No matter what you have heard, the best singing tip is to sing! Not so much to practice. Here are some singing tips to help you get started.

1. Sing to audiences ‘til you get used to it.

You need to log your hours singing to audiences, like someone learning to fly -- they rack up their flying "hours" before they are issued their pilot’s license. Once those hours are completed, you are in command of where and for whom you wish to sing, and what price you will charge for your talents.

2. Anywhere people gather is a potential place to sing. Look at your local or nearby calendar of events, easily found online. Check out the open mic events, talent nights and jam sessions, as well as places you can volunteer to sing. This could be a senior care home, the children's ward of the hospital, your church, school events…. Even a shopping area where you can plant yourself in a place a lot of people pass through.

3. Remember, singing is just slow talking, talking with a beat and a lilt. A common mistake of singers is failing to use their voice the same way they naturally use it when they speak.

4. The usual methods of vocal training focus on one or the other, the chest voice for pop, rock, country and other "radio" singers, or the head voice for classical or opera singers. But a guy named Seth Riggs came along and started to teach a whole new way of singing — something he called "Speech Level Singing" http://bit.ly/SethRiggsSingingMethod. And tell you what? That changed the way our superstars are singing today!

In speech level singing there is something referred to as mix voice — it is the voice between your head voice and chest voice. When the resonance goes behind your soft palate, it splits between the head and the mouth. This mixture of head and chest voices is known as mix voice. The method makes use of the "natural bridges" between the chest and head voices. Another way to think of it is: natural bridges free your voice to go effortlessly from the low to high registers.


5. Avoid pushing to attempt to sing a passage that your voice is not accommodating naturally. With each attempt, it gets worse. Something is preventing you from singing a passage as you would like to. Check the blog about speech level singing for more about this.

6. What’s all this fuss about "breathing technique"? Try it right now -- imagine someone is chasing you and you are scared for your life. Notice your breathing? Your neck and shoulders get tight; you are kind of "frozen in fear". Now try singing. You can’t because your air is shut off. When you are singing, breathe the same way you do all time. If you can feel your belly move up and down as you breathe, that’s all you need to sing your best. The stress is what messes up your breathing, and therefore your singing.

Check out my blog at http://musicmalene.net/category/singing/ for more singing tips from the pros who’ve taught everyone from Stevie Wonder to Keith Urban.