Make the most of your singing practice

1. Intro: Do you feel stuck in a rut with your singing progress? Do you feel that you do lots of practice but it doesn't always show, or you're so scared of practicing wrong that you don't practice at all. Or maybe you don't practice enough because you find it a bit boring. Well, I'm here to show you that it doesn't have to be any of those things. Practicing can be fun as well as incredibly useful. Hi, I'm Heather Long. Non. I've been teaching singing for over 15 years and I love it. I trained at the Brit School and at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. I've coached opera singers, pop singers, and west end principal performers. I've taught singing at the London College of Music, the City Lit, and I've toured internationally as a music examiner for Trinity. You know, singing is 10% knowledge and 90% practicing and perfecting that knowledge. This is why if we want to reach our full potential as singers, we need to master the art of practicing. And that's why I designed this class. Here I will share with you all the effective singing practice techniques that you'll need. You will learn how to plan for short term goals, long term goals, and the ultimate goals. You'll learn what equipment you need, how to use it to your best advantage, How to adapt your environment to suit your individual practice needs. How to recognize and utilize your practice personality. You'll learn quick at easy tips on how to manage your time and keep yourself motivated. I would love for you to choose a song. Over the course of four weeks, you will learn and practice this song, uploading recordings of your weekly progress, where I will give you detailed personalized feedback and support. So come join me on this journey, because no matter if you're brand new to singing or a seasoned pro or somewhere in between, it always pays for you to know how to make the most out of your singing practice. I'm looking forward to working with you. See you in the first lesson. Let's get started. 2. Project: Hi and welcome to your project video lesson. For your project, you are going to be working towards a performance of a song Over the course of four weeks, you will learn and practice a song of your choice, uploading video recordings of your weekly progress. If you're not sure what song to choose, you can see a variety of suggestions that I put under projects and resources. Here you can also find make the most of your singing practice diary template to help you keep track of your progress. I've also put up a video of myself during the project to help you see how I do my practice. Don't worry, I am here for you every step of the way. Just one mouse click away if you have any questions or need any advice. After all, this is an interactive class. This is why I love to watch your videos where I can give specific feedback. Tailor made for you personally. Please get in touch and let me help you. That's what I'm here for. The more you engage with me, the more you'll get out of the class. Now, before you start your project, you will need to choose a song. The simpler, the better one that you preferably haven't worked on before. The reason for this is that with a simple song, there is more scope for putting detail into your perfecting of it. Getting into the habit of putting attention to detail into your singing is the first step towards becoming an expert practicer. Now, it's best if you haven't worked on your project song before, because then you're approaching your learning and practicing of it with a clean slate. Once you've chosen your song, it's time to spend your first week learning and practicing the notes and rhythms. If you can read music, then use the sheet music. If you can't read music, then choose one recording of the song and learn the notes and rhythms by listening and copying the singer. If you change or make up notes and rhythms, make sure that this is a conscious decision and not something you end up doing by accident. In week two, you will learn and practice the expression and emotions of your song. You will work on the dynamics, how loud or quiet you sing the phrases. Either do the dynamics that the sheet music says or copy the dynamics done on your recording. Or make the dynamics up yourself. Just don't forget to be consistent. You will then work on your facial expressions and body language, making sure that they match what you're singing about and compliment the style of the song. What we do with our bodies whilst we sing influences a lot how we sound and vice versa. Make sure that you practice what you look like as well as what you sound like. Now that you know what you will be doing with the song, it's time to make sure that you do it well. Identify the technical challenges of your song. This could be places where you're running out of breath or where the voice is cracking, or where the tone needs strengthening. Then it's time to isolate those challenging parts of your song, what I call the danger zones. You will need to correct the faults and make sure that you can sing the corrections perfectly three times in a row, then connect your corrections gradually to the rest of the song. Don't be afraid to experiment here. Try different methods to make that breath last or make that note sound good. When you find something that works, make sure that you can do it correctly, consistently by repeating it again and again and again. In week four, you will be concentrating on the final touches of your song. Your goal is that by the end of this week, you will sing your song from beginning to end off by heart without stopping. That includes all the correct notes and rhythms, the expressions and emotions, the techniques, and the words. See why I said it's best to choose a simple song. Your focus needs to be on putting all that attention to detail into your final video recording. Now there is an option to approach your project song slightly differently. Your goal would still be to work on a song over the course of four weeks, but this time you would work on a smaller section of the song each week, but all elements at once. You could even try doing two projects using one method for each project to see which approach works best for you. Don't forget, there's no such thing as perfection. But if we aim to be perfect, then we know that we've tried our best. See you in the next video lesson, where I will explain what equipment you will need and why to begin your journey of making the most of your singing practice. See using. 