Two ways to rapidly improve your singing ability | Australian College of Vocal Arts

Singing lessons with Dr Dan Jess in Brisbane usually start for one of three reasons. Either you want to become a professional singer and have a performing or teaching career, or you’re looking to sing for fun, or you might be considering sitting singing exams. Regardless of your reason for wanting to learn to sing, there are some tried-and-tested methods that you can use to improve your singing ability in less time.

Is it safe to use methods that improve your singing quickly?

Absolutely, but not just ‘any old method’. You need to engage with specific methods or exercises that help develop specific parts of your vocal ability, or your performance skillset, so you can proceed safely, knowing that you will not be harming your voice or creating any sounds that are not natural for you. This is where your teach comes in handy, because they are your vocal coach, mentor and guide to help you avoid any potential pitfalls or mistakes, that could lead to vocal strain or damage.

Method 1: Supported singing using accent method breathing techniques

These breathing and singing techniques have been used by professionals around the world for many years, to help the emerging singer to better connect their sound with the air in their lungs, to provide for a supported sound that is clear and free of strain and tension. How do you use accent method breathing?

There are lots of ways to incorporate better breathing exercises into your singing lessons or practice at home, without it becoming a chore or being boring.

One of my favourite exercises is best done before you eat a meal (then eat after, there’s no need to stay hungry for your art)! The steps are simply:

1)      Stand comfortably and relaxed.

2)      Take a good, deep breath in and fill your lungs completely. Let it go after holding your breath for a few seconds.

3)      Repeat this four times.

4)      On the fifth inhalation, don’t let your breath go easily. This time, you will make a repeated “shh shh shh shh” sound and with each “shh” you will focus on feeling your tummy muscles pulsing in and out as you make the sound. This is how you start to feel connected to your breath, and feeling the sensation of your lower body supporting the sound you make.

5)      Take a break so you don’t pass out.

6)      On the next few runs of this exercises (which is simply repeating step 4 with different sounds), you can use “vvv vvv vvv”, “thh thh thh” or “sss sss sss” sounds to mix things up. They all use different amounts of airflow too, so it adds variety to your muscle memory.

That is just one of many (literally hundreds) of simple breathing exercises for singers that, when used properly, can seriously turbo-charge your singing ability and vocal power, without causing any harm to your voice.

Method 2: Singing “Vocalises” that challenge you on multiple levels

In my experience as a singing teacher in Brisbane and elsewhere, very few singing students ever get truly excited about singing scales and exercises, but they do work to make you a better, more professional singer. You can’t just sing songs on their own and expect to become a superstar, it just doesn’t work like that. It’s the same for chefs, they have to spend lots of time cutting the same vegetables over and over, before they can slice and dice with both precision and speed. Singers are no exception to the rule – sorry!

However, there is a happy medium in this for singing students.

There are books and books of what we call “Vocalises” (pronounced vo-ka-lee-zess), which are short songs that you simply sing on vowels such as ah, aw, oh, oo, ee or any combination of these. They usually start off easy in the front of the book, and become progressively harder, until they are as challenging as some of the greatest songs ever written on earth!

These ‘exercise songs’ are way more fun to sing and practice than scales, and they provide you with a platform to practice different techniques, colours and shade, tones, timbres, expression markings and much more. Vovalises are excellent tools to use whether you learn classical, contemporary, musical theatre, jazz, rock, blues or something else.

Ask your singing teacher in Brisbane about these techniques and methods, to help you become a more professional singer, faster.

Interested in starting singing lessons with Dr Dan Jess?

Simply call 1300 422 466 or contact us here. You can start your lessons anytime of the year!