How to train your voice to sing beautifully: exercises at home

September 30, 2019
Life style
Suleimanova Svetlana

How to train your voice at home? This is quite possible, but most people believe that singing is a gift from nature. Either we were born with it or we weren't. However, this is not at all true. Yes, genetics affects musical ear, voice, timbre, and so on, but a good voice is a skill that can be learned and mastered, like the others.

What exercises to use for voice training? Let's look at this in our article.

Voice training

We need to start with the basics. Let's explore voice training exercises and also get acquainted with professional tips to help improve your singing. Here they are:

1. Warm up the ligaments. This will help prevent injury. When a person sings, his vocal cords constantly vibrate. Therefore, before the process itself, you need to warm them up, just like the muscles before training. To do this, you need to inhale and exhale through your mouth for 2 minutes.

2. Drink water often. This advice is useful not only for those losing weight, but also for singers. When singing, your throat dries out faster than when talking. If you drink a lot of water, your ligaments become “lubricated”, like a mechanism in a car.

3. Take the correct posture. We think that singing is only influenced by the vocal cords. This is wrong. The diaphragm also takes part in this. To sing beautifully, you need the right posture. You need to pull your shoulders back a little, straighten your chest as much as possible, and keep your body straight. In this case, it is necessary to relax the muscles.

4. Record your voice. What is it for? When a person hears his voice in a recording, he can more easily determine what is wrong in order to identify his weak points and not repeat mistakes in the future.

5. How to train your voice for singing? Play your favorite musical compositions more often. To do this, it is better to choose one genre and not change it. This way you can practice and learn the basics of singing. In addition, this activity always lifts your spirits.

Exercises for voice and speech development

We found out how to start learning to sing. Now let's talk about diction. To sing beautifully, you need to train your voice for speech. You can do the exercises yourself at home. The words in songs can be difficult and intricate, but you need to move from line to line smoothly, without stuttering. To learn this, you need to do the following exercises for voice training and correct beautiful speech:

As you begin, pay attention to the position of the organs in your mouth. The tongue should not be too raised, and the lips should not be spread wide. Keep an eye on this while singing and talking.
Practice words with repeating sounds. Try to have them at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end of words. The sounds being practiced must be paired. For example, the combinations “p-b”, “g-k”, “z-s”. You can also combine sounds with vowels, for example, “dbi-dbe-dba” or “gzi-gze-gza.”
Practice sounds to such an extent that you pronounce them very clearly and quickly.
Practice pronouncing tongue twisters. Forget all the ones you are already good at. Purposefully look for new ones, pronouncing them with different intonations.

These exercises for voice and speech will help you at the beginning of your creative journey

What is articulation

Articulation is the coordinated work of all speech organs (oral cavity, lips, tongue, teeth, larynx, cheeks, jaw) in order to produce sound. And good diction (that is, clear pronunciation of sounds) depends precisely on the development of articulation.

Diction and articulation are one of the singer’s main tools, along with support and proper breathing. The more clearly the artist sings the words, the better the listener understands him, the greater the effect the singing itself produces. If a singer sings with good support, but clenches his jaw and chews his words, then he is unlikely to sound beautiful.

Examples of good articulation

Watch videos of popular artists. Some singers are simply textbook examples of how the speech apparatus works. So, you have a lot to learn from Steve Tyler, Linda Perry and Alla Pugacheva.

In all examples, the active work of all speech organs, including lips and tongue, is visible. It is noticeable how wide the mouth opens.

In singing, vowel sounds are usually lengthened, and consonants are shortened as much as possible. However, consonants should still sound as clear as possible.

Let me remind you that the correct position of the mouth in pop vocals is called the “Vocal mask”. VM is the position of the mouth in which sounds are produced as beautifully as possible. The point of using a vocal mask is to learn to speak and sing with a smile. The mask makes the lips elastic and opens up a large space for sound delivery.

