Some people are born with their singing apparatus already aligned, and they go on to careers as fantastic vocalists. When you ask these people for singing tips they sometimes have no idea how they do it – it just comes out! And then there are the rest of us. We have the music within, but […]

When Jane* started voice training she was a senior in high school and very quiet. After some initial progress at two lessons per week, she switched to one lesson per week and her progress….halted. She kept at lessons persistently but after two years had made very little progress.  I was carefully checking her technique and […]

A singer should stand freely and easily and should feel as if the chest were leading, but should not feel constrained or stiff in any part of the ribs or lungs. From the minute the singer starts to emit a tone the supply of breath must be emitted steadily from the chamber of air in […]

I breathe low down in the diaphragm, not, as some do, high up in the upper part of the chest. ..In breathing I find, as in other matters pertaining to singing, that as one goes on and practices, no matter how long one may have been singing, there are constantly new surprises awaiting one. Luisa […]

In learning to breathe it is well to think of the lungs as empty sacks, into which the air is dropping like a weight, so that you think first of filling the bottom of your lungs, then the middle part, and so on until no more air can be inhaled…” Luisa Tetrazzini, one of the […]

I want to warn you not to practice any breathing exercise to such an extent that you make your heart beat fast or feel like strangling. Overexercising the lungs is as bad as not exercising them enough and the results are often harmful. Like everything else in singing, you want to learn this gradually. Never […]

Even the best coaches have their limitations, and the truly great ones will let you know what they do and do not specialize in, as well as if and when the time has come for you to move on. – Jennifer Hamady, The Art of Singing

In the practice of slow breathing make sure that the lungs are as nearly emptied as possible on the expulsion of the breath before beginning a new inspiration, as this gives extra impetus to the fresh supply of air and strengthens all the breathing muscles. If this is not done, moreover, the effect is like […]

Musicians are more successful than non-musicians in learning to incorporate sound patterns for a new language into words. Children who are musically trained show stronger neural activation to pitch changes in speech and have a better vocabulary and reading ability than children who did not receive music training.” – article featured on The Science Daily […]