Course 1

What & How To Practise in 5 Days -  5 Minutes A Day

You’ll often hear me say that the magic happens BETWEEN lessons but so many of my students tell me that they’re not sure HOW to practise – so this very short course will help you set up your absolute best home practise in 5 sessions of 5 minutes a day. Each day will add on from the first so you end up at the end of the course with a great 5 minute a day practise incorporating all the tools we will remind ourselves of this week. Let’s get started.

When to Practise:

5 minutes a day can make a huge difference at first. Practise when you are well. Little and often is always better than one huge practise session a week. 

When NOT to Practise:

If you are feeling unwell.

If you have a respiratory illness (cold/flu) or have a sore throat or loss of voice. 

Once you have completed this course you will be ready in your lesson to add your bespoke exercises - ask me for details. I'm going to add some exercises to the end of this course - but only use the ones you have been given. 

Day 1: 

From our work in lessons you know the importance of postural alignment, and the balance between air pressure and air flow. Today we revisit these core basics. To get our body functioning best for singing we need the best postural alignment – for singers this is feet hip width apart, loose knees, loose pelvis, lifted and opened out chest, long back of the neck, loose jaw.

Let’s take one of our singing tools, SOVT (more next lesson) and test air pressure and air flow. We know the ratio should be never more than 3/10 pressure. Could use kazoo, flowball, straw or other SOVT is rolled r, lip trill. We are going to siren and check the air pressure and flow whilst checking our postural alignment. Negative practise. Needs to be free and easy. Now we have our airflow/pressure sorted and are standing in the most efficient way to sing. Tomorrow we’ll look at SOVT exercises to warm up the voice.

Day 2 : 

More on SOVT – today we are going to look at SOVT exercises in more detail. First let’s stand in our good alignment – feet hip width apart, loose knees, loose pelvis, lifted and opened out ribcage, long back of the neck. SOVT stands for semi-occluded vocal tract exercises and those could be kazoo, flowball, straw, rolled r, lip trill or even humming. The reason for these is that they warm up the voice without tiring it out so you can go through your whole range without tiring your voice. Great for before a concert or just to wake the voice up and get it warmed up before singing your repertoire.

We are going to siren, and it doesn’t need to be the same pitches as me – it just needs to be going from the lowest note you are comfortable singing to the highest note you are comfortable singing. Kazoo first, then rolled r, then lip trill, then humming. Do this for about a minute. Tomorrow we are going to add this into your song.

Day 3 : 

Adding the SOVT to Repertoire. Today we start to look at a piece of repertoire. You should have some music – it doesn’t matter for now if you can read music just follow the words. Let’s stand in our alignment, use a kazoo, do a siren, check that everything feels free and easy – then let’s learn this chorus – Will ye go lassie go… But today we are going to use SOVT to understand how much breath we need.  Tomorrow we’ll look more at breathing.

Will ye go lassie go

And we'll all go together

To pull wild mountain thyme 

All around the blooming heather

Will Ye go lassie go?

Day 4 : 

The Splat Breath - so far, we have looked at the breath in terms of flow and pressure but not spoken about breathing for singers. This is different – breath is our fuel and we need to use an active outflow to sing well – the breath supports the sound. Blow out as long as you can, hold for a second and then allow air to flow in. The in breath is a non-event – we don’t want big gaspy breath because that creates tension, we don’t want to overfill because that creates tension – let’s do negative practice to show that. Where your tick marks are (in this at the end of each line), we’ll think about breathing. Will ye go lassie go – then think about breath stops – take your time here this bit is essential. 

Day 5 :

Bringing it all together. For a connected home practise there are a few elements we need. Firstly, postural alignment, then air flow and pressure, SOVT practice, SOVT in the first verse or so of your repertoire to give you an idea of where you need to fuel your breaths, ticks – splats and there you are warmed up and ready to sing your repertoire. This is of course the beginnings of a home practise – from here I add in my bespoke exercises which are dependent on which area of technique you are practising, for instance you may be working on jaw/tongue independence, or tongue root tension, or intention (primal sound), support with the body (on the ball), register work or any of the other technical areas – but this is the basis and is the same for everyone. Now carry on for a week and let me know what happens. 

Course 2

7 Days to Your Concert Preparation

Students often ask me what they should be doing in that week before the concert to get as prepared as possible both physically and mentally. I’m going to give you a 7-day countdown with exactly what I do to prepare – if you follow these instructions, it should lead you to feeling calm and fully focused as well as prepared as you can be for your performance.

 7 Days to Go

With your performance happening in a week’s time, it’s important to keep vocally fit. As with all practice a little and often is key – so I would aim to sing for around 10-15 minutes a day.

Use your individual warm up – the 5-minute warm up works great each day:

1. Postural alignment/primal sounds
2. Using SOVT to check air flow, splat breath and pressure and effort levels.
3. Add SOVT into your repertoire and do a hybrid one-line SOVT, one-line singing.
4. Sing through your piece with the music to remind you of any instructions you may have written on your music/ technical reminders.
5. Sing through your piece again from memory working on performance technique.

That’s the physical warm up. If you need some mindset preparation today would be the day to consider all the negative thoughts you have when you think about your upcoming performance. Write them down and then reframe them so they are empowering. You should all have covered this exercise in sessions with me before – if not and you need more help, let me know. I have an audio exercise that can help with this below. 

For the next week be very considerate of your voice. Talk as little as you can. Don’t go to loud, noisy environments and take care of your rest and hydration.

 6 Days to Go

Each day should involve a simple warm up routine – keep yourself in practise but don’t over sing.

Physical Warm Up –

1. Postural alignment/primal sounds
2. Using SOVT to check air flow, splat breath and pressure and effort levels.
3. Add SOVT into your repertoire and do a hybrid one-line SOVT, one-line singing.
4. Sing through your piece with the music to remind you of any instructions you may have written on your music/ technical reminders.
5. Sing through your piece again from memory working on performance technique.

Mindset warm up – Use this mental rehearsal exercise to start to train your mind to prepare for the best performance you have done of your piece. You can use the short audio here.

 5 Days to Go

Routine is great at this stage – give yourself 15 minutes or so each day to prepare yourself for your performance.

Physical warm up

1. Postural alignment/primal sounds
2. Using SOVT to check air flow, splat breath and pressure and effort levels.
3. Add SOVT into your repertoire and do a hybrid one-line SOVT, one-line singing.
4. Sing through your piece with the music to remind you of any instructions you may have written on your music/ technical reminders.
5. Sing through your piece again from memory working on performance technique.

Mindset warm up – remind yourself of all the reasons why you should be performing – revisit the list of empowering thoughts. If you’d like an audio today to get you into the singer’s spotlight try this:

 4 Days to Go

Keep up your routine – you’re doing so well.

1. Postural alignment/primal sounds
2. Using SOVT to check air flow, splat breath and pressure and effort levels.
3. Add SOVT into your repertoire and do a hybrid one-line SOVT, one-line singing.
4. Sing through your piece with the music to remind you of any instructions you may have written on your music/ technical reminders.
5. Sing through your piece again from memory working on performance technique.

Mindset warm up – start practising your getting calm routine for the two minutes before you perform. Here’s an audio to help:

 3 Days to Go

We are on the home strait now – you should be feeling more physically prepared and the mindset audios should be helping to get you to that happy place when you perform.

1. Postural alignment/primal sounds
2. Using SOVT to check air flow, splat breath and pressure and effort levels.
3. Add SOVT into your repertoire and do a hybrid one-line SOVT, one-line singing.
4. Sing through your piece with the music to remind you of any instructions you may have written on your music/ technical reminders.
5. Sing through your piece again from memory working on performance technique.

Your mindset warm up today is giving yourself a superpower suit

 2 Days to Go

Keep your voice rested as much as possible now. Eat well, hydrate really well. Try to be a bit of a hermit in these last few days.

1. Postural alignment/primal sounds
2. Using SOVT to check air flow, splat breath and pressure and effort levels.
3. Add SOVT into your repertoire and do a hybrid one-line SOVT, one-line singing.
4. Sing through your piece with the music to remind you of any instructions you may have written on your music/ technical reminders.
5. Sing through your piece again from memory working on performance technique.

Your mindset warm up today is to repeat the mental rehearsal exercise from Day 6. (See above). 

 1 Day to Go

Today could be a day of nerves so I’m giving you a breathing exercise that I love today. Don’t go out tonight. Drink lots of water and get an early night. You are ready – you are prepared. Tomorrow you are going to have fun.

Physical warm up

1. Postural alignment/primal sounds
2. Using SOVT to check air flow, splat breath and pressure and effort levels.
3. Add SOVT into your repertoire and do a hybrid one-line SOVT, one-line singing.
4. Sing through your piece with the music to remind you of any instructions you may have written on your music/ technical reminders.
5. Sing through your piece again from memory working on performance technique.

Your mindset warm up today is a breathing exercise :

 Performance Day 

Today you’ll probably awake with some nerves and tension – today is a great day to do one of the mindset audios (whichever is your favourite) before getting out of bed.

With your physical warm up – don’t do too much, focus on lots of SOVT exercises. Make sure your voice is warmed up – but not tired out.   

1. Postural alignment/primal sounds
2. Using SOVT to check air flow, splat breath and pressure and effort levels.
3. Add SOVT into your repertoire and do a hybrid one-line SOVT, one-line singing.
4. Sing through your piece with the music to remind you of any instructions you may have written on your music/ technical reminders.
5. Sing through your piece again from memory working on performance technique.

You’re ready to have fun, enter your performance in a state of joyful curiosity where you are not invested in the outcome – just there to celebrate singing, your own and others. You’ve done it! You’re at performance day. Well done.