How to practice
by Sarah Sloan
Many singers start their vocational training in school and church choirs before they move on to private, formal voice lessons. This is a great and often necessary component to comprehensive vocal training as it teaches us not only harmony, music theory and tonal modeling from other voices, it also lets us get our feet wet in the performing arena without a lot of the pressures from solo performing.
While this is an invaluable experience for all singers, many choral singers have learned without the benefit of daily practice that private voice lessons require. In addition, many voice teachers do not outline the practicing process for their students, partly because there is no one way to practice. These are just some suggestions to make your process more productive and will, if followed consistently, guarantee significant progress.
Understand that vocal training is about learning new habits. When practicing, it is important to engage your brain and try to replace old vocal patterns with new ones. Simply practicing by rote without thinking will only ingrain old habits even more.
Record part or all of your practice sessions. We all know we sound different on the out side than the inside. This is a serious challenge to the developing singer and requires the additional feedback of the recording to fully comprehend our unique process of producing sound. If you implement only one of these suggestions make it this one. Indeed, it's quite difficult for singers to make progress if you don't understand how you sound on the outside.
Keep a practice log. These are handy for remembering the techniques and results you achieved from the day before and help keep your practice sessions focused and goal oriented.
Work in short, frequent sessions. This is a great way to prevent fatigue and stress from building in the larynx. Working in ten or twenty minute sessions, three to four times rather than an hour our two all at once is optimum
There is no rule about quantity, but daily practice, whether ten minutes or two hours, is recommended. Even the shortest periods will produce a modicum of results and is easier in establishing a consistent practice schedule than only doing it when you have the time.
Remember that almost no one is born a brilliant singer. When we laud and praise our singing idols for their ease and virtuosity we are not seeing the blood, sweat and tears that went on behind the scenes. In the words of Twyla Tharp: “Nobody worked harder than Mozart. By the time he was twenty-eight years old, his hands were deformed because of all the hours he had spent practicing, performing, and gripping a quill pen to compose. That's the missing element in the popular portrait of Mozart.” And this was a man who is thought to be a genius! He still had to practice constantly.
So sing, my friends. Do whatever it takes, but sing. The worst that can happen is that you'll improve.