recording yourself 125

Applying information and exercises 125

Using the CD to practice exercises 126

Part III: Advanced Techniques to Improve Your Voice 127

Chapter 11: Developing the Parts of Your Singing Voice 129

Finding Your Middle Voice 130

Noting your middle voice range 130

Singing in middle voice 131

Checking Out Your Chest Voice 134

Zeroing in on your chest voice range 134

Feeling your chest voice 135

Aiming High with Head Voice 136

Finding your head voice range 137

Feeling head voice 138

Let’s Hear It for the Boys: Figuring Out Falsetto 139

Discovering your falsetto 140

Experiencing your falsetto 141

Making a Smooth Transition 144

Maneuvering in and out of chest voice 144

Transitioning in and out of head voice 146

Mixing It Up 148

Make the most of your mix, man 148

Get into the mix, gals 149

Chapter 12: Expanding Your Vocal Flexibility and Range 153

Tactics for Tackling Register Transitions 154

Working On Your Range 155

Taking your range higher 155

Varying the dynamics 156

Moving between registers 157

Taking Your Agility to New Levels 158

Moving along the scale 158

Picking up the pace 159

Skipping through the intervals 160

Improvising for a Better Pop Sound 161

Mastering patterns in pop music 162

Singing pop riffs with chords 162

Chapter 13: It’s a Cinch: Belting Out Your Song 165

Playing around with Pitch 166

Talking to yourself 167

Chanting and speaking 167

Finding your optimum speaking pitch 168

Increasing your speaking range 169

Using body energy to find clarity of tone 170

Defining Healthy Belting 171

Comparing belt and chest voice 172

Knowing your limits as a beginner belter 173

Noting the difference between the sexes 173

Coordinating breath and energy 175

Preparing for Belting 175

Speaking in a mix 175

Calling out to a friend 176

Moving Resonance to the Front 177

Exploring vibrations of resonance 177

Being bratty to feel resonance 178

Combining Resonance and Registration 178

Increasing your belt range 179

Belting up the scale 180

Advancing Your Belt 180

Sustaining belt sounds 181

Exploring different vowels 182

Belters and Belt Songs You Should Hear 183

Male belters 183

Female belters 184

Belt songs 184

Chapter 14: Training for Singing 187

Defining Training Requirements 187

Crooning as a country singer 187

Jazzing it up 188

Making your mark in musical theater 189

Performing pop-rock 190

Opting for opera 191

Showing your range with R&B 192

Training to Sing at Any Age 192

Recognizing differences between young singers and teens 193

Developing long-term technique in teenagers 194

Understanding that voices change with age 194

Training with a Choir 195

Enjoying the benefits of singing in the choir 196

Singing in the choir versus going solo 197

Chapter 15: Finding the Right Voice Teacher 199

Searching for the Best Voice Teacher 199

Finding a prospective voice teacher 199

Identifying what you want 200

Interviewing a prospective teacher 201

Knowing What to Expect from a Teacher 205

Feeling good when you leave the lesson 205

Working with imagery and other tools 206

Applying tried-and-true singing methods 206

Knowing What to Expect from Yourself 207

Developing your own practice process 207

Avoiding overworking your flaws 207

Making Your First Lesson a Success 208

Part IV: Preparing to Perform 209

Chapter 16: Selecting Your Music Material 211

Choosing the Song 211

Finding songs at your level 211

Determining the appropriate key for you 216

Selecting a suitable song style 217

Singing to your strengths 217

Shopping for Sheet Music 218

Finding retail outlets 218

Downloading sheet music 219

Flipping through compilation books 220

Checking out music at your local library 220

Chapter 17: Mastering a New Song 221

Tackling a Song in Steps 221

Memorizing the lyrics as text 222

Tapping out the rhythm 223

Singing the melody (without the words) 226

Putting words and music together 227

Using Vocal Technique in Your New Song 228

Giving voice to vowels 228

Backing into phrases 229

Breathing heavy: Fogging up the windows 230

Changing the tone for each section 232

Using Musical Elements to Create Your Arrangement 233

Comparing songs 234

Articulation 235

Dynamics 235

Tempo 235

Using vocal variety 236

Style 236

