Have you ever heard someone say, “I can’t carry a tune in a bucket,”?  Have you ever thought, “I wasn’t in the water when they added singing to the gene pool”? 

 

Maybe somewhere along the line, you’ve really secretly wanted to be good at it though.  Perhaps you’ve always wanted to sing better but someone told you it was hard. These twelve steps will help you or anyone you know learn how to sing well.  They’ll show even the ‘singing challenged’ out there that it’s possible for them to be good, really good at it!  After 35 years surrounded by music and musicians, I’ve come to see that anyone can learn to sing well.  Sometimes it just takes a different approach.

 

Consider this: would it be worth singing if you absolutely could not make a mistake?  Would you try it if there were no right or wrong notes, no tests, and nobody else listening to you?

 

We encourage you to give it a try here.  At least read through the steps a couple times to get a sense of what we’re talking about.  There’s a really incredible moment you deserve to have in your life at least once.  It may come when you sing with others, it may come when you sing by yourself, but some time, you’ll feel a connection, and you’ll finally get the sense of what St. Augustine really meant when he said, “Singing well is praying twice.” 

    Step 1:  Amen

 

Try this:

1)       Speak the word “Amen” out loud three or four times.  You can do it loudly, softly, quickly, or slowly.  Right now it doesn’t matter how, but do say it out loud.

2)       Now say it again, and this time, stretch out the ‘Ah’ part. Sustain the ‘ah’ vowel over a couple seconds.

3)       Good!  Now try that again.  Sustain the “ah” a little longer. 

4)       Once more.  Can you count to 4 slowly inside while you sustain the ‘ah’ sound?

Congratulations!  You’re singing!   When you sustain any vowel sound, you’re singing.  Now if you added correct intent, a couple more notes, and you happened to live in the middle ages, you’d be qualified to chant your prayers in a monastery, at least in private anyway.

    Step 2: Breathe Well

 

Let your diaphragm, the biggest and strongest muscle you’ve got going for you, do most of the work when you sing.  If you do that, the muscles that aren’t needed for singing won’t mess up the sound and you won’t put a strain on your voice.

 

This is a fun one: 

 

1)       Lie down on the floor on your back with your eyes to the ceiling.

2)       Take a slow inhale.  Just let the soft tissue in the lower abdomen move out of the way first.  Let your shoulders and upper chest stay in place by the force of gravity. Now exhale.  Let gravity take over.

3)       Take another inhale and then hiss like a snake on the exhale.  Do you feel the push back from the abdomen?  That’s you’re diaphragm.  When you push harder or faster from the diaphragm the sound gets louder.  Try it. Keep the shoulders and upper chest passive.

4)       Take another inhale and then do the “ah” in amen.  Pushing faster from the diaphragm will make the “ah” louder.  A steady “presence” helps the sound project and gives it strength, even if it is soft

5)       Stand up, take another inhale with the diaphragm, and do the “ah” sound once more.  Can you keep the diaphragm active as you sing?  Are your shoulders and upper chest passive like before?  You’ll want to learn to keep them that way.  No sense in working too hard.  Good singing feels almost effortless. 

Don’t worry if this seems tricky.  With practice, breathing from your diaphragm will become second nature to you.  Let’s add some more notes to your vocabulary so you can sing a real song.

 

     Step 3:  Siren

 

I grew up in a small town where they used a siren to warn of tornados.  When it started up, the siren began soft and low and gradually got loud and high.  Then it slid up and down between two different notes near the top of the range while the siren rotated on a pole, almost like an audio light house. 

 

We’re going to do the same thing with our voices. (Rotating optional.)

 

1)       Start your own “ah” on any note.  Listening for the pitch of the sound (how high, how low), gradually go higher and then gradually lower on the same exhale.  There is no right or wrong answer.  You can go as high or as low as you want to. 

2)       Repeat this a few times.  Now try to move back and forth very smoothly between the high note and the low note.  Try to sing every possible note and all of them in between.  Take a new breath whenever you need to. 

3)       After practicing for awhile, see how slowly you can make the sound go higher and then lower.  The slower the better.  Why?  Because as you master this, you’ll train the muscles to move through all of the notes.  Even the ones they only use in India and the Far East.  (Search on the web for “quarter tones” sometime if you’re curious.) 

    Contact Us

 

Singing Well in 12 Steps can be introduced in a 90 minute workshop.  Participants receive the CD for home study with a 25% discount.  (CDs for the public are currently in production.  Short runs of CDs for workshop participants will be ready on the day of the workshop.)  Private sessions are available by appointment on a limited basis.

 

To arrange a Singing Well in 12 Steps Seminar or Workshop, please send your e-mail request to: musicbydavidpaul@gmail.com

 

Or call David Paul: 904-294-7219

 

More information about David Paul is available at: www.musicbydavidpaul.com