Kia Leong - Director at Forte Wantirna, Melbourne with an example of a first singing lesson at Forte School of Music...and breathe in....... 

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Video Transcript:
"Welcome to your first singing lesson.

The first thing I look at is posture. So in singing the way that we stand is absolutely fundamental to the sound you're going to produce. The best posture we want is, sit up nice and straight your feet around about hip width apart, so not too close together. You need to balance. Good, and I like to imagine that there's one hair pulling up nice and straight. This way our shoulders are relaxed. Hands just by your sides is fine to begin with because we want to make sure that the shoulders are in a really nice open position. If your hands are clasped in front it tends to close us off, this way. So now we've got really good posture the breathing is the first thing that we're going to have a look at.

With singing, it's really important to remember that when you breathe every day you breathe in quickly, you breathe back out again. In singing we breathe in quickly we hold it and we metre that air out really, really finely and our notes, climb, are going to sail on that. So how that air comes back out again is going to determine how strong our voice is or how fantastic the sound is going to be. So for singing, I'll get you to stand so you're nice and straight, you'll put your thumbs where you belly button is. I need you to blow all your air out first… [Exhales] …and when you breathe, imagine there’s a balloon here. You’re going to blow the air out again… [Exhales] …and really release here.

Because the breathing muscle, which is the diaphragm kind of sits underneath the ribs. So this is your ribcage, it's like the one with the box. It works automatically and the muscles that help to control how the diaphragm, go back to its normal resting state, are all around here. So even though when we're breathing, we're actually releasing your lower abs or your lower abdominals. The airs not going all the way down there but these are the muscles that control how fine the air comes back out again. So let's just try that breathing exercise one more time. We blow it out. [Exhales] We breathe releasing our lower abs. Good job! That’s kind of that ‘Homer Simpson’ feel down the bottom there.

So now we're going to work with the air as it comes back out again. So when we take our breath, we are going to do a hiss. [Hissing] That way there. You'll notice when you start the hiss, that the lower abs will automatically pull back in again and they are working without you even thinking about them. Let’s blow the air out. [Exhales] You need to release the abs, and let’s hiss. [Hissing] Can you hear that hiss going? Good. You’ll notice the abs are pulling in more and more and more, as the air is finely coming back again. Then we breathe in again, release those lower abs.

Now we take that kind of breathing, and we're going to put it into a scale. When we sing, of course, it's really important how your mouth is. We want to make sure that the mouth is open but not in a forced way. So I like to say the perfect ‘Ah’ shape is like you’re going to bite an apple. Just this way, the tip of the tongue going to be right behind your bottom teeth, because your tongue is the biggest thing inside your mouth. So I'm going to make sure it's nice and flat, right behind your bottom teeth.

So we’re just going to do… [Sings] …and this one… [Sings]  …and keep going up. [Music] As you go up we would stretch your range. That’s an example of the first kind of thing you would do in a singing lesson." : Kia Leong - Director at Forte Wantirna, Melbourne

How do I book a free trial singing lesson?

Either fill out the form on this page or visit our locations page to find a school near you!

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