Accompanist 237

Chapter 18: Acting the Song 239

Seeing the Song As a Story 239

Chatting it up before you sing 239

Musical responses 240

Accounting for interludes 241

Exploring Character 241

Characterizing your character 242

Discovering your character’s motivation 243

Planning actions to get something done 244

Getting Physical 244

Figuring out where to focus 245

Gesturing appropriately 246

Movin’ and groovin’ with your song 248

Chapter 19: Confronting Your Fear of Performing 249

Facing the Symptoms 249

Alleviating Anxiety through Preparation 250

Practicing well 251

Playing to your strengths 252

Managing your thoughts 252

Getting up the nerve 253

Building performance focus 253

Performing to Build Confidence 255

Devising a game plan 256

Evaluating your performance 257

Chapter 20: Auditioning a Song 259

Tailoring Your Audition for Any Venue and Any Style of Music 260

At the opera 260

Onstage at the theater 261

In the club 261

On television 262

Choosing Audition Songs to Highlight Your Strengths 263

Showing versatility 263

Connecting with the lyrics 264

Avoiding the wrong audition song 265

Preparing the Music 266

Choosing the key 267

Making the cut 268

Marking the music 269

Rehearsing with an accompanist 270

Bringing a recording 271

Nailing the Audition 272

Doing your prep work 272

Dressing in the right outfit 273

Knowing who will attend the audition 274

Greeting the audition accompanist 274

Acting at the audition 275

Preparing mentally 276

Part V: The Part of Tens 277

Chapter 21: Ten Performers with Good Technique 279

Kristin Chenoweth 279

Linda Eder 280

Renée Fleming 280

Faith Hill 280

Michael Jackson 280

Toby Keith 281

Beyoncé Knowles 281

Elvis Presley 281

Anthony Warlow 282

Stevie Wonder 282

Chapter 22: Ten Frequently Asked Questions about Singing 283

Is Belting Bad? 283

What Should I Do If My Voice Feels Off? 283

How are an Accompanist, a Coach, and a Voice Teacher Different? 284

If My Voice Is Scratchy, Do I Have Nodes? 285

Do I Have to Be Big to Have a Big Voice? 285

What’s the Best Singing Method? 286

Do I Have to Speak Italian to Sing Well? 286

Can I Have a Few Drinks Before the Performance to Calm My Nerves? 286

Why Can’t I Eat Ice Cream Before I Sing? 287

How Long Will It Take Me to Learn to Sing? 287

Chapter 23: Ten Tips for Maintaining Vocal Health 289

Identifying Everyday Abuses 289

Incorporating Healthy Speech into Your Singing 290

Knowing When to Seek Help 291

Staying Hydrated 292

Getting Plenty of Shut-Eye 292

Making Sure That You’re Well Nourished 293

Preventing a Sore Throat or Infection 293

Medicating a Sore Throat 294

Protecting a Sore Throat 295

Keeping Your Emotional Life in Check 296

Chapter 24: Ten Tips for Performing Like a Pro 297

Rehearsing to Beat the Band 297

Wearing the Right Ensemble 298

Finding Your Stance 299

Singing with a Piano, Organ, or Band 299

Making Your Entrance 300

Roping in Your Audience 300

Ignoring That Mosquito 301

Handling Those Hands 302

Using the Mic 302

Taking Your Bow and Leaving the Stage 303

Part VI: Appendixes 305

Appendix A: Suggested Songs to Advance Your Singing Technique 307

Classical: Ten Songs for Soprano 307

Classical: Ten Songs for Mezzo 308

Classical: Ten Songs for Tenor 308

Classical: Ten Songs for Baritone or Bass 309

Musical Theater: Ten Songs for Soprano 309

Musical Theater: Ten Songs for Mezzo 310

Musical Theater: Ten Belt Songs for Women 311

Musical Theater: Ten Songs for Tenor 312

Musical Theater: Ten Songs for Baritenor 312

Musical Theater: Ten Belt Songs for Men 313

Country: Ten Songs for Women 314

Country: Ten Songs for Men 314

Pop-Rock: Ten Songs for Women 315

Pop-Rock: Ten Songs for Men 315

Appendix B: About the CD 317

System Requirements 317

Track Listings 318

Troubleshooting 322

Index 323

About the Author

Pamelia S. Phillips , DMA, is the Professional Program Director and Chair of Voice and Music at Collaborative Arts Project 21 (CAP21) in New York. A seasoned performer, her appearances range from contemporary American Opera premieres to guest performances with major symphonies. Pam has taught extensively at such institutions as Arizona State University and Wagner College. She holds degrees in music education and vocal performance.