How to Sing Better: Singing Advice from Vocal Coaches to the Stars

If you’ve been wanting to learn how to sing, you’re probably wondering what the best route is. Can you teach yourself? Should you find a Vocal Coach to help you? What if you can’t take in-person lessons right now?

We asked several respected Vocal Coaches, Singers, and College Faculty for their advice on learning how to sing.

In this article, you’ll learn what this diverse range of professionals suggests for peak vocal performance:

• Mark Baxter (Vocal Teacher)
• Debra Byrd (Vocal Coach)
• Amanda Carr (Jazz Singer & Music Instructor)
• Cari Cole (Vocal Coach)
• Teri Danz (Vocal Coach, Recording Artist, Vocal Producer)
• Jeannie Gagné (Berklee Professor)
• Mama Jan (Singer, Songwriter, Producer, Vocal Coach)
• Lis Lewis (Voice Teacher, Performance Coach)

It all starts with controlling your breath. After all, the air passing through your vocal cords in your larynx (sometimes called “voice box”) are what provides the energy to make a resonant sound. A discussion about how to sing properly must necessarily start with breath control techniques.

Voice Teachers and Professional Singers will spend a lot of time working on how to breathe properly when you sing, how to conserve your breath so you can hold a note, and building awareness of what is happening with your diaphragm muscles as you breathe. Teachers and Singers throw a lot of terms and phrases around, like “breath support,” “sing from the diaphragm,” and “support the tone.”

Famed Voice Teacher Mark Baxter says breathing should be natural, and can be negatively affected by nerves or tension in your body and mind. According to Mark: “Balance is the key to controlling any physical event. And with singing, that means balancing every sound with just the right amount of air.”

He goes on to say “…trust your reflexes. Breathing and vocal muscles will all respond in coordination to make whatever sound you want. All you have to do is get out of your own way. That’s the difference between those who sing so easily and naturally and those that struggle.” According to Mark, you can build awareness of natural breathing techniques by paying close attention to the sound coming out of your mouth.

Mark has developed many exercises for helping Singers to produce a pleasing vocal sound without damaging their voice and while developing control and support of your breath. Here’s one example:

1. Starting on a comfortable note in the middle of your range (you can get it from a piano, a guitar, or any instrument), sing starting on the pitch down the major scale from sol to do: “He-He-He-He He-ee-ee-ee-eeeee” (sol-sol-sol-sol sol fa mi re do).
2. Keep your breath steady as your vocal cords open and close for the first notes, and don’t let your belly bounce.
3. Don’t make the first note louder, or the last note softer.
4. As you move up in your range with this exercise, starting a half-step higher each time, do not sing louder. Keep the volume even throughout.
5. Don’t let your abs pulse with the rhythm.
6. Don’t smile on the ee-eee sound.

The goal of this exercise is to learn to manage the airflow across the phrase and to control your breathing by being consistent with your volume throughout. While you will naturally begin to strain as you get higher in your range, try not to put in much more effort to produce the notes.

I know it’s hard to fully grasp how this exercise works just by reading, so I’m giving you the link so you can see Mark demonstrate it for you himself while interjecting his own special brand of humor.

Mark Baxter is a terrific resource for all things related to singing, I highly recommend him to you!

What does proper posture look like? Since we are all different, there isn’t really one certain way you should stand (or sit, though standing is better) that is the “correct” way. What’s important is that you cultivate awareness of your body and be sensitive to tension or stiffness in your muscles and voice.

Most Teachers will spend some time with you to analyze and correct any aspects of your stance and posture as a way to improve your singing from the get-go. They might have you stand with your back to the wall with your heels, calves, buttocks, shoulders, and head all touching the wall while you practice breathing while paying special attention to how your abdomen and chest expand and contract as your diaphragm moves. They might have you do this while lying on the floor as well.

The main point is to avoid slouching or stooping your shoulders and adopt a stance that is naturally suited to your body while breathing in a controlled way. You want to be flexible and efficient in your breathing while staying loose and natural in how you hold your body and your head while singing.

