Introduction

Welcome to the guide to proper vocal technique. These tips will help both your speaking and singing voice, as singing should just be an extension of your regular voice.

We’ll focus on boring but essential habits like proper breathing, articulation and relaxation.

In here, we have only one rule.

If your voice hurts or sounds like you have a cold—stop singing for the day.

Besides that, this guide is practical. You could make that our second rule.

Train good habits through exercises. Don’t try to memorize all these tricks. When performing, stop thinking about it and just sing.

Who’s speaking?

These lessons come from years of experience. No, I am not a voice teacher. Quite the opposite: due to a chronic health issue, I can’t use my voice like regular people and frequently lose it for no reason. That’s why I’ve trained for over a decade and visited many experts: to overcome those obstacles.

In this guide, I merely want to tell you what I learned. What worked, what didn’t, and why. (Be prepared for anecdotes!)

My music is on streaming services under the name Tiamo el Troubadour. But as I said: the quality of the vocal … varies. This made me hesitant. How could I ever write a guide on singing when I can’t sing like the best of the best? What hypocrisy is this?

In the end, though, the best teachers usually aren’t the best in their field. I’ve studied the voice more than enough to give some useful tips to anyone. Hopefully I can prove that to you!

My approach to singing, and teaching it, is therefore quite a bit different from other sources I’ve found. I focus less on tiny details or strict exercises, and more on your whole physical and mental approach.

What this guide is NOT

The internet is filled with people who claim to teach you “tricks” that will make you a singing success overnight.

That’s not going to happen. Never. It’s almost a scam.

Singing is a very complex collaboration between many muscles. Most of it happens through habit ingrained by years of speaking. Besides that, muscles need repetition and exercise to grow stronger and remember new movements.

Yes, when you do a new exercise, it might “click” for you. You might immediately hear the difference or sound better. Great! That’s what we’re after!

Now be diligent and do the exercise for at least three months, otherwise you’ll simply lose that improvement the next day.

Some call singing a sport. This is often misunderstood as “you need to absolutely try your hardest and sing as loud as you can”

What they mean (probably), is that you need great stamina and abdominal muscles. With proper breathing technique, most new singers will have muscle aches in their abs within a few minutes :p

They also mean that rest and relaxation is important. Our voice is relatively “painless”. It can undergo a lot of stress without giving us the same warning signs as other muscles. This causes us to abuse these muscles. Instead, after singing for a solid hour (or two), stop—even if you feel fine.