Month: June 2019

Breath – Long Note Holds

Learning to sing a stable long note (3 to 20 seconds) is a very fun skill to have. This will ensure that whenever you have to hold a note for more a than a quick second, it sounds rich due to the perfect pitch on the note, and the strength it takes to keep that steady for a few seconds all the way up to about 20 seconds – which is about the longest you will ever hear a note or phrase sung for on one breath. People can sing phrases longer than this, but they are usually on easier to hit notes and phrases, meaning they aren’t as exciting.

To sing long notes, take a deep breath before you start, filling your lungs (your stomach should pop out like a balloon, then your chest fills up) and then attempt to hold a single note. Using Singing Pitch Trainer, there is a function that allows you to play the piano note on repeat, and see your voice, to make sure it is steady, and also measures how long you hold a steady note for. It can take thousands of reps to learn to hold long notes across your entire range, but it is worth it. The next step is to add vibrato, and also to find phrases where there is more than one note sung.

Vibrato

Vibrato is taking a single note, and then adding a bouncy or wobbly sound to it. The pitch will shift slightly up, approximately between a quarter tone and a semi tone. Singers can do vibrato on either of these two, or somewhere in between. The pitch shifts up and quickly back down to the main note, repeatedly, at an even speed that fits with the songs tempo and the rest of the phrase you are singing (if it’s in the middle of a phrase).

You only spend a tiny amount of time on the top pitch shift. The majority of the time is spent on the main note. If not, it would sound more like a run or melody going between two clear notes. Using Singing Pitch Trainer, you can practice shifting your pitch up to a quarter tone and up to a semi tone, with the aid of the visual chart which shows you where your voice is. A vibrato will look like a triangular bounce, and you can practice creating this. Sometimes you can bounce your head to help you create it, as an early crutch, and once you can get the right sound, you gradually stop moving your head, and just use your voice and breathing muscles to produce the vibrato.

Vibrato can be after a straight note is held for a few seconds, or it can be on the immediate onset of a note. They are both hard to learn, but after thousands of reps, you will be pro. You have to learn to produce vibrato at a wide variety of speeds, so you can use it appropriately in any song at any time.

Pitch (Of Lyrics)

The biggest issue beginners have is not realizing that every lyric that is sung has a note that is attached to each syllable. If the note is only slightly wrong, the lyric will sound off. We are all great at learning lyrics naturally, because we spend most of our youth learning to read and write and speak a language. But when it comes to singing lyrics on pitch, we have to explicitly learn to do it in order to sound professional.

Sheet music is a great way to make sure you are singing the right note for each lyric. Sheet music contains every note that is sung, with the lyric for that note. Using Singing Pitch Trainer, you can enter the sheet music notes and lyrics into the Sequence page, and check that you are singing the note on the lyric correctly via the chart which shows you where your voice is in comparison to the note. This is one of the most important and basic skills – as if your lyrics aren’t spot on pitch, you will never sound professional, no matter how many exercises you learn.

Rhythm

Rhythm is the length of each note and when a note starts and ends. It’s also referred to as timing. As a singer you need both to sing lyrics on pitch, and in rhythm. Most people can already follow rhythm at a decent level; i.e if they sing along to a song, their timing is good – it is usually the pitch that is wrong, and possibly the harder rhythms that are wrong.

Basically if you are off pitch, your correct rhythm won’t help you. This is why pitch is what must be trained first, then rhythm is added. A good rhythm can’t fix a bad pitch. But a good pitch still sounds nice, even with a bad rhythm. Of course you must learn both to be a professional. Once you learn pitch, independent of rhythm (which you can do using Singing Ptich Trainer, as it forces you to sing pitch independent of rhythm to ensure you are correct) then you can start trying to sing those accurate pitches along with the rhythm that you hear on the actual song.

The next step up is to use a metronome to force you to sing without the assistance of the track, but still in time. This is the hardest step, and is the final step to eventually singing on your own, in perfect rhythm, without needing any assistance. The most common mistake with rhythm, is rushing. This does take a long time to fix, but can be done.

Runs

Runs are when you have to sing a very fast sequence of notes, usually on one vowel, and sometimes on more, for the harder ones. The longer the run, the harder it is to learn. The more vowel changes or consonants, the harder it is to learn. Runs are kind of like guitar or piano licks/riffs, and can go by the names runs, riff, licks, trills, melisma.

Learning runs is extremely difficult, because of how fast they go by. An excellent strategy is to slow down the runs using software such as Amazing Slow Downer or Transpose Extension Pro. You can also input runs from sheet music into Singing Pitch Trainer, and gradually learn the run note by note.

