How to improve voice?

[Bob]

Any ideas for improving my voice and singing skills?  I just want the voice as a basic musical tool.

I still follow the philsophy of doing a basic routine each day.  Make it automatic so you don't have to spend a lot of brain power on it, or at least don't to rack your brain concentrating.  Then the physical results roll in.

Any ideas?  Scales?  Long tones?  Some flexibility?

[m1469]

Get a good teacher and sing .  Other than that, I haven't the foggiest !

[richard black]

Practise singing scales etc. on a rolled 'R' - make sure you roll it with the tip of the tongue. Best warm-up/muscle development exercise I know for singers.

[Bob]

And if you weren't going to get a teacher?

Something that gives you basic useful voice skills with minimal effort.


I suppose working on solfege would help too.

[thalbergmad]

Nice glass of Bells works wonders for me.

I sing much better afterwards.

Thal

[richard black]

Nice glass of Bells works wonders for me.

I sing much better afterwards.

Or at least you think you do. And at least you might try something decent - in this season of good will I'll be happy to offer you something from my hoard of single malt if you can stagger a few miles up the road to Peckham!

[thalbergmad]

Sounds good to me.

I'd better get the bike out. Or perhaps not.

Thal

[richard black]

I'd better get the bike out. Or perhaps not.

321 bus might be safer....

[thalbergmad]

Hmm, a bus in Peckham.

Now where is my bullet proof vest?

Thal

[richard black]

Now where is my bullet proof vest?

No, no, Peckham's quite safe these days. I haven't been shot at in, oh, nearly a week....

[thalbergmad]

Haha, i think the 322 to Basra Central is safer.

Thal

[Bob]

Ahem!

(Bob pushes topic back on track.)

There!


I suppose another one is to sing the melodies as you practice.  Or maybe even make sure you can sing the melody fairly well, indepdent of the piano.

Sing while playing scales.


I think I'm looking for ways to get better with the voice without really putting much effort into it, to get some results with the least amount of work possible.  Lazy old me...

[richard black]

(Bob pushes topic back on track.)

Oh, did you have to?

I think I'm looking for ways to get better with the voice without really putting much effort into it

Even more than with playing the piano, that could turn out to be self-defeating. There is NO substitute for learning to sing properly - with good breathing, support and vocal cord closure. It's not just singers that get problems by doing it wrong: a conductor friend of mine ended up under the knife to remove nodules on his vocal cords, caused by singing along - badly - with whatever he was conducting. All right, he was doing a couple of hours a day of bad singing, but I think it serves as a warning.

[Bob]

Any more ideas?

[rc]

Well, here's some cheap advice:  sing along with your favorite CD's.

I like to sing when I drive around, alone, with the windows rolled up...  I have a sense of responsibility to not expose innocent people to my experiments.  Usually with some rock songs.  My range doesn't always fit with the recording, but that just forced me to learn ways around it - expanding my range a bit and singing in a different register.

I'm not entirely absent-minded about my little undisciplined singing routine, I'm usually listening and trying to make the pitches accurate and resonant.  That's about the extent of it, but I swear it's helped in some basic rookie way - I've gotten the odd compliment at kareoke and friends have said my singing isn't horrible

I've found trying to use the pitches on the piano as a guide feels unnatural to my voice, equal temperament is an unnatural compromise afterall and I wonder how wise it is to try and force the voice to do the same.  In any case since I don't intend on being a serious singer I'm content to keep things simple for myself and just sing 'by feel'.

[pianochick93]

That was what I was going to say rc!

Also get a score of a vocal work you know, learn it, then accompany yourself. I do that, and it helps a lot, because if I happen to have slight pitch problems, I can repeat it over and over, without a teacher getting frustrated at me.

[Bob]

Mmmm, yes.  I think I've got some ideas from this thread.  Thanks.    I found what I was looking for.