hi. well, this would be the first real entry for the singer’s faq, so i guess i should start with the first question everybody has: how do i get started?

quite easy: read my blog. thank you and good night.

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just kidding. if you are serious about singing, maybe even want to become a pro, there’s no way around a good teacher. period. you have to find yourself one of those or you just won’t make it. of course there are people who made it that way, but think of the legions that tried and just ended up with no more usable voice at all. you never heard of them? neither did i. got it?

i would recommend this for any instrument because it just makes it so much easier than trying to do it all by yourself. but it is possible to learn an insrument that way. with singing however, there’s another thing to consider. treating your voice the wrong way could result in physical damage and i’m not talking about one in a million. depending on how bad the mistakes are, you could raise the chances up to 1:1.

so the first rule is: don’t panic! if you’re careful with your voice and treat it with respect and wisdom it will be good to you. how to do that is one thing you need a teacher for. there’s no book, dvd, website, podcast etc. that can replace a good teacher. you can still get a lot out of those things yourself though and keeping your eyes and ears open is always good. but remember, if you’re serious about singing – get a teacher.

if you’re not serious or maybe not sure, if you just want to have a little fun with karaoke or want to provide a decent background in your band, you could do without a teacher. it depends on how good do you want to become. certainly there’s nothing wrong with checking out or messing around a little.

i’m teaching for almost ten years now and almost every student i ever had started with what i call ‘clearness’. this makes a great first lesson because it’s ridiculously easy to learn, you can’t hurt yourself and it makes you sound about 500% better than you did before in maybe like 30 minutes. to really make this your second nature (and it has to be) it takes a few weeks, depending on how much you practice. again, don’t panic! usually it’s a piece of cake.

ready? then let’s get it on. here’s the lesson. it’s simple. open your mouth. that’s it.

no kidding. you just have to open your mouth while you sing. i know this sounds stupid but you wouldn’t believe how many so-called singers aren’t able to do this – and they all sound horrible.

try to sing a part of a song you know pretty well so you don’t have to concentrate on anything but your mouth. sing it the way you always do and then sing it with your mouth open, really open, wide open. as wide as it gets. this is important. it’s best to practice this in front of a mirror. just open your mouth as much as you can without losing the authenticity, the words have to be pronounced correctly of course (this ain’t no opera…). you will find out that this means your mouth opens differently for different letters. at this time we’re only interested in the vowels. with an ‘a’ – as in californiA – your mouth opens wide in every direction (it should look like a zero), an ‘e’ – as in tEchnique – broadens the opening (it should look like a lying zero), an ‘i’ – as in skIn – transforms the lying zero into a banana. ‘o’ and ‘u’ as in pOrsche and ‘yOU‘ ar somewhat smaller versions of the a-zero, try to open as wide as possible without mixing an ‘a’-sound into it. any other pronounciation of vowels, for example ‘tAke’, ‘whY‘, ‘lOve’ and so forth are mixtures of the above mentioned, so you’re mouth will either change during the pronounciation (going from an ‘a’ to an ‘i’ in ‘why’ for example) or will look like it’s stuck in between (for example between an ‘a’ and an ‘o’ in ‘love’).

check this out and go over the top with it, exaggerate as much as you can. if you feel really stupid, that means you’re doing it right. if you have sore muscles in your cheeks after practicing this, you did great. practice this every day a few times, you don’t actually have to make a sound, so you can do this in the bus or in the office or wherever you like.

the idea is to condition yourself. you won’t go on speaking like an idiot for the rest of your life. but after a while of doing it (some need a week, others a month – two weeks is a good guess), you will open your mouth wider as you did before, automatically – without even noticing. you’re on a very low ‘clearness-level’ right now, trust me on that. and a while of exaggerating will lift you up to a level appropriate for a singer. again don’t panic, this is easy. and after it’s become automatic, it will stay that way.

finally i want to mention why you should even bother with clearness. you might think ‘anyone i’m talking to, even on the cellphone, understands me perfectly. i’m clear enough.’ no you’re not. imagine you singing in a club. the word goes out of your mouth through a litle bit of air into the microphone. then through the microphone, through the cable connection and then the cable itself. through another connection into the mixer, then even more connections into maybe some effects. after another bunch of connections and cables, an amplifier, connections, cables, speakers it travels through the air until it reaches its destination – the ears of your audience. this is a long and tough journey for our poor little word and it doesn’t nearly sound as clear as it did when it began the voyage. and i’m not even talking about crappy equipment, a crappy room or a crappy mixing guy. if you sing the way you talk, it might be about 70% on the clearness-scale but what reaches your audience is significally less. they won’t understand what you’re singing and that’s bad for different reasons. but if you sing at maybe 130% on the clearness-scale there will still be 80 – 90% left and that will satisfy your listeners as well as saving you lots of energy – which i will explain later.

go ahead, try it…