Singing Exercises for Dummies

- Expand your vocal technique - Make sense of technical singing concepts - Improve your performance abilities Let your best voice be heard! Maybe you've dreamed of singing onstage. Maybe your goal is to audition for "The Voice." Or maybe you just want to qualify for the community choir. The first step toward any of these goals is to take your singing skills to the next level. If a pricey vocal coach isn't in your budget, turn to this book! Written by a veteran performer and voice teacher, it's packed with exercises and drills that help you refine your technique. Discover how to build vocal power and endurance, develop consistency, and expand your range. As your skills grow, so will your confidence! Inside... - Find a complete workout of vocal exercises - Create your own training plan - Extend your singing range - Develop your own style - Practice with online content - Polish your tone and refine agility

Pamelia S. Phillips is a professional singer with over 35 years of teaching experience. She has designed curriculum for high school students, college BFA programs, and professional training programs, helping thousands of singers refine their singing technique.

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