Summer Series Recap - 6 Steps For Healthy Song Learning

Over the past month and a half, I have been making a series of posts going through the steps I teach for learning new music and repertoire. Taking the time to make sure we are going about our song learning in a very methodical way. Taking things step by step may seem tedious at first. However, this process helps make sure we are learning the song with healthy singing habits from the start. It will also help us avoid bad habits. So, to recap here are my 6 Steps For Healthy Song Learning:

1. Listen to the piece. - YouTube is a great resource for us singers. We can usually find all types of recordings. I recommend that you listen to the instrumental version of the song first to just hear the melody and then listen to singers' recordings. However, switch it up! Don't just listen to the same singer. This will help make sure you decide your own way of performing the song.

2. Tap or clap the rhythm of the melody. - We want to know our rhythms before we bother with learning the notes. 

3. Hum, buzz, or tongue trill the melody - we don't want to jump into singing just yet. We want to take our time learning the correct notes and do that with a lot of extra breath support first. 

4. Sing the melody on a single vowel like ah [a] or oh [o]

5. Sing the melody on the vowels of the text. - This is my favorite step (and all of my students' least favorite, haha). Singing the melody with the vowels of the text means singing the words but with only the vowels and not any of the consonants. This helps us focus on keeping a legato line and smoothly connecting each vowel and note together without allowing the consonants to mess with our mouth or tongue shape.

(Sometimes we will also add a step of speaking the text in rhythm of the piece but it depends on the level of difficulty of the rhythm and piece.)

6. Sing on the text. Take note of how the consonants impact the shape of the vowels. Try to maintain consistent open singer space even while singing the text.