Learn to Sing Article 01: Singing with Correct Posture

One of the most overlooked aspecs of singing correctly is whether or not you as the singer is using correct posture when singing. Many people who want to learn to sing cannot understand why correct posture is stressed so much. They think that singing is all about just letting go a few notes in tune from your vocal chords and keeping good timing. Then they don't realize why they cannot hit certain high notes, or why their vocal chords get sore and why they just cannot be taken seriously as good singers. For these reasons alone I have decided to write this learn to sing article and cover the aspects of correct posture for singing.

Correct Posture in singing has a major role in developing proper breathing and the amount of airflow that is generated by your lungs and into your vocal chords. It is unfortunate how many lazy beginning singers we have that are lazy and do not realize the unnatural bad habits that they have developed. Most amateur singers with incorrect singing posture will tend to slouch, sing with their heads down as if their chin weighs 200lbs and sometimes even tilt from side to side like if their bladder is about to explode. All these are traits of bad singing posture and is important that you take action immediately to correct them if you want to learn to sing good.

The first step to learning to sing with correct posture is to focus on keeping your back straight at all times. You will soon notice that focusing on keeping your back straight throughout the day is not such an easy task as you may have thought. The reason for this is because your body has probably developed a weak core and your lower back and abdominals aren't as strong in keeping your upper body lined up straight for such long periods of time. This has happed from all the years of bad posture habits such as leaning and slouching all the time.

How do we correct these bad habits. Well the first thing to fixing singing posture is to make you keep your head and neck straight whenever you are standing up or working infront of a computer. This also goes for your chin. Make sure your chin is parallel to the floor and not trying to meet the floor. Next you want to relax your shoulders, back and stomach but not to a point where you will slouch. On the contrary, keep your back straight but do not scrunge your muscles or tense up. Keeping good posture should not be streneous to your health, instead it should be the complete opposite. Finally, when standing up to sing ( I will assume that you already know that you should not sing while sitting down ) try to focus all your weight on the back of your heels and balls of your feet. Do not scrunge your toes or stand on the sides of your feet, this will cause you to tild from side to side.

If you practice these correct singing posture guidelines you will be well on your way to developing good correct posture for singing. Always remember that a great singer and performer does not look stiff or unconfident on stage. A great singer stands up straight, head and chin held high with loosened shoulders and relaxed body.

One final note, always keep in mind that good singing comes with great breathing techniques and correct posture. However you cannot achieve good singing breathing techniques without good posture. They work hand in hand. Correct posture for singing will help develop your proper singing breath. So before you decide to focusing your singing training on vocal chords, larynx and other singing drills and applications, make sure you have first developed proper breathing and correct posture. It would be useless to move on to more advanced singing techniques without first having developed the basic fundamentals of singing with good posture. Good luck.