Time to practice your song. While singing you may encounter things that are technically challenging. Best to deal with them first; otherwise they will constantly demand a large part of your attention when you are performing them.
Nearly every song has its specific difficult parts. Sometimes it is a challenging melodic line, which needs extra attention. Sometimes it is a chromatic line or a note that strongly contrasts with the harmony. Other times it’s a high note, or a big leap between notes, or an ascending melody towards the highest notes. It could be that you hardly have time to breathe, it could be a fast part, that challenges your articulation. It could be that you find yourself singing out of tune. Now what?
Record yourself studying your song. Now listen closely and look for parts that challenge you. Isolate these parts. Find a solution to your challenges yourself, with the help of the list below, or with the help of a vocal coach; and repeat, repeat and repeat the challenging parts; over and over again, until you get them right every time.
When you’re singing out of tune regularly
Simply stop doing that! Seriously, there are a number of possible causes.
Perhaps you sing too loud because you feel that you can’t hear yourself well enough. Sing a bit softer and make sure you can still hear the accompaniment clearly; you’re pitch is relative to the other instruments after all.
Perhaps you sing in a too low energy and focus. Increase the energy and focus a bit. Perhaps you are afraid to make a mistake and you are tensed: smile, relax and try again. It could be that you are unsure of the melody: practice the melody singing it on a vowel that you find easy.
Record yourself to check if you sing the notes spot on. You did? Great! Now sing the melody with the original words and record yourself again. There are great apps that can help you train your pitch: for instance check out the app “Voice Trainer.”
Another big help can be using a piano (it can be a cheap digital keyboard or piano app as well) as reference, because you don’t have to ‘play’ the piano to check your notes, you just have to know where to find them. The theory guide (in the menu) explains how.
Here’s a little list of very common difficulties. It is by no means a complete list, but it will give you an idea of how to approach your possible challenges. Practice with your vocal coach, if possible.
Surprising melodic line
Sing the line very slowly, playing the notes of the melody on piano (or ask your coach to do that for you). Speed up the tempo only once you are hitting the notes right.
Chromatic line
Sing the line very slowly. First, play one note, then sing it. Continue singing every note of the melodic line separately. Once you think you got it, then sing it and play it on the piano (or a piano app) if you can, so you can verify you sung the right notes. Record yourself to verify you did it well.
High notes
Isolate the note and practice singing it. Pay attention to the vowel on which you sing it. Once you hit it spot on, add the notes that you have to sing just before the highest notes and sing them with energy. Practice this with your vocal coach if possible.
Ascending melody
Singing ascending melodies usually asks a bit more of our energy and focus. We sometimes tell ourselves: “Oh no, here comes the hard part again”, and then we get tensed. Try to sing your ascending line while thinking to yourself: “This is the easy part”- this can work miracles as it relieves the tension of the muscles around your vocal chords.
Descending melody
We sometimes tend to pay less attention to lower, descending or ‘easier’ notes. Make sure you sing them in tune too, keep your focus and energy up!
Hardly time to breath
Make sure you practice your lower breathing (check the Daily Routine section of the Toolbox), mark the spots where you do have enough time to breathe, and try to elongate your breathing where it’s hard to.
Articulation
Use fun exercises to practice the flexibility and speed of your tongue, like ‘unique New York, unique New York’ or ‘red lorry, yellow lorry’. Again, isolate the difficult parts, first speak or sing them slowly and then speed up.
Difficult technical parts: isolate, take it slow and repeat!
Assignment
Locate the technically challenging parts of your selected song and start finding solutions.
