Singing Exercises for Dummies

Build your voice up—and bring the house down!

Some people are born with naturally beautiful voices, but even the best can get better by applying training that can make a performance truly soar. Singing Exercises For Dummies shows you how to do just that. Following the drills and exercises found both in the book and online examples, you'll be able to refine your technique; develop consistency, power, and endurance; and increase your vocal range so you can achieve a voice that stands out from (and always wows) the crowd!

Professional singing coach and respected performer Pamelia S. Phillips is your friendly tutor and guide, starting you out with warm-ups and instructions on correct posture before leading you melodically through the intricacies of scales, chords, rhythm, pitch, tone, and much, much more.

• Advance your technique and control
• Work out your range
• Harmonize with others
• Practice like a pro

Whether you're studying under a tutor or are working to your own plan, Singing Exercises For Dummies will have you quickly scaling up the ladder to vocal perfection—and even more!

P.S. If you think this book seems familiar, you'’re probably right. The Dummies team updated the cover and design to give the book a fresh feel, but the content is the same as the previous release of Singing Exercises For Dummies (9781118281086). The book you see here should'n’t be considered a new or updated product. But if you'’re in the mood to learn something new, check out some of our other books. We’'re always writing about new topics!

Pamelia S. Phillips, DMA (New York) is the Professional Program Director and Chair of Voice and Music at CAP21 (Collaborative Arts Project 21) in New York. A seasoned performer, her appearances range from contemporary American Opera premieres to guest performances with major symphonies. Pam has taught extensively at such institutions as Wagner College and Arizona State University. She earned her Bachelor of Music Education from Arkansas State University, and her Doctorate of Musical Arts and Master of Music in Vocal Performance from Arizona State.