Pay attention to the positioning of your feet, knees, hips, abdomen, chest, shoulders, arms, hands, and head. You might want to experiment with putting one foot a bit in front of the other and leaning forward a slight amount.

You’ve probably already heard how it’s important to keep your body hydrated and healthy. This is true! As my grandmother always used to say: “If you don’t have your health, you don’t have anything.” Since you are using your body, lungs, muscles, and vocal cords to produce musical sounds, you need to maintain that delicate machinery and it starts with hydration.

If you allow yourself to become dehydrated there are all kinds of negative things that can happen, and it’s not hard to do. If you’re sweating or in a warm room or outside, you are losing moisture from your body every minute. Water vapor also escapes your body when you breathe.

So of course, drinking enough water is key. Our bodies are made up of about 60% water; according to the Journal of Biological Chemistry the brain and heart are composed of 73% water, the lungs are about 83% water, the skin contains 64% water, muscles and kidneys are 79%, and even the bones are watery at 31%. It’s not only about drinking water, it’s about what not to drink: milk, alcohol, sugary sodas, or caffeine-laden drinks that act as a diuretic, meaning you lose water from your body.

Debra Byrd, head Vocal Coach from American Idol, recommends warm water (or herbal tea) with a squeeze of lemon and a bit of honey mixed in. This will soothe your vocal cords while giving you hydration. You can drink this anytime, the night before a performance, or before singing to fight vocal strains, while honey also is preventative for sore throats. Just don’t go overboard with the honey.

One thing that all Vocalists agree on is the importance of warming up your voice before singing, to keep yourself healthy, protect against damage, and sing better. It’s also a good idea to warm down when you’ve finished singing.

Think of it like going to the gym. You need to start by getting your muscles and all moving parts loose and ready to move. Using your larynx is similar in that the folds of your vocal cords and all the tiny muscles which control your singing need a warm-up routine before doing any heavy work.

Grammy-winning Voice Professor Donna McElroy describes the importance of building strength and endurance in all the areas of musculature in her instruction books and exercises, while offering warm-up routines.

One exercise has the student humming while singing up and down a simple part of a scale, moving up and down in key.

Others include performing lip-rolls (buzzing the lips while humming), tongue trills, humming through a straw, pitch glides, and singing on syllables such as “oooo” while singing from low to high and back, like a siren.

These can also be done after singing to “warm down.” We might more appropriately call this “cooling down” and you will see runners and athletes doing this after heavy exertion. It gives all the tissues a chance to recover and relax, and it’s a good practice for Singers as well.

All of these same warm-ups can be used to cool down after singing. It’s crucial to relax, recover, and reflect after singing, so don’t neglect warming up or down before and after you sing.

In classical music, the various ranges are described (from high to low) as soprano, alto, tenor, and bass, sometimes abbreviated as SATB in vocal arrangements. Baritone overlaps bass and tenor, and the tessitura for baritone (the most acceptable and comfortable vocal range for a given Singer) is higher than bass but lower than tenor.

Most men are basses, baritones, or tenors, while most women are altos and sopranos. The lowest female classical voice type is called a contralto. It’s not hard to figure out your range by experimenting with notes and paying attention to where it becomes difficult to sing at the extremes of high and low. Make sure you are warmed up and be careful not to strain your voice.

According to professional Musician and Vocalist Amanda Carr, “I try not to get caught up in the names of ranges such as ‘I am a soprano…or I am a baritone’ at least in musical genres outside of classical. I look at each individual song and find where the best median focal point is for the voice; where in the vocal range in the song is best served by way of timbre, tone, vocal strength, control, and consistency. Understanding that will allow a Singer to be conscious of their range and where within that they are generally at their best in every and any situation.”

Understand that we learn by copying and doing, so it’s fine to sing along with recordings of the Singers you admire the most.

You might find some online apps useful, such as:

• Smule
• SingTrue
• VoxTrain
• Sing Sharp
• Yousician
• Learn To Sing

Learn to Sing is only available on Android. Yousician has actual tutorials with videos of Teachers explaining, while SingSharp has basic exercises and allows you to record and save your singing. Try the different apps and see which ones offer the best fit for how you sing and learn.

