Knowing how to sing has seldom been more popular in the media than it is now, with shows that focus on the singing abilities of average, ordinary people holding prime time places on network television. Learning to sing is not only a way to develop a worthwhile skill, a creative hobby, or a social activity; many people see it as a way to make their mark in society. But it has benefits that carry to other areas of life as well; learning to sing encourages proper breathing and posture, which are beneficial for overall health.
Breathing
Everyone can sing; not everyone sings well. One of the elements that separate the two is the ability to breathe effectively. If your shoulders rise at the start of every breath, your breathing is too shallow. You should have upright posture whether sitting or standing, and focus on filling your lungs all the way to the bottom. Your rib cage should expand, and your shoulders lift only at the end of each breath. Exercises to help build up your lung capacity will also improve your singing ability by increasing the duration you can sing between breaths and the power you can put into each note, resulting in the capacity for higher and louder notes.
Support
When looking for effective exercises to lose weight and trim belly fat, strengthening the core is nearly always included as an integral part. Learning to sing also involves the muscles of the abdomen. With the support offered by a strong core, each breath can be used to its utmost. The sensation involved with using the diaphragm – the part of the core specifically involved with singing – is rather like pushing, but no sense of strain should enter the voice. A good exercise to increase both lung capacity and engaging the core is to inhale for a slow count to four, and then exhale for increasingly longer durations, beginning with a slow count to eight. Remain upright but relaxed for this exercise, focusing on a properly filling inhalation and a focused exhalation supported by the core.
Vocal Exercises
Of course, singing well is not all posture and breathing. Exercises to stay on pitch, to keep the voice true, and to increase range will help anyone learning to sing. A standard exercise among music students is to take a consonant sound like ‘m’ and go through the vowels with it, going up a note of a scale with each new repetition of “me may moe mow moo”. You may have heard this parodied in movies. Working your way through scales with arpeggios is a slightly more advanced element of learning to sing.
Sing in the Shower
Finally, keep it fun and keep practicing. Singing in the shower, where the acoustics amplify your voice, will let you hear yourself. Singing along with the radio in a variety of styles is good practice and good fun. Pretend you are an opera singer as you sing along with a pop song, or try to emulate your favorite pop singer while singing a children’s ballad. Patience and persistence will help develop your ear, your vocal chords, your lungs, and your core muscles.