The 10 Best Tips For Singers by Ken Tamplin (Part 5 of 5)

Welcome to our final installment of “10 Facts About the Voice” – this is part 5!

10 Facts About the Voice.  Part 5:

1.  If you have been training correctly, and you over sing one night, it is best to come back the next day and do a full and proper workout. This will keep the elasticity in the chords. Otherwise, it usually takes several days to recover.
2.  Often in rock (and/or singing for long periods of time) people are afraid of being “sore”. There are many types of sore. If you have been singing correctly, sore is ok most of the time. Hoarse is NOT. We get “sore” when we go to the gym and work out. If we “over work” something it will feel strained. So it is with the voice,
3.  The best thing to have on stage is room temperature water.
4.  Always warm up about 45 minutes before your performance. Try not to allow more than 30 minutes between the time you warm up and the time you sing. Otherwise the voice “settles” and you’ll need to warm up briefly again.
5.  Don’t over train on days you are going to sing. So don’t do your warm up in the morning and then sing at night. Warm up just before you sing.
6.  Most performers want to come out with their hardest material to sing in the beginnings of their sets. This is the exact opposite of what you want to do. You want to stagger your harder material toward the end of the set when you have carefully paced yourself, warmed up through the show and are ready to take on the harder material.
7.  At sound check (if you get one 🙂 never try to impress the few straggling guys that are in the room watching. Resist the temptation and save if for the show.
8.  With your band, do your best to practice at a lower sound volume. Mistakes will be much more evident then. Don’t deceive yourself by thinking that cranking it up makes you better. This way, when you get the board mix from the sound man, you won’t have to say to yourself, man we sounded much better in rehearsal.
9.  If your guitarist insists on having his amp louder than the rest of the band (because all his sound volume is blowing by his legs and he has no idea how loud he really is) have the amps faced away from you so you can get the vocal monitors up as loud as possible.
10.  When sound checking monitors, always have them vocal MUCH louder than you think you’ll need. You can always back off the microphone. You can’t always get the sound man who is more interested in the chick with the low cut dress right in front of him to “give you more” during a performance.