I’ve said it many times before: anyone can learn to sing. Anyone. Even you.
But today, I’m going to give you a reason to believe me.
I realize that just because these things have worked for me and for other people as well doesn’t always make you think that it will work for you, too. We’ve all been there, especially when you have spent years and years trying to learn or achieve something.
But no matter what you have tried in the past or how long you have been trying to learn to sing, my goal here today is to prove to you that you can learn to sing.
And the way I am going to prove it to you is by telling you the secret to singing:
You already know how to sing.
Yep, you read that right.
You already do all of the things that will make your voice the strongest and purest it can sound.
However, you probably just aren’t using these things when you sing.
Let’s start by going over those 3* areas of singing.
Those three areas are:
Breathing
Singing Vowels (Mouth Shape)
Vocal Placement
(*technically there are 4 areas of singing, the 4th being your ability to sing on pitch. However, for this, we are looking at the physical aspect of singing, and being able to sing on pitch (if not being affected by these components) is a mental skill.)
If you learn all three of these to the best of your ability, you’ll have the incredible voice you’ve always wanted.
And if you’re not sure if you know how to (or can) do these things, allow me to prove you wrong!
Let’s start with Breathing.
Breathing
You’ve seen and heard it a million times when researching how to sing: you have to learn to breathe from your diaphragm to sing.
This is true!
But the misconception is that this is a completely new thing to you. (It’s not!)
People often start trying to breathe from their diaphragm thinking that they have never done so before.
But you not only have done this before, you do it every single day, for at least 1/4 of the day, if not longer.
That’s because we naturally breathe from our diaphragm when we are lying down.
So, when you are laying down to sleep at night, you are breathing the exact way you need to when you sing.
The diaphragm is a horizontal muscle that moves down when we breathe in, and moves up when we breathe out. Pretty much, it moves down to allow our lungs to expand with air, and it moves up to help us gently expel that air out.
The only thing is that when we speak, we don’t need to maintain a lot of air at once. So, our diaphragm barely moves at all.
But when we sing, we’re holding words and notes for a much longer time, therefore we need more air at once to support them. That means we need our lungs to fill with more air at once so that we have that air supply.
In the simplest sense, all we’re trying to do when breathing for singing is taking in more air, and to do that, making sure our diaphragm moves down further so we can take in that air. If your diaphragm doesn’t move down, our lungs have no room to expand.
Now, back to the fact that we do this every single day.
We breathe in relation to gravity, which means we breathe up and down.
So, when we are upright, we breathe with our lungs, where our chest moves up and our shoulders do, too.
However, when we lay down, we breathe up and down the same way. Except now that you’re horizontal, the only way you can breathe up and down is if your stomach moves up and down. (Here is my post on breathing from your diaphragm, and here is my video on this technique!)
Try it!
Stand or sit and notice how you breathe. Your chest and shoulders and upper body moves up toward the sky and back down.
Now, lay down, and breathe in.
Notice that your stomach moves up toward the sky and back down.
Notice, also, how much more air you can breathe in when lying down.
This is breathing from your diaphragm!
The only thing you have to do is learn how to breathe so that your stomach moves out and in while you’re sitting and standing.
This isn’t something we’re used to because we simply don’t need to do so in everyday life.
But it doesn’t mean it’s not something you can learn.
I have a post on how to breathe from your diaphragm while upright here, and I have a video on it as well here!
See how breathing from your diaphragm isn’t new at all to your body?
You already breathe correctly for singing; it’s just a matter of learning to do it upright, and while singing.
Singing Vowels
If you have never heard of singing vowels before, I have a post and a video (above) that explain what they are!
But in essence, singing vowels are just mouth shapes. It’s just the way you shape your mouth when you sing, to guarantee you have enough space in your mouth for your voice to have the best tone (clarity), freedom and flexibility! Without singing vowels, you’ll find it physically challenging to sing, you may mumble, sing flat, have trouble with riffs and runs, a dull tone, and other struggles!
Whenever people start using singing vowels, they feel like they’re incredibly foreign. But that’s not true–you’ve just never used these mouth shapes to sing.
However, you have used them before. You’ve probably used most of them at some point this week!
Let me explain:
In general, these 5 singing vowels (A, E, Ah, O, Oo) are in a mouth shape that ensures that your mouth has lot of space. Pretty much, it makes your mouth taller, rather than wider.
You use this mouth shape several times each morning and each night.
Because… this space feels exactly like it feels when you yawn!
It also is the exact same feeling/shape your mouth takes on when you drink or blow through a straw! (This is why OOVO/phonation straws work for singers!)
You’re just now using that shape while singing.
This just goes to show: vowels are not completely new to you, and you already know how to do this!
Each of the 5 vowel shapes have this same amount of space, but the only difference between these 5 is what you do with your lips and your chin. This is in order to form different vowel sounds.
And, spoiler alert: you use most of them all the time!
The “Ah” vowel:
Ariana Grande source/performance
When have you used this vowel?
We use the “Ah” vowel in two different daily scenarios:
When you are in the middle of a conversation and you finally understand something someone said. You go: “Ahhhhhhh, now I get it!”
When you are watching or playing a game, and you (or your sports team) loses points. You go “Ahhhhhhhh!” Imagine how you react when your football team drops a pass or your team’s batter strikes out. You go, “Aww!” or “Ahh!”
This is the same as the Ah vowel in singing! Notice how much taller your mouth is when you do this in daily life?
Just apply that to singing!