Introduction 1

About This Book 1

Conventions Used in This Book 1

What You’re Not to Read 2

Foolish Assumptions 2

How This Book is Organized 3

Part 1: Preparing Your Body for Practicing 3

Part 2: Making Your Music Magical with Variety 3

Part 3: Working Out Your Range 3

Part 4: Advancing Your Singing Technique 4

Part 5: The Part of Tens 4

Icons Used in This Book 4

Where to Go from Here 5

Part 1: Preparing Your Body for Practicing 7

Chapter 1: Warming Up for Singing 9

Preparing Your Instrument: Stretching Out from Head to Toe 9

Opening and Positioning the Lower Body 10

Connecting your feet to the floor 10

Balancing on the ankles and knees 12

Distributing weight in the legs and hips 12

Positioning the Upper Body for Easy Movement 13

Lengthening your spine 13

Releasing the shoulders 14

Balancing the head and neck 15

Managing the arms and hands 16

Putting It All Together with a Vocal Warm-Up 16

Chapter 2: Practicing Breathing Exercises 19

Moving the Breathing Muscles for Singing 19

Opening the ribs 20

Releasing the abs 21

Moving the sides 21

Releasing into the hips 22

Take It In: Shaping Inhalation 22

Controlling the movement of your ribs 23

Adding suspension to develop coordination 23

Opening the torso for quick inhalation 24

Let It Out: Controlling Exhalation 25

Developing muscle coordination 25

Isolating muscles for extra-long phrases 27

Singing Practice Exercises with Long and Short Phrases 28

Practicing short phrases 28

Practicing longer phrases 29

Testing your breath control 30

Songs for Extending Breath Control 31

Chapter 3: Shaping the Tongue and Lips for Vowels 33

Coordinating the Tongue and Lips for Back Vowels 33

Shifting the arch around for ooh and ah 34

Altering your lip shape for oh and ah 35

Tackling the tricky vowels aw and OOh 36

Singing through the five back vowels 37

Positioning the Tongue for Front Vowels 38

Dropping the arch between ee and ih 39

Moving between ee and ay 40

Distinguishing between ee and eh 40

Comparing eh and a 41

Singing through the five front vowels 42

Alternating between Front and Back Vowels 43

Presenting the Middle Vowel, Uh 43

Singing Combination Vowels 44

Songs for Singing Vowels Precisely 46

Chapter 4: Articulating Consonants Accurately 47

Touching on the Tip Consonants 48

Exploring the voiced consonants L, N, and D 48

Distinguishing between voiced D and unvoiced T 49

Sounding out the voiced R 50

Singing unvoiced S and voiced Z 51

Moving the tip of the tongue to the teeth for TH 52

Singing through the consonants L, N, D, T, S, Z, and TH 53

Arching Back for Soft Palate Consonants 54

Practicing voiced G, unvoiced K, and voiced NG 54

Singing through the consonants K, G, and NG 56

Working on Lip Consonants 56

Practicing voiced consonants W and M 57

Alternating between voiced B and unvoiced P 58

Moving only the bottom lip for F and V 58

Singing through W, M, P, B, F, and V 59

Consonant Combos: Moving the Lips and Tongue 59

Puckering for voiced J and unvoiced CH 60

Moving air through SH and ZH 61

Singing through the consonants J, CH, SH, and ZH 61

Songs for Singing Various Consonants 62

Part 2: Making Your Music Magical with Variety 63

Chapter 5: Singing Precise Intervals for Musical Accuracy 65

Recognizing the Most Common Intervals 65

Major intervals 66

Minor intervals 67

Perfect intervals 68

Hearing the Small Intervals 68

Minor and major seconds: m2 and M2 68

Minor and major thirds: m3 and M3 69

Seconds and thirds in action 70

Finding Perfect Intervals 71

Identifying perfect intervals: P4 and P5 72

Working in unison: P8 73

Singing perfect intervals 73

Comparing the Larger Intervals 74

Minor and major sixths: m6 and M6 75

Minor and major sevenths: m7 and M7 75

Singing sixths and sevenths 76

Discovering Chromatics 77

Raising the pitch with sharps 77

Lowering the pitch with flats 78

Canceling an accidental 78

Working on Scales 79

Building scales with triads 79

Singing major scales 80

Singing minor scales 81

Practice Piece: “Singing All the Intervals” 83

Songs for Practicing Large Intervals 84

Chapter 6: You’ve Got Rhythm: Conquering Rhythmic Notation and Tempo 85

Rhythm Basics: Notes and Rests 85

The whole note 86

The half note 87

The quarter note 88

The eighth note 89

The sixteenth note 90

The corresponding rests 91

Practice piece: “The Rhythm Song” 92

Exploring Advanced Rhythms 93

Joining notes together with triplets 93

Adding more notes with dotted rhythms 94

Emphasizing the weaker beats with syncopation 95

Practice piece: “Checking Out Rhythm” 96

Managing Rhythm at Any Tempo 97

Songs for Working on Rhythm 98

Chapter 7: Adding Diversity with Dynamics, Articulation Marks, and More 99

Singing Dynamically 99

Reading the markings 100

Making a smooth crescendo 100

Gradually singing softer with a decrescendo 101

Mastering dynamic contrast 102

Articulating What’s Written 103

Connecting notes 104

Making a note short and sweet 104

Knowing when to let go 105

Practice Piece: “I Sing Out!” 105

Improvising to Give Songs Your Own Unique Stamp 107

Adding more words 107

Changing the rhythm 107

Altering the melody 107

Varying the tone 108

Songs for Improving Your Musical Diversity 108

Part 3: Working Out Your Range 109

Chapter 8: Checking Out Chest Voice 111

Getting Familiar with Chest Voice 111

Exploring the sounds of chest voice 112

Varying the heaviness in your chest voice 112