There are three stages to learning runs. Note memorization, speeding up, rhythm. Once you learn the notes, you can begin to go faster, then lastly you perfect the length of each note.

Blend

Blend describes changing from your chest voice to your falsetto voice across two notes. There is a clear switch that happens, which usually sounds vulnerable, compared to if you just did both notes in your chest, which usually sounds more powerful or belty.

Learning to blend opens up much more emotional moods to your singing, and always gives you the choice to not have to belt notes, as well as the variety of being able to do it in falsetto.

You will have to learn to blend across a variety of intervals, with the octave being the easiest to start with, and working your way down to blending across a tone or semitone, which are the hardest. You simply go back and forth across two notes and the blend will sound like a yodel. Use Singing Pitch Trainer to make sure you are perfectly on pitch during both the chest note and the blend. This is also referred to as changing registers (what I have called ‘voices’). For example, changing from chest register to falsetto/head register.

Falsetto

Learning to sing your mid and high range chest notes in falsetto adds variety to your singing. Falsetto is usually airy in the lower zones, and gets thicker sounding when it starts to get above your high chest range, and sounds more screamy than breathy/vulnerable.

Learn to sing all your mid and high notes in falsetto, and go higher. You can develop 1.5 or more octaves in your falsetto. Practice holding straight notes, using vibrato, singing wordy phrases, and doing runs in your falsetto. Use Singing Pitch Trainer to make sure you are staying on pitch – particularly on the breathier falsetto which is hard to control.

Range

Your range includes your entire range, low, mid and high. Training low notes is integral to training your high range, as it helps you to warm up, as well as give a sense of stretching and resting if done in between high reps. This strategy helps you build stamina in your high range, while simultaneously developing your low range – instead of you getting exhausted singing high notes over and over.

There are many ways to train your range. I recommend starting with your favourite songs – just a section, such as a verse/chorus/bridge, and sing it 12 keys down, and gradually work up to the originally key. It serves at a great warmup and workout at the same time. When it gets to your limits, check the highest notes, so that you can keep track of your progress.

You can also train your range by practicing holding notes for a longer time than normal. 3 seconds or more is enough. When you start to not be able to hold a note for this long, you should train around this area and slightly lower, to build the foundation for the new high notes you want to create.

Volume

Learn to sing in a low, medium and high volume, on a single note, without stopping your sound. This is a difficult exercise, and usually you will go up or down in pitch instead of modifying only your volume. Focus on keeping the pitch the same and only making your volume change.

You can sing the same note three times, low – mid – high volume – but this time with stopping your sound, instead of one long held note as in the previous exercise.

Volume control adds a lot of variety, impact and emotion to your singing. Using Singing Pitch Trainer, you can attempt to sing at different volumes, while it gives you feedback on whether you are still on perfect pitch.

Tone

Tone is also referred to as placement. Where you place or feel your sound in your mouth and face makes a difference. Practicing a single note on the three common placements helps you control this. They are nasal, open/neutral, operatic/dark/low. RnB/Pop uses open/neutral, beginners who can’t control their sound mix between open and nasal, and opera singers intentionally use operatic/dark/low placement.

Using Singing Pitch Trainer, sing a single note on pitch, and try all three placements, while continuously holding the note. Then try again, but stopping your sound before sounding each new note.

Your overall tone is a combination of your pitch accuracy, volume, diction and the placement you choose. Your placement should ideally be similar to your speaking placement, if you are singing rnb/pop. Sometimes speaking a lyric can help you find a reference for your placement, particularly if you are a nasal singer.

Diction

How you say words can automatically change your placement. Diction has more to do with language and the standards of singing that each genre has created for how we apply language rules to when singing lyrics. You have to know your vowels, diphthongs (two vowels combined) and consonants. You need to know what vowel you need to sing if a lyric note is held for longer than a quick second.

The best strategy is simply to listen closely to what the singer you like is doing, and emulate it. A good exercise is writing down the way each lyric is sung, to help you notice it more when you hear it. I still write down the vowels for each note, as it helps with grasping difficult lyric combinations or long runs.

Diction is important if you are not an english speaker. You will need to learn to not show your accent. I am of Arabic background, but raised in Australia (I speak both languages), but if I sing English, you can’t tell which part of Australia I am from (there are many accents in Australia). So you should aim to sound the way your favourite singers do – non accent specific.

There are a few artists which break the standard diction rules and add in their own accents – if that’s what you like, go for it. But generally in rnb genre, I have not heard this done. This is mainly done in indie or the occasional pop artist. At the end of the day, as long as you are clearly understood and still on perfect pitch, that’s what matters.

