Hey you guys and welcome back to The Singing Studio! Today’s episode is a little bit different. We’re just going to be chatting today. We are talking about how to find our voice and everything that goes along with that: feeling confident in our voice and loving our voice. So, finding our voice! I have a few tips for you today that I hope you enjoy. As you implement these tips, I can promise you that you’ll feel a greater appreciation for your voice, you’ll be excited to strengthen your voice more, and you’ll be excited to do more fun exercises.
All of us have such a unique voice and I know that these tips are going to help you discover that unique voice. Our first tip today is to choose different styles of songs- styles that you love and maybe styles that you’re not familiar with or might be more challenging for you. I’m just going to use the example of food for a minute. Imagine that you absolutely love pizza, but that’s all you ate. For breakfast, lunch, and dinner. You would only get used to eating pizza and if you didn’t try other foods, you may not know that you also like tacos or or you like rice. Enter your favorite food here! But it’s the same with singing. You need to make sure that you’re choosing lots of different songs so that you can know for yourself what kind of styles that you like. You’ll be surprised. I know for me I’ve tried different songs that I’m like, “Oh wait, actually I didn’t realize that I would really enjoy singing that!” It’s not what I’m used to choosing, but I’m really glad I did because I learned from it, I grew from it, and I ended up loving it. So choose different styles.
The next tip is to not copy cat people on the radio. I know we all want to sound like our favorite pop star or favorite country singer, but that actually sets us up for bad vocal habits. We know our voice and we know how to have that good breath support. We can’t rely on copying these other people that we hear on the radio because we’re not thinking about all those elements. We’re thinking about, “Oh how am I going to sound like them?” No no! We need to be thinking, “How do I sound?”, “How does it feel in my voice?”, and “Where is my breath?” It’s okay to take certain elements from different artists like, “Oh, I like it when they riff here or they do this part staccato, or they do this part forte.” Or whatever. That’s okay, but own your voice. Don’t try to sound like other people and that goes for your peers as well.
So this next tip definitely takes a lot of bravery, but it’s to listen and record your own voice. I remember the first time I ever recorded my voice and listened to it. I was so nervous and I was shocked. I was like, “Oh my goodness that’s how I sound? I didn’t know that!” It’s because when we speak and when we sing, what we hear is different from what other people hear. So it’s really, really important for us to get used to our sound as other people hear it. And if anything, you’re going to end up falling in love with your voice because I’m sure all of you have amazing voices. So the only way to get over that fear of hearing yourself sing is to listen and record yourself singing. So I definitely recommend that.
Next, sing spontaneously. And what I mean by that is to sing in the shower, sing in the car, (don’t copy people though on the radio!), but make sure that you’re singing for fun. It’s part of expressing yourself. It builds confidence. I love singing in the car as I’m driving to work, driving to school, or whatever. I definitely recommend you sing spontaneously to really build that confidence.
And finally, last but not least, make sure you’re practicing every day. Make sure that you’re actually doing it properly. Where’s your breath support at? Are your muscles relaxed? Are you warming up? Are you really focused? Make sure that you’re practicing every day because that’s the only way that we can strengthen our voice. The more we strengthen our voice, the more we can improve. The more we can improve, the more styles we’re able to sing. The more styles we’re able to sing, oh man you would be unstoppable! We want to make sure that our voice is doing all it can. We are responsible for practicing and preparing our voice to be able to sing what we want to sing and do what we want to do. So practice every day.
Let’s recap those tips. One, choose different styles of songs. Ones that you love and ones that are challenging. Two, don’t copy cat people on the radio or your peers. Three, listen to recordings of your voice. Four, sing spontaneously- in the shower, in the car, and karaoke. Sing spontaneously! And finally, practice every day.
And that is all for our video today. Be sure to like this video. I hope to see you in our next episodes. Have a wonderful day!
I do these videos every other week, but if you still want more musical theatre, check out my newsletter! It’s called “Beyond The Score”, and it just takes a closer look at musical theatre history. You can find that at jskstories.com.