For the uninitiated, singing may look easy – you either can sing on pitch, or you can’t, right?  Not so fast.  Without proper training, it’s common for beginners to make simple errors, and if those turn into habits, they may make or break your future as a singer.

Here are a few common singing mistakes, as written by Teresa Radomski, an operatic soloist and professor at Wake Forest University:

1.  Poor posture
The efficient alignment of the body is of primary importance to voice production.  Problems in posture range from the collapse of the chest and rib cage with corresponding downward fall of the head and neck, to the hyper-extended, stiff posture of some singers that results in tension throughout the entire body.

2. Poor breathing and inappropriate breath support
Some beginning voice students gasp for air and exhibit clavicular (shoulder) or shallow breathing patterns.  Trained singers, on the other hand, use primarily diaphragmatic breath support.  The muscles of the lower back and abdomen are engaged, in conjunction with lowering the diaphragm.  As the breath stream is utilized for phonation, there should be little tension in the larynx itself.

3. Limited pitch range, and difficulty in register transition
All singing voices exhibit an optimal pitch range.  The term “register” is used to describe a series of tones that are produced by similar mechanical gestures of vocal fold vibration, glottal and pharyngeal shape, and related air pressure.  Some common designations of registers are the “head” register, “chest” register, “falsetto,” etc.  Singing requires transitions from one register to another.  Lack of coordination of the laryngeal musculature with the breath support may result in register break, or obvious shift from one tone quality to another.  Regardless of the style of singing, a blend, or smooth transition between registers, is desirable.

4. Poor articulation
Pronunciation with excessive tension in the jaw, lips, palate, etc., adversely affects the tonal production of the voice. The longer duration of vowel sounds in singing necessitates modification of pronunciation.  Retroflex and velar consonants (such as American “r” and “i”) need careful modification to allow sufficient pharyngeal opening for the best resonance, and the over-anticipation of nasal consonants (“m,” “n,” “ng”) may result in a stiff soft palate and unpleasant tone.

Of course, the best way to fix these errors is to work with a professional – relying on YouTube videos alone will give you some tips, but won’t give you the one-on-one feedback necessary to really improve.  We’re here to help – find a music teacher near you, and start working toward your goals!

Have you improved with the help of private music lessons?  We want to hear about your experience!  Stop by our Facebook page and leave a comment to join the discussion.

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Musicians are usually creative by nature.  But sometimes – especially if music is something you do in your spare time, instead of as your career – it can be all too easy to get caught up with the routine of life.  Maybe you have to stay late at work, and the last thing you want to do is practice scales and etudes when you get home.  Maybe your goal is to write a song, but the lyrics just aren’t coming to you.  Maybe you’ve practiced your heart out, but the idea of performing in front of people makes you break out in hives.  But why give up on something you were once so passionate about?

Being creative is something that needs to be exercised, just like a baseball player exercises certain muscles.  So if the daily grind is starting to get to you, it’s time to take action.  Shake up your routine and jump-start your creative mind.  Even if the initial activity doesn’t involve music, it may awaken parts of your brain that will help you in music later on.  Need some ideas?  Here are 10 ways to rejuvenate your creativity, courtesy of Lifehack.com:

1. Surround yourself with creative people. Hang out with writers, musicians, poets and artists. Often, just being in a creative environment will inspire you and refresh your creative mind.
2. Start somewhere. Whether it’s creative writing in Word or sheet music, the brain will eventually loosen up and it will be easier to break through the barrier and come up with ideas.
3. Expose yourself. Expose yourself to new art – books, music, paintings – all the time. If you’re a rocker, listen to funk. If you’re a crime writer, read fantasy. If you’re a productivity writer, read something about slacking off.
4. Do something new. Play chess. Read a book if you usually watch television and watch television if you read. Go outside. Sing in the shower.
5. Meet new people from different walks of life. Gain insight into their perspectives on life. Strike up a conversation on the bus.
6. Shut out the world. Instead of sucking in new information, sit quietly, go to sleep or meditate. Stop thinking and clear your mind so that the clutter doesn’t get in the way of your thoughts.
7. Don’t be a workaholic – take breaks. Your mind needs a chance to wind down so it doesn’t overheat and crash.
8. Experiment randomly. What does a flanger sound like on a vocal track? Like Lenny Kravitz, of course.
9. Exercise every day, before you sit down to be creative. If you exercise afterward, you’ll get the creative burst – just too late.
10. Spend time with your children. Or someone else’s.