3. Equipment: Hi and welcome to your equipment video lesson. Ideally to reach your full potential as a singer and make the most out of your singing practice, you want to have the following four items of equipment. Full length mirror, recording device, pen or pencil and paper, water. Now, there may be other items that you will need, such as a piano or guitar. If you are a musician who accompanies yourself or a microphone laptop to play tracks from if you're learning a song using a back and track. Or you may want a laptop to have access to this video during your practice session. But those items are more based on your individual needs, are often influenced by your personal singing goals. More about goals later. What these four main items do is encourage a fully rounded approach to your singing practice. No matter what style you're singing or what level you're at, the mirror and recording device help us see and hear ourselves. As a teacher or audience member, would they keep us grounded in the reality of what we look like when we sing and what we sound like when we sing. The pen and paper help us engage our thoughts and keep on track with our practice session goals and the water. Well, that's more obvious, that helps keep us hydrated. I'm now going to go through, in a little bit more detail, why these items are helpful and how you can use them to your best advantage. As singers, we are the instrument as well as the musician playing that instrument. Unlike other musicians, we can't see our instrument literally. But we can see the casing of it and what's going on in the inside will in some capacity show On the outside, we use a full length mirror to check that our instrument, the outside of our body, has good posture and is not showing any signs of physical tension. Because physical tension anywhere in the body always come out in the voice. Sometimes it's easier to see the tension than it is to feel or hear it. Also, we usually start feeling pain caused by tension after we've been tens for quite some time. By seeing the tension first, we can stop it before it gets worse. We also use a full length mirror to practice facial expressions and body language. Now it's very tempting to not practice the facial expressions and body language somehow. It can feel contrived and some singers like to feel the emotion of the song in the moment. What happens if you're not feeling it in the moment? Where's your backup? Now if you are a beginner singer, you may find the idea of looking at yourself a bit cringy or terrifying even. But it is important that you get used to it. A piano player doesn't approach their instrument with their eyes closed. If it is difficult for you to look at yourself when you sing, maybe try it gradually, focusing on one bit of your body at a time. For example, maybe try checking that your posture is good at first. And then checking there's no tension in your face. Try to be as objective as possible. If a mirror acts as our eyes, a recording device acts as our ears. Singing is the only instrument where we don't hear ourselves as we actually sound. Just watch any TV talent show for evidence. Rarely does someone think they're a fantastic violin or piano player, when they're not, and vice versa. But with singing, many people are completely wrong about how good or bad they sound because they can't hear themselves as the rest of us do. This is because the voice is produced here and then resonates here and here, and here. And everyone will feel and hear the vibrations of their voice slightly differently. Because our skulls are different, our anatomy is unique, our perception of how we sound is always going to be quite different from the reality. This is also why professional singers will continue seeing a vocal coach throughout their singing career. Most people don't like listening to themselves at first. But again, my advice would be to get used to it. Do it anyway. Life's too short. You need to make friends with your voice. That includes your speaking voice as well as your singing voice because they're the same instruments. Recording yourself helps you hear yourself as close as possible to how others hear you. You can't correct something if you're not completely sure how it sounds. Also, it's useful to record at least part of your practice session because you can listen back to it later and notice any inaccuracies or issues you had with the song or vocal exercise that perhaps you didn't notice at the time. If you are using sheet music or a lyric sheet, don't be afraid of graffiti over your music. Circle the tricky sections, what I call the danger zones. Try using different colors to emphasize certain aspects you want to focus on. Such as the color red for emotion, blue for technique, or purple for rhythm, yellow for notes. I would recommend keeping a singing practice diary where you can write down your goals for the session. Jop down ideas, keep a record of what you feel you've achieved, what you feel you need to improve on. If you write it down, you're more likely to remember what went wrong. Then maybe you can return to the issue again at the end of the practice session. Remember, always try to be objective and kind to yourself. It seems obvious to have water handy whilst you're practicing your singing, because as you know, our singers will need to be hydrated well, even as humans do. But don't drink just when you're thirsty, because by that point, you've already started to be dehydrated. As singers, we want to constantly be hydrated. Ideally, you ought to be having a glass of water every 2 hours, minimum. See you in the next video lesson, where I will be introducing you to tips on how to set up the ideal environment for your singing practice. See you soon. 4. Environment: Hi and welcome to your environment video lesson. The ideal environment for making the most out of your singing practice would be a place where you feel relaxed and able to focus. You would want a room big enough for you to be able to move comfortably in and to have the equipment that you will need. The acoustics should not be too and not too dry. A room that's too may give you a false sense of security because we tend to sound better in echo acoustics. This is because an echo room has a high level of reflected sound that masks imperfections in the singing voice. Particularly with pitch for pop singers. You'll notice that reverb and even auto tune has a similar effect. It makes you sound nicer but it's not your true voice. If your room is too echoy, then add some furniture or try adding acoustic wall foams to deaden the sound. A room where the acoustics are very dry can be preferable for more advanced singers as it will show up every imperfection. But for beginner singers, you can end up pushing and forcing your voice to try and cut through those unforgiving, dry