Ear for music

Why develop it? Without an ear for music, it is impossible to grasp the motive or sing the correct verse or chorus. That is why it is necessary to develop hearing. Here are some exercises that will help with this:

You will need a musical instrument or an appropriate application on your phone. With its help, you need to reproduce: “do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-si-do”, while singing them, trying to hit the notes. Play scales from the very beginning to the end, and then in reverse order: “do-si-la-sol-fa-mi-re-do.” In one approach, this action needs to be done about 30 times in order to remember and feel each note.
An exercise called "Echo". It is suitable not only for adults, but also for children. Listen to the song and then try to reproduce it yourself. Do it out loud. You can learn line by line. Repeat not only the words correctly, but also the motive. Don't move on to the next one until you get the previous one right. This is done in order to hit each note clearly and correctly.
Musical notation. Learn to read notes, compare their sound with the melody of the song. Then this will help the ear for music begin to develop faster, and the reproduction of sounds will become more meaningful and understandable.
Sing intervals. To complete this exercise you will need a musical instrument. An interval is the distance between two notes. For example, “do-re”, “do-mi”, “do-fa”, “do-sol”, “do-la”, “do-si”. Climb up the note “steps” and then go down them.
Singing adjacent notes, for example, “do-re”, “do-si-do”.
Studying the classics. When we strive to succeed at something, we become more interested in that subject. Interest in the classics will arise just when learning the basics of singing. It happens that a complex chord is much easier to remember if you memorize the motive in which it is contained.

Possible variants of tongue twisters for practicing diction.

From the clatter of hooves, dust flies across the field.
The bull was blunt-lipped, the bull was blunt-lipped, the bull's white lip was dull.
The crab made a rake for the crab. The crab gave the rake to the crab: rake the hay, crab, rake!
Pankrat Kondratov forgot his jack, and Pankrat cannot be lifted on the highway without a jack
Cuckoo bought a hood. Put on the cuckoo's hood. How funny he is in the hood!
Our guest stole our cane.
The pharaoh's favorite was replaced by sapphire and jade.
One day, while scaring a jackdaw, he saw a parrot in the bushes, and the parrot said: you should scare the jackdaws, pop, scare them, but don’t you dare scare the jackdaws, pops, in the bushes, don’t you dare scare the parrot.
Thirty-three ships tacked, tacked, but did not tack.
There is grass in the yard, there is firewood on the grass - one firewood, two firewood, three firewood. Don't cut wood on the grass in your yard.
In the shallows we lazily caught burbot. In the shallows we lazily caught tench. Was it not you who sweetly begged me for love and beckoned me into the mists of the estuary?
Karl stole corals from Clara, and Clara stole a clarinet from Karl.
Queen Clara severely punished Charles for stealing the coral.
Tell us about your purchases. What about purchases? About shopping, about shopping, about your purchases.
Libretto by Rigoletto.
On Mount Ararat Varvara was picking grapes.
Osip was hoarse, and Arkhip was hoarse.
Watermelons were being reloaded from truck to truck. During a thunderstorm, the body fell apart in the mud from a load of watermelons.
The heron wasted away, the heron was withered, the heron was dead.
Sixteen mice walked and six found pennies, and the mice, which are worse, noisily fumble for pennies.
Once upon a time there lived three Chinese men - Yak, Yak-Tsidrak, Yak-Tsidrak-Tsidron-Tsidroni, and three more Chinese women - Tsypa, Tsypa-Dripa, Tsypa-Dripa-Lampomponi. Yak got married to Tsypa, Yak-Tsidrak to Tsypa-Dripa, Yak-Tsidrak-Tsidron-Tsidroni to Tsypa-Dripa-Lampomponi... So they had children: Yak and Tsypa - Shah, Yak-Tsidrak and Tsypa-Drypa - Shah -Sharah, at Yak-Tsidrak-Tsidroni with Tsypo-Drypa-Lampoponi - Shah-Sharah-Sharoni.

Beautiful voice

How to train your voice? This question is often asked by those who want to learn to sing on their own. Once you have learned to speak clearly and quickly, you should move on to singing exercises. At the same time, the voice itself will become lower, the range will expand, and the pronunciation will improve several times. The main thing is that before starting exercises to develop your voice, record how it sounds in the first lesson, and after several weeks of training, compare it with what it sounds like. You need to do the following:

