Top 5 Mistakes Beginner Singers Make

Video Subtitles: all right so you want to know what the top five mistakes that most singers make or new singers make this is our things that I wish I would have known when I was coming into singing who somebody would have told me these things so that I could avoid them do them right and get to singing better quicker some of you may have seen my ten year transformation video if not you can check it out over here but in that video I show my 10 year pursuit of learning how to sing those 10 years could have been shortened by proper guidance from a good vocal coach because I went through a whole bunch of really bad vocal coaches and the right mindset so I want to give you guys those two things to set you up for success right now if you're a complete beginner even if you're a professional some of these may be brand new to you and so they'll be helpful as well so let's jump into it number one first and foremost I can't tell you how many people I work with say I practice I warm up by singing songs now there's a big problem with this we don't want to just sing songs to warm ourselves up to get our voice to be better the reason for this is found in one of the places where you may be looking for it let's give you an example I'll paint a picture have you ever gone to karaoke and you noticed that one guy who's been doing karaoke for the past thirty years and every day gets up to the mic and he sounds either as bad as the day he started or worse and after thirty years you would think this guy's been singing for this long shouldn't he be getting better after all if somebody was playing guitar for 30 years even if they were terrible and they had no talent to start with they would get better no and this comes down to one of the fundamental differences between all other skills and singing itself singing requires the undoing of bad habits why is that because from day one you were born using your voice you came out of the womb screaming so you were always using your voice that instrument is no different than the one you used to sing and so what we really need to do is undo the bad habits that have been built up by social norms by friends by things that you've been told by parents all these sort of issues that convoluting and create problems with the way we use our voice we need to learn how to stop a bit early doing them all right so now that I've spelt out the mistake what is the correction what is the way that we can improve on that mistake if you're interested in learning more on how to sing I created a resource that I wish would have been around when I was starting to sing with the subscription I've created you get access to all of the courses that I've created and more that are coming you get access to all of my private lesson recordings that I have from other students so you can learn vicariously through them and you get monthly one-on-one lessons with me all of this is available for one low monthly price and it's a very well-rounded approach to learn how to sing click the link down below to get access now so the number one fix is making sure that you're not using songs to warm up your voice or to improve your voice you need to make sure that you're doing things that are getting to the fundamentals of creating sound that are not going to be tied up with all those social norms and habitual ways of doing things that are tied up with your past and the way that you sing so we need to actually get you out of the idea of singing and just get you in the idea of making noise allow yourself to be free with that and make weird sounds that's really important so when you're doing this you've got to make sure that you're doing isolated exercises so you're not just going do re mi fa so la ti do we're actually doing something that is targeting specific muscles that are working those muscles this is why I created a resource that I wish would have been around when I was learning how to sing it's something that I take you virtually and walk you through hand-in-hand how to improve your voice step by step and it's a monthly membership that you get access to all my courses to all of private lessons that I've had with other students and one on one singing lessons with me on a monthly basis is really no better value than it at a very low low price just putting that out there all right so once you've found the right exercises that's great you have a basis on which to build a practice regimen but a lot of people kind of get lost with like how do I practice do I do it for five hours do I you know practice this and then sing how do I do it so let me give you a very clear recipe for success when it comes to vocal exercises so no matter whose training program you're doing applying this to that training program is gonna help it's very important to note from the outset that your voice is very different than other skills in one other very important way the voice is made up of two very delicate vocal cords that sit right here there extremely delicate and are vulnerable to a permanent damage if used improperly with this in mind you got to make sure that your vocal practice and your singing fit within that construct of the fact that you don't have unlimited use of your voice there is a limit to how much you can use it every single day you can't sing for 12 hours a day it's going to wear it out and cause permanent damage well great Adam thank you so much for letting me know I can't do it for 12 hours but how long should I be using my voice great question it's very important to try not to vocalize for more than an hour a day if you're doing more than that your voice has probably some health issue that is holding it back from being able to warm up and get to the place where it needs to be really 20 minutes should be like enough it should be good but if you're going for an hour that's really kind of strengthening improving and working on the voice not when you just need to really warm it up to get it ready to sing now in addition to that you probably also want to sing and I wouldn't sing for more than an extra hour or two a day that's kind of like the max voice use and that's pretty intense voice use on a daily basis now there are always exceptions there are you know gigging singers that are going around and doing radio shows in the morning then concerts at night I totally get it but if that's not your lifestyle and you're not actually doing this as a profession there's no reason why you should be doing total more than three hours a day now in my course that I offer with my lesson subscription service you get access to a complete regimen of everything you need to do to be able to improve your voice and it really kind of goes through all the specifics of how what I think is the very best way you should go about your daily routine so that's extremely helpful for those of you who need it Tomasz day number two getting louder as you go higher now I go through this extensively in my video that I did on the secrets of singing super high notes which I think was a novel idea with a lot of singers because it really took off and has gained a lot of popularity it's important to realize that every note we want to be able to sing we should be able to sing it quietly if we're not able to sing that note quietly we have no business trying to sing it loudly alright so now that we've described the mistake what is the remedy there are four things that I want to check in with to make sure that you're doing this correctly number one is your breathing so a lot of times when somebody is singing and their breathing gets labored or chest heavy then higher notes will start to get louder naturally so we're going mama mama mama mama mama mama mama mama the body gets struck with a certain amount of anxiety and it makes it feel like I got to keep on going louder to be able to hit those higher notes that's not the case rather what we want to do is keep the chest relaxed and every time we breathe we allow the stomach to come out and when we breathe out we want the stomach to come in we want those lower abs to kick similar to the way that we would cough we need to get that to operate so give that a try CAW Frankie ah we want that same approach we want that same