Instrument (Guitar/Piano Accompaniment)

Many singers do not play instruments. Personally I think these singers are missing out on a whole world of fun and control over their music. Playing a guitar or piano as an accompaniment to your voice means you get to learn and experience all the chords in your favourite songs, and be able to play them with any rhythm you desire, and chop up or remix a song however you like.

Added to that is you remove the limitations of only singing acapella or having to sing with a backing track. Playing an instrument means you can play in any key. The final sound of an acoustic cover is also a very raw feel, and can only be obtained by playing an instrument. Acoustic covers are very popular on their own and create a new emotion to a song.

Learning an instrument is absolutely not necessary to learn to sing – it is a different skill entirely – but being able to play is very fun, and the fact that you can be your own backup, just by sitting it at a piano, or picking up a guitar on the lounge, is very empowering. Personally the sound of the guitar hit me hard, when I first played, and I haven’t dropped it since.

Balancing Act

Singing a straight or still note (two different ways to describe the same thing) is literally a balancing act. Maybe you learnt to ride a bike – same thing – you had to practice over and over and over to learn to ride in a straight line, without falling off to the left or right or veering to the left or right.

Singing a steady, non-shaky note is the same concept. There is a strength that you have to develop when you are on that bike. There are muscles which are learning to work together at the same time, and gradually get stronger at holding the upright, straight position. Your singing voice will need the same development. You don’t need to consciously think of the muscles – the same way you don’t think about it much when learning to ride a bike. The feelings inside your throat and lungs is very subtle – the same way the balance feelings of a riding a bike are very subtle.

Same for driving, handstand, floating in water, walking on a balance beam and any other skill where you need to balance.

Beginners and even some intermediates really struggle to sing even a single note steadily, for more than even a half second. So when a beginner tries to put a sequence of multiple notes together to sing a line of a song, the likelihood of it sounding shaky or unsteady is very high. This shakiness is perceived as being off pitch or off key. Off pitch is the better term, as the singer may be aware which note they are singing, but they just don’t have the strength to ‘balance’ the note and keep it steady/still/straight.

Learning to steady every note

First, you must start with one note, and be able to comfortably keep it steady for at least 3 seconds, then you work up to longer holds, up to 20 seconds (the most anyone usually holds a note in a song).

You learn to do this across your entire range, from low to mid to high, as well as in your falsetto. You will notice your voice sounds more beautiful as the notes get steadier.

How can you tell if you are steady? I have developed Singing Pitch Trainer, to allow you to see exactly where your voice is in relation to a target note. The straighter the line that represents your voice is, the steadier you are. This takes dozens to hundreds to thousands of repetitions to build into your ability. You didn’t learn to ride a bike or hold a handstand in a day – a baby doesn’t learn to walk straight in a day – and neither will you learn to sing steadily in a day. It will take persistence and patience for several months to years.

Singing songs requires you to sing steadily across a wide variety of note sequences. every line of a song has a unique sequence of notes (made of a variety of intervals) and a unique set of lyrics to sing those notes on. This is why your training will take time, and will need to be specific to the songs you are training. It’s not enough just to train your note accuracy on scales and non-song exercises. You must train on the exact lyrics and melody you are actually attempting to sing.

This is a complicated process, but I have removed the difficulty out of it as much as possible with the creation of Singing Pitch Trainer. You program in the notes of a line or verse or more of a song, using the sheet music (which is always correct, and the same way people learn instruments), and then you proceed to sing each note of the phrase at a slow speed, gradually improving your stability of every note, learning to ‘balance’. Once you are able to do it slow, then you gradually make it faster, while still checking you are steady across the note changes.

The more you do this, the more confidence you will have in your ability to sing notes accurately and steadily, and be more aware of the changes your voice has to make for every upcoming note.

Another similar analogy is learning to read a map, and gradually not needing the map anymore. If you are going somewhere that requires lots of changes in directions (like a song does), you will require a high number of repetitions to get to the point where you don’t need a map to assist you anymore.

Other reasons for shakiness

Sometimes sing shakily because they are attempting to recreate a vibrato that is happening in a phrase. If the singer is not capable of a vibrato that is at the same speed and width that the song is doing, they will sound off. This can be perceived as out of control, shaky, wobbly, uneven, off-pitch or off-key. Vibrato is a skill that must be developed on it’s own, after a singer can comfortably hold a note for a few seconds at least.

Sometimes a singer is trying to hold a note that holds a bit longer than the notes around it. Because a singer hasn’t developed their steadiness, they start to shake.

Sometimes a singer hasn’t taken in enough air at the beginning of the phrase, so they start to shake at some point in the phrase, as their air is running out.