What other ideas have you tried when you feel your creativity dragging?  Share your thoughts with the community on our Facebook page!

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Even for practiced performers, we can only imagine how nerve-wracking it must be to audition in front of music industry veterans like Christina Aguilera and Maroon 5′s Adam Levine.  But if performance jitters are holding you back from showing off your talent, it’s never too late to start combating your fears.

Most of the time, performance anxiety stems from three main roots: the individual person, the task at hand or the performance situation.  When you understand the cause, it can be much easier to take a step back, realign your focus and take control.  Even if you start out reserved, you can learn to unleash the powerful, confident musician inside of you!  By learning how to handle each of the causes of stage fright, performing in front of others will get easier and easier. Here’s a great rundown from The Musician’s Way Blog:

1. Person
Our personalities and beliefs strongly affect our experiences on stage.  For instance, self-assured, extroverted people who view performing as a rewarding challenge are generally less jittery than those who are shy and dread being the center of attention.  Our performance histories then multiply our natural tendencies.

Timid musicians who have endured repeated episodes of shakes, dry mouth and butterflies, let’s say, will probably be extra worried before concerts; outgoing ones who have regularly enjoyed and succeeded at performing have reasons to look forward to making music for audiences.

The good news is that with well-directed effort, even anxious musicians can replace negative thoughts and experiences with positive ones.

How to take control: Take a moment to consider which of your personal qualities and past experiences enhance or interfere with your ability to perform.  Write the positive memories down, and focus your energy on these before you perform.

2. Task
Needless to say, exceedingly difficult tasks are more stressful to perform than easy ones. Similarly, insufficient practice can leave us feeling on edge when we step under the lights.  Two less-obvious but vitally important factors that affect our security are our practice and performance skills.  In particular, students who don’t practice their music deeply but depend on automated types of learning will feel their control drain away under pressure.

Likewise, when musicians aren’t skilled at basic performance tasks, such as speaking to audiences, performing can be extra nerve-wracking.  All musicians can increase their task mastery and therefore their stage power by choosing accessible repertoire, practicing it deeply and learning performance skills.

How to take control: Make note of the task-related actions you’ve taken that have supported or undermined your success on stage. Supportive actions include selecting manageable music and practicing it regularly.  Remember these as you prepare for your next performance.

3. Situation
The greater our concern for the outcome of a performance, the greater the potential for stress and anxiety.  An out-of-town audition, for example, exerts more pressure than a casual gig at a local coffee shop. A recording session at a pricey studio comes with higher stakes than a laid-back session at home.  Unfamiliar or poorly run venues can also add to a performer’s discomfort. Plus, intense public scrutiny can be unsettling, especially when vast numbers of people hear us and then tweet, blog and otherwise publish their reactions.

But whatever the performance situation, when we know how to prepare, we can deliver thrilling performances.

How to take control: Recall performance situations that have enhanced your creativity and ones that have fueled your nerves.  What was it about those positive experiences – did you have family and friends there to support you? Were you performing in a specific place?  Even if these things aren’t exactly the same, practice visualization techniques and imagine you’re in that familiar situation.

Readers, do you have any other tips for battling nerves?  Share them with the community!  Head on over to our Facebook page and leave a comment.

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Photo by B. Rosen

As a singer, you’ve no doubt heard about the importance of proper breathing.  In fact, deep breathing can help all musicians, as it helps to relieve tension, enhance focus, and even alleviate stage fright.  It doesn’t surprise us, then, when musicians sing the praises of practicing yoga to improve vocal skills.  Can yoga really help you sing better?  It certainly won’t hurt.  But consider it your warm-up – and with any warm-up, there are both effective and ineffective strategies.  Here, speech pathologist Joanna Cazden shares some important guidelines to keep in mind when it comes to yoga and singing, as published on SingerUniverse.com.

