My Industry Career - Pt2

I have worked in the music industry and education for over 30 years and have seen and supported 100’s of young singers, musicians trying to develop the necessary skills required to ‘make it‘ in the music industry or carve out a decent career. I’ve personally also travelled the long road of confidence (or lack of it) and dealing with the insecurities that go hand in hand with being in the performing industry. I’ve been that nervous insecure wreck myself.

So I want to reach out and start sharing some of my top tips and ideas especially when we can feel trapped and stifled, left wondering how do I continue to develop all my skills when I feel so unconfident?

Getting Started

When you come across that moment and you think I would really like to learn to sing ‘properly’ or I want to sing but I wouldn’t know where to start. Or you sing regularly at Karaoke and everyone always comments on ‘how good you are’. Or you studied singing a long time ago and you want to get back into music. Whatever your dilemma and situation hopefully these blogs can start to help manoeuvre your way through some of the questions.

So warmup exercises (and I don’t want to treat you like an idiot here) literally mean that. You are ‘warming up’, preparing your vocal cords, your brain and your body to get ready. Get in the zone, focus, align yourself ready for what you’re going to do. Literally stretch the vocal cords.

But at the same time they are technical vocal exercises which will help build and strengthen your voice and technique.

Now, every singing teacher will advise you to warm up and what the benefits are. But lots of singers don’t do it. WHY? Us vocal advisors despair at our students who do not warm up as it's like going to the gym for your voice. Not everyday necessarily but regularly is essential. It’s what builds your stamina. It takes training and dedication to be able to ding night after night for weeks on end whether that an open mic or high end tours. It just doesn't matter.

Personally I do not think the PHRASE - WARM UP - helps. Yes you are warming up your voice but you are also strengthening, developing tone, building range, diction, breath control, the list goes on. The tricky bit is getting the motivation to do the exercises and the warm-ups and sustain that.

It’s a vicious circle because we want to feel confident when we sing. But often we neglect the warmup/vocal exercises that are going to give us all the skills we need to perform confidently but if we can not do it, then we hide away from that exercise, or high note or genre or we might not go for those songs with the high notes because we can’t “sing that high“.

So understanding what your voice needs is essential.

We offer online tuition amongst many other things so keep an eye out as The BackBeat Collective introduces you to all things music.

Let’s split this into general groups

Let’s say you’re a beginner, you love singing, love getting up and doing karaoke and people always comment on what a wonderful voice you have. You’ve never had a singing lesson before and you wouldn’t even know where to start. So when people like myself go on about warm-ups and exercises it’s probably a little bit mystifying. But what would that warm up look like Aly?.

My advice would be to find a singing teacher and start from there. Or use the internet. I like Jacobs Academy - link below - as they are good all round exercises with the scales etc. But you need to be careful as these exercises can be sang with bad technique, which is why you need a good singing teacher to be fair. I will go into this in more detail in another blog as it is important to ask the right questions when finding a teacher.

Great starting point

Look on my Instagram there are some great tutorials and scales for beginners to get you used to what vocal exercises look like.

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Next up we have our groups of different professionals, perhaps working in function and or cover bands that perform at pubs, weddings and parties for example. Session singers for Production houses. Perhaps the singers have had some training but maybe still struggle with aspects of their voice or confidence. Maybe the voice is really strong but their performance needs further work. Again you would need to focus on your technique and start to work on different genres. So what would that warm up look like?

Look on my Instagram there are some great tutorials and scales for beginners to get you used to what vocal exercises look like.

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Then finally you have your professionals who've studied at college or university or a theatre school. They seem to have all the talent and all the skills to work in the industry but this does not mean all of those singers are full of confidence and happy with their voices. They need to keep ‘vocal fit’ as they are on tour or in shows. What does this warm up look like?

Also look on my Instagram there are some great tutorials and scales for beginners to get you used to what vocal exercises look like.

I can help with all these things so drop me a message or a video if you want some feedback.

Enjoy and I will touch base with you all next week with Part 3.

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We offer online tuition amongst many other things so keep an eye out

as The BackBeat Collective introduces you to all things music stylie.

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