Sometimes a note or phrase has or high notes that the singer is not as comfortable with as the other notes in the phrase – these higher notes are harder to stabilize and also require more air – another major reason why so many people struggle to increase their range – they can’t isolate their weaknesses correctly in order to work on them in isolation.

You can straighten out your notes and sound more beautiful, no matter your starting point. Good luck in your singing journey.

Thanks

Rached

Using The Success Of Instrument Methods

People are very successful at learning to play guitar, piano and other instruments – even without the help of an in-person teacher. Students can usually get to a decent level on an instrument, using website articles, YouTube videos, books, video courses or software. An in-person teacher ofcourse will be much faster, and guarantee that you have no plateaus – but you will still learn songs if you are dedicated enough, without in-person.

This is not true to the same extent with singing. Even with an in-person teacher, you still might not achieve success with your singing. Personally, I have taught many students that have come from a background of lessons, and have gaps in their singing which their prior teachers were unable to address. These students were dedicated, paying time, putting in the practice, but not seeing as much results as they could have seen.

The reason why success in singing is much more difficult to attain, than success with an instrument, is because measuring how good you are at an instrument is easy to do, whereas, measuring how good a voice is, is way harder.

Measuring an instrument versus measuring a singer

It is easy to tell if you are playing an instrument properly. You simply have to press a note done on a piano, or press a fret down on a guitar. If you don’t, the note won’t play. If you do, the note will play. If you play the wrong note, it is clearly visible. You don’t even need a teacher to tell you – you can easily look at a guitar tab, or at sheet music and see what note you are meant to play. There is no guessing.

So playing a phrase or section of a song is simply a matter of learning where every note is, and then pressing all those notes down hard enough, and then memorizing where the notes are. Anyone can do this without a teacher. They just have to repeat it hundreds of times, and gradually can learn a full song.

The harder part that a student may not be able to learn on their own, is rhythm. Rhythm is the time a note starts and ends, which also means how long a note goes for. All notes have a precise time they must be played, and must be ended. This is very hard for a student to learn on their own. It is possible – there are many books on rhythm and tools such as metronomes. But when it comes to trying to learn any song you want on your own, this can be a very difficult task.

Rhythm is the point where many self-learning students give up, or stick to easier songs and never advance. For example, a guitarist can play the chords and strumming or fingerpicking pattern at the same time. So they quit, and stick do basic sounding down strums or finger plucks. A pianist has to play arpeggios or chords rhythm with the left while playing a melody rhythm with the right hand – so they quit, because this is super hard to do without any guidance.

But with guidance, it is fairly guaranteed that no matter how bad you might be at rhythm, a teacher will be able to break it into small enough chunks that you learn it. After all, you can watch your hands play, and the teacher can easily see where you are playing to fast or slow, or the wrong note.

Back to singing – singing the right note is the part that is hard to measure – because the learner can’t see their note – and neither can the teacher. The teacher can see the note in their mind, and have a close idea of whether a singer is too high (sharp) or too low (flat), or on the wrong note entirely (off key). But this is hard for a teacher to communicate clearly to the student, because the degree to which the student is sharp, flat or off key can vary greatly. They could be a tiny bit sharp, or very sharp.

This literally is never a problem with a guitar or piano. You are either playing the right note or you aren’t. Simple. Nothing in between.

This fundamental stage – singing the right note – is why people struggle to learn to sing to an advanced level in all aspects of singing, on their own, and even with a teacher.

A solution for singers to learn more effectively

The strategy for learning instruments is already proven successful – so let’s keep using it. Using sheet music or tabs to learn one note at a time, and gradually adding more notes, using metronomes and music player to play at different tempos to bring up your speed on those notes that you are learning – until you can combine all chunks of a song into one final professional sounding piece.

Let’s keep all that, because it’s a measurable strategy that works gradually, and is fun.

But it’s not measurable or fun when it comes to singing. The solution I have created is to see the notes of the voice, the same way you see the notes of a piano or a guitar. If you can simply use the same notes from the sheet music, put them into Singing Pitch Trainer, and then learn to sing them accurately with the feedback that Singing Pitch Trainer gives you in a real-time, you know have a way to measure yourself, as opposed to guessing what you sound like, or relying on a teacher to try to communicate with you how sharp, flat or off key you are, and then them having to demonstrate to you the correct note with their voice or on a piano over and over.

Now you can know how you are going, every single time you sing a note – the same level of certainty that you have when you are learning an instrument – meaning you will get the same level of success.

To learn more about Singing Pitch Trainer, please see the menu on this website. Good luck with your singing journey.

Thanks

Rached