Inside your voice box, or larynx, your vocal cords function as a valve in the airway, and they are exquisitely sensitive to airflow. They can get dry, tired, or irritated if the airflow is too forceful. If it’s too weak, the cords tend to tighten and squeeze, rubbing against each other and thickening over time. So while hatha yoga postures (asanas) are generally good for singers, the way you use your breath during those postures is even more important. Advanced breathing exercises (pranayama) should be approached with extra care.

First, the singing breath does not use the balanced, equal-in-and-out rhythm common to most yoga teaching. Voice production requires a very swift inhalation followed by a long, slow exhalation. You do this automatically when you talk, but it takes practice to quickly inhale enough to sing and then exhale very gradually. Try occasional cycles of breathing in fast and out slow during your asanas, with a relaxed throat, to reinforce this asymmetrical rhythm.

Second, some yoga teachers train a particular sequence of inhalation, such as drawing air into the belly first, then the waist, then the upper chest. These techniques are not harmful, but when singing, you don’t have time to inhale in stages—the whole breath system must open simultaneously. Again, just being aware of the difference can help you switch gears from yoga practice to vocal rehearsal.

Third, the vocal cords are vulnerable to dryness and fatigue when vigorous forms of audible breathing, sometimes called ujaya, are focused in the throat. The louder the breath sounds and the longer such practice, the greater the risk of vocal cord irritation. If you do this type of pranayama, place the friction higher, near the soft palate, and allow at least half an hour of rest before vocalizing.

In general, politely avoid any teacher who always wants to hear you breathe. Effective breathing for most styles of yoga can be totally silent, and experienced teachers can check on you by sight rather than sound. Vocalists need this extra safety to avoid drying the cords.

Keep these guidelines in mind when you reach for your yoga mat – and if you’re not currently a yoga fan, why not give it a try?  As long as it’s done correctly, any breathing exercise can benefit musicians of all types and levels.  Have you seen improvements with the help of yoga?  Leave a comment on our Facebook page and join the discussion!

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Photo by Synergy by Jasmine.

If country is your top genre, you know that your guitar is your best weapon.  For beginners, however, there are often a few things that might hold you back.  First, the painful process of building calluses can drive many to stop practicing.  Second, there’s always that awkward stage of learning to seamlessly transition to different chords.  You know the drill -  practice makes perfect.  But here are some additional tips from Teachstreet.com to help with switching chords:

1. Keep your fingers as close to the fret board as possible.  When that pinkie and third finger start flying out in space it takes longer for them to come back down.

2. Build your chords from the bottom string up.  For some reason a lot of us get in the habit of building our chords from the top down.  Like in an open C major chord, starting with the 2nd string, then 4th, then 5th.  The problem with that is your pick is going to hit the bottom strings first, so get those notes placed first.  That extra split second will give you a chance to get the last top bits of the chord in place.  I know it seems like a negligible amount of time, but you’ll be surprised how it can improve your guitar playing.

3. When moving from one chord to the next, move the finger that has the farthest to go first.  For instance, in moving from G major to C major in the open position, your first finger has to move all the way from the 5th string to the second.  Lead with that finger and you’ll find that your other fingers naturally pull along behind to end up close to their intended frets as well.

4.  Stay relaxed and let the natural movement of your hands help you get to the chord.  Believe it or not, the guitar is actually designed very well to accommodate the natural movement of the human hand.  When you use tip #3 and lead with the farthest finger, your other fingers will follow along behind it naturally and you can get them to settle in the right place.  If you tighten up they won’t move as naturally, so stay loose.

