Vocal Music Advice

I’m a 25 year-old female singer.  I enjoy singing, but don’t have many opportunities to sing. I’m sometimes asked to help out at church, but I don’t have a piano or anything to help me practice. What can I do on my own, without any other instrument to help keep up my voice? It seems to be getting weaker and weaker, and the less I use it, the less control I have.

ANSWER:  Wow!  That’s a tough one, but I think I may be able to suggest some things to help you!

Here in the U.S. we have resources that are available that can help you and many others like you that don’t necessarily have musical instruments at home with which to practice.  Obviously, a piano – even a spinet would be a great boon to anyone in your situation – and used ones can be purchased for $2,000 and less.  Inexpensive and much more versatile are a host of electronic keyboards – some with all 88 piano keys.  You can, of course, spend a good deal more than 2K on one of these, but there are plenty to choose from that cost less.

However, your first choice at a much lesser cost is to purchase books of vocal music in the genres that you enjoy and in the voice-setting appropriate for you (high, medium or low) that have accompaniment CDs with them that you can play on your CD player or computer.  Since you’re interested in vocal music appropriate for the church I’d suggest that you look at some of the following useful web sites and browse their vocal collections.  Initially you probably should choose titles with which you are familiar listed in books and collections that have the CD or mp3 accompaniments attached.  By the way, since I am familiar with your voice, I’d suggest that you choose music for “medium voice” or “mezzo-soprano.” Here are some sites to get you started.

http://www.halleonard.com/vocal.jsp

http://www.halleonard.com/search_items.jsp?keywords=Sacred+Songs+for+medium+voice&catcode=09&type=product&location=Vocal

http://www.musicminusone.com/MainPages/Instrument.asp?catID=24

http://www.sheetmusicplus.com/store/smp_detail.html?item=5154199&cart=34418066342878919&cm_re=289.1.4-_-Results+Item-_-See+More+Info

http://www.jwpepper.com/10060605.item

http://www.jwpepper.com/8057969.item

http://www.jwpepper.com/3297287.item

http://www.jwpepper.com/10017930.item (Sanctuary Praise by Benjamin Harlan)

http://www.jwpepper.com/10044443.item (Praise and Worship w/ CD-Rom)

http://www.jwpepper.com/10005762.item

Here’s hoping you will find some useful material within one or more of these sites.

I do want to offer you a couple of caveats.  You will still need to use your music-reading skills to learn the music.  If some of your choices require learning music from scratch, ask one of your pianist friends to record the tune of the song on a writable CD as it is written in your music book.  Then you can learn it before attempting to sing it with the accompaniment CD.

The other caution is that while CDs are useful in providing an accompaniment that you can hear – CDs also lock you into their own tempo and interpretive quirks.  When you perform, if possible do so with a competent accompanist who will set you free to interpret the song literature in the way and at the tempo you best sing it.  Find that person and practice together – you’ll both be glad you did.

The sites I’ve offered above are just a beginning.  I have no doubt that you will likely be able to find other resource sites on the internet that other singers in your situation will want to know about.  When you discover them please feel free to include those findings in my comment section of this post.

When you’re not actively “practicing” but just want to sing for enjoyment – add to your library more CDs of singers whose voice-type is similar to yours – who sing well in any genre – and sing along with them – just don’t feel you have to “imitate” them.

Best wishes

I’m a 25 year-old woman.  I’m just trying to get back into singing on a regular basis, but my voice gets very tired and weak and hoarse-sounding after about 20-30 minutes.  So, if I practice before I actually perform, I am already tired, and my voice sounds tired and not in control.

Good questions Lynette!  There are two questions and so I’ll answer in two parts.

Answer:  Part of the answer is captured in your question.  One of the keys to getting back into vocal shape is by starting a little at a time – EVERY DAY.  Since your voice gets tired and weak, even hoarse-sounding after about 20-30 minutes, I’d suggest that you

a) start your warm ups and singing in the part of your voice’s range where you find singing most easy, and

b) break up even your warm up period into smaller increments, say 10 – 15 minutes at a time with at least 30 minutes before resuming vocal use.

You see, what you’re aiming at ultimately is something like: being able to sing within your range, comfortably for a long time – say even 60 – 90 minutes – with just a few short breaks thrown in.  To be able to do that – like other muscle groups – there has to be stamina training (repetitions) and strength training (extending the range and the strength of the voice).  Until you have achieved your goals, any time you are called upon to perform – let your vocal warm up be brief and well in advance of the performance time so that your voice has had a chance to rest before singing.  Do this any time you’re planning to perform.  On the day of performance warm up just sufficiently that you know “things are working fine” then let your voice continue to rest for an hour or more until performance time.  In this way you’ll have saved your energy and concentration for the time that you need it.

When you get back into daily practicing and you find that there are days when you want to expend your energy and make demands on your voice (strength and range work) – treat that day as a day in the gym when you’re “pumping iron.” The end of practice on this day may make your voice feel a bit ‘weighty’ even ‘gratey’ for a short period of time.  The next day vocalize easily without any pushing – give your voice a break – allow the voice a day to recover and ‘heal’ itself.  When your voice gets tired and sounds ‘gratey’ – it’s needing a rest.  Over time – with daily practice, those periods of rest will get shorter and your strength and stamina will increase.

Having said that, however, if the feeling of hoarseness that ends one day’s practice continues to the next day – then there is the possibility that you are misusing your voice or making too-strenuous demands on it and either need to allow yourself to sing more easily (lightly) – or have a trustworthy voice teacher listen to you.  The voice is typically very resilient.  When the voice is “in shape” it is often the case that the singer will tire before the voice will.

By the way, allow one little anecdote: I am aware of a tendency in me that I should warn you about – in case it could be true of you.  When I’m out of shape – and then make a decision to “get back in shape” and start playing tennis or running or something else – it’s fairly typical of me to over-do it all at the beginning – and then be so sore or so bruised or injured that I lose hope of ever resuming training and getting back in shape.  The same is possible for us singers.  It is possible in the effort to “get back into singing” to overdo the practicing at the beginning.  Start slow – and allow your voice to tell you when you need to stop – and then do.  In time the stamina will return, and you’ll enjoy singing more for having started slowly.

I trust you find success on your road back to singing.  All best wishes.