I can’t get over it when students come back week after week saying they didn’t have time to practise much during the previous 7 days. I think to myself, my gosh, you are carrying around your instrument inside your throat everyday, how can you not find time to practise it? I remind them they do not need their recorded lesson in order to practise. I show them how to exercise their voice without any background scale.
Sometimes what I hear is, “oh yes, I sing everyday”. Then when I get them to clarify what they mean, they say “I sing to the radio, or in the shower, or at karaoke, or with their band”. Again, I remind them that that doesn’t count. Practising/vocalizing means doing the exercises that have specifically been assigned for your voice to get better. I remind them that singing songs as usual can, in fact, do the exact OPPOSITE of vocalizing properly…..it reinforces your usual coordination that we are trying to improve!
I stress this because so many singers, (and not just kids and teenagers) seem to forget, day in and out, that if a better voice is truly what you want, then you need to follow the disciplines assigned to get there.
Learning to play the piano or guitar well doesn’t just happen without daily practise and attention to detail, and learning how to sing better is no different….except in one very important area….you can’t carry your piano around in your throat!
Just Do It!
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