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Singers! Tell me your secrets...

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Thrillho:
If you're trying to hold a note for longer, don't force all the air out of your lungs to do it. It'll make you go sharp and it won't hold the note. Control the breathing. Let it out slowly, control it.

Practice singing lying on your back with a book on your stomach. It helps teach you to sing from your diaphragm and to control it.

Don't eat or drink dairy in the 12-24 hours leading up to a gig. It'll coat your throat and has a considerable effect.

IronOxide:

--- Quote from: muteKi on 20 Oct 2007, 00:51 ---PUSH FROM THE GUT!!!

--- End quote ---

Actually, don't push from anywhere. Never push, that will ruin your voice, and you sound shitty while you're doing it.

The number one thing that anybody needs to do when they're singing or playing an instrument is breathing correctly. Before you start warming up your vocal chords, do some breathing exercises. In for four beats, out on a lip flutter, hiss, or later a note for eight, twelve, sixteen, twenty beats and then as long as you can sustain a good flow for. If you're not lightheaded, you're not doing it right. Make sure that when you're breathing, you're doing it into the stomach, and not into the chest. Picture the air flowing down and out in your stomach. Don't be modest about showing any kind of "gut" when singing, it means you're breathing and using enough air.

Also, you need to eliminate tension, especially in the upper body. A lot of people carry their tension in the shoulders and neck. If you can, give yourself a little massage (or find somebody else to give it). Lower your shoulders, bend your knees, don't stretch out your neck, keep your chin down (but don't sing to the floor).

One last note, with any shaping or articulation that you are singing, exaggerate it. It is much easier to pull back on these things than it is to add them.

The extra letter:
I've heard that caffeine before a public speaking or singing event isn't a good idea because it tends to make your vocal cords much tighter than they would otherwise be.

KharBevNor:
First drink the vodka, then you scream, then you drink the cough syrup.

Gemmwah:
Fantastic. The vodka thing definitely helped but I'm now too sleepy to record, so that also sucks.

Basically, I've been living off throat losenges the past two days trying to get rid of a sore throat so I can record a demo tomorrow, and then go to an audition on Tuesday night. I might just have to stop talking entirely for a few hours and drink a few buckets of water, then maybe swallow some honey to coat my throat for a while so I can get some decent sound out.

Also, I know the dairy thing makes you a bit phlegmy, but after I had my cereal this morning I felt a lot better because my throat was coated with something, and I sounded a lot better than I had done, and did for the rest of the day. What would be worse, sounding a little bunged up or sounding really scratchy and squeaky?

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