If you haven’t ever taken anything like voice lessons and love to sing, I cannot recommend taking them enough.
I have sung in choirs throughout all of my years, and always had a certain style of singing. I tended to be a very *chesty* singer. That is when I sing, I sing more from my chest area and less from my diaphragm resulting in my taking note breathes. However, it should be more of the other way around; one should sing more from the diaphragm and less from the chest. This type of singing results in being able to hit higher notes with less effort, resulting in a much cleaner and richer tone. One also has more breath to manipulate when singing from the diaphragm.
Now I know that many are thinking, while reading this: 1) this has nothing to do with photography, and 2) “what are you talking about? I sing from the diaphragm”.
1) You are right, this has nothing to do with photography but I am very much a music junky. I should have grown up a choral geek but it was never really offered to me and it wasn’t the cool thing to do. Music however, especially vocal music has a very strong effect on an individual.
2) Most people do NOT sing from their diaphragms. Or rather they sing less from their diaphragms. They sing from their chest, or more commonly their neck and chest, and through their nose. Listen to popular singers on the radio sometime and you will hear what I am talking about. Your singing voice is also very different from your speaking voice. Singers need to use a different part of their voice and their diaphragm in order to hit notes like high C or D or even E. It’s difficult due in part to not being able to sing a word that is coherent at that height.
My vocal coach has been my choir director for the last couple of years and I just now have come to him for these voice lessons. I have been taking them for the last 6 weeks and already after 2 weeks I’ve seen major improvements in the way I sing in a solo capacity. It is totally different from how I’ve been taught and sung in choir. I can take liberties in how fast or slow I go and still give a powerful feeling from the words I sing.
So if you sing, want to start, or want to improve, I highly, highly recommend taking lessons from a vocal coach.
Take care and keep up the art.
Guy Perkins Photography 