Many singers go into a practice session with songs that they very much enjoy singing, and they simply sing these same songs over and over. Sometimes the singer is looking to improve the singing voice, other times the goal is to simply get better at singing the given song for an upcoming performance. What often happens, however, is that there are particular sections of the song that you might feel just don’t work out right. Instead of singing the song over and over again to improve, the solution is to simply break the song down into parts for optimal practice sessions.
This might seem a bit obvious to some, but many times we overlook the thing that is staring us right in the face. What you can do is break apart all the sections of the song that you feel you are doing right and separate those from the parts that seem to be running flat or just out of tune. Work on each difficult section individually until you eventually eliminate the whole list of parts of the song that you are having a problem with. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by going through this process, but as you overcome the various portions of the song in which you are having trouble, you will build confidence and self esteem as the list dwindles and you eventually tackle the whole song.
A drill I’ve found that is very helpful to go along with this process is to strip all the words out of the various portions of the song and replace all the syllables with a “Nay”. So for instance if you were singing a line like “Here I go again on my own”, instead you would sing “Nay nay nay nay-nay nay nay nay.” This makes it easier for your mind to focus on the notes since it won’t be preoccupied with also having to form words to sing. This greatly increases the speed at which this process works. Once you get all the notes down in a particular section, put all the words back into that part. Wash, rinse, and repeat until you get the whole song down pat.
Take care and good luck.
A concern that invariably comes up for those just starting out in their singing careers is the ability to sing at the right pitch. This was one of my biggest up-hill battles when I was first getting involved in singing. Many people sing with the thought in their mind that they are hitting the right pitch, but to those listening the singer is just slightly flat. Other singers can hear that they are doing something wrong, but they don’t know how to get right into that proper tonal level.
At the time I struggled with this problem, I was in that category of singers who could hear the problem but had a hard time fixing it. One of the tricks I would use to hit the right pitch would be to sort of “slide into the pitch.” When I could hear that my tone was a bit flat, I would slide slightly up or down a bit in my tone until I hit what I could hear was correct. But this is hardly a solution, and it is a fix that is easily picked up by the audience.
So how is one to go about hitting just the right pitch without having to use some trick after you’ve already let the note out? A simple fix but one that comes with practice is to let go from your diaphragm. This is an part any vocalization that gets hammered into all young practitioners, but really breathing out from the diaphragm while singing or vocalizing is a deliberate action that has to be developed until it becomes habitual.
A simple yet practical drill you can do on your own is to match random tones on a keyboard or piano. Really you could do this with just about anything that emits musical tones, so you could try this drill even if you don’t own a piano or keyboard. You can even record yourself doing this exercise and then play it back afterward. How you hear yourself in your own head compared to how others hear you is markedly different, so the sound you hear from your recorded voice will give you a fairly comparative version of what others hear when you sing or vocalize.
One of the best pieces of advice I received from one of my first instructors and one that helped me to clean up my pitch problem is this. Instead of sliding into the proper tone or pitch during the out breath during singing, hold the idea of the sound in your mind during the inhale so that you are prepared as you exhale. It is more than just having an idea of what the note should sound like in your head, and this is where the keyboard drills I mentioned before will come in handy. This idea will make more sense as you practice individual tones and then gradually incorporate this technique into all of your singing routines. Practice thinking, hearing and feeling the note as you take a breath, and then as you breath out with your singing voice, it will become easier to get the pitch that you want and out of the flat spots.
