My Practice Schedule….

I read something this morning that made me think this might be a good time to talk to you about practicing…. Again…... I was reading my friend and colleague, Judy Rodman’s, newsletter… She is a wonderful singer and teacher; you should check her out … she’s got lots of great products and advice and is an awesome lady… Anyway, I was reading her blog about singing with power and thought yes I agree whole-heartedly that many students do try to over sing and use too much power too soon. They start pushing for louder and louder sounds and it winds up damaging the voice instead of strengthening it. It also occurred to me that many of you have commented on my posts about my practice schedule… and since I have a strong voice and have power behind me if I choose to use it, I thought I’d go into a little more detail about how I practice and why. (Don’t confuse power and breath support and control. Power comes in part from good support and control, but is not the only thing. I am always supported when I sing… I just use more power now and then to accentuate passages in the song)

As many of you know I have taken a few months off recently to care for my father so I have had to work on my voice to get it back in shape for the work I have coming up. Remember the vocal cords are muscle tissue and need to be exercised just like every other muscle in your body. I thought I’d go thru my practice routine with you and clue you in to how I go about opening up that power without damaging my voice.

First I’ll tell you that I get in an hour at the minimum every practice session. Yep… let me say that again… I practice at least one hour 5 to 6 days a week.

If time permits, I have worked my stamina up to 90 minutes without strain and am working up to two hours with ease… here’s the clincher… even though my voice is … let’s just say… “seasoned”… I have been working about 4 to 6 weeks to get it to that place where I can comfortably sing what I’m working on full out and not get tired. That may be a long time for some and a short time for others but you must know your voice and you must prepare. I ask a lot of my voice and do not want to risk vocal strain or damage by pushing too hard too soon. So I schedule in the appropriate amount of time in this case about 4 to 6 WEEKS of practice so I can get things back in working order without strain or damage…

There is still one big “money note” in one of the songs that I have only recently been singing in full mix voice. I keep things light and in the right placement, with the right amount of breath support, till I am confident that the placement and muscle memory is secure, then and only then do I open up and start putting some power behind it!

Here’s my full routine… this is usually over an hour. I will leave some things out and do 30 minutes of warming up and vocalizing and 30 minutes of singing if I only have an hour.

I START BY SHUTTING OFF MY CELL PHONE!
I do some breathing exercises
I humm on long low to medium notes (always in a comfortable area, not too high or too low)
I go thru my warm up exercises anywhere from 30 to 40 minutes
I go thru my vocalise exercises (Lutgen, Seiber, Solfege, Vacci, and some Aria’s are the things I practice with)
Then I sing the songs I am working on.


The things I hope you take from this blog are the frequency of my practice - 5 to 6 days a week, the length of time not only the hour per day but the number of weeks it takes even me to tune up the voice appropriately and the fact that I do a LOT of technique work every week. Practicing doesn’t just mean turning on your favorite song and singing along.

Remember, this outline is in no way intended to be a specific guide for you. You should get with a teacher and learn exactly what is appropriate for your voice and then follow what they say…. This is only intended to show you that professionals like myself take practicing very seriously and it is a part of my every day routine. My voice is my life, my passion and I want to take care of it and still be singing when I’m 80… Being a singer is a gift.. Take care of it!

Start flappin your jaw!

It seems to be the theme this week…. What’s going on with your jaw while you’re singing… I want to talk, or keep talking, about a specific thing that causes problems for every singer...

Tension in your jaw, neck and shoulders…

Sometimes you aren’t even aware that you are tensing those muscles… but if you are having trouble hitting high notes you might want to look at yourself in the mirror while you’re singing and look for tension particularly in your jaw and neck… If it’s there, I’ll almost guarantee that it’s also in your shoulders and back.

Here are a few obvious things you can do to help relieve this tension..

Deep breathing exercises

Massage

Neck and shoulder stretches

Physical exercise, and

Get enough sleep

Another exercise that we do specifically to combat this problem is to sing and let the jaw unhinge and flap while you’re singing… drop the jaw, open the mouth and don’t articulate anything.. The whole objective of this exercise is not to understand any of the words you are singing… This will sound REALLY FUNNY… trust me you will laugh at yourself while you’re doing this.. but if you learn to rehears songs this way it will help you get rid of the tension in your jaw. You can’t open your mouth as wide as you'll need to if you are holding tension in your jaw.