We often hear about “tone-deafness,” meaning the difficulty to recognize and match a pitch you hear. While there are some unfortunate souls who just cannot match pitch, this condition is truly very rare.

Having taught ear-training (solfege, sight-singing) to students for decades, I’ve almost never encountered anyone who truly couldn’t match pitch. What is true is that some people have more difficulty than others, but if they make the effort and put in the practice time, they will ultimately be able to do it.

I’ve also found that there are some great Teachers out there who specialize in helping students to improve their intonation (singing “in-tune”). Berklee Professor Jeannie Gagné is one such person, and she writes about techniques and exercises for improving intonation for Singers.

One technique I’ve used is to play a note on the piano to match the note the student is singing. Then, try to have the student adjust it up or down in small increments, and eventually progress to singing larger intervals.

It might also help to play a chord and have the student match any one of the notes in the chord with their voice. Then move the chord up or down in half-steps to see if the student can follow the direction with their voice.

An interesting discovery for me was that everyone hears pitch slightly differently, so what sounds in-tune for one person might not for another. There are some great Singers who don’t always sing perfectly “in-tune.”

A great piece of advice I received when I went to music school was to not only listen to the musicians I admire, but to study their influences.

I recently read John Fogerty’s autobiography (Singer, Guitarist, and Songwriter from Creedence Clearwater Revival) and read his chapter on his influences with great interest. I even went on YouTube to look up the artists and specific tracks mentioned in his book. I wanted to understand what he was listening to when he wrote and performed great songs such as “Proud Mary.”

It’s fine to emulate the artists you love, and to let them influence your own singing. Of course, you should be analyzing what makes them so great, and digging deep to understand why their work is so special.

But don’t neglect to listen and analyze THEIR influences as well, since it will give you an even deeper insight into how they became so accomplished. Listen for technique but also pay attention to the nuances of diction, phrasing, tone, and style, and try to figure out where it came from.

Fortunately, there are lots of biographies and autobiographies available on the leading Singers you can read to gain a deeper understanding. Do your research.

Amanda Carr says that working on diction and vocal control exercises are very important because “…many vocal students (and some professionals) both mentally and physically disengage from a note before it’s fully expressed, often not completing the note or word they are on before moving to the next lyric or note. This can cause the ending of words and notes to drop off that in turn thwarts musical fluidity and the efficacy of dynamics.”

“This premature disengagement can also affect pitch because the Singer has mentally ‘checked out’ before completing the entire tone. When this becomes a habit, it’s hard to break, so it’s best to become aware of this sooner than later. This is one of the reasons why diction and vocal control exercises are so important.”

I recommend you record yourself singing and listen carefully for out-of-tune notes, and for where you could improve your diction. It might seem a little uncomfortable at first, but most Voice Instructors agree that this is an important exercise to help you improve your technique.

Record yourself singing scale exercises and also some music that you enjoy singing. Be analytical and critical when you listen.

It almost seems cynical and cliché to say you should “be yourself, everyone else is already taken,” a quote often misattributed to Poet Oscar Wilde. The problem is that when you try to “just be natural” you end up as a caricature of yourself and it seems like an adopted pose. Better advice might be to just relax and let it happen.

Stay curious and cultivate the habit of looking at the world as it is, not as somehow falling short of how you want things to be. Stay in the moment and let the magic of music take over. All of this is easier to talk about than to do, but when you stop worrying about how others will judge you it can be very freeing.

You will improve the most by doing the work; practicing the things that will help you grow musically, working with a Teacher (online, or in-person when it’s safe again), finding outlets where you can share your singing with others, getting constructive feedback from trusted experts in your life (fellow students, Teachers, Professional Singers, etc.), and listening to yourself on recordings.

This last point is so useful, yet many novice Singers seem to avoid it out of fear of hearing what they really sound like and being overly self-critical. It’s only going to help you to get used to the sound of your own voice.

Copying others is a good way to learn but eventually, you will gain the confidence to use your voice to express the music you hear in your head. It does take some technical ability, but with time and effort, you will see your improvement. Sing a joyful song and let the music inside of you be a gift you give to the world around you.