Balanced Singing — The Singer’s Pyramid If you want to sing well, I suggest you learn balanced singing. I find it useful to think of balanced singing as being in four parts. Together, I call these The Singer’s Pyramid: 1. Build your core sound You build a core of sound using many tools, including coupe […]

Breathing for Singing In general, I don’t teach too many breathing exercises to my students. In my opinion, all singing exercises are breathing exercises. Many singers who are trained with a lot of breathing exercises often to build tension into their singing; however, insecurity around breathing creates mental and emotional uncertainty in a student’s overall ability to […]

Better Singing With Vocalises — Étude is a French word, meaning “study.” Most études are short musical compositions which present the musician with specific technical challenges, the mastery of which develop the particular skills for which the étude was composed. It is common for great instrumentalists to include playing études in their daily practice. In vocal music, an étude […]

Powerful Singing: Volume Vs. Intensity One thing that seems to cause confusion in singing is the difference between intensity and volume. Often a singer will try to get an intense tone by pulling their chest voice higher and higher through their range. This, over the short term, can cause vocal strain; and over the long term it can cause vocal […]

How Long Does Vocal Training Take? The one question that wins out as the most frequently asked question of all is “How long will these lessons take before I can sing well?” My answer is always the same: “I have absolutely no idea.” Success in vocal training really depends on several factors, including: a) the student’s inherent […]

Nasal Resonance vs. Nasality In Singing When a car pulls up next to you at a traffic light, and the driver has their in-car sound system blaring (full-blast, with the bass turned way up), your own car window might buzz or rattle. What you are experiencing when this happens are sympathetic vibrations. Even though the sound is not […]