Table Of Content®
Singing Exercises For Dummies
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Table of Contents
Introduction
About This Book
Conventions Used in This Book
What You’re Not to Read
Foolish Assumptions
How This Book Is Organized
Part I: Preparing Your Body for Practicing
Part II: Making Your Music Magical with Variety
Part III: Working Out Your Range
Part IV: Advancing Your Singing Technique
Part V: The Part of Tens
Icons Used in This Book
Where to Go from Here
Part I: Preparing Your Body for Practicing
Chapter 1: Warming Up for Singing
Preparing Your Instrument: Stretching Out from Head to
Toe
Opening and Positioning the Lower Body
Connecting your feet to the floor
Balancing on the ankles and knees
Distributing weight in the legs and hips
Positioning the Upper Body for Easy Movement
Lengthening your spine
Releasing the shoulders
Balancing the head and neck
Managing the arms and hands
Putting It All Together with a Vocal Warm-Up
Chapter 2: Practicing Breathing Exercises
Moving the Breathing Muscles for Singing
Opening the ribs
Releasing the abs
Moving the sides
Releasing into the hips
Take It In: Shaping Inhalation
Controlling the movement of your ribs
Adding suspension to develop coordination
Opening the torso for quick inhalation
Let It Out: Controlling Exhalation
Developing muscle coordination
Isolating muscles for extra-long phrases
Singing Practice Exercises with Long and Short Phrases
Practicing short phrases
Practicing longer phrases
Testing your breath control
Songs for Extending Breath Control
Chapter 3: Shaping the Tongue and Lips for Vowels
Coordinating the Tongue and Lips for Back Vowels
Shifting the arch around for ooh and ah
Altering your lip shape for oh and ah
Tackling the tricky vowels aw and OOh
Singing through the five back vowels
Positioning the Tongue for Front Vowels
Dropping the arch between ee and ih
Moving between ee and ay
Distinguishing between ee and eh
Comparing eh and a
Singing through the five front vowels
Alternating between Front and Back Vowels
Presenting the Middle Vowel, Uh
Singing Combination Vowels
Songs for Singing Vowels Precisely
Chapter 4: Articulating Consonants Accurately
Touching on the Tip Consonants
Exploring the voiced consonants L, N, and D
Distinguishing between voiced D and unvoiced T
Sounding out the voiced R
Singing unvoiced S and voiced Z
Moving the tip of the tongue to the teeth for TH
Singing through the consonants L, N, D, T, S, Z, and
TH
Arching Back for Soft Palate Consonants
Practicing voiced G, unvoiced K, and voiced NG
Singing through the consonants K, G, and NG
Working on Lip Consonants
Practicing voiced consonants W and M
Alternating between voiced B and unvoiced P
Moving only the bottom lip for F and V
Singing through W, M, P, B, F, and V
Consonant Combos: Moving the Lips and Tongue
Puckering for voiced J and unvoiced CH
Moving air through SH and ZH
Singing through the consonants J, CH, SH, and ZH
Songs for Singing Various Consonants
Part II: Making Your Music Magical with Variety
Chapter 5: Singing Precise Intervals for Musical Accuracy
Recognizing the Most Common Intervals
Major intervals
Minor intervals
Perfect intervals
Hearing the Small Intervals
Minor and major seconds: m2 and M2
Minor and major thirds: m3 and M3
Seconds and thirds in action
Finding Perfect Intervals
Identifying perfect intervals: P4 and P5
Working in unison: P8
Singing perfect intervals
Comparing the Larger Intervals
Minor and major sixths: m6 and M6
Minor and major sevenths: m7 and M7
Singing sixths and sevenths
Discovering Chromatics
Raising the pitch with sharps
Lowering the pitch with flats
Canceling an accidental
Working on Scales
Building scales with triads
Singing major scales
Singing minor scales
Practice Piece: “Singing All the Intervals”
Songs for Practicing Large Intervals
Chapter 6: You’ve Got Rhythm: Conquering Rhythmic Notation
and Tempo
Rhythm Basics: Notes and Rests
The whole note
The half note
The quarter note
The eighth note
The sixteenth note
The corresponding rests
Practice piece: “The Rhythm Song”
Exploring Advanced Rhythms
Joining notes together with triplets
Adding more notes with dotted rhythms
Emphasizing the weaker beats with syncopation
Practice piece: “Checking Out Rhythm”
Managing Rhythm at Any Tempo
Songs for Working on Rhythm
Chapter 7: Adding Diversity with Dynamics, Articulation Marks,
and More
Singing Dynamically
Reading the markings
Making a smooth crescendo
Gradually singing softer with a decrescendo
Mastering dynamic contrast
Articulating What’s Written
Connecting notes
Making a note short and sweet
Knowing when to let go
Practice Piece: “I Sing Out!”
Improvising to Give Songs Your Own Unique Stamp
Adding more words
Changing the rhythm
Altering the melody
Varying the tone
Songs for Improving Your Musical Diversity
Part III: Working Out Your Range
Chapter 8: Checking Out Chest Voice
Getting Familiar with Chest Voice
Exploring the sounds of chest voice
Varying the heaviness in your chest voice
Strengthening your chest voice
Modifying vowels in chest voice
Practice Piece: “Finding My Chest Voice”
Songs That Work Out Your Chest Voice
Chapter 9: Soaring into Head Voice and Falsetto
Figuring Out Falsetto
Working out your falsetto
Taking falsetto down
Exploring various vowels in falsetto
Songs for singing in falsetto
Discovering Your Head Voice
Getting a feel for head voice
Exploring high resonance in head voice
Singing through consonants in head voice
Positioning Your Larynx for Fuller Head Voice Sounds
Stabilizing the larynx
Monitoring your larynx while singing
Managing many high phrases
Developing Your Head Voice Range
Creating spinning tone
Sustaining notes in your head voice
Songs for broadening your head voice range
Practice Piece: “A Bejeweled Love Song”
Chapter 10: Mixing Up Your Sound with Middle Voice
Discovering Your Middle Voice
Distinguishing male and female middle voice
Getting to know your middle voice
Strengthening your middle voice
Finding clear vowels in middle voice
Songs that work out the middle voice
Combining Registers with Mix
Knowing when to use a mix
Rolling into a mix
Changing around the mix
Songs that require a mix
Exploring Your Mix with a Few Practice Pieces
For the guys
For the gals
Chapter 11: Coordinating Register Transitions
Moving Smoothly between Registers
Dropping into chest voice
Changing back and forth from chest voice to middle
voice
Climbing from middle voice to head voice
Leaping to and from Falsetto
Singing from falsetto into chest voice
Changing from chest voice to falsetto
Rolling back and forth from chest voice to falsetto
Refining Your Smooth Transitions
Shifting from middle voice to chest voice
Shifting from middle voice to head voice
Practice Piece: “Marching Forth”
Songs That Require Register Transitions
Part IV: Advancing Your Singing Technique
Chapter 12: Developing Your Vocal Tone
Touching on Tone Basics
Description:The fast and easy way to take your singing skills to new heights Some people are born with a naturally great singing voice, but even the best singers can benefit from a broader range of knowledge and training. Voice training not only expands your technique and power, but enhances your performance ab
