Learning how to be a good singer is better than just learning how to belt out the high notes. If you plan to take a professional career when it comes to singing, the tips below would be very helpful to guide you on that journey.
The last kind of inconvenience you need is a dry throat. If non-performers would need plenty of water to keep themselves hydrated, what more for singers with a budding career? It would be difficult to dish out the needed notes in a song when you’re struggling with a dry throat. A dry throat is often a precursor to difficulty in the air passages due to lack of moisture. Keeping it moist would extend the moisture to the mouth and help a superfluous flow of air and voice – both elements that are crucial in delivering a credible or at least a decent performance.
And in saying water, it means not coffee or alcohol prior to a performance. You may have heard about some performers that can’t perform much when not drunk. Confidence has to be natural, not reliant on substances like alcohol. So might as well go with water. Make it at least 2 liters a day.
Dairy products like cheese in sandwiches and ice cream. No chocolate either. You can have that chocolate candy bar another day like the day after a performance. Before that, it would cause excess mucus secretion on the throat linings. It irritates the throat enough to make you cough or have some “paos” moments in the middle of the song. It happens in some occasions and the performer realizes it too late. But you can avoid such incidents from happening in your own event if you could avoid the confectionery at least 24 hours prior to that performance.
After an advice on how to avoid irritating your throat, the next sensible body part that you need to take care of is your pair of lungs. You may have read about chest resonance as an important skill that you need to harness within your body. It’s hard to achieve appropriate chest resonance when you’re damaging your own lungs.
Some singers managed to get away with smoking onstage in the middle of a performance. But the long-term effects became evident years after they did it. Shortness of breath, tightness in the chest and other negative effects of smoking that transcended into the vocal chords can be heard in how some of them sing their songs. If you would like to have a raspy voice to go with your rock repertoire, then stick to a rock repertoire. Just be reminded though that not everyone that smokes achieves the desired quality of a rock-ready raspy voice.
Breathing exercises are not limited to meditation sessions. Such rituals exist for performers too especially those who are reliant on their vocal chords for a credible performance. To test yourself if you have breathed well enough, try sitting upright – the stomach-in-chest-out type of posture. Then breathe in within 2 seconds. Exhale the next 2 seconds. Try counting the seconds from one to four when trying to breath in and out – 2 seconds to inhale and 2 seconds to exhale. And breathe through your nose instead of your mouth. Collecting oxygen for your lungs would be better that way.
Stomach resonance, chest resonance and head resonance – all these factors get fixed after constant breathing practice. Better air flow right from the bottom of your diaphragm to your nose and mouth conditions the upper body for a performance. Once breathing gets smoother. better vocal power is harnessed. This would mean less incidents of shortness of breath in congruence with keeping your throat hydrated for the next performance.
You don’t have to sing daily on an hourly basis. And it’s not because “Practice makes perfect; nobody’s perfect so don’t practice”. It’s because, to quote Placido Domingo in his episode at HBO’s Masterclass “We live with the instrument”. When you are a performer, your voice is not just a voice anymore. It’s an instrument that you use to entertain people. Whether you take care of it or not, wear-and-tear issues will set in. Of course, the wear-and-tear issues will surface earlier if you don’t take care of your vocal chords well enough. It’s also the quickest way to develop lymph nodes. Some opera singers still have a career to come back to but they don’t always sound the same as prior to the operation. That should serve as a cautionary tale to everyone who is fond of over-singing.
Glad to be of help to everyone in need of singing tips. Don’t forget to like my official Facebook page, Kuya Manzano FanClub, for constant updates. See you next article.