acoustics. If your practice room is too dry, try taking out any carpets or clear the walls of any shelves or fabric, et cetera. The walls in your practice room should be of a reasonable thickness so that you have some privacy. Don't underestimate the importance of privacy when you're practicing your singing. It's more important to have privacy than it is to have the perfect sized room or the perfect acoustics. You need to have the space to make mistakes freely. The less privacy you have, the more likely you are to be self conscious. The more self conscious you are, the less likely you'll be able to concentrate or experiment, or sing at your full volume. And there's a danger that you may end up avoiding practicing altogether. Even if you're the type of singer who likes having an audience listen in on your practicing, the lack of privacy will still not work in your favor because your audience in this context will serve as a distraction. Now for some of you, you might be watching this video right now and thinking, well, all this is very well. But I live in a studio apartment with thin walls, or I live with housemates, or I live with a large family. Let's say you don't have obvious access to privacy for your singing practice. Workable alternatives could be a car. Make sure it's stationary. Just check your posture. Make sure you don't get too slumpy and slouchy whilst you're sitting down. You may want to book a room at a music studio. Just once a week would be fine. Or even once a month for an hour or so, just so you can really let, rip and wallow in your practice. It's like a swimming pool. You want to feel like you can dive in, not just dip in your toes. For those of you with close neighbors, or housemates, or family members, I'd advise talking to them. Find out from them when the best time is for you to practice so as not to bother them. Be open about it. See you in the next video lesson, where I'll be talking about some singing practice methods that you should embrace or avoid depending on your singing level. See you soon. 5. Practice methods: Hi and welcome to your video lesson, Singing Practice, Methods to Embrace and Avoid. In this video, you will learn about distraction practice, focused practice, and brain practice. How I recommend that you consciously embrace or avoid these methods depending on your singing level, whatever your singing level is, please listen to all my advice in this video. It helps for beginner singers to understand what the future holds for you when you become a more advanced singer. It helps for more advanced singers to be reminded not to take it for granted, the progress you've made. One of the most difficult things for a lot of beginner singers to get their head around is that whenever you're singing, you're, whenever you're speaking, you're practicing your voice. Doesn't differentiate between what I call focus practice when you're in your singing practice session, consciously working on a song or vocal exercise, and what I call distraction practice when you're singing whilst not thinking about practicing at all. For absolute beginner singers, I would advise strongly against indulging in distraction practice because your voice is a muscle and you don't have a good enough technique yet to be able to trust that your voice will work efficiently without you being mentally present. For example, think of your voice as acute little puppy and you don't want to just let it loose to run in the park unsupervised. That's what you're doing when you're singing in the shower, or singing whilst doing household chores, or driving, or singing casually along to a Youtube lyrics video. You're not thinking about your technique, you're not present. The more distraction practice you do, the more likely you are to accidentally ingrain any technical faults into your muscle memory. You really don't want to be doing that, because as a beginner singer, you've probably already got some bad habits. For example, with other instruments. More unusual for a beginner to start with bad habits because they probably have never played that instrument before. But a beginner singer nearly always has sung before. If they haven't, they would have still used their voice by speaking. As a beginner singer, your focus will be on unlearning negative old habits, as well as learning and practicing new positive habits. Now that doesn't mean that a beginner singer can't ever sing just for fun, in different contexts to your dedicated practice room, such as in a choir or at a karaoke bar. It just means be aware, be present, be thinking about what you're doing. Don't just shut off and go on autopilot. I'm now going to slightly contradict myself by quoting a Picasso philosophy. Learn the rules like a pro so you can break them like an artist. This statement also applies to sing in practice technique. Once you get more experienced and your vocal technique is more secure, I'd actually advise to sometimes sing in the shower or whilst doing homework or housework, et cetera. Because the advantages of this practice method, this distraction practice, is that it can help free up your inhibitions, it can help you get in touch with your artistry and spontaneous imagination. But you don't want to do that until after you've got a strong basic vocal technique. I have a student, an advanced singer, who was preparing for her grade eight singing exam, and she had reached a plateau with her practice of one of her exam songs. She was getting bored and disheartened with her lack of progress, she started indulging in a bit of distraction practice, where she learned a song just for fun. She sung this song whilst doing other things like household chores, like the gardening. She just hum it to herself casually. Now, because she was an advanced singer, good technical habits were safely ingrained into her muscle memory. She didn't have to worry about accidentally training her voice to do the wrong thing. In fact, at her stage of learning, the time she dedicated to distraction practice was a very positive thing. She actually managed to master this challenging, just singing for fun song. Because the casual approach of distraction practice helped distract her from her insecurities and ease her emotional tension. Plus, because the song had many of the same attributes as her exam song, she was able to transfer the skill she'd learned from the fun song to the exam song with ease. Now, as a more advanced singer, you're more likely to find yourself in a position where you have a last minute audition or gig. Or you're trying to juggle, learning a lot of challenging long songs whilst working full time in another job. Situations like this, you may