Practice Makes Progress | Practice Makes Permanent

Creating Habits Through Practice

Hello Singers! Every musician knows the routine. Practice, practice, practice. The old saying is that practice makes perfect. WRONG. There is no perfect there is only excellence in singing. Practice = Progress. Practice = Permanent.

Practice is the process of becoming aware of habits that do not support your voice, then replacing the bad habits with new healthy habits.

Practicing creates habits of thought as well as physical/muscular habits. All action begins with a thought – conscious or subconscious. So when you practice, be aware of your thoughts.

My previous 2 blogs speak to the thought process involved in singing. What Were You Thinking and Change Your Mind About Singing.

Singing is mastered inside the body and that’s where you rest your awareness when practicing. When you don’t quite like the sound you hear, check in with your instrument, you body, and ask what interfered with the natural flow of the sound.

Unfortunately, the way most singers ‘check in’ is by getting discouraged or frustrated and actually mentally beating up on yourself. Then you begin to push and shove the sound around to try to make it different. The thoughts behind the effortful singing are ones of ‘it’s not good enough’. This process NEVER works. You are in fact, strangling your voice!

Why? Because when you push and shove the sound you are using muscle that actually constricts the airways and reduces the space, in the throat, where the vocal chords need room to vibrate in order to produce sound. Pushing only makes that space smaller with no room to vibrate. You are stopping your voice from being amazing!

Also when you are critical of yourself for not singing the way you’d like to, guess what your brain is busy doing? Being critical. You can’t possibly figure out what isn’t right about how you are singing so you can’t possibly figure out how to improve.

Observe. Notice. Watch how your body is producing sound. Does it feel tight? Where? On your next inhale, breathe to open the tightness. In this way of practicing your thoughts are on the process of singing – no judgment involved.

Do you feel yourself pushing and struggling to get the singing out? Open the instrument with your inhale then release the sound. Actually tell yourself to “release”. Throw your arms out to the side as you release the sound to add another layer of freedom.

Keep your left, critical brain busy with tasks that help you open your instrument and then release the sound.

Singing, producing sound with the human instrument, is a natural process – if we allow it to be. The more knowledge you have about the natural process, the better.

Observe. Notice. Watch. Then make adjustments to undo the unnatural thoughts and use of your singing voice.

It’s all possible! Send me an email and let me know your ‘thoughts’.

#singlikeyouspeak

ABOUT SALLY MORGAN
Sally Morgan wrote the book on contemporary vocal technique — literally. Sing Like You Speak® is specifically designed to restore the effortless vocal production that is natural to the human instrument making your singing powerful, joyful and free. Singing so simple it feels like talking to your best friend without sounding trained. Sally has been successfully teaching people how to sing for more than 40 years. That is how she turns decades of learning into days.

Every master begins as a disaster – including Sally Morgan. She gets it that you need to sing for the same reason you need to breathe. She’s felt the pain of not knowing how to release the amazing voice trapped inside. She’s felt the longing to be accepted as a great singer.

That longing became an obsession with finding solutions to vocal challenges. Sally spent many years developing those solutions into what became the Sing Like You Speak® vocal technique that is now empowering singers worldwide.

In both 2018 and 2019, Sally was a featured workshop presenter at SXSW® where she introduced an enthusiastic audience to the power of Sing Like You Speak®.

Sally has helped her clients heal vocal damage, expand vocal range, land a Broadway show, record their original music and tour internationally without vocal fatigue or strain. Besides teaching workshops Sally teaches private voice lessons and has developed online singing lessons – Sing Like You Speak® Academy.

You can see and hear some of Sally’s clients on Broadway stages, Off-Broadway, in Musical Theater – Regional, on Major Label Recordings, the Conan O’Brian show, A Prairie Home Companion and in Federal Courts, the PA House of Representatives, and the U.S. Senate. Sally teaches singing voice lessons in NYC and worldwide on ZOOM as well as online voice lessons on the Sing Like You Speak® Academy http://SingLikeYouSpeak.com/onlinelessons