Another good test is to see if you are touching or clenching your back teeth together… never, never, never hold your back teeth together… the more you can keep your jaw in that unhinged position the better it will be for you singing…

I see singers all the time that miss notes largely because they are pushing to hard and tensing their jaw and neck, trying to force the note out… the part of the body you should be engaging while you’re singing is the core… ab’s, back, legs and glute’s…

Leave the neck and shoulders out of the act… and start flappin your jaw…

What happens to your body when you quit smoking!

So I was at the VA with my Dad this morning and this flyer was on the wall… (And yes… as I’ve said before…everything turns into a lesson with me…) I deal with singers all the time who are quitting or trying to quit smoking. Of course I never think smoking is a good idea, but as a singer it’s really a bad idea. It severely diminishes your lung capacity…which you need in order breathe and then sing!

I thought you might find this interesting… I hope it helps you understand what you are going thru if you are in the process of quitting and why it’s affecting your singing… Hang in there… it will get better..

20 MINUTES
Blood pressure drops to normal
Pulse rate drops to normal
Body temperature of hands and feet increases to normal

8 HOURS
Carbon monoxide level in blood drops to normal
Energy level in the blood increases to normal

24 HOURS
Chance of heart attack decreases

48 HOURS
Nerve endings start regrowing
Ability to smell and taste is enhanced

2 WEEKS TO 3 MONTHS
Circulation improves
Walking becomes easier
Lung function increases up to 30 percent

1 TO 9 MONTHS
Coughing, sinus congestion, fatigue, shortness of breath decreases
Cilia regrow in lungs, increasing ability to handle mucus, clean the lungs, reduce infection
Body’s overall energy increases

1 YEAR
Excess risk of coronary heart disease is half that of a smoker

5 YEARS
Lung cancer death rate for average former smoker (one pack a day) decreases by almost half
Stroke risk is reduced to that of a non-smoker 5-15 years after quitting
Risk of cancer of mouth, throat and esophagus is half that of a smoker’s

10 YEARS
Lung cancer death rate similar to that of non-smokers
Pre-cancerous cells are replaced
Risk of cancer of the mouth, throat, esophagus, bladder, kidney, and pancreas decreases

15 YEARS
Risk of coronary heart disease is that of a non-smoker



You can turn this around… please quit smoking for your quality of life and your singing!

Acknowledgements: American Cancer Society; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Vocal Placement Exercises...

I’m going to give you two quick exercises in this blog that will help you with vocal placement, and breath control. If you’d like a free recorded example of this lesson, please visit my myspace.com/jillawebb and listen in. Just scroll down to the bottom of my songs and you’ll see Vocal Tip 1… I’ll do this periodically with exercises when I have questions from you. Please get back to me and let me know what you think of hearing some of this and if there are other specific questions I can answer for you.

I had a question this week from a student regarding vocal placement and was also chatting with some friends about vocal placement for public speakers… how to help people whether you’re a singer or speaker find better vocal resonance, projection, clarity and vocal endurance..

In simple terms a good way to look at vocal placement is to feel or picture where the air is directed in the head, and I believe for projection, clarity, vocal endurance and resonance, it should be as far forward and in the head as possible..

So I’m going to give you two quick exercises that you can do every day to help you with this issue.

The first is just to hummm on one note as long as you can. Actually say the “H” but not so much that pushing out a lot of air at the beginning… If you do that, you’re over pushing, drying out the cords and guess what, you’ll run out of air faster…

If you’re tuning in to the session on myspace, lets try a few.

Remember when you’re warming up to always keep humming in a low to moderate range. Never take it too high until you are properly trained to do that…

Okay here we go..

The next exercise is to hummm while traveling up and down a pentatonic or five note major scale.. again, please keep this in a comfortable range.. never strain…

Again, if you tune in to the lesson on myspace you will hear examples and can then add it into your warm ups that you do now… and yes, I am assuming you all warm up…

Okay, I hope this helps…now its time for my own vocalizing.. gotta run…

See you next time.