Make sure to not drink any milk before you sing. Also make sure to warm up before you go on to ensure everything is ready. If you're nervous, try picking a spot on the wall behind the people and stare at it while you sing, or have someone who makes you feel comfortable stand where you can see and watch them. It helps me out a lot! Good luck!

Haha so yeah singing is basically my life; I love singing. Here are some tips that might help you:

My favorite director always used to say, "Singing is the art of breathing". This is definitely true. Your tone, pitch, and strength of your voice all depends on how you breathe. Whenever you can, take a deep breath that originates from your lower abdominals and expands your rib cage. Your stomach should expand, and your shoulders shouldn't rise. Think of the air as falling into your body, all the way down to your toes. If you breathe like this every time, your tone will be deep and mature, and gorgeous as well.

SUPPORT!! Besides breathing, this is the other most important thing to remember when singing. Support means applying a certain amount of pressure to your stomach and lower abs. This will give your tone a much deeper sound and allow you to energize the ends of phrases, while rationing air. Breathe deep and support each and every time you sing.

For staying on pitch throughout your song, you have to care about it and make sure that you're staying with the other parts (or, in the case of a solo, with the accompanyment). Make sure to listen for the right pitch, and think the correct sound right before you open your mouth. This works every time.

Pronunciation is important too! You can have the most beautiful voice in the world, but the audience isn't going to be able to understand a word you're saying if you don't use diction and enunciate. Supporting will give you enough energy to use crisp consanants, and remember that vowels are not the only part of the word! Be sure to pronounce every part of the word, not just the "ee" "a" "ah" "oh" and "oo"s. Consanants matter! Remember, if it's enough for you, it's not enough for the audience. If it's more than enough for you, it's just right for the audience. I know you might sound stupid to yourself if you use really strong consanants while you sing, but it'll sound perfect for your audience.

Posture: The way you stand is also crucial to how you sound. Try singing with your back hunched over and your stance relaxed, and then slowly straighten up and stand tall. You'll notice a significant difference in tone. When you sing, have your feet shoulder-width apart with your shoulders back. Everything should be relaxed, hands should lay at your side. Keep your head in line with the rest of your body (be sure not to stick it out; you'll look like a monkey and sound like one) and imagine that a string is atttached from the ceiling to your sternum.

Practice makes permanent, not perfect. You'll perform based on how your rehearse. Rehearse off-key and with awful tone? You'll perform off-key and with awful tone. The more you practice your pieces and work on small things, the better you'll sound when you perform.

Facial expression: You may not realize this, but this is HUGE. I've seen so many choirs and soloists with gorgeous tone, but absolutely no facial expression, and it put me right to sleep. Remember that when you sing, you perform. The lyrics should dictate how your face looks to the audience. You're not going to want to smile brightly when singing a meloncholy tune, and you're not going to want to frown while singing a more uplifting piece. The expression on your face should reflect the words in the song, and don't be afraid to move your head a little while singing. I know it's hard to buy at first, but try this:

Have someone you know listen to you sing, but make sure that they can't sing you. Sing the first measure or two without any face expression at all; a totally blank face. Then, sing the same measures with a very expressive, communicative face. Your audience member will easily be able to tell which is which.

Dynamics: No one wants to hear a song sung in complete monotone; forte all the way through. Yuck. How dull! Make sure you vary the dynamics, from p to mf to f and pay attention to the creshendos and decreshendos that the compser has included, as well as breath marks, stress marks, and accents. They are there for a reason, don't ignore them.

What you eat: Never, ever, ever, ever, EVER eat dairy products (ie: milk, yogurt, cheese, etc.) less than two hours before a performance. These will coat your throat and your voice will sound muffled and clogged. Eat something healthy and definitely non-dairy before you perform, and drink plenty of water. I'm not kidding, water helps you tons. Just make sure that you uhh…well you don't want to drink so much water that you're uncomfortable right before a performance.