Strengthening your chest voice 114

Modifying vowels in chest voice 115

Practice Piece: “Finding My Chest Voice” 116

Songs That Work Out Your Chest Voice 118

Chapter 9: Soaring into Head Voice and Falsetto 119

Figuring Out Falsetto 119

Working out your falsetto 120

Taking falsetto down 121

Exploring various vowels in falsetto 122

Songs for singing in falsetto 122

Discovering Your Head Voice 123

Getting a feel for head voice 123

Exploring high resonance in head voice 124

Singing through consonants in head voice 125

Positioning Your Larynx for Fuller Head Voice Sounds 126

Stabilizing the larynx 126

Monitoring your larynx while singing 128

Managing many high phrases 129

Developing Your Head Voice Range 130

Creating spinning tone 131

Sustaining notes in your head voice 132

Songs for broadening your head voice range 133

Practice Piece: “A Bejeweled Love Song” 134

Chapter 10: Mixing Up Your Sound with Middle Voice 135

Discovering Your Middle Voice 135

Distinguishing male and female middle voice 136

Getting to know your middle voice 136

Strengthening your middle voice 137

Finding clear vowels in middle voice 138

Songs that work out the middle voice 140

Combining Registers with Mix 140

Knowing when to use a mix 141

Rolling into a mix 141

Changing around the mix 142

Songs that require a mix 143

Exploring Your Mix with a Few Practice Pieces 144

For the guys 144

For the gals 146

Chapter 11: Coordinating Register Transitions 149

Moving Smoothly between Registers 149

Dropping into chest voice 150

Changing back and forth from chest voice to middle voice 151

Climbing from middle voice to head voice 152

Leaping to and from Falsetto 153

Singing from falsetto into chest voice 153

Changing from chest voice to falsetto 154

Rolling back and forth from chest voice to falsetto 155

Refining Your Smooth Transitions 156

Shifting from middle voice to chest voice 156

Shifting from middle voice to head voice 157

Practice Piece: “Marching Forth” 158

Songs That Require Register Transitions 159

Part 4: Advancing Your Singing Technique 161

Chapter 12: Developing Your Vocal Tone 163

Touching on Tone Basics 163

Practicing the onset of tone 163

Opening the space to change the tone 165

Releasing tension to enhance tone 167

Coordinating breath to improve tone 167

Eliminating intonation issues 167

Creating Echoing Tone with Resonance 168

Finding your resonance 168

Using vowels to explore resonance 169

Varying where tone resonates in your body 170

Choosing the right resonance for a song 171

Varying Tone with Vibrato 171

Discovering vibrato 172

Changing between vibrato and straight tone 173

Practice Piece: “Changing Tone” 174

Songs for Developing Your Tone 176

Chapter 13: Expanding Your Vocal Agility 177

Exploring the Art of the Quick Breath 177

Catching your breath quickly in fast songs 178

Taking a quick breath 178

Howdy, Neighbor! Working on Stepwise Motion 179

Giving up control to get a feeling for agility 180

Stepping up the pace 180

Turning around on the tonic 182

Running to the top of the scale 183

Mastering Thirds 184

Singing every other step of the scale 184

Gaining momentum 186

Taking Musical Leaps with Larger Intervals 188

Starting on the top 188

Jumping up (or down) an octave 189

Practice Piece: “A Joyful Noise” 190

Songs for Flaunting Your Agility 191

Chapter 14: Belting It Out with Exercises from Beginner to Advanced 193

Getting Started with Belting Basics 194

Feeling belt transitions in the voice 194

Making a plan to develop your belt 195

Resonating All the Way to the Back Row 195

Chatting It Up 196

Buzzing your words on various pitches 197

Speaking chatty sounds on specific pitches 197

Working on your speaking range 198

Using different phrases to expand your speaking range 199

Developing Stamina for Belting 199

Comparing Belt and Mix 200

Changing from mix to belt on one note 201

Songs that move from mix to belt 201

Belting Your Face Off 202

Applying your belt sounds to a tune 202

Increasing your belt range 203

Developing vocal stamina 204

Testing Out Your Belt Sounds with Practice Pieces 205

“Don’t You Tell Me No Lie” 205

“It’s Time” 207

Cooling Down Your Voice after Belting 208

Songs for Beginner Belters Looking to Try Out Their Technique 208

Songs for Advanced Belters Looking for a Challenge 209

Part 5: The Part of Tens 211

Chapter 15: Ten Tips for Practicing Like a Pro 213

Set Aside Time to Focus on Singing 213

Plan What to Practice 214

Use the Exercises in This Book 214

Record Your Practice Sessions 215

Track Your Progress 215

Cool Down after Practicing 216

Know When to Rest 216

Get to Know Your Song and Your Story 217

Prepare for the Performance 218

Find Help from a Voice Teacher 218

Chapter 16: Ten Questions Singers Ask Frequently 219

What Style of Music is Right for My Voice? 219

When is a Song out of My Range? 219

Am I Tone Deaf or Just Singing Out of Tune? 220

How Do I Blend with Other Singers? 221

How Do I Blend My Voice with Instruments? 221

What’s the Best Way to Develop Vocal Endurance? 222

How Can I Maintain Proper Singing Posture While Playing an Instrument? 222

When (And What) Should I Eat before a Performance? 223

How Do I Get Over Stage Fright? 223

What Do I Have to Do to Keep My Voice Healthy? 224

Appendix: About the Website 225

Listening to the Audio Tracks 225

Customer Care 228

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