A great singing tip for beginners, which is often overlooked, especially by the beginning singer is their posture for singing.
If you want to breathe correctly, tension free, singing with a great tone then it all starts with posture.
For example, if your head is too high up then the throat will start to close off giving a more restricted unnatural tone, the pitch will not be good and the onset not as clean.
How do I create a good posture for singing?
So starting from the head and moving down:
1) The top back part of your head should be pointing up to the sky – as If you were a puppet on a string and the string is attached to the top back part of your head.
2) Your eyes should be looking slightly down from looking straight ahead – when you do this correctly you should notice that your chin relaxes.
3) The back of the neck should feel stretched and the front short
4) Your ears should be in line with the shoulders
5) Shoulders should be relaxed down and slightly back – gently pinching your shoulder blades together will help with this. When done correctly there should be a feeling of a slight stretch at the front of the chest.
6) The chest should feel lifted and open like it does when you take in a good breath – note that I am not saying an over breath just a good comfortable breath.
7) There should be a firmness in the breath support muscles, but also flexible never ridged
8) The pelvis should tilt ever so slightly forward – this will happen automatically if you unlock your knees.
9) The knees should be free to move not locked, so just bring them forward a little – this feels very strange at first for a lot of my students, but remember that is what the leg muscles are for 🙂
10) Stand slightly forward towards the balls of your feet, one foot should be slightly in front of the other – gently rock back and forward until you find a nice point where your body suddenly feels released. When you feel this sensation then you know that your posture is correct.
Remember that good breathing and singing depend on a good posture for singing, so don’t forget to set it up every time before you go to sing – in time this will become second nature to you. While you are learning it though, you could use the list above as a checklist. This singing posture is just a good starting point as you get used to the feeling of the freedom that it gives your voice start to play around with it to see what you can get away with before you lose that freedom of singing voice. All beginning singers who are learning to sing should start here.
I hope that you found this singing tip helpful. Remember as a beginner before you sing you must set up your posture for singing. If you would like to know more about posture in singing or any other area in singing for that matter, then please get in touch, via the comments below. Remember that I am here to help you to become a better singer 🙂