5. Keep your right hand moving.  The way your brain works has a lot to do with how your hands react.  As a beginner, your brain is giving you permission to stop in between chords and rationalizes it as “we’ll get it eventually.”  It’s normal and happens on a subconscious level.  You can easily change that by setting up a dissonance in your brain.  That means presenting your brain with a problem it needs to fix.  Here’s the way it works:  You brain loves when your hands are moving together.  So if you force your right hand to keep strumming, no matter what happens in your left, your brain will want to solve that dissonance by making your left hand move faster to keep up with your right.  Exactly what we’re looking for.

Did these tips help?  What other advice can you give to the beginner guitarist?  Leave a comment on our Facebook page and share your expertise!  Like this article?  Don’t forget to share on your favorite social network!

Photo by lemuelinchrist.

Vedder’s passion-filled lyrics, ranging in topics from personal to political, have made him one of the most prominent songwriters of the rock and roll genre.  Pair that with his signature singing style, and you’ve got the makings of one of the most influential bands of all time.

If songwriting is something that you want to improve on, honing in on your creativity is an important skill to learn.  We suggest checking out our previous posts on writing lyrics and breaking songwriter’s block, but if you’re still not feeling creative, don’t stress too much.  For many musicians like yourself, finding new and unique ideas – and just plain motivation – are the hardest parts.  In order to help you out of that rut, here are 3 more exercises to find inspiration for song lyrics:

1.  Location Inspiration: Find lyric-writing inspiration through location

Location is very important when writing, because atmosphere affects your creative energy.

For example, it may be difficult to write sad or painful lyrics in a park. At a park you’d probably feel relaxed and maybe a little content or happy. This atmosphere wouldn’t work to channel sadness, unless you have a sad memory attached to the park (more on object inspiration next). In an empty and run-down apartment, you probably wouldn’t feel happiness, so it’d be the best location to write a “painful” lyric or two. Even your kitchen is different from your living room in evoking creative emotion. Choose the best location to write your song lyrics.

2. Object Inspiration: Find lyric-writing inspiration through objects

Rarely does inspiration just come from within. Songwriters surround themselves with things that will inspire their next creative work.

- Open a photo album and reminisce on old memories attached to your target emotion.
- Read old letters and remember where you were and what you felt when you first read them.
- Visit friends or family member you haven’t seen in a while, to get inspired.
- Watch a television show or film where your target emotion is prevalent.
- Go to a familiar place and think about old memories from there.

Use whatever object you need to channel your target emotion.

3. Topic Inspiration: Find lyric-writing inspiration through a topic or idea

Imagine yourself in particular situation. It could be a situation that’s happened to you, someone close to you, a group of people, or someone well-known.  Now put yourself there mentally and emotionally. How does it make you feel? Explore those feelings until you’ve found your target emotion. One way to make sure your lyric idea has the strongest inspiration is to brainstorm on universal topics – issues that large groups of people are experiencing.  Successful topics are often ones that many people find relatable.

Where do you go for inspiration?  Do you write in a specific room or place to get the creativity flowing?  Share your tips with the community on our Facebook page!

Photo by marco annunziata.

What makes a guitarist a genius, exactly?  With previous winners like Dave Grohl, the Clash, and the Cure, Gallagher has some big shoes to fill.

Don’t have hours upon hours to commit to practicing?  That’s ok.  In fact, there are ways of practicing your guitar skills without actually having your guitar with you.  Check out these great tips from Jemsite.com about how to practice sans guitar:

1. Learn The Fretboard
The better you know your fretboard, the better you know your instrument and the more easily you can move around it. Here’s one technique to try: slip a small fretboard diagram into your wallet so you’ll carry it around with you everywhere. When you have two spare minutes, you can pull out your chart and name notes to help memorize them. If you don’t have the slip of paper handy, you can use visualization exercises. Picture a fretboard in your mind, pick some notes, and “see” where they occur on the fretboard image.

2. Learn About Chords
No matter how long you’ve been playing, there is always something new to learn about chords. Look around for sources of new ideas or information, find yourself some chord theory books, or study the chords used by great songwriters.

