Vocal Lessons: 2 Singing Songs Better

Learn how to sing—and sing better—with these breathing, pitch, and phrasing exercises from top vocal coach Jeannie Deva.

Introduction

• Welcome

1. Breathing

• Are you breathing correctly?
• Improving breath management
• What about your stomach?
• Exercise: The singing breath
• Instructions: Rib cage exercise 1, part 1
• Instructions: Rib cage exercise 1, part 2
• Coaching: Rib cage exercise 1
• Rib cage exercise 1: Practice assignment and details

2. Your Lips and Air Management

• Using songs as warm-ups
• Using the melody
• What's air overblow?
• Basics: Your lips
• Exercise: Liberating your lips and enhancing resonance with a song
• Exercise: Strengthening your voice in a song—lip trills & single vowels
• Exercise: Improving pitch & resonance in a song—nose buzz & scrunch
• Lip trills: Limbering your voice with a song

3. Pitch and Resonance

• Basics: Improving pitch and vocal ease with a song
• Vocal resonance & ease: Applying nose buzz to a song
• Vocal tone & ease: Applying trumpeted oow to a song
• Exercise: Smoothing out range & tone in a song—the trumpeted oow
• Pitch accuracy: Singing the vowels technique

4. Phrasing

• Singing the vowels
• Song phrasing & timing
• Song phrasing & dynamics
• Exercise: Balancing singing with vocal technique
• How long to practice and when to move on

Conclusion

• ArtistWorks and Next Steps