Breath Control
When a singer doesn’t have good control of their breathing, they may suffer from problems like breathiness, losing pitch, going flat, or singing falsetto. Each of these problems can be traced back to an imbalance between the chest voice and the head voice.
The solution is to learn to breathe from the diaphragm, which is essential to all singing techniques. The following exercise is called the “hissing breath,” and it helps to retrain the diaphragm so that it can support the voice properly.
Singing Exercises
If you’re looking to get the most out of your singing voice, daily vocal exercises are a must. They help to keep your voice flexible, strong and healthy so that it’s ready for performances.
For example, humming is a great exercise as it’s not too strenuous and can be done for long periods of time without any damage to your vocal cords. Humming also helps to warm up the muscles of your throat before you sing, so that you can reach higher notes without straining or damaging your voice.
Relaxation
If you think about your voice like an instrument, then it’s important to treat it with care. Just as you wouldn’t leave a guitar or trumpet out to get rusty, your vocal cords need to be exercised regularly to keep them in good condition. This helps reduce any strain on the voice and can help you avoid a sore throat or other singing problems.
A simple way to start is by doing humming exercises. Close your mouth and hum a continuous sound at a low pitch. Move the pitch up and down your range and repeat as needed to warm up the vocal cords. This will also help re-lubricate the vocal folds and improve overall tone quality.
Warm Up
There are a wide range of vocal warm ups and exercises that can be used to prepare the voice. These can help to loosen and stretch the voice and are a good way to get familiar with your own voice without having lyrics to worry about.
One of the most effective and easiest vocal warm ups is humming. This is done by placing the tip of your tongue behind your bottom front teeth and humming up and down the major scale. It is not as taxing on the voice as singing as it requires less pressure to be heard.