ABOUT THE COURSE
WARM-UPS
VOCAL TECHNIQUES
VOCAL PRESENTATION
VIRTUAL KEYBOARD
DOs and DON'Ts
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By practising a set pattern of notes you learn to hit each one accurately and clearly. You also learn to recognise notes that other people produce. You practise scales before a performance to tune your voice and warm it up, in the same way that other musicians tune their instruments. This exercise helps you learn to present sound with great tuning. It assists pitch, key and movement with the melody.
This is the scale of C Major: CDEFGABC.
You can also sing it using the sounds: Doh-Ray-Me-Far-Soh-Lah-Tee-Doh. The C note is Doh, the D note is Ray and so on. Or you may prefer to sing la-la-la or ah-ah-ah.
To practise your scales, play a sound on a keyboard and listen to it. Then, see if you can copy the sound by singing it. Now work through the major scales: Cmaj, Dmaj, Emaj, Fmaj, Gmaj, Amaj, Bmaj.
If you don’t have a keyboard handy but would like to practise your scales, go to our virtual keyboard.
Close your eyes and listen. As a singer your greatest asset is your ears. To present your voice well, you need to use your ears well. You need to hear a sound clearly. Interpret the sound, convert the sound in your head, understand the sound that you’re hearing and then deliver it. If you still have problems, keep on listening to the sound and copying it – eventually what you sing will hopefully match what you hear.
Each voice is unique: some are naturally high, and others naturally lower, and some may fall in between. Your 'range' is the range of notes that your voice can comfortably reach. With training, you can increase your range.
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