We’re now on the 5th practice of highly successful singers. First of all, let’s take a look at practices 1-4 which I go into detail about in my previous blogs.

#1 Everyone has a great voice inside. Everyone. It’s a gift. The human body is the most perfect of all musical instruments. When most people sing, they believe that it is an extra-ordianry task that only the stars know how to do. That’s a lie. Singing is as natural and simple as speaking when you have the right tools and the right understanding of the process of singing. You must accept the power of your own instrument and trust it to make beautiful music.

Practice #2 is body alignment or posture. Standing up straight makes a big difference in your vocal sound. The body being the instrument, it needs to be aligned so that breath and sound can easily move through without strain or struggle. What would happen if you took the neck of a guitar and bent it? You could not tune it, play it, get good tone quality or any other quality that we value from a guitar. It’s the same with the human instrument. So begin your practice with good posture – not stiff and military, but stretched and strong.

The 3rd practice of highly successful singers is a simple, opening inhale. A good inhale solves most vocal problems. Your inhale needs to open the airways through which the breath and sound need to flow freely. Think of dropping the breath down into the lowest back and abdomen. Try it: soften your jaw muscles and let the mouth drop open. You will feel breath coming into your lungs. Do the same again also allowing breath to come in through your nose. Next, as you unhinge your jaw, soften your lowest back muscles – this action will draw air into your lungs without any effort on your part. The muscles you use to inhale, the airways you open on inhale are the muscles and airways that will be involved in creating sound.

#4 Practice is an active exhale. Your exhale is about releasing energy not forceful effort. Here’s an exercise that uses an everyday activity to make diaphragmatic breathing a habit. Try it right now. Your thumb becomes the candle, placed sternum height about 6” from your body. Use practice #3, the simple inhale, then with 3 quick, powerful blasts of air, blow out the candle. Feel which part of your body is doing the work to move the air. Yes, you feel the abs doing the work, just as they were meant to. This is the brilliantly simple Candle Exercise from Sing Like You Speak.

The 5th practice of highly successful singers is Listen. Listen and really hear the music. This refers back to #1. If you are listening to the nasty little kid telling you you’d better be careful and make a nice sound, then you are not listening to the music.

Your body responds to music very naturally. The ear hears the music and adjusts the vocal chords to the proper size and shape for the pitch. Your job it to let the breath flow through the body and allow that pitch to sound.

Most of you want to ‘help’ the sound. You want to help it move out to the audience, you want to help it sound better, you want to give it more push and on and on. When you ‘help’ the sound the only thing you are really doing is getting in the way of the natural process. All you can do is to short-circuit that process. Listen and hear the music and then respond to the music.

I had a student the other day with whom I was working on this concept of getting out of the way so her voice could function naturally. After the lesson she said it was much easier to push and ‘help’ than it was to stay out of the way. That’s true. When I asked her what she was going to do with that information, she said,’practice listening and responding to the music without ‘helping.’ Good student!

If you would like a video version of the 7 Practices of Highly Successful Singers, you can go to SingLikeYouSpeak.com and sign up over on the right side of the page. We will send you a download link to get the video. Enjoy!

About the author

Sally Morgan is a professional vocal trainer with over 30 years of experience. Sally is also the creator and author of SingLikeYouSpeak(TM)!

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