Basic Breathing Exercises for Voice

   
Learning to improve your voice is a gradual process.The process will become automatic, but it takes daily practice and often several years of study, depending on the individual. There are varieties of voice exercises to strengthen and shape your voice. Here is a 15mins breath control exercise for sustaining:

Bend over at the hips, not waist, so that your spine is straight. Be sure not to lock your knees straight, but instead let them soften with a slight bend. Feel your face, arms and body relax. Be like a rag-doll. Inhale so that you feel an expansion low in your body, even into the thigh area and low back. 

3 Secrets to Succeeding in any Singing Audition

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3 Secrets to Pass any Singing Audition

By Akapo Emmanuel www.akapoemmanuel.com

Have you ever wondered why very talented singers fail during singing auditions? Perhaps you’ve had the experience; a situation where people you can sing far better than scale through an audition while you can’t even make it through the first stage. What is the problem, what could be wrong? Could it be that the judges are biased or they just didn’t like you? More often than not, these are not the reasons you were asked to use the door. There are basic understandings you must have when preparing for an audition. These skills are grouped into the three secrets I’m about to share with you below. If you adhere to these pieces of advice, I can assure, you will never be turned down from any singing auditions.

Choose the Song that Fits

This is probably the greatest reason most singers fail at auditions. The fact that a song sounds good does not mean it will be good enough for you. Every song is like a pair of dress. Dresses come in different sizes, different colours, and different fabrics to meet different tastes of different people. As a singer, you need to study your voice and discover your most comfortable style. You must consider your vocal range, your singing strengths and weaknesses before choosing an auditioning song. You should choose a song that appeals to your emotions, a song you feel very comfortable and excited singing, as song that will not expose your weaknesses. In essence, I am saying choose a song that best suits your personality.

How to build an Excellent Choir or Band

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How to build an Excellent Choir or Band

What exactly is meant by an Excellent Choir? An excellent choir can simply be defined as a group of people who create music that has a strong positive impact on an audience. From this definition it can be deduced that excellence in music performance has a lot to do with an audience. So, your effectiveness largely depends on the kind of audience you are serving. Your number one goal should be to leave an unforgettable impact in the hearts of your listeners every time you minister. I’m sure at some point you might have listened to musicians who sounded very good and skillful but didn’t leave any strong impression on your mind. Excellence should not be confused with demonstration of creativity and skills alone. Excellence has to do with how long your songs stay on people’s mind long after you’ve left the stage.

I will like to share with you some useful secrets on how to building an excellent music group. These secrets can also be regarded as inevitable requirements for raising a successful group.

Compassion

Before you can make an impact in music you must be propelled by a strong desire to do so. What are your motives for striving to be best? What inspires you to create music and perform it? Do you feel an irresistible urge to touch lives and make an indelible mark? Are you sure you’re not just motivated to impress people, to show off skills and intimidate others? To be the best, your drive must be a genuine ever-growing desire to touch lives positively, to influence your generation, to continuously give your audience a life-changing experience.

5 Steps to Becoming a Great Singer

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Legendary Singer, Toni Braxton

5 Steps to becoming a great Singer

By Akapo Emmanuel www.akapoemmanuel.com

I congratulate you for discovering this write-up! Because in less than 5 minutes you will discover the greatest secrets of developing a star quality voice- that voice you’ve always dreamt of. I hope you are not one of those who believe becoming a good singer is all about talent, you either have it or you don’t? That is one of the biggest lies I have had to help my students get off their mindsets. As a vocal coach who has trained over 1000 voices in about 10 years running, I can authoritatively tell you, everybody created by God can sing; what we can sing and how much we should sing are the only differences. If you take the next few sets of advice I’m about to give seriously, you will definitely be on your way to building a beautiful and commercially viable singing voice.

A. Discover your unique Vocal Identity

Who are you vocally? Can you give a concise description of your voice? What qualities make your voice sound unique? The first and most important step you must take on your way to building a star quality voice is discovering who you are vocally. For every unique person there is a unique voice. There is nothing more frustrating than trying to sound like who you are not and whom you are never going be. When you have a proper understanding of your kind of voice, you can effectively decide what to use it for- the kind of songs/music to be singing. Is your voice soft, husky, whisky, light, bright, tough, weak or rocky? It’s when you discover who you are vocally that you can really improve on your singing. Take some time to record yourself while singing over and over again. Play it to yourself and listen sincerely. What brand of voice do you hear, what do you think that kind of voice should be singing? Will you take a sincere decision or go ahead with your fantasy of becoming e.g a hippop superstar when you have soulish and tender voice. Embark right now on a journey of self vocal discovery. That is the foundation upon which every other thing will hinge as you work towards building a great voice.

8 Ways To Convince People To Buy Your Music

If you want to be a success with your music industry career, you must master the arts of discharging effective publicity, promotion and marketing for your business. You also need to be conversant with writing good promotional materials. From simple e-mail promotions to fan newsletters, from Web pages to full-blown advertisements, drafting persuasive and motivating promotional material is crucial. Here are some tips to get you started.

Focus only on your clients or prospects

Talk directly to the people who would buy your music products and services. Carefully and completely answer their questions and objections. Buyers are skeptical. They want to know what's in it for them. Always focus on the buyer and what he/she wants to achieve (not on what you sell). First, find out what people want, need and desire. Second, show these people how your music products and services give them what they want, need, and desire. Good promotional writing convinces people to buy because it clearly shows that what you sell is what they really want.

Turn every feature into a benefit
Provide clear benefits and the results of using your music products and services. too. People don't care about features. They are only interested in benefits and results: their benefits and their results, NOT yours! For example, a feature is something such as "We have low prices." That is not nearly as motivating as selling the low prices benefit: "You save money." Everybody likes to save money.

People usually want only two things: to gain something or to remove some pain. As you prepare your promotional material, frame your emotional and logical appeals using both tactics.

Create action and urgency
Promotional writing has only one purpose: to sell more of your music products and services right away. It's not about image building or being polite. It's about telling people how they can benefit from what you sell only when they act right away and buy it.. Write in the active voice and use action verbs. Push, motivate, captivate, and ultimately, sell what you offer.

Create a compelling offer
It's essential to include an offer in your promotions. Offers include hard offers of the "buy this now" variety, or they can include soft offers such as "call for more information" or "visit our Web site". Include a mix of hard and soft offers with every promotion you send out.

Have a deadline with consequences
The best offers have deadlines such as "Hurry! This offer expires May 1, 2001". The deadline motivates people to take action fast. You might remind them of what happens when they don't act right away. They usually miss out on the deal: "Order today and save N40. After that you pay full price for our CD."