1. Get good quality information from reliable sources.
The Internet is amazing. There is such a vast amount of information, it’s incredible!
And particularly on YouTube.
There is hardly a subject out there that you can’t go to YouTube to try to get answers.
And while the Internet is a tremendous blessing, it can also be very difficult to decipher what information is legit and what isn’t.
I’m not here to bag on other vocal coaches, but I must say that I hear some of the most ridiculous nonsense spewed on YouTube and the fact that people buy into it boggles my mind.
Let me give you a couple of examples:
One extremely well-known local coach from Los Angeles, who has millions and millions of views, keeps telling her students to “blow more air, blow more air, blow more air”. What does that even mean? To huff and puff and blow the house down? No folks! We don’t want to blow more air! We want to understand how to conserve air and use it to our advantage.
And the overuse of air is the kiss of death for the vocal cords, drying and stressing them out.
Another example is another very well-known vocal coach telling people to use consonant sounds as much as possible for glottal stops. Also insanity! The more you train the throat to close down with consonant sounds, the more you constrict the throat, and the more difficult it is to learn how to keep it open while singing. I could go on and on, but I think you get the point. Just because you have a YouTube degree doesn’t mean you’re right!
2. Practice that good information consistently.
Coming off of point number 1: Because there is so much confusing information out there, it’s difficult to know what to trust. And because it’s difficult to know what to trust, it’s easy to move from idea to idea and concept to concept, chasing down the ever elusive rainbow of how to get the voice you want. Most legit concepts for singing take quite a bit of time for them to maturate, “hold”, and build stamina for consistency.
So it’s easy to blow off correct information, thinking it doesn’t work because you haven’t given a chance to work.
A perfect example of this is people that want to connect their chest voice with their head voice through the passaggio, but they don’t understand that it takes quite some time to develop this art. So they race off to the next person that will give them that diet pill to lose weight quick, rather than going to the gym, working out, and eating correctly like they’re supposed to to have a sustainable legitimate path for success.
3. Don’t overuse air.
As I mentioned in point number 1, understanding how to utilize, conserve, pace the breath, and mitigate air is one of the holy grail’s to singing.
4. Don’t get distracted when practicing.
As I have said many times and I will say it again, it’s not practice that makes perfect. It’s perfect practice that makes perfect.
5. Do a proper warm up.
Few people love to go to the gym and work out. It can be arduous, it can be tiring, and getting the strength, stamina and mental fortitude to want to work out takes determined effort.
So what do we do? We try to do the least amount we can to “get by” so we can start singing!
But I want you to think about something.
If you were a soccer/football player and heading for a tournament, or let’s say the World Cup, and you hadn’t spent the time training your body to have the stamina and endurance to last 90 minutes of arduous playing, you would get crushed!
So why is it that we think we can get away with not exercising our voices?
Guess what, we can’t!
Take the time! Spend the time to do a proper workout.
I cover all of these points in my video and cover them extensively in my singing course called “How to sing better than anyone else.”
I hope these tips and points help you on your singing journey.
Ken Tamplin Vocal Academy – Where The PROOF Is In The Singing!
