Frequently Asked Questions

For pop singers, it would be best to breathe with our mouths depending on if you are recording or singing live. This is because we sometimes need to create some breathing effects in a song, and also because it is much easier to breathe with our mouths when we are singing.

However, for classical singers, it varies, and you can even argue that breathing with the nose is better because it warms up the air that you take in, before it passes over your vocal cords, so that your voice and your throat are not dried whenever you breathe in.

For amateur singers, breathing through the mouth should suffice, but here is a vital singing tip on voice care: do remember to take more water and keep your voice and throat moist if you are singing in an air-conditioned environment!

1. Drink room temperature water while you are practicing with your voice. No Ice

2. Get Throat Coat Tea when you are feeling scratchy - Recommendation from Mariah Carey

3. Yellow Ricola Cough Drops always while recording - Another Mariah favorite

4. Sleep at least 8 hours.

5. Try to get 10 hour sleep before you record or perform.

6. Turn off the AC (I saw Aretha Franklin walk out of a show because the air was on. It's terrible for your vocal chords.) 

7. Try not to have milk or dairy a couple days before your show. Definitely avoid chocolate on the day of.

8. Get Singer's Throat Spray

9. If your throat hurts, stop talking. Celine Dion will only write to everyone on her performance days.

10. Never, ever yell…you'll lose that gorgeous voice of yours!

There are various reasons why a singer runs out of breath during singing. Firstly, are you breathing enough? Are you taking in sufficient breath for you to control and support your voice? I will educate you on the specialized breathing techniques that will teach you how to breathe for singing.

Secondly, are you using too much air when you sing? Check that your voice is not too airy, because this would mean that you are letting out too much air when you sing. Try to aim for a balanced sound.

I will teach you how to do this with warm-up exercises that will help you build a strong, balanced voice. I will also work on your head voice, coordinated head-chest voice, and your chest voice. All three of these sound placements serve a different purpose.

Singing in tune takes a combination of skills, and also requires you to be focused when you sing. Let me give you some singing tips here!

You will firstly need to know what pitch or key you are singing in, and what notes you need to hit. I would teach you some pitching exercises that would be specific for your case, because they would strengthen your pitch sense, and also improve your overall ability to sing in tune.

You will also need to be able to hear when you go off-key. This means that you will need to develop a good sense of hearing, and be able to pick out pitches as you sing them, or at least, to be able to know when you are singing the wrong notes!

Lastly, you would need to know what to do when you sing off-key. Are you too high or too low for the pitch that you are supposed to sing? Knowing this will allow you to adjust your pitch accordingly and to correct your notes before your audience is able to detect that anything is out of the ordinary.

This is a difficult question to answer, because it really depends on what is preventing you from hitting the notes that you want to hit. Here are some singing tips for those who wish to find out how to extend your vocal range.

One reason why you may not be able to hit certain notes is because of the vowel of the words that you have to sing at that note. Certain vowels make it easier for us to sing high, and other vowels tend to be slightly more difficult. Learning how to adjust our diction slightly when we sing so that we can hit those notes better is certainly part of good singing training. This is a majorly important part of pop music that I will teach you in vocal lessons.

Another reason why you may find your vocal range limited is because you do not know how to place your voice properly. Placing your notes too low or too high results in a variety of problems when singing. This can be corrected by proper vocal placement which I will teach you as your vocal coach.

One more reason is perhaps because your vocal range is just not as wide as you would wish it to be. We are all born with a certain voice, and some of us have higher voices, whereas others have lower voices. There is certainly only so much we can do to extend our vocal range, but it definitely CAN be done.

I will teach you to maximize your range through specific exercises.

Yes, Rhythm is certainly extremely important when we sing. In fact, it is one of the basic elements of singing other than our Pitching, Breathing, Voice and Diction.

Having a good sense of rhythm gives our voice more punch, more attack and groove, and also allows us to be able to know when to start and stop singing, and how to be in sync with the music that we are singing to.

Let me give you a singing tip here. If you pay attention to your sense of rhythm it will help you nail your song.