Whispering and shouting strain your vocal cords and kill your voice. Try to avoid these at all costs.

For relaxing: I freak out right before a performance, and there's nothing you can really do about this except for wringing your hands and trying to calm down. What I do when things get really bad is think about how glad I'll be when things are all over, and how amazing of a job I'm going to do. (Whether this is true or not doesn't matter; it still makes me feel better!)

Avoiding stage fright: If it helps, focus on one point in the room, and try not to look at the audience if it gets you nervous. If you're singing in a choir, your focus should be on the director at all times, anyway, but if you're singing a solo, look at one part of the room and pretend you're the only one there. Either that, or imagine everyone in their underwear if it helps, but this hasn't ever worked for me. (You could try it, though.)

Have fun! Hope this helps.

I would start with tips from voice videos like this one:

Http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbaj4tIX1…

Okay. Now all those things stress the MECHANICS of voice and PHYSICAL training, but they do not help much with the PSYCHOLOGY of voice. IMO it's is the psychological part of the equation most people have the most trouble with. I wrote this a few years ago:

Hi all,

I thought it was about time that someone brought up the subject of psychological barriers to obtaining a female voice. People have already beat to death the mechanics of voice, but rarely discuss the mental aspects. I think these mental barriers are mainly responsible for people giving up on their voice. Some may be asking why I placed this thread here and not on the open board. Because I didn't want some anonymous posters derailing the thread and besides anyone who's serious about developing a female voice will have joined the forum already.

The first barrier occurs at the beginning: To try or not to try. Due to fear, pride or other reason some people never even make an effort at all.

Next up is "What if someone hears me?". Everyone has time alone to work on voice. Talk to yourself in the shower or in the car coming to and from work.

Next hurdle is testing your voice on someone else. You can submit voice sample to sites on the internet. Not being a techie I just started testing my voice on unsuspecting family members. I'll never forget calling my sister early on and fooling her with my new voice. She said "You little Sh*t!" after I told her it was me. This told me I was on the right track. Voice is about taking chances. You have to take chances if you're going to get anywhere.

The next BIG hurdle is your public debut. This is when you go out and about as yourself and use your voice for the first time. Stage fright threw me for a loop at first. My throat would close up and I could only manage a whisper. I just kept at it and eventually got past this. I knew my voice in private was okay, I just had to get over my shyness. This was not easy and took months.

WTF? This hurdle came out of nowhere twice. First, early on I was completely caught off guard how my personality seem to change when I used my new voice. Of course that didn't happen, but my new voice was definitely more expressive and this led me to be even more open with people. Don't be afraid of how you sound! This is the real you finally being expressed, go with it!

WTF?-part 2 After having done lots of private practice and after I was starting to get over my stage fright I had another WTF moment. At first it stopped me in my tracks. This time my voice seemed to sound different than it did in private practice. Once again the answer was to persist and overcome. The term I use for this is to take "ownership" of your new voice. Your new voice is YOU. Your voice is a conduit for not only your thoughts, but emotions and your state of mind. Let yourself go, stop monitoring yourself! Your old voice is the enemy. Again it took me a period of months to fully integrate this lesson.

Don't give up! I told myself at the beginning that failure was not an option. Sometimes I took a break, but I never gave up.

Tape Recorder Fiasco-A tape recorder may work for a lot of people but it almost halted my journey. I was devastated how bad I sounded when I played the tape back. I took a break and went out to a movie. After thinking about it for a bit I never used the tape player again (It eventually got sent to another forum member). After that I went strictly by ear (80%) and feedback from others (20%). If the tape player doesn't work for you, don't be afraid to try something else. There's more than one way to skin a cat.

1. Be patient

2. Be persistent

3. Appreciate how much work voice is psychologically. Mechanics is only a small part of the total project.

4. Practice, practice, practice and then practice some more.

5. Take ownership of your new voice.

6. Never give up.

I hope this helps somebody out there dealing with their own hurdles.
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