Tips on how to train your voice

Just as athletes train their bodies to produce specific results, singers need to train their voices to produce the desired notes, pitches, and pitch. This is certainly not something that can be accomplished in one day. In addition to training your voice, you will need to include healthy eating, adequate rest, and regular exercise in your daily regimen. The voice is produced by the speech organs of the body, such as the muscles of the throat, larynx, vocal cords, mouth, etc. All of these organs must be trained to move in a way that produces the desired sound effects. Here are some preliminary exercises that can be followed once you start them, you will be in a better position to understand what works for you. Although these exercises work quite well, people who want to pursue singing as a career should definitely consider professional voice coaching.

Training:

It is imperative that before beginning any type of voice training you follow diligent warm-up sessions, this will condition your speech organs for greater exercise and avoid the possibility of damaging the delicate vocal nodes.

You will need a piano to start with the basic mid-range octave and the solfege notes (do, re, mi, fa, so la, ti, do). This first exercise is quite simple and all you have to do is increase your tone; that is, sing the octave in ascending order and then lower the pitch; which is to sing it in descending order (do, ti, la, so, fa, mi, re, do)

Next, try coupling a few notes (usually three) and singing them in ascending and descending order. For example, try ‘do, re mi’, then ‘mi fa so’ followed by ‘so la ti’ and finally ‘la ti do’ (notice in this last triad even though it is back in ‘do’ this is ‘C’ of the next octave which will have a higher pitch than the ‘C’ of the first octave). Now practice these notes in descending order. Start with ‘do ti la then ti, la, so’, followed by ‘so, fa, mi’ and finally ‘mi, re do’. Of course this will take some practice, you will also definitely need a keyboard to help you with the pitch at first.

Legato: Once you have mastered these notes, you can start working on your voice with a technique called Legato. This involves singing words on different notes, but these notes should be smoothly connected and will include a mix of high and low notes. For example, let’s take this group of notes ‘do, re, mi, fa, so fa, mi, re, do’. Notice how the notes go up from do to so and then down from so to do. This transition from high-pitched ‘so’ to lower-pitched ‘fa’ should be very smooth. Try using words like my “my-mommy-made-me-eat-m & ms.” Remember that “mi to me will be sung in ‘do re mi fa’, moving the pitch higher in the notes while eat will be in ‘so’ and then lower the pitch in the notes of my m & ms. Notes and words are connected when you sing them softly.

Stacatto: Staccato is in many ways the exact opposite technique of Legato. Here you will not try to sing the words softly, each word or note is short and separate, but you must be in full control of your voice. Begin by singing the ‘ha’ sound on the following notes do-mi-so-mi-do. You will notice that the word ‘ha’ rises in the notes do-mi-so while it descends in the notes ‘mi-so’. Controlling the movement of your stomach muscles, diaphragm, and breathing is essential when performing this exercise, so keep your hands on your stomach. You will feel a slight trembling of your stomach muscles when you make the sound. Be sure to breathe from the diaphragm and not from the chest.

Practicing Legato and Staccato is the perfect technique to control your voice.