One Easy Way to Enhance Your Voice Lessons

Want to really improve your singing?  Truly owning your voice and making the most of your lessons requires more than just learning the lyrics and following your teacher’s direction. Read on for some great advice from Denver voice teacher Ruth C., and start approaching your singing from a whole new perspective…

Unlike other instruments, the voice is inside the body, which can make it a very frustrating instrument to understand! Scientists have done tons of studies to better understand how your two little vocal folds work when breath passes through them – but when you’re actually in the middle of your voice lesson, how can you understand what’s going on?

The goal of lessons should always be to find your voice (not to mimic your favorite recording artist or your teacher).  The best possible way to make sure you understand what your teacher is having you do is to ask tons of questions.  It may feel silly to ask some basic questions, but I guarantee your teacher will love answering them!

1. If it helps you to understand some of the anatomy/science of singing, ask for a full explanation from your teacher.  Teachers may use a variety of terms for the same idea (breath support, diaphragmatic breathing, etc.  – which all refer to the same thing), so make sure you and your teacher are on the same page.  Or if you work better with images (“singing with an even flow of air feels like ice skating”), make sure you and your teacher remember a few key ones to use in your lessons.
2. Knowing the terms is one thing.  Feeling and being able to describe them as they happen in your body and voice is another.  Make sure you can identify how it feels to sing with good breath support. Does your rib cage expand?  Does your stomach expand or contract as you sing?  Do you run out of breath before the end of the phrase?  These are all questions to ask yourself and your teacher as you are working in your lesson.
3. The practice of defining terms and seeing how they act in your voice will give you the best knowledge of all – how to practice and sing successfully when your teacher isn’t there!  When you’re at home working on a song, can you feel the same flow of air, or relaxation in your jaw?  If not, then ask yourself how your teacher got you to find these qualities in your lesson.  (Having a recording of your lessons can help with this when your memory fails!)

Learning to sing is not always easy, but practicing this kind of “Socratic Questioning” during your lessons will help you continue your improvement in between them.  When you have a better understanding of what really happened in those lessons, you can take that knowledge with you for the rest of your life!