Wise words on singing from Jenny Taylor
Posted: Tue Jun 10, 2014 2:36 pm
Post was just made on another songwriting board. Sharing the love from user "Jenny Taylor"
Hi all, sorry to start ANOTHER thead. my day job is teaching singing and leading choirs. I have noticed that some people write good songs but struggle a bit with representing their idea because they feel they can't sing. First of all, congratulations on doing it anyway and putting your songs up for review. I just wanted to share a few bits that might help some people move forward with their singing.
I highly recommend a CD and book by Ann Peckham, a Berklee Voice professor. I think it's called Contemporary Singing. I have used it for years . The CD gives you basic warm ups, extended warm ups for high and medium voices. It's nothing fancy, but it will help you develop good healthy singing. Start slowly. Like any group of muscles, your vocal instrument needs to build slowly or you can damage it. Move forward incrementally, increase your range and volume as the muscles learn the pathway to organise themselves. Hum gently, use a narrow OOOH sound.
When you sing songs you are dealing with intervals, pitch, language, rhythm, emotion, dynamics etc. Scales give you a break from that and let you just build your instrument. SInging is a physical activity that requires muscles to be ready, it's bit like running, if you try and run a marathon without building up to it you will fail. If you judge your singing without having helped yourself by doing some scales and excercises, you are not giving yourself the opportunity to discover what you can do. THere are great singers who've never had lessons or done scales, but they have usually always sung.
Thinking you can't sing is like thinking you can't run because you never do it. Be gentle, always encourage your voice, it is a very sensitive instrument.
I'll try and put a blog together in coming weeks.
If you want to write songs, let yourself sing them.
One of the things with singing is the better you get, the more pleasure it gives you. And if you've been told you're tone deaf, just know that people can be quite ignorant. Give yourself permission to find out what your voice can do. x
Hi all, sorry to start ANOTHER thead. my day job is teaching singing and leading choirs. I have noticed that some people write good songs but struggle a bit with representing their idea because they feel they can't sing. First of all, congratulations on doing it anyway and putting your songs up for review. I just wanted to share a few bits that might help some people move forward with their singing.
I highly recommend a CD and book by Ann Peckham, a Berklee Voice professor. I think it's called Contemporary Singing. I have used it for years . The CD gives you basic warm ups, extended warm ups for high and medium voices. It's nothing fancy, but it will help you develop good healthy singing. Start slowly. Like any group of muscles, your vocal instrument needs to build slowly or you can damage it. Move forward incrementally, increase your range and volume as the muscles learn the pathway to organise themselves. Hum gently, use a narrow OOOH sound.
When you sing songs you are dealing with intervals, pitch, language, rhythm, emotion, dynamics etc. Scales give you a break from that and let you just build your instrument. SInging is a physical activity that requires muscles to be ready, it's bit like running, if you try and run a marathon without building up to it you will fail. If you judge your singing without having helped yourself by doing some scales and excercises, you are not giving yourself the opportunity to discover what you can do. THere are great singers who've never had lessons or done scales, but they have usually always sung.
Thinking you can't sing is like thinking you can't run because you never do it. Be gentle, always encourage your voice, it is a very sensitive instrument.
I'll try and put a blog together in coming weeks.
If you want to write songs, let yourself sing them.
One of the things with singing is the better you get, the more pleasure it gives you. And if you've been told you're tone deaf, just know that people can be quite ignorant. Give yourself permission to find out what your voice can do. x