Stand in front of the mirror and begin to pronounce vowel sounds in the sequence “ee-a-a-o-u”, stretching out each of them until you can’t breathe. Why this particular sequence? The fact is that this exercise begins with the sound “i”, which has the highest frequency. All other sounds follow as this indicator decreases. Each sound has a unique feature. For example, “and” when stretching will cause you to feel a slight vibration of the skin when you put your hands on your head.
Now activate your diaphragm by making the sound “m” with your mouth closed three times a day. At the same time, it must be pulled out as if it were a vowel (“mm-mm-mm”). Pronounce the sound quietly the first time, then a little louder, and then very loudly, so that the vocal cords tense. If after exercise the next day they hurt, then next time you need to pronounce the sounds less loudly, reducing the range of sound.
The sound “r” gives the voice an assertive sound, energy and strength. Prepare for the exercise by raising the tip of your tongue to the roof of your mouth and making the “r” sound. You should get some kind of growl. After this, begin to pronounce this sound expressively and with different intonations in the words “role”, “steering wheel”, “ruble”, “ring”, “snout”, “risk”, “lynx”, “rhythm”, “product”, “ cheese", "cook", "frost". Use words in which the sound is in different parts of the word and is also repeated, for example, “terrace”.
Exercise "Tarzan". You must do it without fail if you are interested in how to train your voice. It is an effective completion of the tasks we described above. You need to do exercise number 1, making sounds in the same sequence, but at the same time you need to hit yourself on the chest with your fists (just not too hard, so as not to harm yourself).

All exercises will give a more effective effect if performed in the morning. In addition, you will be charged with positive energy for the whole day, and your breathing will be easy.

Why do they barely open their mouths in the videos?

Students often ask why we learn to sing with a mask, although in the videos many performers sing with their mouths barely open. The answer is simple: in the videos, the singers do not sing, but simply move their lips to the music. To see the real work of the articulatory apparatus, you should watch the song performed live.

Performed by the group "VIA Gra"

For example, let’s take the song of the group “VIA Gra” “Don’t leave me, my love.” In the video, the girls sing, barely opening their mouths, and sometimes even stop mid-sentence. Another thing is a concert where they sing live. It can be seen that all the performers sing with a smile, open their mouths wide and show their upper teeth.

A smile (or vocal mask) allows you to reach high notes and direct sound into the resonator, so mastering it is simply invaluable for a singer.

Performed by Sia

Should you always open your mouth wide when singing? No! For example, let's watch a video of Sia singing live. During the performance of the verse, the mouth almost does not open. Only on the chorus she uses a wide mask. Note, however, that this is an exceptional case.

The fact is that some singers, in particular Sia, use a style of closed singing: vowel sounds sound closed and directed into the hard palate - with a characteristic nasal tint. With this performance, you need to master the resonator and be able to correctly direct the sound. Let’s say right away: if you are fluent in resonators and know how to direct the sound where it is needed, you don’t need a mask that is too wide!

Read more about Sia’s performance in the article “Texts of the song Sia - Chandelier and full analysis” >>>

Performed by Billie Ellish

The Billie Ellish video is a completely different story: the sound is delivered with an absolute exhalation. The song sounds relaxed and sluggish, the mouth is motionless, as if numb. This performance, together with Billie's mermaid image, hypnotizes the listener. But don’t forget: in the right places she articulates everything clearly, all the words are legible. In addition, the video shows a masterful command of sound direction and resonators. The sound still goes where it needs to, and the combination of singing and frequent aspirations creates an absolutely complete and colorful picture. It is clear that the singer spent a lot of time on exercises for diction and voice.

How to increase your vocal range

This indicator changes for each person throughout his life. It is possible to expand it until the age of 9, but it is useless, since children are just developing their vocal cords. After 10-12 years, you can start exercising, because at this age the chest expands and the voice becomes more mature. You may have noticed this in your children or remember it happening to you yourself. How to train your voice to increase its range? To do this, you can use the following exercises:

Start with a simple chant. Please note that each person has his own primary zone. This is the range in which he is comfortable singing and speaking. Start chanting from this zone. Your singing should be light and free, without tension. Breathing should be taken after moving to each link. Work your way up gradually to the highest notes and then start moving down. Make sure your voice is natural. Notice how it changes in different parts of the chant, after which notes does it become completely different? Notice when the voice goes over the chest. Are you comfortable singing in this tessitura? If so, then this is the lowest part of your range.
How to train a beautiful voice? Choose a chant in the octave range and sing it only on vowel sounds, for example, on the syllables “la”, “yu”, “mu”. It is in the upper notes that this chant will help expand the range.
You can choose a song with big jumps and a wide range, like “Ave Maria.” Start in a tessitura that is comfortable for you. This will also help expand it. In addition, you will learn the limits of your capabilities.
Sing in one manner, but at the same time make leaps from top to bottom by sixth. It may be difficult at first, but after a few weeks of hard work, everything will work out.