3. Visualization
Use visualization to work on all kinds of guitar skills. Visualization is the process of picturing a situation in your mind as if it were real. It has been proven that visualization stimulates the same nerve paths as actually performing actions, so it helps to reinforce your learning.  Use visualization to practice chord changes and progressions, scales and licks, picking patterns, and whole songs.

4. Develop Your Ears
As you listen to music and other sounds in the street, try to pick out the sound of certain intervals or notes. For example, you can designate a “major thirds day” where you try to spot major third sounds around you.

5. Study Music Notation
Many self-taught guitarists neglect music reading and writing skills. Carry around some sheet music and you can practice reading it during your lunch break or on the bus.

And there you have it – now having a “day job” is no excuse to forgo practicing!  Even if you’re strained for time, you can find a way to make it work.  What do you think of these tips? Anything you’d like to add?  Sound off on our Facebook page – and don’t forget to share with your friends if you liked these ideas!

Photo by Anirudh Koul.

Still, the music industry has several other opportunities to shine throughout the year, such as the American Music Awards, the Billboard Music Awards, and the upcoming Grammy Awards.  And if you dream of one day taking home one of those awards, you better start working hard!

With hard work, however, may come frustration.  Maybe you’re not mastering a piece as quickly as you’d like, or you’re having trouble with a specific section.  Perhaps it’s stage fright that’s holding you back.  Wherever your frustration stems from, it’s important to learn how to handle it to your advantage.  Read on for a few helpful tips for dealing with those musical frustrations:

Tip #1. Give Yourself Credit – Before looking to improve something, look at the progress that has already been made. Appreciate and be thankful for that. Remember when you were a beginner and you couldn’t play at all? You would have been happy to have the skills you have now.  Appreciate this, and feel good about what you have achieved up to this point.  Many people beat themselves up over their own playing when they are pretty good already. This does not mean that you should become complacent or lose motivation to improve, it only means be happy with yourself and your playing as you continue to improve and move forward as a musician.

Tip #2. Become Aware of That Which Empowers and Inspires You – There may be certain things, moments, scenarios, events, places or people that make you feel good about yourself as a musician.  These things are different for each musician.  Perhaps you become very inspired by going to see a concert.  Or maybe you get very motivated by watching or jamming with musicians who are currently better than you.  Or, maybe you become inspired by revisiting some of your old recordings and seeing how much you have improved.  Being able to realize (and have tangible proof of) how much you have grown as a musician is a powerful inspirational force for some people.  Whatever these things are, anything that gets you away from concentrating on the temporary frustrations and setbacks and focuses you on your motivation and inspiration is what you should surround yourself with.

Tip #3. Let Time Be On Your Side – Many musicians feel frustrated when big progress does not seem to come in a short period of time.  As a result, time is perceived as an enemy.  However, if you are making at least some progress over time and you are patient enough and let accumulated time work for you, then time in fact becomes your biggest advantage. Learning an instrument is much like investing money with a fixed rate of compound interest.  In the beginning, the investment seems to grow so slowly that it seems like you are watching grass grow, but over the years, the growth will explode because of the exponential power of compound interest. If you know that time is on your side, you will be sure to feel much better about your musical future.

How do you handle your stress when you’re feeling frustrated?  Let us know – leave a comment on our Facebook page and share with the community!

Photo by Saltmiser.

As with many soul singers, a voice that powerful demands a commanding stage presence as well.  If you’re on the shy side, sometimes all it takes is some extra performing experience to break out of that habit.  Anytime you see an opportunity to perform, grab it!  And yes, that includes karaoke, as cheesy as it sounds.  Check out this great list of other ways to gain experience and increase your on-stage confidence:

