Hello Musicians. Meet Andrew Mercer. He’s going to share a little bit about vocal techniques and staying on pitch.
Here’s what he has to say:
Pitch: often times, people don’t use enough air. Like a car, the car needs fuel to move. In singing, you need air to keep your pitch. You need to make sure you use the full capacity of air when you sing. When you go to sing, fill your lungs full of air and use for the entire phrase. If you have leftover air in your lungs, exhale the remaining air. Now, take a big breath and fill those lungs with new air.
This will really improve your tone, and it’s definitely going to improve your pitch. If you don’t have enough air, it’s difficult to keep your pitch steady. The pitch moves up and down and often times, when I listen to people’s recordings, I hear pitch problems. They are often flat. This is an ear issue. Use full lungs.
Now, how do we do that? You want to get used to filling your lungs with air so there are a few exercises that can help you achieve this. Try a google search. You’ll find lots of breathing exercises for singing. A couple of things you can do is: full your lungs completely with air, then try to take in a little bit more to expand the capacity. When you fill your lungs up completely, let the air out slowly with different sounds like a hiss and make the sound go as long as you can.
Aim for 45 seconds or one minute. Write this number down and give yourself five minutes to do the exercise again. This time, try a different kind of release or a different tone or sound, like a lip blow.
These exercises will really help your pitch and your tone. It’ll make you feel better because you’re getting enough air. Often times, when people sing, they ‘re yawning because they aren’t using enough air. When they finish a phrase, they don’t let out all the old air. This makes you want to yawn.
I’ll see you next time.
Watch Andrew’s Videos HERE
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