Do you want to learn how to sing better?
Well, I've got you covered.
Whether you are brand new to learning to sing, and this is your first stop, or if you have been trying to learn how to sing for years and you still can't seem to improve, I also have you covered.
Because that was me.
I used to have an absolutely terrible voice, and my whole life I was told that I just wasn't a good singer and to accept it. But, I never did. Instead, I spent fifteen years scouring the internet, going to several voice teachers and doing my own experimentation to figure out how to sing. I wasn't ever going to give up, and I'm so glad I didn't. Because I figured out how to simplify singing so much so that I was able to understand it and learn. I shared my tips on YouTube, and was asked by so many people to offer lessons, that I somehow stumbled into being a voice coach, and loving it.
I know how frustrating and heartbreaking it feels to think you can't sing, so please hear this from someone who was right where you are now: you can learn to sing. I promise.
And if you don't believe me, check out my 12-year singing transformation video for proof (warning: my voice back then was awful, so cringe-alert ahead!):
HOW TO SING
One of my top priorities as both a singer and a singing coach is to simplify the singing process as much as possible. When I was learning how to sing, I filtered through hundreds of concepts, theories, exercises and read or watched any and every video I could find on singing. And sometimes, the things you find contradict with each other, are completely off track, or are just simply overwhelming.
So, as I was learning to sing to simplify my learning process, I came up with something I personally like to call the Holy Trinity of Singing, though it has no religious connotation at all whatsoever. (But it has a nice ring to it though, right?)
If you would rather watch this in video-format, you can check that out right here! If not, feel free to read on!
Throughout my years of study and experimentation, I learned that there are only three concepts that singing boils down to. And no matter what you’re struggling with singing-wise, no matter the level of your talent, you can always pin your issues back to one, two, or all three of these three components in this Holy Trinity of Singing to fix what needs fixing.
The Three Components of Singing
(AKA, the ONLY places you ever have to look to improve*):
1. Breathing
2. Vowels (Mouth Shape)
3. Vocal Placement
*Note: there is one other place someone may need to look, but that is only if you find yourself singing off-pitch (pitch is simply the note you're singing. If you're off-pitch, you're either singing flat, which is under the correct note, or sharp, which is over the correct note). Being in-tune or on pitch has to do with hearing yourself, and it's more of a mental skill. For this blog, we will be focusing on just the physical components of singing.
These three places (breathing, singing vowels and vocal placement) are the only places you’ll need to look. This guide you’re reading has to do with how you’re singing, rather than what you’re singing.
If you learn each of these three components to your fullest potential, and you will have the voice you’ve always dreamed of. I’ve written these three components in the order I learned them, and the order I teach them. I suggest you learn them in this order, and I’ll explain why in a little bit. (But again; learn to hear yourself first if that's something you struggle with!)
Now first, let’s learn what each of these three components are, how they can be messing with your vocal improvement, and why they’re so important to learn correctly and fully.
Breathing
Anyone who’s done their fair share of research in learning to sing has probably heard of, “breathing from your diaphragm.”
Breathing from your diaphragm is so important because, without it, you’ll never have enough air, and you’ll never be able to use it wisely.
Diaphragm breathing is just a fancy way of saying to breathe lower. When you breathe normally, a muscle (imagine it as being horizontal) underneath your ribs called your diaphragm moves down as you breathe in. This allows your lungs space to expand as you take in air. When you exhale, your diaphragm moves back up, gently pushing your air back out.
When you breathe normally, your diaphragm only moves down a little tiny bit—barely at all, really. It moves down just enough for you to take in a little bit of air, which is all we need to simply breathe and survive and speak. You don’t need a ton of air to speak and breathe normally, so your diaphragm doesn’t bother moving down so much.
But with singing, you often hold notes a while, and often much longer than with speaking. So, that small amount of air you usually take in just isn’t going to cut it.
Singing is literally the result of how you exhale your breath. Which means that how you breathe is vitally important! And often, even after you learn how to breathe from your diaphragm, singers will simply forget to breathe during a song. Sometimes they don’t breathe low enough, they don’t take in enough air, or they aren’t controlling their exhale and they let all the breath out in an instant instead of pacing it.