engagement from the lower abs we got to make sure that the chest stays still if you can't do this before you sing ah you got to check in with your breathing because this chest should not be rising as you sing the next thing you want to check in with is your larynx where's it going as you're going higher if it's going up often you're gonna feel like you have to push more air pressure more volume to get those notes mama mama mama mama mama mama and you're pushing and screaming to be able to hit those notes that's gonna be painful over time the next thing to check in with what is your jaw doing what is your tongue doing what are the muscles on the outside of your larynx here on your throat are these getting tight everything here are extrinsic muscles their muscles outside of the larynx that aren't really necessary to engage to be able to sing properly yes we need them for articulation but for actual sound production all we really need is the lower abs to be able to project the sound out and then the vocal cords the action of the vocal cords to be able to vibrate around that that's all we need to be able to produce sound uh-huh that's all we need is those two processes make sure your jaw isn't getting tight as you're doing it nee nee nee nee nee nee nee nee nee nee instead of nee nee nee nee nee gotta make sure that that jaws dropping as you're doing Oh oh and so many other terrible examples that I see like that that I see from students the final point to watch over as you're going higher is your vowels are they going wider as you go higher does it look like this does it look like that as you're going higher that's a problem we don't want them out to spread to be able to go higher create that guy relaxed relaxed should stay nice and relaxed as you're going through your entire range now that's an example of somebody singing when they're going love as they go higher but here is what we want to look like when we go softer as you go higher keep it relaxed Oh soon as you notice I'm kind of flipping the approach I'm starting a little bit louder on the bottom and then as I go up higher I soften up that's what we want to try to do go quieter on the top louder on the bottom and you're gonna notice that there's going to be a massive shift in your approach mistake number three and I really wish somebody would have told me this when I first started to sing cuz it would have shaved off years on my singing transformation and that mistake is neglecting falsetto there are so many singers and even vocal coaches out there that really profess about the idea of connection connection connection that we always want to operate from a connected intense sound so more of a Oh a connected sound as opposed to an airy sound ah now there are two main problems with this problem number one is that there's a stylistic tool that's used often in modern music and that's called falsetto and without practicing it working with it then you're not gonna get better at it and be able to use it within the context of a song so that's really important to be able to sing modern music number two a lot of beginning singers cannot make a released connected sound they can't go oh they can't make that connected sound in a released way so how do we get them to release feel the release and then start to apply that to singing in a connected way falsetto that's the only way haha finding that really really easy the easiest sound possible is so important to then be able to build on that foundation of release the remedy must seem clear to you essentially we need to use falsetto don't be afraid to work out in falsetto don't be afraid to allow your voice to break don't be afraid to embrace that break a lot of people are so scared of sounding bad and avoiding that break ah and they'll squeeze and push to be able to make it through that break that's gonna end up causing severe habitual problems so what's the remedy allowing your voice to break finding that release ah and in that break is really where we begin to find our mix that place where both registers come together in that breaking place is where my voice starts to because what is a break it's bouncing between my mouth and my head you can feel that and so when we get that and we find that middle place where it's not quite breaking we get that mix where both are operating at the same time that is I mean in so many ways another reason why it's really important is that gives you ultimate flexibility if you can take a note start from falsetto move to a full voice sound wow you have ultimate freedom to use any one of the varying degrees of connection between those two to your advantage if you're coming from a falsetto place and you're able to connect then you're gonna be in such better shape vocally because you have ultimate control mistake number four that I see so many singers run into and it holds back their ability to improve so much and there's really kind of basis on a very psychological deep-rooted problem and that is their drive to sound good at all costs if it doesn't sound good I don't do it the irony is by trying to sound good they often develop bad habits that make them sound bad and if they would just let go of that desire and that focus of only to sound good they would eventually come full circle and sound good from a release perspective this approach really requires a shift in perspective instead of focusing on sounding good focusing on the sounds feeling good will then allow you to find an ease of tension all those extrinsic muscles letting go which will then eventually lead as a by-product sounding good so the pursuit of learning how to sing is not about sounding good it's about learning what feels good and then as a byproduct of that it will good as well now with this shift of perspective in mind this requires a great deal of mindfulness while we're doing the exercises mindfulness describes being in the moment non-judgmentally and present while you're doing it so when we're doing our exercises we can't just kind of like be mindless and not really be aware of what's going on in our body the more we can be aware of the kinesthetic approach of what's going on in our body in the moment the more easily you'll be able to make changes improve your sound by improving the way it feels thereby you reach your goal in a very ironic way not by sounding good at the expense of all outs but by making sure it feels good and then it'll sound good I hope I've repeated that enough times for you guys together now in a similar vein mistake number five comes from a very mindless place so being mindful while you do this will help you a lot now so many of my students when they first start lessons they approach songs in a very holistic way they do the entire song but the problem with that is that you get lost in the forest and can't see the trees you're looking at the entire thing and you can't possibly dissect and improve small aspects of it if you're doing the whole thing at once many of my students see the most drastic improvements when they start to dissect the song break it down line by line and a lot of people don't realize it's not about separating the verse and then the chorus and then the verse line for line really dissecting what is the singer doing ask yourself these questions what is the singer doing are they approaching it breathy are they approaching it in full voice are they approaching it in mix are they approaching it in chest voice what is the resulting sound quality what does it seem like it feels like for that singer to be there while singing that song asking yourself these things will help to bring out the response that you need to be able to sing it properly and then when you break it down in this way you also notice exactly which pitches you should be hitting on each line so many singers just kind of gloss over pitches especially when they're really intricate runs they just kind of gloss over it as if like okay I got it roundabout so that's good enough no no it's not good enough we got to be very very particular about how we're approaching it so don't gloss over a full song break it down line for line pick the song that you're working on really break it down approach it a line at a time and you'll notice massive improvements.