These tips will help to significantly expand the range of your voice, and you will be able to sing any composition beautifully.

Problems with diction in children

A pronunciation defect in children is considered to be a discrepancy between speech and age standards. The following is considered a violation:

0-1 month of life: the baby does not cry, even if he feels discomfort;
1-4 months: the baby does not respond to speech addressed to him;
4-6 months: does not track the toy with the eyes, does not pronounce combinations of phonemes (does not hum, does not coo);
6-7 months: does not try to attract the attention of adults by saying anything;
7-9 months: pronunciation of simple phonemes is difficult or completely absent;
9-10 months: the baby does not speak syllables and does not respond to gestures from adults, does not comply with requests to wave his hand, nod or shake his head;
12-18 months: does not speak simple words: dad, mom, give, ball, drink;
2 years: no meaningful spontaneous speech.

The norms of speech development are average. All children are individual, so their development may vary. A slight lag is normal. However, it requires attention from parents.

In preschool children, diction disorders such as unintelligibility of speech and inability to pronounce individual sounds are recorded: hissing, whistling or sonorant.

How to learn to speak beautifully

Now let's turn your attention to the main voice. It, like singing, also needs to be trained. There are special exercises for this. They will help you understand how to train your voice to speak beautifully. You need to do the following:

Find a random tongue twister on the Internet and say it so that only the consonants are heard. Do the same with vowels. They should be drawn out, but at the same time dull.
Say the same tongue twister, but now in a completely different tone, intonation and voice. Listen to your words. Try to determine the epicenter of your own voice, to understand in what tone it sounds more natural. Do the exercise again, but adding, for example, tilting your head in any direction.
Read the tongue twister, placing your tongue on your lips, changing the pronunciation of vowels.
Try reading some text in one breath. Exhale. Next, inhale through your nose in the passages where you need to pause.

After these exercises, read the text in a normal voice. Try to feel the difference before and after exercise.

Advice from professionals

One singer was asked how he achieved such a beautiful sound in his voice. “How did I train my quiet and slurred voice?” - he asked again and talked about the exercises that helped him with this. It turns out that you need to do this:

the essence of this exercise is to open your mouth and begin to move your jaw in different directions;
lean in any direction, pronouncing vowel sounds and stretching them out, then rise carefully and smoothly, then start leaning again, but in the other direction;
to stretch your tongue, move it quickly for about 3 minutes, but it should not protrude from your mouth;
open your mouth, stick out your tongue, then lift its tip and touch each tooth.

Development of the articulatory apparatus

The sound of your voice and the clarity of your spoken words are important to the audience. Voice training is easy if you do articulation exercises. It develops the tongue, lips, cheeks, palate, lower jaw and helps make your speech clear and pleasant to hear.

The development of the articulatory apparatus is facilitated by reading aloud; it helps to correctly place accents, make the necessary stresses and intonations.

For the pure formation of sounds, develop your tongue: “clean” the gums with your tongue, make “injections” with your tongue in the cheeks, move it across the palate, stretch out your tongue, flick it.

Warm-up for the jaw: take your lower jaw with both hands and open it several times, effortlessly, not sharply, only with the help of your hands - this exercise helps relieve tension from the submandibular muscles.

Warm-up for the cheeks: puff out your cheeks, “roll” the air inside your mouth, then release the tension by doing “whoa.”

To make speech clear and easy, develop your lips: stretch them out with a “tube” and rotate them in a circle in both directions, say “outi - uti”, stretch them out with a tube and grab the air with them, slap your relaxed lips “five-five-five” and gather them together. “P-b-p-b”, pull your lips over your teeth.

Say “ma”, “mama” to yourself, and also “ha” halfway through the exhalation. At the same time, the palate should be raised, the position of the mouth should be like when making the sound “O” - these exercises make the sound deeper and louder.

What to do if your speech is slurred

A slight speech impediment can be observed in people who have problems with the articulatory apparatus. Pathologies can be congenital or acquired. They cause people to swallow individual sounds and entire syllables during conversations, making them difficult to understand. In many cases, the defect can be eliminated with the help of special exercises:

say long words with many vowels several times a day;
recite poems out loud. At the same time, watch the rhythm.

These exercises will help correct slurred speech, and others will begin to understand you.

