Four Bad Singing Habits You Want to Break

Because we can sing almost from the time we can talk, many people think it is easy to be a good singer. Wrong! People often sing incorrectly precisely because singing comes easily. Proficient singers, however, work long and hard at becoming the best they can be. They strive to develop habits that will help them to deliver their best performance each and every time they stand before an audience. But, since most people do not receive formal vocal instruction as youngsters, singers often have bad habits they have formed as children that make it difficult for them to reach their full potential. Sometimes it takes a professional instructor to help break those habits, and sometimes people can do it on their own with a lot of persistence. But the first step in correcting a bad habit is to identify it.

1) Improper Breathing Breathing for the act of singing is not very much like the everyday breathing we all do. Voice teachers will tell you that many of their students have a habit of breathing incorrectly. This is probably one of the more difficult problems to correct, but it is crucial if you want to become a good singer. You need to learn to fill your lungs completely and control the amount of air you exhale while singing. You also need to learn to inhale quickly, but quietly and exhale slowly while producing a musical tone. None of these things come to people naturally, but they must be learned.

2) Poor Posture Posture is nearly as important as proper breathing when it comes to producing a good clear sound. Folks who sing just for fun are sometimes used to doing it while slumped over a guitar or lounging around a campfire. You need to concentrate on proper posture to improve your vocal production. The best position for singing is to stand with feet spread apart at about shoulder width. Your back should be straight, knees slightly bent, head erect, and chin level. This will give you the support you need to breathe properly and sing well. If you are going to sing while seated, be sure your spine stays straight. You may even want to use a stool without a back so that you are not tempted to slump against it.

3) Lack of Practice People who love to sing have usually been singing throughout their lives. They may have the habit of getting up to sing at church or for friends and family without taking much time at all to practice the songs they plan to sing. They seem to feel that because they sing while they are driving or in the shower, that is all the practice they need. This is a bad habit that must be broken. If you intend to become good at singing you need regular, systematic practice times. These sessions should include vocal warm-ups, pitch and diction exercises, rhythm development, and tonal fine-tuning. Get a good book or video series on singing and become disciplined at practicing.

Improper Diction Singing is very different from speaking when it comes to the pronunciation of words. An untrained singer often tries to pronounce words while singing the same way he or she would while talking. This just doesn’t work because of the way a singer must hold certain syllables in a song longer than others to make the lyrics fit the melody. There is nothing worse than hearing a vocalist hold out the word “car,” for example while using a nasal-sounding ‘R’ sound to sustain the note. Vocalists must learn to concentrate on the vowel sounds in the words they hold, and add final consonants only at the very end of the note.