Here’s some things you may be experiencing if you’re breathing incorrectly:
- voice is too breathy
- you’re out of breath quickly
- pitch inaccuracy
- unable to maintain enough air for long notes
For tips and techniques on how to breathe from your diaphragm, check out this post here!
Singing Vowels (Mouth Shapes)
I have a post on what exactly singing vowels are and how to form them, but here I’ll just explain their importance to singing and the problems you may experience if your vowels are incorrect.
Vowels are very important. Without perfect—or close to perfect—vowels, you’ll run into a bunch of vocal problems, and you’ll never sound as amazing as you are capable of sounding.
If you’ve done even more digging into learning to sing, you may have heard the term “singing vowels.” Always remember: although we call them vowels, they aren’t the same vowels we know and love from English class: A, E, I, O, U and sometimes Y.
Singing vowels are: Ah, A, E, O, and Oo.
In essence, saying each of these vowels correctly (shaping your mouth in a very specific way as you do so) forms your mouth into a very specific shape. So you can also think of singing vowels as mouth shapes.
Each of these five singing vowels—mouth shapes—are the only five mouth shapes or vowels you’ll ever use while singing. Because, each of these five vowel sounds are the ONLY five different sounds that make up every word you’ll ever sing. (Much more about vowels in the vowels post).
So, why is it important how we pronounce words when we sing? Why can’t we pronounce things the same way both speaking and singing?
Because—when we speak, we don’t care about how our tone sounds. We don’t need our voices to sound angelic. We just need to get our point across. When you’re trying to sound pretty, however, that has to do with how you pronounce things.
It all has to do with that air you’re breathing out.
We talked about how it’s important to take in enough air and release it at a controlled pace, but we also have to consider how you shape its exit.
Think of mouth shape and air the same way sound reacts in a room. A spacious room that has hardly any furniture or carpeting to absorb the sound and no open windows or open doors (such as a cathedral or a bathroom) gives singers and musicians great acoustics. The sound circulates freely and it’s very concentrated; it has nowhere to escape. On the other hand, if you’re singing in a room that has open windows and open doors and plenty of furniture for sound to absorb into, it has plenty of room to escape. You don’t get that glass-like, beautiful tone that you get in a church.
The same idea goes for how air circulates in your mouth.
Your mouth shape is your room, your breath is your voice. The more space you have in your mouth and the smaller/narrower the opening of your mouth, the more glass-like your voice comes out. If your mouth is open too wide, that’s like opening the windows in the room. You’re letting the air escape and breaking that glass-like tone of your voice. (Not to mention causing a bunch of other issues).
Singers like Ariana Grande and Kelly Clarkson have beautiful glass-like tone because their vowels—their mouth shapes—are so perfectly shaped. They’re both classically trained, and classically trained singers are usually taught very perfect vowels. Anyone can achieve glass-like or autotune-like tone if they perfect their vowel shapes.
With imperfect vowel shapes, you may experience:
- breathy voice
- pitch inaccuracy, usually too flat
- dull tone
- difficulty singing higher
- lack of flexibility in voice
- lack of air
If you’re experiencing any of these issues, go back to your vowel shapes. Polish them up… the results may astound you.
Vocal Placement
Last but not least, we have vocal placement.
Vocal placement is simply where you concentrate your voice when you sing. It’s where you place your voice in your body.
The reason I both learned and teach this last is because you often can’t learn this either easily or at all until you have breathing and vowels under control (and my definition of “under control” is the ability to do them without having to consciously think about it. After you’ve made them a new habit).
Now, why is placement important?
Where you put your voice in your body is so important because singing doesn’t occur in just one spot. That’s why, when people struggle to sing higher, it’s often because they’re trying to sing notes that don’t exist where they’re trying to sing them.
If you’re struggling with placement, you might be experiencing:
- a break in your voice as you try to sing higher, like you’re hitting a wall in your throat
- a light, soft voice that is unable to sing with power
- a heavy, thick voice that is unable to soften
- any trouble singing high notes
- any kind of tension or strain in your throat while singing
Another reason I leave placement until last in this Holy Trinity of Singing is because placement takes the longest to master (and for me, it’s been four years and I still wouldn’t say I’ve “mastered” it). If breathing and vowels are like a sports player’s equipment and uniform, placement is the player actually playing the game. Placement is the heart of singing.
