Create your own Singing Lessons

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By now, hopefully you’ve watched the level 1 and 2 videos, read the book and listened to the audio tracks.

Hopefully, too, you’ll have read some of the Level 2 articles (listed below), and know if this is a method you’d like to incorporate into your practice and performance.

If you’re a beginner, then I suggest practicing for a couple of weeks before creating your own singing lesson/s. The voice is a muscle, and you get a much better result when you build your own power gradually, from the root up. You don’t strain your voice, and you’re building “emotion memory” you can draw on to sing.

It’s worth reminding you, also, to start from a really quiet place and build your power from there, as suggested in the YouTube blurb under the videos. Everything coming from the center within.

If you’re an intermediate or experienced singer, then dive right into creating a lesson once you’ve watched the videos and read the level 2 articles listed below.

There might be any number of reasons that you found this program, but for more experienced singers, I’m presuming it’s because you have some bad habits you’d like to get past. Tensing the jaw, breathing, the high notes, stage fright to name just a few. So start at the beginning again, from the ground up, to help relearn what you already know, and then create your own singing lessons along with your daily practice.

The Process

The process is simple enough, depending on whether you want to use the Level 1 or 2 approach.

Level 1 Approach

Before the lesson, find a karaoke song that’s in your key (as in, it feels comfortable). If you’re a beginner, find one that’s not too challenging. A few highs and lows, but keep it simple. For example the evergreen “Stand By Me”. Highs not too high, but there’s lots of space to breathe between lines, and a clear emotion to express. There are links to karaoke sites below this article.

Have the song ready to go, so you can sing along with it at the end of a lesson. If you’re in the position to make a noise without worrying about neighbors, then buy yourself a mic and small speaker to sing through. Any guitar/music shop will have these. Good mic to start with is an SM 58, a standard. FYI, you can practice in the car to make a noise, but singing sitting down isn’t optimum as it’s more difficult to use the power of the diaphragm. It gets cramped.

Another option is to buy a karaoke set up. There are many out there, but look for one where you can change the key of the song to suit you, and that has a decent mic. Or that you can use your own mic. Karaoke set up often have low quality mics, and you want to like what you’re hearing back:)

There are also many karaoke site where you can audition and download a song in your key, plus many on you tube with the lyrics. Only problem with that is you can’t change the key, so it’s finding a version you like that’s in your key.

However, singing the song softly at first is great for finding your center. Sing it quietly, the breathing and technique in place, then a bit louder, and a bit louder etc till you’re in the full power of your voice (whatever stage of development that is).

Sounds strange perhaps but you’ll be surprised how this helps you deal with the difficult passages of a song and connect with the emotions. We all have a tendency to try too hard to “get it right” and this technique helps to get over that.

Next, choose one of the drum tracks (links below). Have it lined up and ready to go. They’re very simple, no instrumentation, and in a number of different genres. Each track has two options, medium tempo and laid back. I deliberately didn’t create fast tempo for the lessons. Your improvising is best when it comes from the center of you. So you need to take the time when improvising to connect with that, have the space to do it.

Level 1 Lesson

A level 1 lesson will be:

20 mins or so practice

Improvising to a drum track

Singing a song

Practice

If you’re a beginner, practice with the first 10 Daily Exercises.

Have a mirror at head height (full body is better but this might not work for you), and if you’re not hearing what you want to hear, sing the exercise and look in the mirror. You might be raising you head on the high notes and constructing your vocal cords without even realizing it, for example.

Yet again, the voice is a muscle, so sing the exercise really quietly the first, then sing it again louder, then louder, until you’re singing the song at full voice. You’re then coming from the “inside out” and not straining your voice, building up emotion memory in a good way.

Once you feel you have the first 10 Exercises under way, as in they’re feeling more comfortable, then put in a few of the “Vocal Exercises “. Consonants, for example, or practice singing soft to loud and loud to soft. Whatever feels right to develop your voice.

if you’re a more experienced singer, still practice the 10 daily exercises in the same way, really quiet at first then getting gradually louder each time you do the exercise. The only difference being put on a few of the “Vocal Exercises ” from the outset.

Improvising

This part of the lesson is KEY! It might not seem it at first, but this can really free up your performance in so many ways:

You’re finding your own rhythm

You’re giving yourself the permission to MOVE (often we so want to get it right we stand stuck, stiffening up).

You’re connecting with your own innate musicality and, so, “finding your voice “.

You’re practicing intervals naturally, which helps with tuning.

Because you’ve practiced the vocal exercises, you’re intuitively putting them into practice.

How to Improvise

Yet again, start quietly. First of all, simply speak, in a normal voice, to the rhythm of the track, like a beat poet:

How are you feeling today? What’s going on for you? Are there deep seated issues you’d like to address?

Feeling blah? Start there.

Feeling good? Express it!

Do this along with the rhythm of the track, feeling the rhythm in your body, trying to keep your attention in the heart,

Try not to judge what you’re doing. If you feel stupid doing it, let that be part of the narrative.

Once you feel you’ve “spoken your truth ” then start to express it with notes, music.

Start with just one note, sung in syncopation to the rhythm. Tell the story again, but now using this one note.
Then add another note, once it feels right.

Go with your instinct, adding notes. Before long, you might find you have a tune, and a structure. If not, that’s ok too.

As you do this in a weekly/bi-weekly way, it will all become more natural.

You can also follow the same process with syllables:

be, bah, bo, la, lee, lo nah, ne dah, mmm, ta being just a few to pick from.

Don’t worry about technique, or tuning, or whether you’re “getting it right”, just go with your instinct and what feels good. There is no “wrong” here, it’s about being authentic.

Practicing the Song

Once you feel you reached a good place with the improvising, now it’s time to practice the song (also, moving forward, when you feel you’re improvising well, as in it feels “right”, then even try recording it…you might be surprised at how authenticity expressing yourself is compelling listening:).

Follow the guidelines laid out in a number of the articles (listed below), at first practicing the technical challenges of the song. When you get to a difficult part, practice it away from the track, for example.

There are many articles listed below to help with the process of practicing/singing a song.

Everything is a work In progress, so once you feel you have practiced the song as much as you can for this lesson , sing it one last time forgetting technique completely, and sing it just focusing on the song, expressing its meaning as truthfully as you can.

So you don’t over-tax your voice, especially in the beginning, once again, make this a weekly or bi-weekly thing (once every two weeks in other words). Keep practicing the vocal exercises every day though, 10-20 mins a day. Use your discretion, obviously, and build up vocal strength gradually.

You can tell if you’re doing it right because you’ll be able hear it in your voice, which won’t feel strained, for you’ll gradually be building strength and dexterity.

Level 2 Singing Lesson

Very much the same as a Level 1 lesson, but put in a 5 or 10 minute meditation after the vocal exercises.
So it becomes:

Vocal exercises

Meditation

Improvising

Singing your song

Simply by reading the level 2 articles (listed below), you’ll have a different take on how you’re using your energy to sing. The exercises are the same, you’re simply thinking about them in a different way. Because the meditation puts you in a very different space, this means you approach the improvising and song in a different way as well, because you’re using your energy in a different way.

Simply by having an idea of how your energetic system works within, and having connected with it during the meditation, this will be in your consciousness, and you then can go deeper within when singing and performing.

Rhythm tracks:

Karaoke sites:

karaoke-version.com

custombackingtracks.com

Moises.ai (upload a song and it removes the vocals and changes the key).

Level 1 articles:

Practicing a new song – the basics

Practicing with the vocal exercises

The high notes

The Jaw – Do’s and Dont’s

Understanding your voice

Vocal ranges

Finding your pure note

Focusing the breath

Focusing the note

For classically trained singers – a few tips on how to sing modern genre songs

Good voice bad voice

How to Ad-Lib or Improvise

How to breathe properly

How to feel rhythm

Learning to like your voice

Overcoming fear and performing truthfully

Dealing with Stage Fright

Big vibratos

Being in the center of a song

Being authentic on stage

Level 2 articles and links:

10 minute meditation

5 minute meditation

10 minute rhythm meditation

5 minute rhythm meditation

The chakras and the multiverse

The four pathways of energy

The imagination pathway (river of energy)

Zen qualities of singing

Why meditate?

Spirit vs. Ego – the old battle