find that a method I call brain practice really comes in handy. Brain practice is the act of practicing singing without making a sound. It's useful because it's a form of singing practice that you can do anywhere at any time for intense, long periods of time. Please don't do this if your beginner singer you probably don't have a solid enough technique yet to be able to rely on your voice to do what it's meant to do without you hearing it and feeling it and seeing yourself sing for you. Brain practice is just another form of distraction practice. Therefore, it's best avoided. But for more experienced singers, pays to be able to practice in a more flexible way. I had a singing teacher once who worked at a voice clinic. She told me how she'd advised singers who were on strict vocal rest to not listen to any music. Because if they did, their vocal chords and other muscles involved with the act of singing would start moving as they imagine themselves singing. I found this fascinating, the fact that we can work out our voices without making a sound, you can use this to your advantage, where just singing in your imagination will help warm up your voice and progress with your singing practice. It's no replacement to the real thing, obviously, but it does help if you find that you're in the wrong place at the wrong time to make any noise. It's also a good way to improve your memory as well, such as learning music or lyrics off by heart. It's also a good way to get a lot of practice done without becoming vocally tired. For example, at music college I used to practice 6 hours a day. Only 2 hours a day did I actually sing. The other 4 hours was focused on all the rest. Practicing facial expressions, body language, learning lyrics, learning the rhythms and the notes, studying the songs. All of this can be done in silence. Also, if you're a more advanced singer, you can change up your practice sessions in other ways. You can sing at different times of the day for different lengths of time in different rooms in your house with different acoustics. Practice with lots of distractions. Have the TV on or different music on in the background. Train your voice and yourself to be as adaptable and flexible as possible. You will need this skill, especially if you're attending auditions or going on tours. What should you do if your personality or circumstances or mood even contradict the advice I've given you in this video. For example, a beginner singer might benefit from indulging in distraction practice. If they're getting too stressed and intense with their practice, an advanced singer may need to spend time doing focus practice if there's a particularly tricky technique that they're trying to master, the key is to aim for balance. A balance between who you are as a person and what you are as a singer. In the next video lesson, we'll be exploring this further via the six singing practice personality types, where you'll be able to identify specific personality traits in yourself and channel them in a way that is to your maximum advantage. See you soon. 6. Personality: Hi and welcome to your practice personality video lesson. When you're doing your singing practice, it's not just about the voice, it's about the person behind the voice. Your personality can and should impact how you approach your singing practice. Just like when learning or perfecting any skill, you sometimes need to make adaptations to suit your individual learning style, personality, and even sometimes your mood. To help you with this, I've identified six different types of singing practice personalities. The extrovert practicer, the introvert practicer, the practical practicer, the creative practicer, the emotional practicer, and the intellectual practicer. I'm now going to describe in more detail the different types of singing practice personalities and offer you tips and advice on how to use these characteristics to your best advantage. As an extravert practicer, you will get most of your energy from the performance side of singing. You might find it difficult to practice because you don't have an audience present to give you that adrenaline and inspiration. Trio in regular mini performances, friends and family. If you can't do that, then film yourself performing your song. At the end of each practice session, do your own mini concert. This should help keep you motivated during the practice session itself. Extraverts like to try talking through what you're doing in your practice session before and after you've done it. You could even try pretending that you're taking part in a documentary where you're being asked to explain what you're doing in your singing practice session. This should help keep you focused and more importantly, entertained. Whilst you're practicing as an introvert practicer, you like to take the time to reflect so that you have a clear idea of what you'll be doing before you act. You may struggle with procrastination and a feeling of self consciousness when you sing and you'll be hyper aware when it's not quite right for you. It will be most important to methodically plan your practice sessions before you start them and to be very disciplined with time. For example, spend 10 minutes on this exercise, 5 minutes on this one, et cetera. You prefer working alone, which is great when you're practicing. But you may find yourself feeling frustrated or disheartened by your struggles with sharing your voice with others. You may find it particularly difficult to look at yourself in the mirror whilst practicing, or to listen back to yourself practicing. You prefer to sing in your head in your own world. A good way to push through these barriers is to be patient and do it one step at a time. You may find that practicing with your eyes closed is the easiest at first. And then gradually you can start looking at bits of your body. Like first, check for jar a tension, then check your breathing. Try to be as objective as possible. The same goes for listening to yourself sing. Try listening to just a few notes or an exercise at first. And then when it comes to sharing, you're singing with others. You could try, at first, joining a choir so that you're not too exposed. Or putting an audio recording up online so that it's only your voice that you're putting out there before you put out a video. These little steps should be a part of your practice plan before you begin your sessions. As a practical practicer, you'll be very aware of how it feels physically to sing. You'll enjoy the sensory experience of singing. You'll probably be physically very fit. And you'll be good at vocal exercises. If you have a particularly challenging part in the song, you may benefit from turning it into a focal exercise. You may also benefit from doing physical actions whilst you sing. For example, walking around the room, moving your arms as you sing. Doing physical actions will help ease you out of any tension and allow you to wallow in the pure physical enjoyment of singing. Practical practices can sometimes struggle to sing with emotion. They tend to be a bit cautious and careful in this area and are more likely to stay within their comfort zone. A good way to get out of this is to approach emotions in singing from a progmatic standpoint. For example, focus on what it looks like to sing with animotion, what it sounds like to sing with an emotion, and then what it feels like physically to sing with an emotion. As a creative practicer, you are interested in new ideas and what could be possible. You enjoy connecting all the different aspects of singing and music, making you enjoy discovering all the cool things your voice can do. You're very open to trying new things. You may find that you struggle to complete songs and that you get bored easily. You may also struggle to be consistent. Every time you sing a song, you'll change the odd note or the odd phrase and you'll enjoy this because you get pleasure from being spontaneous. But the downside to this is that it's risky, sometimes it pays off and you do the most amazing singing. But because you were improvising, you're more likely to forget what you did, you'll struggle to repeat it. You can make your practice sessions more productive by mixing it up a bit and doing short spurts of intense focused work and then longer sessions of creative work. A good exercise for creative practices is to find backing tracks online where you don't know the song and then improvise a tune to it. This exercise can help channel your creative energy in an enjoyable and positive way. Also, this on the spot, songwriting should help you appreciate how much creativity can be found in the structuring of a song or exercise. As an emotional practicer, your relationship with music is very intense and personal. You may find that singing for you is a huge emotional release and that you are very much influenced by what mood you're in when doing your singing practice. Emotional practices often are very good at creating magical atmospheres with their singing, They draw the audience into them, and they tend to have a lot of stage presence. If you're an emotional practicer, you may struggle with looking at your voice objectively and you can be very sensitive to criticism. You may also struggle to express emotions in a song that you're not personally feeling. Emotional practices also tend to be more vulnerable to physical ailments. Feeling tired or run down or stressed is more likely to come out in their singing voice. You can help yourself by listening to as much music as possible from all different styles and genres without singing along, so that you're training yourself to appreciate music from a distance. Emotional practices tend to be visual learners for you. In particular, when learning a song, it's helpful if you follow another singer's performance of it. You may find that drawing pictures and creating colors to accompany your songs and vocal exercises will allow you to enjoy the process of working on them without being too disheartened when difficulties occur. As an intellectual practicer, you will approach your singing practice studiously. You may find yourself analyzing the lyrics and harmony of a song you're studying and you'll ponder over and examine the composer's intentions. You may also enjoy reading biographies of composers and singers. Intellectual practices tend to enjoy writing for you. It will help to write down your plan for your singing practice sessions. Also write as you go along, you may enjoy analyzing your feelings as you sing and keeping records of how you're progressing, what you find easy or difficult. Intellectual practices also enjoy observing and analyzing other singers. You will enjoy watching countless versions of the same song and deciding which performance is best and why, and what you can learn and take from each performance. Intellectual practices can sometimes struggle with arrogance and are too critical of themselves and, or others. They can sometimes struggle to switch off and tend to hyperfocus on one aspect of their singing at the cost of everything else. It's important for you in particular to have a balanced approach to your singing practice. And you can achieve this by dedicating time to practicing the tips that I've given for all the other practice personalities. This will also help you be more open and appreciative of the wider picture of all the different ways we can approach our singing practice. I hope you found this video class on your practice personality interesting and helpful. One of the things you may have noticed is that no matter what your personality type, you will benefit from planning in advance how you're going to approach each of your singing practice sessions. It also helps to take a step back and look at your progress objectively. This is when having a clear set of goals comes in handy. See you in the next video lesson, where I'll be giving advice on what kind of singing goals you should be setting for yourself and how to achieve them. See you sing. 7. Goals: Do you want to be motivated to practice and make clear progress? Then you have come to the right place. Welcome to the goals video lesson. The least motivated practices are usually singers with no clear stroke idea of what they want to achieve. Approaching your singing practice productively involves a methodical approach where you're acknowledging and nurturing three different types of goals. Short term goals, long term goals, and the ultimate goal, keep your goals realistic. The most stressed out disheartened practices are usually singers who have given themselves goals that are unrealistic or just too far in the future to feel within easy reach. I classify this as a goal that you want to achieve within anything from one month up to a year. I would recommend that this goal be performance related, because firstly, singing and music making in general is a lot about sharing with others. Secondly, a performance has an ending. Having a performance goal avoids practice sessions becoming meandering or vague. Thirdly, a performance related goal will inevitably lead to you feeling a bit nervous. Nerves can be a good thing. Nerves test us, challenge us, and ultimately give us confidence and a sense of achievement. Once we've waded through them, don't be afraid to embrace having a long term performance related goal in your singing practice sessions. Examples of good long term goals would be, if you are a beginner, try working towards an exam. There are ABRSM, Trinity and LCM, Classical and Musical Theater Singing exams that take place internationally. There are also Trinity Rock and Pop and LCM and Rock school exams for pop stroke contemporary singing. All of these examination boards are well established and respected Worldwide exams are not just for children. Adults often take them. They can be fantastic for people who struggle to be motivated to practice and for people who want something to show for their hard work, you get a certificate always quite nice. It gives you a qualification for more advanced singers. You might be looking to audition for a role in a musical, an opera, a choir, or for a band, or for a university for pop singers. Learning your favorite song for karaoke can be a fantastic goal to work towards, or open Mike nights where you can turn up and sing. This happens a lot in pubs and clubs, just Google, This is especially ideal singers who use their own backing tracks or who like singing with pianists or guitarists or small jazz bands. There are even opportunities sometimes to perform your own songs. Amateur choirs and amateur opera groups can be fantastic goal inspirers. There's often a lot of repertoire to learn, and it can be a good source of inspiration for those of you who are wanting to improve your musicianship skills, such as singing music by sight or improving your tuning. Or if you want to be more sociable with your singing and learn from others with similar interests. They can also be good for people who don't feel ready yet to sing solo in any kind of public way, or perhaps have no interest in singing solo. Even singing a short song in front of a friend or partner can be a fantastic goal to help you with your practice motivation. If you don't have any family or friends, or if you do but you don't want to sing in front of them, then the next best thing is to be your own audience. Video yourself doing a performance. Performing doesn't always have to be in front of others. I would recommend that you set up your practice environment to reflect the performance environment of your long term goal. Let's say you're a classical singer and you're practicing an oratorio piece that's like a chorus song. Well, in most performances of oratorio singers are expected to sing with the music, sometimes holding it, sometimes with it on a music stand. Practice with yourself, hold in the music or wither on a music stand. Or perhaps you're practicing for doing a recording in a music studio. Therefore, you want to practice in a room where the acoustics are really dry, so lots of thick carpet and furniture. Or if you don't have that, try practicing under your duve, with a pillow on both your ears or with headphones on. Essentially, you want to adapt your environment to match your long term goal. Your short term goals are ones you aim to have achieved by anything from the end of a practice session to the end of a series of practice sessions. They come in the form of what specific areas you need to work on in order for you to successfully achieve your long term goal. The long term goal will always come in the form of singing a song. What bricks do you need to build that song? Notes, rhythms, dynamics, facial expressions and body language, memorizing lyrics and vocal technique such as breath control and tone. For beginner singers, I'd recommend building these bricks one or two at a time. For example, you may wish to first concentrate on learning and practicing the rhythm and notes. Then focus on learning and practicing the dynamics. Then focus on learning and practicing the facial expressions and your body language. Then on perfecting the technical aspects of the song, such as where and how you breathe and tone quality. If you try to perfect too many things at once, you may find yourself being in jack of all trades and master of none. For more advanced singers, I'd recommend building your house one floor at a time. For example, learn one third of your song where you're learning and practicing all aspects of it. Rhythm, notes, dynamics, facial expressions, body language and techniques. Then then in the next third and the final third of your song over the course of a few weeks. If the song is complex or challenging, then you may benefit from learning it in even smaller sections than a third. The important focus here should be that however much of the song you learn at a time, learn everything to do with it. The reason why I recommend this method for more advanced singers is that advanced singers often get complacent and sometimes without even realizing, end up cutting corners by learning a song in too much of a generalized way. But you know yourself better than I do. If you want to experiment with both of the different ways of approaching your short term goals, then please do. Don't ever be afraid to experiment whilst practicing. It's your voice, your instrument, your body, and your brain. You will find what works best for you. Just remember that by the end, you should be achieving accuracy, creativity, liability in your practicing of either one aspect of the entire song or all aspects of a part of the song. Finally, there is the ultimate goal. Now, many singers make the mistake of approaching their practice session with their ultimate goal dominating the other goals, when in fact it is the weakest and least important of the three. Ultimate goal can come in the form of wanting to be a famous singer or wanting to be a professional singer, or wanting to get a role in the West End or Broadway. It can come in really vague forms, like wanting to sound better or wanting to enjoy singing more or feeling curious about how good you can be at singing. The problem with ultimate goals is that they usually come from the ego. Feelings, insecurities, day dreams. They tend to be, to put it bluntly, a bit useless as far as progress is concerned. It's natural to have them, but don't give them too much attention On the happy irony is that if you focus on achieving your long term goals by focusing on your short term goals, the chances of you achieving your ultimate goal is far, far greater. See you in the next video lesson, where I'll be giving you some quick and helpful hints and advice on how to make the most of your singing practice. See you so. 8. Do's and Don'ts: Higher. As we come towards the end of the class, I want to bring the focus onto a few quick and easy tips for how to make the most of your singing practice. Don't binge practice. Binge practice is practicing singing for way too long. Usually that would be more than 2 hours straight for advanced singers or 1 hour straight for beginner or intermediate singers. You will wear your voice out if you have lots of time to practice and have breaks in between studying the words of your song or clapping the rhythm, et cetera. Do practice regularly. Ideally, you should practice for at least five days a week, 30 minutes to 1 hour a day. But less than 30 minutes is also okay. You'll still improve. It just might take a bit longer. Do practice to thrive. Make sure you get a phrase or a note or word correct At least three times in a row. Otherwise, you probably got it right due to fluke. Remember if you've sung it wrong ten times and then the 11th time it's right. This doesn't mean it's time to move on. You still got it wrong the majority of times you sang it, and that's what your voice will remember. Try to sing it right more often than you sing it wrong Before you move on, do practice danger zones isolated three times in a row and then gradually join the phrase with the preceding phrase until you are back to the beginning of your song. A danger zone is a part of the song that is tricky. Do practice your song backwards. Not literally, because that would be way too tricky. But practice the last phrase three times in a row, and then the last two phrases three times in a row, and then the last three phrases three times in a row. This will ensure you're not neglecting the end of the song. It's so easy to just start from the beginning and keep stopping because you're not happy. And then the last half of the song ends up neglected. Also, it's good to practice the song backwards. It makes it easier to find your way in the song if you get lost, do practice to survive. As it gets closer to whatever your long term goal is. You'll need to be able to sing through your song from the beginning to end. Being able to cope, carry on, cover up, and recover from mistakes nearer the time. Let's say about a week or two before your long term goal. Practice singing the song through, carrying on if you make a mistake without correcting it so that you're able to do this in the performance. Don't just sing the song through from the beginning to the end in every practice session and then tell yourself that you've practiced. That's not practice, that's just running it through. Running it through is appropriate. Leading up to the performance where you want to be able to cope with not being perfect, but it's not going to improve your singing. Do warm up your voice thoroughly before you start singing. I'd recommend devoting at least 20% of your practice session on the vocal warm up. So many singers skip the warm up bit or rush through it because warm ups are not as interesting as songs. Don't forget you are an athlete. Athletes don't just go straight into the sport, they warm up. Sometimes you might want to incorporate bits of your song or songs you've done in the past into your warm up routine. You can take phrases from songs and sing them going up in key and then down. This might help you warm up, feel more personal to you and more enjoyable. Do leave a little time in your practice session for some fun singing. I classify fun singing as singing something you enjoy without thinking about improving it. However, I would recommend not devoting any more than 10% of your practice session to this. Otherwise, you may start practicing bad habits without realizing it. Because you're distracted by your own joy of singing. Do praise yourself. Remember you are your own teacher. When practicing critical, but fair, if you reach stalemate at all, leave it alone for a while. Give yourself a break, or as one of my singing teachers used to say, put it in the oven, let it cook, and then come back. Do practice at different times of the day. It will keep your voice flexible and adaptable. Don't take good practice and bad practice sessions personally. Instead, concentrate on how you sing on average. This will make it much easier for you to appreciate and enjoy all the improvements you have made throughout your singing practice sessions. 9. Project demonstration: Hello and welcome to your demonstration of your Pott video. I have Happy Birthday here. And I'm going to demonstrate to you how I personally would approach learning and practicing this song. Obviously, you can choose any song you like. This is just the example that I'm doing today. I've got the sheet music here. You might not be able to read music which is fine, or you may not want to. So you might use a recording. But I would advise that you have some kind of template, whether it be listening or looking, or a bit of both, to help you learn and practice the song. The first thing we're going to work on is the rhythm and the notes starting with rhythm. The most important thing to find in any song that you do is the pulse. Now, happy birthday is quite unusual because it has what we call three beats at a bar. And we always emphasize the first, be like 123123. Most songs have four. You can find this pulse in this song. And then I'm just going to show you now how you would fit the rhythm with that pulse. Okay? So I'm going to clap the pulse. I'm going to speak the rhythm, so it'll be like 12. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear. Let's say Heather, why not? It was my birthday recently. He yeah, You're feeling it like that now. You'll notice that with the pulse, you've got those in between beats. When I go birthday to you, happy birthday to you, it's really important to feel those in between beats because they will help give you an indicator on where and how to breathe, how long you've got to breathe, and they just keep you safe from the song. The pulse is like the spine of the song, so it's really important to establish that near the start. Now the next thing you want to do is to look at some of the danger zones. So we've got some kind of the semi quaver, quaver as we're saying them in England, but you might say them differently to where you come from, but you've got these kind of shorter rhythms. So we've got like happy birthday. Happy birthday, yes. So they can be a bit tricky and your goal is to make them as clean and as consistent as possible so you can practice them isolated like happy birthday and then go to the next one. Happy birthday? Yeah. Even if you find you're repeating yourself, it's good. It's training the brain to notice where it comes up each time. And then the next one is the long kind of pause at the end of the name. So when I go, happy birthday dear has. I don't just want to leave it on for however long I feel, I want to count and work and practice. Practice out or practice, how many times, how many beats I'm going to hold that note for. So I'm going to choose to hold it for four and then have a two beat rest. So it'll be like happy birthday. Dear hair. Happy birthday. Yeah. And I've planned that out. Yeah, I'm not leaving it to how I feel. I've planned it. So those are just a couple of tips on how you would look for the rhythm. The next is the notes. So this is quite a famous song. A lot of you will maybe think, oh, I kind of already know this. Anyway, I don't need to learn the notes. But I would say do do learn the notes? Really listen and make sure that every single note is bang in tune. And this means not just singing it from the beginning to the end of a few times, but really going in on the individual notes. So it'll be like happy birthday. Happy birthday. And at the same time, making sure the rhythm is clean and always keeping that pulse going. So really take care of every note. Whether you can read music or you want to use the recording, it doesn't make any difference. You still want to make sure that you're just honing in on those notes and then just gradually increasing it, so it'll be like happy birthday, birthday again. Happy birthday. And a happy birthday to two, So you're just gradually piercing it together. A couple of danger zones. I think obviously for many of you it will be the high note, Happy birthday when it goes up that whole octave. A few little tips you can, you may need to open the mouth a little bit more. Her birthday, or keep it a little bit smaller. Her birthday, Harpy birthday. Change the foul, happy birthday, Happy birthday. So you can kind of experiment which everyone feels best for you. You can also use it or incorporate it into a vocal exercise, so you can go, happy birthday, happy birthday. Happy birthday. Happy birthday can go up as well. Happy birthday. Happy birthday. Happy birthday. Yes. And you can do that as part of your vocal Walmart before you even sing the song. That can also help with the notes. Now moving on to the next week of your project, where you'll be focusing on your dynamics, fatal expressions, and body language. This is another area that often gets neglected by singers. Singers just assume that the face and the body will just do what it does. You really want to consciously make sure that your face is mirroring, it's reflecting the emotion that you want for your song. So this song, I would say, is generally a happy song. So make sure you look happy. Yeah, they'll be like happy birthday to you. And think about how the face changes slightly as we say like to you, we're not going to go happy birthday to you. Yeah. 'cause that looks fake. So you want to kind of think, oh, how am I don't know, it sounds ironic, but how am I going to practice making my facial expressions look natural? Because you'll be amazed how many singers, even professional singers, they're so busy concentrating that they don't realize that their concentration is etched on their face. So it's important to practice that. Also, you can actually help yourself sing better by being body aware. Be cause there are certain body language kind of expressions that can help with your singing. So for example, when you do like Happy birthday here, you can open up the arms or Happy birthday, these things can actually help you sing better as well. So you can incorporate that. The other thing is to check your body, Check there's no tension, and check that your posture is good. This is in that second week where you can kind of just tidy up those fine details. Also experimenting with dynamics where you want to be quiet, where you want to be loud, happy birthday to you, or if you want to increase the volume, that may have also a knock on effect on the speed. But always keep that pulse going, even if you slow down birthday, you're keeping that pulse there as well. And then after that, we get on to your technique. Now, for many singers, they think, oh, I want to focus on my technique right in week one, but I would advise, no, it's important to be accurate. It's more important to sing accurately than it is to sing well. Okay, so we sing accurate first, then we try to actually sing it well. Once you've learnt the notes and the rhythms, and you've planned your facial expressions and your body language, then you can actually think about technique. Then you can think about all how well am I actually singing it? And this is where you may also incorporate styles. So for those of you who are classical singers, you want to make sure that your soft palette is lifted, that the voice is resonating. Happy birthday, that you have that nice smooth legato and really supporting from the diaphragm as well. With pop singing, you know, it's going to be a little bit more varies. You know, maybe you'll want it a little bit more forward. Happy birthday to you. And you'll notice that I add a little note in. I might want to be a bit improvising, but again, I don't want to do it by accident. I want to practice it. If I've chosen to put that note in, I want to check that it actually fits in with the structure. Happy birthday to you and I want to practice it. I don't just want to sort of see how I feel on the day. Yeah. The practice sessions at a time for you to be creative, but once you find something that you like, you want to remember it and you want to practice it. Okay. So I hope that you've enjoyed my demonstration and I hope you found it helpful. 10. Outro: Hey there. Congratulations. You have completed the how to make the most of your singing practice class. Thank you so much for embarking on this journey with me. I really hope that you have enjoyed the class and that you feel motivated enough to incorporate all that you've learned into your singing practice sessions. Remember, when practicing, aim to have the right equipment to hand set up a singing practice environment that is the appropriate size, has the appropriate acoustics, and gives you privacy. When approaching your singing practice, be aware of which methods to embrace and avoid, and use your practice personality. Always to your advantage. Remember to have clear short term, long term goals and an ultimate goal. Don't forget to do your project. This is based on a long term singing goal. Check out the video of me doing my project to the song Happy Birthday. In a variety of different singing styles and at different levels, you can do the same song as me or any song you like. Don't forget to upload the video in the projects and resources section so I can give you some personalized feedback. I have some fantastic singing resources that complement this class. Check out my website, www.heatherlongman.com I look forward to seeing you seen. Bye.