Practice tips for fast results

I was a total beginner and hardly a natural, when I started singing a long time ago. Just like with my clients now, I had to practice well to get results. Hitting high notes, a bit more power, a less audible break: it did not come easily and that's why I had to practice regularly. And because I had to work hard, I took te trouble to look into good tips for my students to get results fast. I have come to these effective tips by experience and they have been scientifically proven as well.

Practicing singing for half an hour after work was wonderfully relaxing and that was the reason I started singing in the first place. After long office days full of meetings, followed by long traffic jams, singing was a powerful outlet! This way I practiced nearly every day and, funnily enough, I noticed that I got ahead faster than my more talented fellow students. I know now (after looking into it years later) that this was the reason for getting results faster.

tip 1: record your singing lessons

How can you practice without having a singing lesson every day? I always recorded my voice lessons to practice with at home and I still do that. You focus on learning something new during the lesson, so you do not always get all the instructions correctly. When you listen back to the recording, you start noticing the differences and details that went past you during the lesson. This is the first tip to practice singing: record your lessons!

Always start with the recording with the vocal exercises. Whatever you decide on singing afterwards, your voice is warmed up properly and you run less risk of overuse and voice problems when you do the exercises first.

tip 2: practice regularly

First and foremost: there is no obligation! Regular practice however, helps you to learn something faster. How often do you need to practice then? Practicing 4-5x a week is most ideal: regular practice with a day off now and then to “digest” what you have learned. A long practice just before your next lesson is not very useful, regular practicing is.

You may wonder: why so often? The nerve connections between your muscles and brains get stronger with repetition, making the action become easier step by step. It becomes routine when you do something often.

Voorbeeld: Example: if you want to learn to play tennis, you must first practice certain movements well before they are routine. A movement becomes easier and even second nature when you have more control over that movement. You can then move on to the next step. Let’s continue to use tennis as an example: you want to learn how to use your back hand, so you practice until you are able to use it. The next step could be learning to use your backhand softly, medium or strongly and in the subsequent step learning to add an effect to the bal. It works the same way for singing: you first learn a certain coordination or technique and then how to use it. The next step could be to learn how to use that technique to add your own style to your song.

Do you have trouble getting the hang of the scales and arpeggios we used in the lessons? I have made an overview and recorded all of them for you to practice with. Click here to go the scales. Klik hier om naar de toonladders te gaan.

tip 3: if you do not have time to practice

We all lack time or will to practice sometimes. Same goes for me. That is no problem really! You do not forget all you have learned before immediately. Even hardly practicing at all will you get you ahead, but only far more slowly than with regular practice.

Regular practice is therefore a choice to make progress faster in mastering vocal technique or learning songs.

If you want to keep your singing on a good level and even improve it, you can decide to take regular lessons. This way you can still practice effectively to get results.