Training

I had my first singing lesson last night in Wanstead. The last time I had one was about 4 years ago. The lesson was amazing! The guy is amazing!!! First we did quite a lot of warm up exercises, lots of shaking about and talking really loudly and making lots of weird noises. Then we did some singing warm ups going through my entire vocal range!

I then sang all the way through the song that I have chosen for my audition on the 22nd April. If I win this competition I will be able to go to a recording studio and work with a producer who has worked with the Sugababes. The prize also includes the production of a full music video! Amazing. Even if I don't win I think it will be great practise for my big audition on the 5th May. Anyways...after going through the song which I am finding quite difficult to sing he noticed that I was having problems with breathing. He explained to me that without the support that I will get from a breath it will really hard to sing the note I want. Also my vocals were coming across very breathy. He explained that to achieve tone, I need to concentrate on where the breath is coming from.
When you breath in to sing a note you need to think of your ribs moving out from the back. Your ribs can expand very easily from the back and that's where your breath should come from!

He then explained everything about how your vocals work, where they come from, how they get to your mouth where they go in your mouth. He said to think about the space that I have in my mouth and to concentrate on filling it all up. Don't waste it!
After that we worked on some of the vowels and broke down the song bit by bit.
The results were amazing and I felt like it was so much easier to sing it just all seemed to be flowing out my mouth and I felt much more in control of my voice. Which is the main thing I was worried about. The trouble with this was that it really effected my confidence but already, after just one hour I feel more in control and more confident.
I wonder how it will sound after the next lesson! And I wish I had started doing this like a month ago!
Next time we will be going through the song with the backing track and I hope I will remember everything from last night!
I can always read through this post before to remind myself!
He gave me a lot of confidence and he said that he doesn't see why I wouldn't do well in the competition but there are lots of things we can work on to increase my confidence and to make the sound clearer and more toned.

The song I am singing is Apologize by One Republic.

D