Tongue Twisters. What is this?

These are small humorous phrases that use difficult to pronounce and difficult to combine words and sounds.

They are also called tongue-breakers. If you try to pronounce any of them without preparation, then, as a rule, all familiar words turn into a mess of sounds and letters. But after some training you will be able to cope with the task.

These funny, difficult to pronounce phrases were invented to improve diction. What then is diction? This is a clear and precise pronunciation. And good pronunciation in vocals plays a very important role, because this is how the performer can convey the emotions and meaning of the song.

To develop good and clear diction, it is necessary to work on the development of each organ of articulation. They are divided into two large groups: active and passive.

The first category includes movable organs - vocal cords, tongue, lips, soft palate, lower jaw and posterior back of the pharynx. The passive group includes all fixed organs: teeth, upper jaw, alveoli and hard palate.

Many people mistakenly believe that tongue twisters are children's entertainment. In fact, practicing diction with the help of tongue-breakers is very widespread among adults whose activities involve various kinds of performances. This may include:

Singers;
Artists;
Politicians;
People who regularly speak at conferences;
Presenters;
Teachers etc

Tongue twisters carry 2 basic tasks:

. ” Many presenters and those who have to give a speech in public first pronounce 2-3 complex tongue twisters. This is how they warm up to avoid hesitations and hesitations during the performance.
Training for clear speech
, without which it is impossible for any speaker to speak.

How to Improve Speech Clarity

If during a conversation you often have to repeat the same words, and the interlocutor does not understand you, then we can conclude that your speech is unclear. This needs to be fixed. Here are exercises that will help you:

You can't rush during a conversation. Control your breathing. When you take a breath, start speaking. Exhale slowly while doing this. Then breathing will occur in unison with speech. This will cause you to take your time.
Take your time when speaking. During public speaking, many people speak quickly and haltingly. To prevent this from happening, take a short break and calm down. Then continue the conversation.
Swallow excess saliva in your mouth. Its remnants prevent us from pronouncing the letters “k” and “s”. It is important to remember that you should not swallow saliva in the middle of a sentence, as it will come out unsaid.
Think about everything you want to say. Clearly spoken words are as important as the message you want to convey to people.
Rehearse. If you have to give a speech, anxiety may prevent you from saying what you intended. You may also begin to speak confusingly, jumping from one topic to another. Rehearsing will help you overcome these difficulties.
Repeat those words that seem difficult to you. Learn to pronounce them correctly. Then you won’t have an “accidental” reservation in the company.

Do you need a doctor for problems with diction?

In most cases, if diction is impaired, they turn to a speech therapist. However, it is also worth consulting with your dentist and facial surgeon. The latter will rule out bone tissue pathology, prescribing surgery if necessary. The cause of unclear diction may be ankyloglossia, a congenital anomaly in which the frenulum of the tongue is underdeveloped. If the defect does not disappear on its own during preschool age, surgical intervention is necessary.

The dentist will sanitize the oral cavity and evaluate the dentures. Installing a denture that is too tight or too small changes the anatomy of the jaw, impairing diction.

When a malocclusion is diagnosed, the patient is fitted with a mouthguard, plate or braces. Depending on the severity of the disorder, eliminating the pathology will take from six months to several years. Correcting the bite improves articulation and voice timbre.

An examination is not always enough to detect the pathology that provoked a violation of diction. To clarify the diagnosis, the doctor refers the patient to clinical and instrumental studies:

CT (computed tomography) or MRI (magnetic resonance imaging);
X-ray examination of the skull;
general blood and urine analysis;
examination of hearing and phonetic perception of oral speech.

Additionally, consultation with a neurologist and otolaryngologist may be required. The latter will exclude problems with hearing and ENT organs. And the neurologist will check whether the violation of diction is associated with improper functioning of the brain.

Common mistakes

When learning to sing at home, people often make the following mistakes:

They try to repeat the performance of the song in the same way as famous singers do. There is no need to do this, you are not parodists. Above we looked at how to train a beautiful voice. Expand its range, perfect your ear for music. However, sing in your own voice.
Classes are conducted on a case-by-case basis. This problem occurs frequently. If you study one day a week for 3 hours, you will not achieve significant success. If you practice 5 times a week for an hour, the results will be much better.
Psychological constraint. You won't succeed if you always think you're doing something wrong.