13 Best Singing Techniques to Improve Your Voice Instantly
If you want to learn the best singing techniques to improve your singing, you have come to the right place.
The fact is – there are vocal techniques that are essential, and techniques that are not that important, or flat-out wrong.
I will be sharing with you the best singing techniques that you can apply NOW to improve your singing instantly.
You don’t need 3 years to practice these techniques – you can apply this and see improvements right away.
So, if you’re excited and ready, let’s begin:
How to Use The 13 Best Singing Techniques
These techniques are very important and effective, but they’re probably more than you need right now.
You can pick one, two, or three of these techniques to focus on at a time. After you get familiar with them, pick other techniques to apply to your singing.
As useful as they are, do not attempt to apply all of them at once. You can’t.
The best way to use this list is to visit this post whenever you need to review or learn new techniques.
I can assure you that these singing techniques are practiced, tried, and tested by me in my daily practices and my years of professional singing.
13 Best Singing Techniques – The Essential List for Singers
These techniques are loosely in order, from essential vocal techniques to performance skills.
So, if you don’t know which one to start on, just follow the order to try them one by one.
Without further ado, here they are:
Technique #1 – Deep Breathing
There are different theories on how to breathe for singing, including breathing into the stomach, expanding the chest while breathing, breathing naturally, etc.
Let me clarify the right way to breathe:
- Breathe deep and allow your stomach to expand.
- Allow the ribs to expand after the stomach expands.
- Do not lift your shoulders and chest.
When you apply these deep breathing techniques, you will release vocal stress from the throat, making singing a lot easier.
Technique #2 – Abdominal Support – The Right Way!
After you breathe in deeply, you need to know how to apply abdominal support.
Like breathing, there are many theories on how to support the voice, including pulling in the stomach, pushing out, relaxing it, or pushing down.
Which one is right? The answer is push down.
As you’re ready to sing, apply a slight downward pressure like you’re going to the bathroom.
I know that’s not the best use of imagery, but it is a similar feeling.
Apply abdominal downward support, your voice will thank you, because you are taking the pressure off your throat.
Technique #3 – Vocal Placement
When I talk about vocal placement, I’m talking about a buzzing sensation at the roof of your mouth.
You can either feel it at the soft palate or the hard palate. The last thing you want is to not feel it at all.
This buzz is so, so, so important because it’s a sign that your vocal cords are working correctly.
Also, you can relax your throat as long as you have this buzz.
Here’s how you find this buzz – make an owl sound “Ohh-ohh” and feel the buzz at the roof of the mouth.
Always look for this buzz when you sing. Always.
Technique #4 – Body Resonance
The terms chest voice, mixed voice, and head voice originate in the body resonance you feel in the lower, middle, and upper register of your vocal range.
When you sing low notes, you feel a strong resonance in the chest.
As you sing up the scale, the resonance moves up into the throat and mouth area.
Finally, when you’re in your upper range, the resonance is in the head area.
You can track this resonance as a guide to see if your voice is working properly.
When the vocal cords are closing correctly with the throat relaxed, the body resonance will be very strong.
Technique #5 – Vocal Cord Thinning
This is one of the secrets of singing high notes – the voice has to thin out.
Or, more correctly, the vocal cords have to be stretched longer for the high notes.
You cannot sing so thick and heavy for high notes.
Your voice needs to feel like a thin thread of strings connected to the thick low notes.
Think of singing low notes as driving on a 4-lane boulevard.
As you drive up to the high mountains, the road narrows into a one-lane path – that’s like singing high notes!
Aim for a small penetrating buzz when you’re singing high notes, and drop unnecessary vocal weight.
If all this sounds too complicated, just sing thinner for your high notes.
Technique #6 – Use Reinforced Falsetto for High Notes
In the beginning, the thinning out of the vocal cords might not be so smooth for the high notes.
It’s okay to transition into falsetto for the high notes you cannot sing in full voice when you’re practicing your songs.
You can sing those high notes in falsetto with a strong pingy buzz. Make sure the falsetto is not airy and weak, but strong and pingy.
It sounds something like this:
Sometimes when you lower the volume, it’s easier for the vocal cords to close tighter, so you get a focused tone.
When you get good at singing this reinforced falsetto, you slowly add more weight and thickness to it, until it turns into full voice.
Technique #7 – Legato Singing
Legato singing is singing in a connected phrasing for your songs.
Singers who don’t sing legato sound choppy and amateurish in their songs.
When the singing is legato, everything sounds smooth and elegant.
It is something you can do right away – start connecting every note and word in your songs.
Technique #8 – Vocal Coloring
This is something you can do even if you don’t have singing technique.
Try to use cry, breathy tones, vocal fry, different volumes, and other vocal coloring to express your songs.
You don’t have to have perfect technique to become an artist. You can be a vocal artist right now!
This is what makes your singing much more interesting to hear.
Technique #9 – Vowel Tuning
This is a secret technique that not a lot of singers know about.
By adjusting the shape of the vowels, you get to amplify your voice without extra effort.
The way you adjust the vowels is to modify any vowel into the shape of an “UH.”
UH optimizes the resonance space in the throat and mouth, making the final sound very resonant.
If that sounds too complex, just make the sound rounder in everything you sing.
You will notice a difference in the resulting sound. This important technique is from the Mixed Voice singing methodology.
If you want to master this technique, you should check out master teacher John Henny’s Vocal Science singing course in which this techique is taught extensively.
Technique #10 – Vocal Warm-up
Many singers overlook this, but warming up the voice makes a whole world of difference.
Warming up your voice gets the blood flowing to the vocal cords, so it works properly when you sing.
Singers are vocal athletes, and we should warm up to keep the voice healthy.
Every singer has their own special ways of warming up. Make sure you do a proper warmup before you sing.
Technique #11 – Connect Voice and Emotions
The most important thing in singing is emotions.
You can have the best techniques in the world, hitting the best high notes, if you fail to convey emotions, the singing will be rather empty.
If you can sing your emotions, you can win audiences even if your technique is not that good. So, make it a mental habit to sing with genuine emotions.
Even singers with the best vocal technique have to learn to express themselves emotionally.
Technique #12 – Microphone Usage
As a general note, the ideal distance between the microphone and your mouth is within the space of a fist.
You want to pull the microphone further away when you sing louder, or it can cause vocal distortion.
Also, you want to keep the microphone closer when you sing soft for clarity.
Treat the microphone as an extension, not an enhancer of your voice.
Technique #13 – “Fake Confidence”
No matter how scared or nervous you are, act confident when you sing.
If you can’t, fake it, because confidence will help you sing better – seriously.
Singing is an outwardly expressive artform, and people want to hear a singer acting all timid, because it affects the voice.
When you sing, pretend, act, or fake it, just look confident, and you will notice the difference in your singing.
Further reading: 100+ Vocal Training Tips: The Ultimate List
For the Long Run, You Need This…
The 13 best singing techniques are my gift to you to improve your singing fast.
If you are serious about your vocal development, you will need a complete vocal training system to guide you through your daily practices.
If you just want to have fun, or you don’t have the time to train seriously, just use these 13 best techniques from time to time.
I’m sure they will help you get really good results as well, because I have used them for many years.
Further reading: 105 Online Singing Courses: The Complete List
Has this Been Helpful? Let Me Know
How do you like the 13 singing techniques you learned about in this post?
Which ones are your favorite? Which ones do you not like or disagree with? Or, did I miss anything?
If you have any questions or comments, you’re welcome to leave a comment below.
I will be delighted to hear from you.