The “O” Vowel:
Josh Groban source/performance
Daily scenarios you use this vowel:
Similarly to “Ah”, when you understand something finally. You go, “Ohhhhh!”
The “A” Vowel:
Miley Cyrus source/performance
The “A” vowel is the same as the American or British English words “Say,” “Day,” “Pay,” etc.
Daily scenarios you use this vowel:
The slang greeting of: “Ayyyyyy!”
The outburst of the word “Hey!” that you use when someone does something you aren’t happy with (aka, cuts you in line at the store, etc.)
The “Oo” Vowel:
Kelly Clarkson source/performance
The “Oo” vowel is the same as the American or British English words “True,” “To,” “Blue,” etc.
Daily scenarios you use this vowel:
When you are impressed or excited in a conversation. You go, “Ooooooh!”
When you are sympathizing with someone or something, you may go, “Oooh….”
The only singing vowel shape that is not used in daily life (at least as Americans, but I haven’t yet met anyone who has used this shape before!) is the “E” vowel shape, as in “See,” “Be,” or “Tree.”
The E singing vowel shape is the opposite of the way we speak words with an E vowel in daily life. We say “E” with a very wide mouth shape, almost like we’re smiling. However, the singing vowel of “E” needs to be shaped in a way where the corners of your lips are much closer, maybe only an inch or two apart from each other.
The “E” singing vowel:
Adam Lambert source/performance
Even though the “E” vowel is the exception of the shapes we use in our daily lives, remember: the essence of vowel shapes is that feeling of blowing through a straw. Something we do very often! The only difference is a little bit of a change in how your lips and chin are shaped.
See how much of singing vowels we’re already used to?
Placement
Lastly, there’s vocal placement.
I have a post all about vocal placement, but here’s the proof that you already know how to sing all throughout your range!
There are 3 vocal registers:
Head Voice
Mixed Voice
Chest Voice
Head Voice is your highest and softest notes.
Chest Voice is your lowest and strongest/fullest/loudest notes (think belting).
Mixed Voice is a mixture of those two registers. It is between them; the transition. Mixed Voice is less powerful than Chest Voice, but more powerful than your Head Voice.
You’ve used ALL three of these registers before, probably pretty often! And probably many times this week!
Head Voice in Daily Life
Head Voice is your higher notes, however it’s also your softest notes.
Head Voice is the epitome of the “lullaby” type of singing. It’s quiet singing, the idea that you don’t want to wake someone up who is sleeping nearby.
Head Voice is also the same voice you use when you talk to a cute puppy or baby. The “Awwww, you’re so cute!” or “You’re such a good boy/girl!” voice. This is Head Voice!
Also, any time you speak to someone quietly, you are using Head Voice.
See? You probably already used Head Voice today!
Just apply this idea to singing, and you’re singing in Head Voice!
Chest Voice in Daily Life
Chest Voice is your lower notes, and it is also your speaking voice!
If you speak, you know how to use Chest Voice.
If you are singing lower notes and it feels very different than speaking, then you are not correctly in Chest Voice. It should feel identical! The only change you need to make for your lower notes is adding in vowels to make it sound more polished.
Now - Chest Voice, all through your range (not just low notes) is also known as belting.
How have we used this belting placement in daily life?
Whenever you yell.
If you yell to someone, “Hey, go long!” or “Watch out!” or if you’re angry, “I can’t believe you!” etc etc, you are yelling. But think: when you yell in daily life… you don’t strain to do so.
Your voice already naturally knows how to change placement to allow you more volume and a higher pitch.
That is the essence of belting! (However, if you are learning to belt, please refrain from using yelling as the way to teach yourself, since in my own experience the idea of approaching it like yelling can lead to a tendency to strain.)
There is another thing we do in daily life (okay, probably not daily life), but this is something you probably have done at least once in your life.
And that’s to speak like a Valley Girl.
The Valley Girl accent (the stereotypical Californian, “Mean Girls” type of accent) is in the exact same placement as belting. (This exercise I do suggest, haha!)
And lastly, we also enter belting placement by making a complaining sound.
Such as (a higher pitched) “Ughhhhhhhhh!” or “Ewwwww!” Or, the same sound kids use on a playground, mocking each other with a “Na na na na na!”
Here is a video of me showing some of these in action!
Mixed Voice in Daily Life
So, how have we used Mixed Voice in Daily Life?
Well, have you ever hummed anything in your life?
Great!
You know how to find Mixed Voice.
Humming is the exact placement of Mixed Voice! The trick of it is to be able to keep your voice in that placement… while your mouth is open.
But don’t worry - you’ve done that before too!
One of the best examples of your voice in the Mixed Voice placement in daily life is when you imitate a baby crying. That exact sound is Mixed Voice! Granted, it’s Mixed Voice in its rawest form, so it doesn’t sound too good. But once you add in singing vowels, it is beautiful, polished singing!
Anyone CAN Learn to Sing!
See how many singing techniques we already do in daily life?
Very, very few singing techniques are completely new to you. We just haven’t used them in terms of singing before. I hope this helps to show you that you CAN do this, because you already DO!
Again - all these things we do only need vowels (or one of the other components) to shape them to give you the polished sound you want. This is to show you that you know how to find this placement already! It’s just about applying this to singing, adding in some vowels and correct breathing, and bam! You’re a singer.
You have been all along.
Leave any questions or comments below, and if you need any more help, I offer online voice lessons over here!
Happy Singing!
Comments