3 Smart Things to Consider when Wanting to Improve Your Singing
This article is for singers who have the goal of singing strong, beautiful high notes, somewhere near the top of their list. Skills like communication and musicianship are obviously huge, too, but ‘singing high notes well,’ especially above a certain range, is still one of the most elusive, misunderstood aspects of learning to sing, so we’re going to focus on that, here.
1. Consider that the artists with the best mix/belt abilities may be approaching singing in a way that is different from what 98% of singers are being taught or doing via intuition.
The first thing to consider is ‘how clear am I on how how mix/belt singing works and is learned?’ Singing skilled high notes may not be what we think it is at all.
One example: Breath Support
Anyone who spends any time singing comes across the vague-but-heavily-emphasized concept of ‘breath support,’ early on.
As a long-time singer and teacher of singing lessons in Vancouver, I can attest that breathing is an important concept, but ‘breath management’ or even ‘tone management’ might be better ways to think of about air than ‘breath support,’ for all but the quietest singers.
Whatever term we use, though, what’s most important is that we are curious about if there are not-so-intuitive nuances about how much air to ‘blow’ when singing, and what we ‘do’ with the air, once it reaches our vocal cords. Otherwise we might think of breathing for singing as being a bit like weightlifting. Roughly speaking, we might think that, to hit higher notes, we need to learn to take deeper breaths so we can blow more air to ‘support’ those higher notes.
But does skilled singing actually work this way? Or could singing be more like learning a subtle coordination like the timing of when and how to pump on a swingset, or how to not press too hard or too soft when bowing a stringed instrument? Could singing be less about various forms of effort and strength, and more about efficiency, balance, and finesse?
Could skillful singing be more about being able to blow just enough air to support our tone, rather than trying to solve non-air-related imbalances by blowing ever more air? (Hint: There are a slew of expert voice teachers and vocal science researchers who agree that singing is not about more air–it’s about the right amount of air for a given voice and task—combined with keeping other important factors in balance.)
Unexpected revelations about how great singers sing, if you know what to listen for
You can also explore my claims about breathing by listening to pop singers who sing higher than average in a ‘connected’ mix/belt tone.
My local supermarket spins a lot of 80s and 90s adult contemporary, which is, yes, a bit cheesy, but also frequently amazing. James Ingram, Whitney Houston, Luthor Vandross, Celine Dion. Boy, can those artists sing. Same for Disney singers. Same for many modern pop icons. Same for Broadway leads.
Consider that if you keep doing what you’re doing, and just adding ‘more support’ you may never do what these artists do. Why? Because what they’re doing might be fundamentally different that what most of the uninitiated singing world thinks great singers are doing.
What are these famous skilled singers doing differently? In a few words: Finesse. Balance. Efficiency. They have their high notes dialed. Really high notes. Really dialed.
Most of us are like beginner band saxophonists, straining to honk out a new high note, whereas trained pros are finessing much higher notes than we can currently even contemplate, and doing so using surprisingly little air, and while there may be certain forms of effort, there is zero strain.
If you listen carefully to artists in any of the ‘go-to technically skilled singer categories’ I listed, you might notice that, while they’re singing their high notes powerfully, they’re sometimes also singing these notes with less volume than we previously assumed–their notes often just seem loud because the tone is so clean.
So they’re singing cleaner, higher, and with much more ease and finesse. And what most of us do intuitively when we try to sing high notes might never get us on the path to what the virtuoso pros are doing.
Why is this? Because skilled singing might be best thought of as the craft of a secretive guild. It’s not that hard–anyone can learn it–it’s just not intuitive. It therefore might be hard to figure out on our own, because the way to sing much higher, much more easily is not obvious, and likely not based on many of the tips we most commonly hear.
Furthermore, even if we can find detailed descriptions of how skilled singing really works, most of us probably need tailored coaching to figure out how to get started with making the sounds correctly, before frustration and kicks in and we abandon our dream, believing that the singing skill we want is unattainable to all but a gifted few.
Do the teachers of skilled stars do things differently?
Did you ever consider that a huge number of skilled famous singers studied with the same few teachers, in a few locations (or via online lessons, and before that, over the phone)? Jeffrey Skouson and Greg Enriquez in Vegas. Dave Stroud and John Henny in LA. Wendy Parr in New York. Robert Stevenson in Atlanta. Mindy Pack and Dean Kaelin in Salt Lake City. And especially Seth Riggs (also LA).
Seth Riggs coached all the other teachers on this list, and over 120 Grammy and Tony nominees. The list of Grammy and Tony winners is much larger if you include the clients of all these teachers listed above. To see some of the artists these teachers have taught, see my Speech Level Singing page.
These teachers all used a method, Speech Level Singing, that Seth Riggs adapted from his teachers. Seth’s teachers received their method from a lineage of teachers tracing back to Europe in the Bel Canto era of singing, when tenors sang relaxed-but-clean high notes, soft or loud, because they could–because, for a brief time, many teachers understood how to train this type of singing.
The technique was almost completely lost, except for a few of these lines of teachers. Science is now catching up and beginning to reestablish what those teachers likely did, and why it worked so well. Research is beginning to acknowledge that the tools used by Seth Riggs (and Seth’s teachers) may be among the most powerful tools we have for overcoming perceived limits to our range and finesse, especially when it comes to high mix/belt singing.
To be fair, some singers are born with such a gifted instrument, that they can just stumble into amazing singing technique with relatively little struggle or difficulty. But there are many more singers–also with gifted instruments–who can sing higher than most, but still not as high, nor as easily as they really could–and not as high and easy as the singers they aspire to sound like.
Other methods and evolving scholarly thought are also arriving at more and more of the seemingly magical results that Speech Level Singing delivers. It’s not so important what the method is called, or if your teacher puts a name on their method at all–what’s important is you that you:
Question if your mental framework of how you’ll learn to sing better is built on potentially oversimplified assumptions: e.g. that singing higher is like weightlifting, via ‘more breath support.’—In other words, is your model of what skilled singing is, deep down, really just built around ‘honking out high notes’?
Find a teacher or otherwise figure out some tools to help you stop ‘honking’ and start finessing your instrument skillfully–over your entire range.
So what are the most technically skilled artists doing differently, exactly?
Get curious about what the difference is
I’ve already mentioned two of the 3-4 key things elite singers do differently, briefly, but let’s consider them all more explicitly, here:
They hit higher notes. Most pop tenors are hitting G or As. These elite artists are hitting high Bs and Cs and beyond. Most pop sopranos are hitting Bs and Cs–maybe C and the odd D. Elite artists are hitting Es, Fs, and Gs. Many clients here start connecting these higher notes, often in the first lesson or two.
Elite singers hit these higher notes beautifully, with zero strain, and no awkward giant blast in volume.
To be fair, many ‘less technically elite’ artists are also hitting their high notes in a pleasing way. My guess is that they’re gifted in a way that helps them hit high notes well, without much if any training. The tradeoff? Their high notes are generally not as high as the more fully trained artists. I know that art is not about hitting high notes–but even if you never perform high notes, it’s good to have the extra endurance that comes with more skilled vocal technique, and ‘higher notes with more finesse’ are just part of the deal.Elite singers hit their higher notes with cleaner tone–at least when they choose to. Compare your mid-range notes to your highest notes. Do your high notes go a little breathy or raspy? This is common. Sometimes a little breathiness or rasp is great for expression–but it’s usually bad for efficiency. When you’re still unlocking your technique, breathiness or rasp can contribute to a vicious spiral where less efficient tone makes us feel like our voice is going to crack, so we squeeze all our neck muscles more to not crack, and then blast more air through our squeezed larynx to get our vocal cords to phonate–this can cause fatigue really quickly. A lot of this can be avoided by focusing on only singing high notes with easy, clean tone, at first, via carefully applied tools and exercises. You can still go back and make some notes a little breathy or raspy, later, for expressive purposes–but then it will be a choice, instead of a necessity.
Get curious about if you need to be ‘gifted’ to learn to sing skillfully
I’ll save you the suspense. Anyone, including you, can learn to sing skillfully. We all have slightly different gifts and limitations with our range, musicianship, and communication abilities–but we can all become gorgeous technical singers over a range that is likely much larger than we currently believe possible. The real question is how does anyone learn it, and from whom.
For me, the answer was a combination of
Seth Riggs' Speech Level Singing technique,
Doing research on which teachers would likely be most effective and sticking with them long enough to give the work a chance to stick.
But also moving on if I sensed I wasn’t progressing,
Lots of consistent practise,
Study of current vocal science and health research and best practices. (I needed this as a teacher—as a singer, you probably don’t, but… you might do better with a teacher who has this, ‘under the hood,’ even if it doesn’t come up a ton in lessons.)
Other approaches, or combinations of approach could totally work as well. The tools in Speech Level Singing were not science-based, but were tried-and-true since the Bel Canto era, as well as for over 50 years of modern pop and theatre singing, and… they worked! SLS also represents, to me, a kind of ‘best of the best’ toolkit. But it doesn’t matter so much which method or teacher you use–what matters is that the training is effective. More on this in a moment.
2. Consider that the process of developing your singing, while still fun and simple, may be different than what you imagined
The high-out-of-the-gate exercises and the unusual sounds you will be asked to make in Speech Level Singing-based training may not be what you are expecting, but… consider that most training is unlikely to deliver the unique results that SLS-based training promises and consistently delivers. I’m not saying that SLS is the only way. But just prepare yourself that any effective teacher and/or method you choose to try might involve some exercises you weren’t expecting.I’m always happy to explain why we’re making a certain sound, when asked. But if you don’t ask why and look reasonably comfortable, I’m also happy to just keep you singing, because that is how you will unlock and develop truly skilled technique the fastest.
Be open to different concepts and exercises than what you might be expecting
If you do ask about the rationale behind the weird sounds you’re being asked to make, be open to answers you weren’t expecting. It seems most singers have been exposed to the same few concepts:
Something around ‘breathing’
Various aspects of resonance. Resonance is huge, but training around resonance is often focused on feeling vibrations in your head or chest, or the sound you radiate into the room–and not focused enough on how the resonance affects your feelings of ease, stability, and efficiency of phonation.
Diction
Posture
Relaxation.
These may be entirely different concepts than what a dedicated singing teacher focuses on, or if they’re the same, they might be explained or prioritized differently than you expect.
That said, your teacher should be respectful of what you believe is already helping your singing and be willing to talk about it in a way that is respectful and curious, not patronizing and dismissive.
Finally, if your teacher promotes any concept that doesn’t make sense to you, you should feel free to ask for the evidence behind a given concept, and they should ideally be able to provide it–ideally in several forms:
Immediate a/b demonstration of how the unfamilliar concept helps.
Examples where famous singers in your genre use the same concept.
Scholarly research–ideally more than one source, but… some attempt at a controlled experiment where the researchers determine a given concept was useful, and why, would be great.
3. Consider that teacher knowledge and effectiveness and may vary wildly
If you are serious about unlocking your voice as quickly and smoothly as possible, this is key. There is no one silver bullet criteria for assessing if a teacher will likely be effective before actually taking a lesson or two, but I’ll list a few of the top things to consider, below. The most important thing, at first, is to not assume that your results will be even remotely similar with different teachers. Your results could vary wildly.
‘Fit’ is a no-brainer, but ‘effectiveness’ is often taken for granted
I did a poll of my singer friends on facebook, recently, and was a bit shocked to hear from several pro performer friends that they just assume all teachers are roughly equally effective, so they just look for a good interpersonal fit.
No argument over ‘fit’–that should be non-negotiable, as there are enough teachers who are kind and competent. But… ‘equally effective’? No way.
Voice teaching is completely unregulated, and perhaps this is even a good thing, as there are so many ways to approach a philosophy of voice training, and different singers will prefer different approaches–some aren’t even looking for technique–and that’s fine. But if you’re looking to compete in certain genres—especially musical theatre or a pop-based genre, you will likely want to study with a technique specialist, and you will want that specialist’s version of technique to be current and credible.
But this lack of singing teacher regulation also means that someone who sang in a band for a year, a while back, and may have very little skill and no training—as long as they have a website and some social media, they can also be mistakenly seen as an ‘equally effective’ teacher, compared to someone with much more extensive skill and training—especially if they’re good looking and have a YouTube channel, and are saying things that match your intuition or previous common clichés about how singing works. Be careful.
So the tradeoff with ‘no regulation’ is a much larger ‘buyer beware’ factor. Prioritize what you want to accomplish with your singing, then look for teachers whose specialization matches your top goals–then audition your teachers!
How to audition your voice teachers
The key to effectively screening your voice teachers is to not do just one thing on this list, as any single item on this list is falliable. The key is to look at multiple items on the list–doing so should help narrow down your best options pretty quickly.
Recommended criteria for choosing a teacher:
Detailed reviews, testimonials, and case studies from beginners, pros, and singers similar to you. If teachers only work with beginners, we don’t know if what they do can get singers to a pro level. If they only work with pros, we don’t know how much of their clients' success is due to their teaching, vs. their clients' giftedness and/or previous training. If none of their endorsements come from singers who are similar to you, at least in terms of technical goals, that’s also something to consider.
Ability to demonstrate. Like all items on this list, the ability to demonstrate an exercise and the ‘final product’ is crucial, but also not a silver bullet. If a teacher is gifted, but not trained in the best current science, they might sing beautifully, but not for the reasons they think–and their explanations might be less likely to work for you.
Conversely, your teacher doesn’t necessarily need to sing too beautifully, but they need to be able to demonstrate well enough that you can hear how what they’re asking you to do might be an improvement over what you’re doing now.
Diverse training, both long-term and recent: This can be a horrible metric on it’s own, but when combined with the other tips, it can suddenly become helpful. All other factors considered equal, you might get better instruction from a teacher who is serious about ongoing professional development and lists this on their website, rather than hiding in a mystique of self-proclaimed expertise with little disclosure about their actual training. Even diverse training is not a guarantee of effectiveness, but conversely, training from only one source might be a bad sign.
Professional affilliations: Some great teachers don’t have any, but professional affilliations are a good sign that the teacher is making some kind of effort to stay on top of the scholarly conversation around best practices for training singers. The best affilliations also publish journals featuring regular articles on singing and vocal health, such as NATS (National Association of Teachers of Singing; publishes the Journal of Singing), The Voice Foundation (Journal of Voice), The Acoustical Society of America (publishes the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America), Musical Theatre Educators' Alliance, New York Singing Teachers' Association. I have yet to see this, but if a vocal coach actually cites their evidence when making a claim in a blog or video or post, all the better.
Questionable criteria for choosing a teacher:
Social media efforts. Social media for voice teachers is weird. On one hand, having a good-looking social channel or two shows that a teacher is serious about their business–but are they just serious about the ‘getting clients’ part of their business, or are they also serious about the ‘continual professional development’ part, as well—and, most importantly, are they actually effective?
Teachers on YouTube automatically look like experts once we choose to let them explain something to us, but… are their claims and advice correct? Do they cite the primary research–i.e. the evidence that supports their claims? Or are they just appearing to provide expert information while repeating clichés that could paradoxically limit your progress.
In Summary
Consider that great singers may be doing things that are different and less intuitive than we expect.
Similarly, consider that the concepts that will get you the farthest may be totally different than what you’ve come to expect, in a world where everyone thinks they know a lot about vocal technique, but few actually do.
Consider that there may be a huge ‘Wild West’ range of voice teacher effectiveness, and try to choose your teachers slowly and carefully—based on ‘fit,’ yes—but also on how the teacher provides evidence of likely expertise–and be willing to try other teachers if you feel like you’re hitting a wall with your range and finesse.
Was this helpful? Did it resonate? Do you disagree or have questions? Feel free to get in touch! I’d love to hear from you!