But to put it simply, you have two major “places” to sing: Head Voice and Chest Voice.
Head Voice is located from pretty much the roof of your mouth and upward through the crown, or the back of your head. Head voice is comprised of the highest notes in your range, and sounds thinner, softer and lighter. We all use head voice when we talk to an adorable puppy or baby, in that soft, high voice.
Chest Voice is from the roof of your mouth and down, and you'll feel it resonate in your chest. Chest voice is comprised of the lowest notes in your range, and sounds heavier and thicker. You've used chest voice all day long; chest voice is your speaking voice range!
The problem occurs when you try to go from chest voice to head voice (or vice versa). The point where your two voices meet is called your “vocal break”. Everyone has one, and it’s different for everyone. You'll feel where your vocal break is when you have that “hitting a wall" feeling in your throat as you try to sing higher. Most beginning singers try to force their voice up past their break. But that's called straining. It also sounds like straining, and it's almost always unsuccessful. Trying to bust through your vocal break isn't just the way to sing through your break, it can be very damaging! So, don't strain! Ever!! Because there is a way to sing up and down your range smoothly and easily! And that has everything to do with where you're putting your voice: placement.
The way to stop that break from happening is by smoothing the transition between head voice and chest voice, and we do that by learning mixed voice.
Mixed voice is a mixture of head voice and chest voice. And it is one of the most beautiful things in the world of singing, because it opens you up so much!
When you try to sing higher in chest voice and you don’t switch to mixed voice, you hit what can be described as chest voice’s “ceiling”. Pretty much, all the notes below your break can be sung in chest voice, but those above your break cannot be sung in chest voice; your anatomy doesn't allow for it. You cannot “raise” your chest voice by trying to pull or force it upward. It physically cannot happen; it’s like trying to push a car to go 60 mph in first gear; it simply isn't made to work that way, and you’ll either stall or break the car or both. How do you go 60 mph in car? You switch gears. Essentially, that's what we're doing with vocal placement! You have three gears in your voice, and it's your job to make sure you switch them before you try going faster, or singing higher.
What we’re doing with placement is moving your voice to a different place. A place where you can hit those notes.
So, if you find yourself always tense and straining, running into that vocal break all the time… look no further than this. Learn vocal placement and you’ll never have to strain to hit the notes you want to hit ever again. (post on placement coming soon!)
So, that is my Holy Trinity of Singing. I’ve narrowed it down to the only three components of singing—so, master all three of these, and you’ll have the vocal freedom you’ve always wanted.
I’ll reiterate what I said about learning these in the order I wrote them if you’re a beginner; don’t try learning placement first. That would be like trying to bake a cake without proper ingredients; it’s not gonna work and certainly won’t taste good. Learn breathing and vowels until you don’t have to consciously think about them anymore. Because trying to learn all three components—breathing, vowels, and placement—at once is very overwhelming and a recipe for disaster. (Can’t get away from the baking analogy, apparently).
Take your time with these, and learn them thoroughly. You’ll thank yourself in the long run and save yourself a heck of a lot of time. Again—don’t take the cake out of the over before it’s done baking. (Okay, that’s the last one, I promise).
For those of you intermediate or advanced singers out there who are still struggling with one or two smaller, specific issues, really, honestly, ask yourself if you’re breathing correctly and using perfect vowel shapes.
I’ve had many clients who rolled their eyes at re-learning breathing or vowels because they “learned it already” in chorus or wherever. But often, they didn’t actually or completely learn how to do them correctly—they just thought they did. You can roll your eyes at the basics all you want, but you’re only hurting yourself if that is your problem and your pride prevents you from giving it another honest look. They may be basics, but they’re basics because they’re your foundation. They’re the wheels on a car or the walls on a house (or the chocolate in the cake batter… sorry, I had to). Set yourself a strong foundation to build upon, and you’ll be grateful for it, trust me.
With that said, use this little guide any time you find yourself struggling in any part of your singing; you’ll find the solution in here somewhere. Really pinpoint what’s wrong and revisit these three components of singing to figure out what’s going wrong, and you’ll be on your way to becoming the singer you’re meant to be in no time.
Any questions? Drop them in an email here! I’d be happy to help! If you need any one-on-one help, feel free to set up a voice lesson with me!
Happy Singing!
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