singing techniques

Frustrated singer, improve singing, singing techniques, voice teacher los angeles

Why You Are Frustrated With Your Singing Technique (And How To Change That)

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You are a dedicated singer who has spent years honing good singing technique to improve your voice, but you are frustrated because even with all that training, you are still not singing to your full potential. I’ve been there! There’s a really good reason you are frustrated and one really solid way to change that.  When I was younger, my parents’ bathroom was the site of all my Grammy award winning performances – specifically the shower in that bathroom. Man, I was unstoppable in that shower! I could hit notes in there that were full and sustained like nobody’s business. I remember being so frustrated that nothing ever sounded or felt as good as the songs I sang in that shower. Now, with years of awareness around how the mind / body connection works in singing, I totally understand why singing was easier in that shower. Most people think it’s because the acoustics in the shower are better, but there’s actually another, more powerful reason. When you are in the shower you sing like you just don’t care. Nobody is watching or listening. There is nothing at stake, so you don’t care and you let go. Sound energy responds to

The #1 Thing Most Voice Teachers Don’t Tell Singers

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I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that the #1 thing most voice teachers don’t tell singers is the following: If you really want to improve your singing, the first thing you must do is to start paying attention to the ways you live in and use your body when you are not singing. Let me back up a bit. See, lately I’ve been noticing how things that have nothing to do with singing actually have everything to do with singing (if you read my last blog post about the link between a certain yoga pose and singing technique, you’ll know what I mean). I’m so aware of how the ways we use our body in our everyday lives when we are not singing or even thinking about singing actually has an enormous effect on how we use our body when we are singing. Becoming aware of these physical patterns can make a HUGE difference in our ability to better employ our singing technique and swiftly improve our singing. Take the example of one of my more petite female students. She was in a lesson recently when we discovered that her petite height was the cause of

One Easy Tip To Improve Your Singing With A Simple Yoga Pose

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Awareness plays a huge part in learning how to improve your singing. Before you say “Oh Arden, you’re jumping on the awareness bandwagon too??” let me admit to already being a full fledged rider of that bandwagon for many reasons, not the least of which is that awareness is the number one tool I use as a singer and teacher to inspire the biggest improvements in singing technique for myself and my students. In my own life lately, this awareness has expanded in a very cool way and I’m excited to share it with you here. I find myself completely aware of how things that seem to have nothing to do with how to improve singing, actually have everything to do with how to improve singing! My latest epiphany occurred in yoga the other day. As many of you know, I’m a devoted yogi. One of the basic poses in yoga is called Tadasana, or Mountain Pose. Tadasana is the foundation for all standing poses in yoga. The basic structure of Tadasana consists of standing with your feet together and your arms by your side with your palms open facing out – nothing more then that. The other day I

Arden Kaywin, voice teacher los angeles, offers a checklist to get rid of tension while singing

A Simple Physical Awareness Checklist To Improve Your Singing

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The ways in which we use our bodies in our day-to-day lives effects how we sound when we sing. What do I mean exactly? When your body is your instrument, the way you use it when you are not singing influences how it behaves when you are. An example I like to give is of a tenor I worked with who was extremely tall (nearly NBA tall, well over six feet). He had always been taller then everyone around him from the time he was young. Because of his height, his interactions with other people nearly always required him to look down at the people he was speaking to, round his shoulders, cock his head and neck downwards both to try to make eye contact, and to also make himself appear smaller and less imposing to those he was with. When he would get up to sing, the same physical pattern would appear. . . a physical shortening and collapsing. Singing from this position created tension in his neck, throat and sternum which prevented him from accessing the full breadth and energy of his support, limited his range and squeezed his sound. Yet he didn’t even realize it because that

Arden Kaywin, voice teacher los angeles, shows best position for mental practice to improve singing

Mental Practice – A Singing Technique So Easily Overlooked

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Sometimes the most efficient form of practicing singing doesn’t involve singing at all. Singing is an athletic endeavor, don’t let anyone tell you any different. We are asking our body to do the same thing over and over again for a desired outcome. Just like a major league pitcher or an Olympic sprinter, a singer’s body is our instrument. And no matter how good your technique or how healthfully you sing, there comes a point where too much practice singing will fatigue your instrument. The common wisdom is that a singer should sing for no more then about three hours a day total, and not more then about an hour straight without a break for vocal rest. But every singer is different. It is so important to know your instrument well enough that you are aware of what it feels like as you approach the threshold of overuse so that you can stop singing before you reach it. After that point, the idea of “mental practice” becomes essential. What is mental practice? Mental practice consists of taking yourself through your music in your mind’s eye (or in this case, ear) in a deliberate and specific way to reinforce your technique and

Arden Kaywin, voice teacher los angeles, shows singer out of breath while singing, singing tip for breathing for singing

Out Of Breath Too Soon? Here’s A Singing Tip

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Singers – Are You Out Of Breath? Do you feel like you never seem to have enough breath when you sing? Are you constantly grabbing bigger and bigger breaths only to run out of air in the same place each time? If so, the problem may be that your breath quality is affecting your air quantity. Many singers unknowingly approach breathing for singing as a fast manipulation to pull as much air into the body as possible in the shortest amount of time. They think the only way they’ll be able to get enough air to make it through the phrase is if they actively grab, take, pull, suck, force or “tank up” as much air as possible into their lungs before they sing. What these singers don’t realize is that a breath of this quality creates tension (in the ribs, in the muscles of the abdomen, in the muscles of the neck and throat, and in the jaw), and this tension negatively affects the quantity of air they are receiving. The very thing they are doing in an effort to draw in more breath is actually causing them to receive less. If there is any tension in the body