- Open mic nights. Great for getting used to singing with a live band, and for getting seen.  Many bands started as a result of people meeting each other at open mic nights.
- Peruse Craigslist for bands looking for lead or backup singers.  (Being a backup singer is a great place to start if you have no prior live band experience.  You’ll learn a lot even as a backup singer.)
- Start or join an a cappella group.
- Student recitals. If you are taking lessons with a voice coach or at a music school, there are probably performance opportunities through there.  They may not be the rock-star performance situations you ultimately envision yourself in, but they’re valuable stage time nonetheless.
- Start a duo. Team up with a pianist, develop a repertoire, and start playing in restaurants and bars.
- Start a band. Easiest if you are a teen or twenty-something, before your peers have real jobs, kids, and mortgages.
- Hire a band. For those with deep pockets:  if you’re willing to pay for a professional band’s rehearsal time, even a novice could start a rock trio and play standard covers in bars.
- Try out for a role in a musical theater production.
- Join a choir. There are lots of community choirs – some are open to all ages and levels, others require auditions.
- Prepare yourself to sub in a party band. Even if you don’t win an audition to be a party band’s new lead singer, they may find themselves in a tight spot one day if their lead singer gets sick.  If you prepare a standard party repertoire, you’ll be ready to step in if and when a last-minute opportunity arises.
- Make a live music video. Design a stage area somewhere – your basement, your garage – and videotape yourself performing to backing tracks.  When you’re ready, call some musician friends and have them come over and play the song(s) live with you performing up front.  Videotape that and put it up on YouTube and on your own web site to help you connect with bands looking for singers.
- Learn an instrument. If you don’t play any instruments, guitar is a great one to start with because an acoustic guitar is very portable and is enough accompaniment.  This opens the door for you to write your own music and get hired for small gigs.
- Play on the street. If you do play guitar – or, once you have learned a few chords – go out somewhere and practice playing in front of people.

What are YOUR favorite ways to get performing experience, and what has helped your on-stage confidence?  Stop by our Facebook page and let us know!

Photo by Roland Godefroy.

American Idol

Whether you’re auditioning for American Idol or your school orchestra, a lot of factors tie into preparing for an audition, beyond just practicing your piece – we’re talking what you eat, what you wear, and what you think about beforehand.  Here, The Bulletproof Musician gives us 5 non-conventional things to consider when preparing for an audition:

1. Food
What are you going to eat the night before? The morning of? What are you going to drink? How much? If you are a regular coffee drinker, are you going to wean yourself off weeks ahead of your audition so you don’t get caffeine withdrawal headaches? Plan all of this out and test it in advance, so that it is part of a familiar routine come audition day.

Keep in mind that you may be out of town on audition day, and may not feel like dragging yourself around in a new neighborhood just to find breakfast. Be sure to practice being somewhat flexible and adaptable in your preparation.

2. Clothing
Practice performing in the clothes you plan on wearing, even down to the socks and shoes you plan on wearing (this impacts pianists more than other instrumentalists, but still).

Here, too, practice being somewhat flexible – if you’re flying to an audition, you never know when the airline might misplace your luggage and lose your lucky socks.

3. Instrument
Run a few mock auditions on different pianos, a sub-par set of timpani, or a string slightly out of tune. Don’t allow yourself to be thrown off, even if the instruments aren’t exactly to your liking.

4. Environment
Conduct your mock auditions in less than ideal environments. Try big rooms, small rooms, cold rooms, hot rooms and rooms with acoustics of various types.  If at all possible, scope out the room you will be auditioning in the day before. Walk around in it, play a few notes if you can, and take a mental snapshot of the space so that you can mentally rehearse having a great audition in that space.

5.  Sleep
Think of all the practicing you are doing, and combine this with the other daily responsibilities and demands that life and school place on you. What is the result? Physical, mental and emotional fatigue. In a study of Stanford University athletes, researchers found that increasing sleep led to greater alertness and vigor, faster reaction times, greater accuracy, speed, and explosive power.  Note that just a couple nights of good sleep won’t cut it. Since most of us are operating on what sleep researchers call a sleep debt, you’ll probably need at least several weeks of sleeping 9-10 hours a day in order to begin reaping the benefits.

Keep things in mind and you’ll be prepared for anything that may come up during your audition.  Readers, what other tips have helped you ace your auditions?  Head on over to our Facebook page and share them with the community!

Photo by eflon, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic.