Most people think learning lyrics is easy. An average person will assume they [...]]]> Every now and then I get confronted with a song that has either a ridiculously long set of lyrics containing about twenty verses or one that does not make any sense at all, making it extremely difficult to learn.

Most people think learning lyrics is easy. An average person will assume they know most of the words to many of their favourite albums as they tend to sing along to them every day in the car or workplace.

The one thing I realised when I first started busking is that there’s a big difference between singing along to an accompanying album and trying to play the song on your own with nothing but your self to cue from.

Auto Cue

If a person is provided with even the slightest cue, like the first letter, sound or syllable to the start of a song line, it triggers the brains automatic recognition of the following lyrics allowing you to easily finish the sentence or verse. The brain recognises these cues so fast that it only takes a few milliseconds to register a sound from a cd to trigger your own response and help you sing along. This leads many people into the false belief that they know the song really well when in actual fact they don’t.

It’s only when you switch off the music, give them a mic and tell ‘em to sing that people realise they don’t have a clue where to start. I see this happen all the time when people offer to accompany me singing out busking or at a gig or wherever. Even with a guitar strumming the tune, they don’t know where to start or which verse comes first. If I give them one word or an accompanying half line then they’re off. Until a few seconds later when they need another cue for the next line or verse.

Even if you do know all the words in the whole song, it’s not knowing the order of the verses, choruses and middle 8’s that can stop you in your tracks.

There’s nothing worse than singing a song and getting the lyrics right but screwing up the verse order. Ninety percent of the time the audience won’t know or notice anyway, but as a singer it’s vital that you know your words and can project them with confidence.

Here’s a funny vid proving even pro’s forget their words. The guys from R.E.M. have to go out and buy their own songbooks and CD’s before going on tour just, to remember their own lyrics.

The Boring Way

There is a big difference in the the way the brain takes in information when trying to memorise things. We all know for instance that a larger percentage is taken in and absorbed by the brain when writing down a piece of information than by just reading it. The same goes for reading and listening, you are much more likely to learn a piece by reading it than just listening to it. This would lead us to believe that if we need to learn a song then the best way would be to keep writing it down, over and over again.

The problem is, it is incredibly boring and takes a lot of time out of your day. Writing out the same song more than once is really tedious and if you’ve got loads of other songs to learn or more important stuff to do, you don’t want to be stuck in a room pushing a pen or sat in the same place listening for hours on end.

It’s even worse if the song doesn’t make sense or is incredibly long winded. By the time you’ve gone through it a couple of times, you’ll be so racked off you’ll probably give up.

The only way to learn a song off by heart with the minimum of effort is to ram it down your own throat and burn it into your brain so badly that you’ll remember it for the rest of your life without even trying. Here’s my fool proof method.

How to Memorise a Song for Life with Minimum Effort

The first thing you need is an MP3 player and some earphones. You don’t need an expensive one like an ipod, just get the smallest, cheapest one you can find and a pair of cheap 99p budget earphones from the nearest supermarket. It doesn’t matter about the sound quality or memory capacity, as long as you can hear it and it holds a few songs it will be fine and you won’t have to worry about replacing expensive equipment if you loose it.

Download the song you want to learn from the internet. You can easily buy it from iTunes or download it from one of the free music sites like Beemp3.com. If you have it on CD, stick it in your PC and rip it to an MP3 file.

Load the song onto your mp3 player along with any other songs you feel like learning in the near future.

Print or write out the lyrics on a couple of pieces of paper. You can easily find them by visiting the many online lyric sites on the net.

Sit down for ten minutes and listen to the song undisturbed, two or three times over while reading the accompanying lyrics. This will give you an initial understanding of exactly what is being said and the general construction of the song. You’ll also be able to correct any mistakes in the lyrics sheet as most of the time you’ll find they’re wrong anyway.

When you’ve done this, fold the paper up and put it in your back pocket. Make sure you keep it with you over the next couple of days.

Now get up, stick the MP3 player on repeat and get on with your life.

Intense Exposure

Over the next 48 hrs you must keep the Mp3 player by your side and on repeat at all times, constantly cycling through that same song over and over again without stopping. At work, in bed, out shopping, in the car, walking the dog, everywhere. Every possible second you are awake and can get away with it, play that damn song.

When you go to bed at night, stick your earphones in on a low volume and whack it on repeat until you crash out. You’ll wake in the night with the song still ringing in your brain. When you are out shopping or your partner is trying to talk to you, stick one earphone in and respond with the other.

Be Careful

Whatever you do, always ensure you keep your headphone volumes as low as possible to avoid damaging your hearing. Excess volume over a prolonged period of time can cause permanent damage to the eardrums leading to noise induced hearing loss or tinnitus – a permanent ringing in the ear commonly found in those who misuse mp3 players and portable music devices.

Keeping a low volume on your player will avoid damaging your hearing and getting on peoples nerves. If you can barely hear it yourself then neither can anyone else. Thousands of people each year do permanent damage to their hearing by blasting music through earphones so everyone within thirty yards can hear. Be careful or you could find yourself dealing with serious problems in the future.

Test Yourself

Every now and then, when you just can’t bear listening to the song anymore, switch off the player and try and sing it to yourself. See how far you get. If you get stuck, pull out the piece of paper with the lyrics on and give yourself a cue. Go through the song quietly in your head at every opportunity, referring to the sheet when you need it.

You will find that within a few hours you become completely obsessed with the song. Even if you can’t stand it, you will find yourself constantly thinking it, speaking it, singing it and dreaming about it. You basically live walk and sleep the song at every opportunity for two days while getting on with your normal life.

Lyric Interpretation – Association

As you get to grips with the lyrics, a great technique is to equate various lines and verses with your own interpretations of what is going on in the song. Think of imaginative scenes depicting the story that is being told as the song unfolds. It doesn’t matter how ridiculous the scenes you imagine are, it is the act of equating words with sounds and pictures in your mind that creates and strengthens new electrochemical bonds and memory paths between the cells in your brain.

These new associating images actually create physical links in the brain making the memories much stronger, more permanent and easier to retrieve.

Permanent Recall

Sights, sounds, smells and images often remind us of things long forgotten buried deep in our past memories. The links created and associated with that memory at the time were so strong that many years later a simple smell or sound can bring it all rushing back.

The power of mind association is widely used by memory masters and helps them achieve great feats of the mind like memorising packs of cards in minutes. It’s because they associate each card they pass on their journey through the deck with an imaginary journey they take in their mind. This equates cards and numbers to powerful and familiar thoughts, images and colours.

This technique is a little more advanced that I’m suggesting. You don’t necessarily have to take an imaginary journey through the whole song, but just allow your imagination to guide you through the song picking up any obvious anchor points you can equate to images in order to help you through.

Check out some of the lyrics to Can’t Stop – By the Chili’s. They are brilliant but totally absurd. A real nightmare to learn, but easily conquered using mass exposure and image association techniques. See if you can equate some of the lines to imaginative scenes you can think of yourself.

Can’t Stop

Can’t stop addicted to the shin dig
Cop top he says I’m gonna win big
Choose not a life of imitation
Distant cousin to the reservation
Defunkt the pistol that you pay for
This punk the feeling that you stay for
In time I want to be your best friend
Eastside love is living on the westend
Knock out but boy you better come to
Don’t die you know the truth is some do
Go write your message on the pavement
Burnin so bright I wonder what the wave meant
White heat is screaming in the jungle
Complete the motion if you stumble
Go ask the dust for any answers
Come back strong with 50 belly dancers

Sweetheart is bleeding in the snowcone
So smart she’s leading me to ozone
Music the great communicator
Use two sticks to make it in the nature
I’ll get you into penetration
The gender of a generation
The birth of every other nation
Worth your weight the gold of meditation
This chapters going to be a close one
Smoke rings I know your going to blow one
All on a spaceship persevering
Use my hands for everything but steering
Can’t stop the spirits when they need you
Mop tops are happy when they feed you
J. butterfly is in the treetop
Birds that blow the meaning into bebop

???

The sort of things that go through my head when singing this one are pretty bizarre I can tell you.

Once you’ve got to the point where you can recite the song faultlessly in your head with no backup or accompanying music, you’re done. You brain is fried and the song is imprinted (more like branded) in your head for good. From then on, your normal practice will keep the song fresh in your mind for years to come.

It sounds intense but in reality it is a very simple and easy way of learning absolutely any song, no matter how long or complex with the minimum of effort. To lessen the interruption to your normal life, you need to be imaginative and get at least one earphone on the go whenever you can. Monotonous tasks like cooking, exercising and work are the ideal times to fire up the mp3 player.

Learn Anything – Anywhere

This technique works for just about any method of learning. I spent a few days learning Spanish using this method a couple of years ago and most of it is still in my head.

You can use these methods to learn music theory, maths, formulas, recipes, languages or anything else. Give them a try and see how well it works.

The funny thing is, because it is so intense but still allows you the freedom to get on with your life, you will always remember exactly what you did over the couple of days you learned the song. You will remember what the piece of paper looked like, how the words and verses were written, what you were doing and how you felt.

I learned ‘From The Ritz to The Rubble’ on the motorway, checking out a van for sale half way up the country, three Travis songs rebuilding the chimneys on the roof of my Dad’s house and Outside – by Staind while fitting a new kitchen to name a few.

Give it a try and see if it works for you.

Posted 11.11.09

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For this scale we will be starting on G (3rd fret 6th string), work our way up to C (13th fret 2nd string) and back down again to G or below. Follow the exercise shown in the video and start with a gentle humming.

Major scale vocal warm up using guitar.

For this scale we will be starting on G (3rd fret 6th string), work our way up to C (13th fret 2nd string) and back down again to G or below. Follow the exercise shown in the video and start with a gentle humming.

Follow the exercises in the video and when you’ve got the hang of it repeat the process using lip rolls or tongue trills.

Check out my Vocal Warm Up Techniques page for details on how to perform lip rolls and tongue trills.

Vocal Warm Up Scales 1

Here’s the vid again.

Here’s the pdf tab for the exercise
Adobe reader is required to view this file.

Here’s the midi file and here’s the Guitar pro exercise file for those who use Guitar Pro.

Click here for the tabs for exercise 2 and 3 or take a look at our vocal warm up scales page.

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Check out my Vocal Warm Up Techniques page for details on how to hum and perform lip rolls and tongue trills.

This second exercise uses an octave and a half scale range. This is slightly more difficult and takes a bit of concentration to get right. Match your fingers with your vocals.

Check out my Vocal Warm Up Techniques page for details on how to hum and perform lip rolls and tongue trills.

Here is the video for the tab above.

Here is the guitar pro file, the pdf for the exercise, and the midi.

Click here for the tabs for exercise 1 and 3 or take a look at our vocal warm up scales page.

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This will give [...]]]> This 3rd exercise is the most awkward until you get used to it. The scale spans one and a half octaves and 5 strings and as you move up the fret board and across the strings the fingering patterns change as the scale ascends and descends with your vocals.

This will give your voice, fingers and brain a good work out while you are trying to follow the notes up the scale.

Check out my Vocal Warm Up Techniques page for details on how to hum and perform lip rolls and tongue trills.

Here is the video for the tab above.

Here’s the pdf, guitar pro file and the midi.

Click here for the tabs for exercise 1 and 2 or take a look at our vocal warm up scales page.

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Go through your hums, [...]]]> Here we have our videos section. If you are too lazy to look for them or read the articles and lessons you’ll find all this sites own vids from various pages here in one place. Click the links to view the full articles.

Guitar and Vocal Warm Up Scales

Go through your hums, lip roll, tongue trill, vowels etc. whilst going through these simple scale routines.

Easy

Slightly Harder

Moderately Difficult

Once you’ve gone through these exercises a few times using humming, lip rolls or tongue trills, cycle through your vowel sounds such as ‘aaahh, ooohh, eeee, aaaaayy or even mum mum mum’ etc using the scales. Remember to vary your technique and scale patterns.

Try extending the length of each exercise by playing patterns two or three times over on each step. Hold the high notes for a count of 10 and practice vibratos and following your own vocal runs.

For tabs, midi’s, guitar pro files and pdf’s for exercises 1, 2 and 3, click these links.

Finger Picking Guitar Lesson

Pink Floyd – Is There Anybody Out There ?

Start with your left hand in the Am chord position, and move one finger at a time thinking about your next move as your right hand carefully cycles through the picking pattern.

More vids coming soon.

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I used to get frustrated when going into practice as doing my vocal warm [...]]]> The problem with being a singer and a guitarist is you have to do two jobs at once. This means that before you practice or perform, you have to warm up both your fingers and your vocal chords.

I used to get frustrated when going into practice as doing my vocal warm up exercises to my singing cd would generally mean I had to hang around for twenty minutes while going through my trills and scales before I could start playing, effectively stopping my guitar practice before it had even begun.

You can’t strum your guitar whilst listening to your warm up exercises because an acoustic makes a lot of noise and you can’t hear them properly. When you have a lot of music to get through, spending twenty minutes warming up vocals before you even start a three hour practice session is a real pain and just adds more time to your daily routine.

Here’s a couple of brilliant ways of doing both at once.

Warm Up Scales for Singers and Guitarists

Major scale vocal warm up.

For this scale we will be starting on G (3rd fret 6th string), work our way up to C (13th fret 2nd string) and back down again to G or below. Follow the exercise shown in the video and start with a gentle humming.

Follow the exercises in the video and when you’ve got the hang of it repeat the process using lip rolls or tongue trills.

Check out my Vocal Warm Up Techniques page for details on how to perform lip rolls and tongue trills.

Vocal Warm Up Scales 1

Here’s the tab page for the exercise and the pdf tab.
Adobe reader is required to view this file.

Here’s the midi file and the Guitar pro exercise file for those who use Guitar Pro.

This second exercise uses an octave and a half scale range. This is slightly more difficult and takes a bit of concentration to get right. Match your fingers with your vocals.

Vocal Warm Up Scales 2

Here is the tab page for the exercise, the guitar pro file,the pdf file and the midi.

Vocal Warm Up Scales 3

The 3rd exercise is the most awkward until you get used to it. The scale spans one and a half octaves and 5 strings and as you move up the fret board and across the strings the fingering patterns change as the scale ascends and descends with your vocals.

This will give your voice, fingers and brain a good work out while you are trying to follow the notes up the scale.

Here’s the tab sheet, pdf, guitar pro file and the midi.

Once you have completed these exercises two or three times using humming, lip rolls or tongue trills, go through your vowel sounds such as ‘aaahh, ooohh, eeee, aaaaayy and mum mum mum’ etc using these scales but remember to vary your technique and scale patterns.

Try extending the length of each exercise by playing the note patterns two or three times over on each step or holding the high notes for a count of 10 and practicing your vibrato whilst holding the note.

Feel free to increase or decrease the range to your own standards. Go as high as you like or as low as you can manage, but DON’T strain your voice or push your vocal chords too much. Practice these scales daily and your range will gradually increase in time. Straining your voice to hit notes you are not capable of will damage your vocal chords and hinder your progress. If you feel any pain in your throat when practice your singing then you are pushing too hard and risking injury. Just relax and take it easy.

Check out this sites total vocal workout page and follow the techniques shown in the video sound tracks. Once you’ve learned how to use scales in the correct manner you can play them with your guitar using these exercises anytime you like.

As this site progresses I will post more exercises and techniques for you to try out.

In the mean time, if you are serious about your singing, then you should seriously consider purchasing a professional singing tutorial cd package.

Check out my review on Brett Manning’s Singing Success if you would like some in depth professional vocal training without the hassle of weekly lessons.

Posted 10.10.08
Revised 18.02.09

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If you are considering singing as a full time occupation or intend to be singing as a hobby over a long period of your life time, it is vital you learn how to do things the right way. You need to ensure you don’t pick up [...]]]> …

The Importance of Professional Vocal Tuition

If you are considering singing as a full time occupation or intend to be singing as a hobby over a long period of your life time, it is vital you learn how to do things the right way. You need to ensure you don’t pick up the usual bad vocal habits that many singers develop early on in their careers.

A prolonged period of singing using bad vocal technique could result in serious damage to your vocal chords and ultimately, completely ruin your chances of success in the long term future.

One of the main things I was concerned about when I started out singing, was that I did not want to be one of these people you hear about who ruin their voices without even realising. I’ve heard stories like this many times before from friends and acquaintances in the local music scene.

Many years ago I was enquiring about singing lessons and was speaking to the guy who’s been running the local music shop for the last twenty years. He was explaining to me how important it is to get proper training and started telling me about the lead singer of a popular local band who had a great voice and sang for years with no trouble at all. One day he went to a gig and his voice just completely caved in. He was croaking like a horse, had severe throat pain and had to jack in the gig.

After a trip to the doctor and a throat specialist, it turns out his throat had been seriously damaged due to years of bad technique and negligence. Over time, nodules had developed on his vocal chords, he was unable to sing and barely able to speak. He said the poor guy had to have three throat operations, still has trouble speaking and will never sing again.

I was pretty shocked when I heard this but have since heard quite a few more accounts of similar things happening to singers in the local community and also famous singers in the public eye.

It’s not just amateur vocalists, there are many famous people who’s lives and careers have been turned upside down by serious vocal problems that have arisen due to vocal negligence and bad technique.

Singing injuries and other problems like developing throat nodules are common issues that can affect any singer and have a devastating effect on the lives of those who do not take precautions to avoid them.

Damaged vocal muscles and nodes on vocal chords often need operations to correct them and it is generally the case that singers who have these operations take months or even years to recover. Although some people do make full recoveries and return to singing, unfortunately many do not. In many instances the voices of those who do recover never rarely sound the same.

This was always one of my main fears when it came to singing. As a performer, I knew that anything I purposefully did to my body because of my lifestyle such as drinking or smoking etc. would be my own doing, so any damage I did to myself because of this would be my own fault and no one else’s.

That’s fair enough, but what I couldn’t deal with is knowing that simply by singing and using wrong or bad techniques, I could easily end my own career purely through bad judgment and ignorance.

If I was to use or develop my own warm up and vocal techniques and use them for the rest of my life, then if those techniques were wrong or flawed, a few years down the line they could ruin me for good.

For this reason, I chose to give Singing Success a go.

…

My View on Singing Success

I had read about it and been told about it by a couple of other singers in my community, so along with various other singing tutorial courses, I decided to check out the Singing Success web site and took a look at the testimonials by various famous singers and recording artists.

The course had a lot of good reviews which I carefully read, but I think what did it for me was the recommendation by Keith Urban. I thought if it’s good enough for him, then it’s good enough for me.

Another deciding factor that helped me take the plunge was the money back guarantee offered by the program.

…

The site states :

‘Sing Any Song You Want, in Any Key You Like by Adding a Full Octave to Your Range – GUARANTEED or Your Money Back! We will give you 6 months to try this Amazing Program.
If it doesn’t give you at least an extra octave and the results you’re looking for, send it back and we will refund your full purchase, NO QUESTIONS ASKED!’

…

That sounded like a pretty good guarantee.

The course is $200 which is quite a lot of money, I thought if it doesn’t work, they can have it back. What’s to loose !

Finally, I thought spending a bit of money now, could save me a lifetime of grief. So I gave it a try.

I’ve been using his tutorial cd’s for over two years now and originally before I tried the course, I thought I was a reasonably good singer. As soon as I began the tuition, I realised how much I needed to learn and just how bad my vocal technique really was.

I won’t kid you. It’s hard at first. You just start on the first cd and take it slowly one at a time.

Mastering fundamental techniques such as lip trills and tongue drills while going through all the exercises with Brett and accompanying students is pretty tough at first, but once you start to get the hang of it and learn to relax and go with your voice instead of fight against it, you’ll start to see results pretty quickly.

Within two or three weeks, my vocal range had increased 5 semi tones (almost half an octave) and the whole underlying core of my technique and singing ability had become more solid and stable. There is no doubt about it, you will start to feel more confident in yourself as your voice starts to connect right the way up through your vocal range. Your singing voice develops new richer qualities and matures in a style that you would not achieve without proper vocal training. I’m pretty certain you will be quite impressed with the results.

…

Singing Technique

A singer who is not used to this sort of training will feel the techniques are a bit weird when first beginning the course. As you get to grips with the exercises you’ll soon realise the importance of the training as you start to develop and learn to sing in a professional manner.

As you become familiar with the teaching method you will also spot exactly the same techniques being used by other professionals in the media and on television.

I often see techniques being taught by top professional coaches to students on programs such as The X Factor, Fame Academy, Pop Idol etc. and you’ll immediately be familiar with the techniques they are teaching. You will understand how they do it and where they learned their skills because you’ve been doing exactly the same thing at home.

I remember years ago, watching Beyonce on a television program when she was just starting out. She was asked which one important piece of advice she would give to young singers out there wanting to improve their singing techniques and help them become stars.

She started doing this funny blubbering thing with her mouth. I couldn’t work out what she was doing at the time, but many years later after discovering Singing Success, I realised she was simply doing these weird and wonderful lip trills that form the foundations of every great singer’s ability. At first these techniques seem bizarre, but they play a huge role in a singers vocal training and turn normal people into incredible vocalists. Nowadays you’ll see professionals and students doing this sort of thing on TV all the time.

Since taking on the course, apart from massively increasing my range and improving my vocal power and ability, the main thing that makes me feel good about my singing is that I now have the confidence to perform and practice safe in the knowledge that I am not damaging my voice, throat or vocal chords through ignorance and bad singing habits. I know that as long as I continue to employ the techniques I’ve learned using Singing Success, that my future career as a vocalist is pretty much guaranteed.

I really believe that the choice I made to invest in my future has given me piece of mind and allows me to look forward to an injury free career.

All I’ve got to do now is keep singing.

My advice is give it a try. You’ve got a six month ‘No Questions Asked’ guarantee, and if you don’t like it, send it back.

There’s nothing to loose and everything to gain.

If you would like to have a look at Brett Manning’s web site and get some free stuff, videos and tips, then click the link below to check out the Singing Success web site.

Take a look at Singing Success.

…

Posted in Reviews 03.10.08

Note : In the past I have been asked by a couple of our viewers, ‘How much did I get paid for my review on this product ?’ and ‘How much do I get paid when people click the link ?’.

The answer for both questions is ‘absolutely nothing’. Everything I write on my blog, including here in this review is the truth and according to my own personal experience. The fact that the review also promotes the product is purely because I have actually found it to be useful and would recommend it to others, especially as if you don’t like the product, you can always get your money back.

If you click through, I also get paid nothing. The only time I might eventually receive a fee is if one of my viewers clicks through the link and actually buys the product there and then, and doesn’t decide to send it back within 6 months. At this point I believe it is only fair to receive a small subsidy due to the fact this free review has promoted their product and earned them a legitimate sale.

I hope that clears thing up.

K

Here are some video demonstrations of the most important vocal warm up techniques used by professional singers today. The humble ‘Humm’, the mighty ‘Lip roll’ and the dynamic ‘Tongue trill’. These techniques play absolutely vital rolls in any successful singers daily practice routine.

This may sound daft, but humming [...]]]> (Updated) 06.02.09

Here are some video demonstrations of the most important vocal warm up techniques used by professional singers today. The humble ‘Humm’, the mighty ‘Lip roll’ and the dynamic ‘Tongue trill’. These techniques play absolutely vital rolls in any successful singers daily practice routine.

Humming

This may sound daft, but humming is one of the best ways to start your vocal warm up.

Humming is one of the easiest most stress free ways of singing and is an ideal first exercise to practice with your scales.

How to Hum

Place the tip of your tongue at the back of your bottom row of teeth. Do this as though you were at the dentist and were asked to open your mouth and say ‘Ahh’. Alternatively you could use the sound ‘Hee’.

Now relax and close your mouth, jaw and tongue.

Make the sound ‘NNNNnnnnnnn’ or ‘MMMmmmmmmm’ which ever feels best and achieves a fuller, deep warm tone to your voice.

You should find you feel a slight vibration or tingly feeling passing through your tongue, teeth and nose. If you feel this, then you’re doing it right.

The Lip Roll/Trill

This first vid explains how to do the lip roll or lip trill as it is also known. This one of the most important techniques in a singers warm up routine. The tutor in this vid uses it in her own unique way, but the actual trill or roll and the way she explains how to create the sound using her fingers on the side of her cheeks is really good. If you can master the roll, especially without the use of your fingers, then you can use this in many of your warm up routines as all the experts do.

Here is a sound vid from Seth Rigs giving more instruction on how to achieve the lip roll/trill.

This next vid is a really good tutorial from Eric Arceneaux. Check out his link. It is example of how to use the technique whilst practicing your scales.

Tongue Trills

If you have trouble with lip rolls/trills, then tongue trills are another brilliant way of achieving the same results.

Here’s is an excerpt from Bret Manning’s brilliant Singing Success vocal tutorial cd, explaining the tongue trill technique.

and below is a sound byte vid from Seth Riggs speech level singing tutorials running through a tongue trill scale. From 1.58 onwards is a piano scale run through for you to try the tongue trill or lip roll your self.

Take a look at the Complete Vocal Workout page on this site for in depth tuition from Seth Riggs.

If you’re a guitarist and don’t happen to have a piano hanging around, I’ve posted a couple of rough vids especially designed for guitarists and vocalists which to enable you to warm up your fingers and vocals at the same time.

These are really useful and effectively kill two birds with one stone. I’ll update them and post better quality ones once I get round to it. Just take the ideas and expand on them with your own patterns and scales.

You don’t need to be a guitarist to do these exercises, just warm up your vocals and sing along with the scales as usual.

Vocal warm up scales for singers and guitarists

Breathing Exercises

Now we take a look at breathing exercises. Really we should have looked at this vid first as breathing is one of the most important aspects of singing, but as a singer who wants to get on and sing and forget the boring stuff, I thought I’d put it last.

Here’s a great video explaining the finer points involved in breathing technique.

It doesn’t matter how good your vocal range is, if you’re breathing technique is flawed, your singing will be sub standard.

Check out our vocal warm up lessons for our very own tutorials for guitarists and singers.

Posted in Vocal Stuff 06.02.09

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