Karaoke Forums

Guys, if ya get a chance go check out Dreamers sub in the showcase!
What fun!

Robb, you and Earnie are inspiring me to get off my lazy butt and try some new stuff too. Maybe I'll join your quest!

Jazz did a great job explaining the concepts of singing. Thanks, Jazzy.

Using the Diaphragm correctly is usually what makes singers sound best... since without breath you can't make sounds. Be sure when you are breathing that your tummy is expanding (moving out as you inhale) ... and your shoulders aren't rising.

For those of you who are feeling pain in your neck (old paint), it sounds like you are very tense. When you start to feel that pain ... imagine an "orange" or a "baseball" in front of your nose. Tip you head slightly down and imagine you are tracing the outline of the shape with your nose, slowly rotating your head until you feel the tension in your neck diminishing. You are placing way too much tension on your shoulders and larynx if you are getting neck pain to hit a note. Try to take a cleansing breath before the note and open your throat a bit more.

Those of you experiencing coughing or colds (strmbreeze) before competitive events are probably having a minor case of laryngititis... commonly associated with stress and nerves. To reduce the swelling of your vocal folds, try to give yourself more "rest" time between singing, increase water drinking 6-8 glasses a day, try to avoid cafeine 'cause it dries out our mucus membranes, stay away from smoking or smoke filled environments as much as you can and try to sing songs that are within your vocal range, even it means adjusting the key for a short time. The suggestion for lemon in tea is a good one ... but some teas also have cafeine... so be sure you are drinking one that isn't cafeinated.

Hope some of this has been helpful.

Hugs, CC

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[shadow=tomato]If you want your significant other to pay attention to EVERY word you say::
  TALK IN YOUR SLEEP   [/shadow]  

Hey shotgun and kantstop...thanks for the suggestions!! I drink TONS of caffiene... from coffee, to mochas, to tea, to ice tea, but now I know that waters way better for my throat... and hopefully if I slow my singing schedule down even just a little bit it will prevent my little cough~ies from happening in the future!! You guys are the best!

A good singer uses the whole body to sing, to a certain extent. You use your diaphragm to breathe and the sound is propelled out through your throat and your mouth. The shape of your mouth affects the sound. The size of your voicebox (which you have no control over) affects your voice, too.

I took voice lessons for years. They always told me all of this technical stuff that I understood in theory but not in practice, and it took me a long time to get where I am now. I used to sing more on my throat with very little breath support (not using the diaphragm) because I really didn't understand how to make it work. I would get very nervous when I sung, and then what little breath support I had would go right out the window.
Then I finally got a good teacher that got through my thick skull

Basically, what I thought of as "shouting" was singing. When you think about it, singing is sustained shouting. NOTE that I don't mean SCREAMING, that is bad for your voice. Just a regular yell or shout. Prepare to yell or shout, and what do you automatically do? You take a big breath! The trick is to learn how to keep using the breath longer and longer and not have to keep taking more at inappropriate times, and be able to adjust your volume without using up all of your breath. That one I am still working on. It takes lots of practice that I am very bad at (like playing scales on the piano to limber up your fingers). So I just do what I can.

The better you get at the breathing part, the longer you will be able to sing and the less tired your voice will get. Singing on your throat or in a breathy way is bad for your throat and you could get vocal nodes. The reason many pop and rock singers can't sing years well later is because they smoke, drink, & take drugs, or they are singing on their throat, or they tire out their voice by singing too long and not really knowing how to take care of it...theya re not "trained" for the most part.

Natural aging will have some effect on your voice, and your breathing, but if you are training properly and using good judgement, you can sing until very late in life and still sound good.

You shouldn't compare yourself to professionally-recorded singers because they often sing very differently than anyone singing live. Plus they have all sorts of recording tricks they use.

That's my two cents

Good luck!

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~Suzanne Lanoue~

wow! slanoue
thank-you very much that sure was some great interesting reading,