Are You Singing with Incorrect Technique?
How do you know that your vocal technique is letting you and your voice down?
Here’s a list of tell-tale signs that your technique isn't quite working for you:
✨ Your voice constantly sounds breathy and you can't seem to get clarity in the tone.
✨ You start to lose your voice after singing.
✨ You find yourself pushing from your throat to "belt out" high notes or when attempting to navigate through your vocal break.
✨ You have a sore or swollen throat after a performance or practice session.
✨ You struggle to get any volume or power despite working your butt off.
✨ Your jaw or shoulders start to ache when singing.
✨ You find it hard to breathe or sustain notes while singing (especially when adding movement).
✨ You feel like you can’t trust your voice, it’s inconsistent and you never know what will fall out of your mouth.
✨ You often have a sore abdomen from trying to push the sound out.
✨ Your vocal tone is often scratchy, croaky or shaky without it being a stylistic choice you’ve made.
Did you find yourself nodding along to any of those?
Don’t worry, because the next section is all what you can do to fix it.
Firstly, I want to suggest that you stop thinking about technique as good or bad, right or wrong, because…
a) that’s not the truth of it,
b) it likely makes you feel anxious which will add more tension and issues into the mix, and
c) it doesn’t help you improve as a singer.
Instead you’re going to think about optimising your singing technique as
adding more efficiency (more ease, less vocal strain)
building more consistency/reliablility
increasing your stamina/longevity, and
cracking open more resonance and colour/style options.
Okay so where should you start when it comes to improving all these areas of your voice?
You might assume that I’m going to suggest that you book in a lesson so I can hear and see how you sing and make adjustments according to your unique voice and body.
And yes, working with a vocal coach is the absolute quickest and least frustrating route to a voice that is tension-free that can create the sounds you want to express with ease and consistency.
But if you’re navigating this solo right now, I also want you to have a few common problem areas to suss out for yourself that will improve your vocal technique by eliminating the issue.
TONGUE TENSION
WHAT CAN THIS SOUND/FEEL LIKE?
A thin tone, lacking resonance
Feeling like you have a “block” in your throat
Tension or pushing/squeezing in the throat
A swallowed or froggy sound
A breathy tone
Struggle to sing higher notes
An obvious vocal break
WHAT YOU CAN DO TO WORK ON IT
We need to train the tongue not to come to the party (except to gently articulate the lyrics for us of course).
Try out these tongue exercises and notice if you have a greater sense of ease, more sound coming out and if you gain more clarity through your range.
BREATH
WHAT CAN THIS SOUND/FEEL LIKE?
Running out of breath in fairly short lines
Feeling like the sound is coming from your throat, no connection to your torso
Losing your voice or experiencing vocal fatigue
Lack of fullness or resonance in the tone
Hard to add dynamics/build power or volume
WHAT CAN YOU DO TO WORK ON IT?
Breath is a tricky one because some singers hold their breath, others push way too much out at their tiny little vocal cords and some release it in short bursts (which is why seeing a coach is super helpful with this).
But what CAN you do to develop a great breath-voice connection?
Grab yourself a straw (fairly thin, not a smoothie width).
CORD CLOSURE
WHAT CAN THIS SOUND/FEEL LIKE?
Unintentional breathiness in your tone
Shaky notes
A tone that’s heavier or sweeter/weaker than you would like
Lack of clarity
An obvious vocal break/flip when you change registers
WHAT CAN YOU DO TO WORK ON IT?
One of the things that really helps my students with finding the right cord coordination for a specific sound is to remind them that singing is STORYTELLING.
Vague ideas of what we thinking singing should be (including “pretty”) can get in the way of us making more organic sounds that feel and sound better.
One way wee can work on this is by thinking about “speaking” or “calling” around the pitch we’re aiming for.
And the other is by using our genuine emotion to do the expressing with us.
I hope you found this article incredibly useful!
(if you did, share it with another singer you know would benefit from it). ❤️
