Why is vocal technique important?

Vocal health | Sustainability

The reasons behind the assumption that vocal health is essential for your career is undeniable. You can’t expect to grow and train your instrument if it has fundamental faults. 

Yes, there are a lot of examples out there of incredible singers that don’t need to bother about vocal technique and maintaining their voices healthy.  In these fortunate cases, mother nature was very generous. Their instincts, the way they produce and support their sound without even warming up their instrument are simply on the right spot. Since it doesn’t strain or hurt their voice, they phonate and sing in a balanced and healthy way without the constant need to interfere with what comes naturally to them. This struggle is the case for the rest of us because magic doesn’t happen automatically when we open our mouths as well. We need time to get to know the healthy sensations, the optimal sound of our voice and above all, we need time to practice making this new mode of singing the default one. 

With perseverance and lots of practice sessions, everyone should be able to shape new habits for singing: healthier and more efficient ones. When this happens, your voice will have no other way to go further, but to a road of growth and improvement. Without having a fear of losing your voice or damaging its potential, the future is brighter and sustainable.

Vocal stamina | Consistency

We all have our bad days, and that is true for singing as well. The human body gets influenced by tons of factors that affect our mood, health, energy level, patience, you name it. With this in mind, it is our job to work in diminishing the frequency of those bad singing days. Apart from a few uncontrollable factors (like a health issue), our lifestyle, habits and practice agenda have a lot to say about our overall voice state. 

If your voice is healthy, then mastering your technique will guide it to the wanted path. With every singing practice and song rehearsal, you build up muscle memory, and you improve your coordination and body-mind-voice balance. In time, your voice will get stronger and more comfortable even when performing high-intensity vocal tasks. 

With constant training, your body and voice will improve stamina, and you’ll have to sweat less for the same output. It is imperative to strive for obtaining vocal consistency if you want to handle well seven concerts a week, tours, TV shows, and so on.

Vocal flexibility | Style diversity

The fun part of vocal technique is yet to come. After you have learned the fundamental techniques, and your voice is responding well to your vocal tasks, you can explore other genres. 

Think of a genre as being similar to a cooking recipe. You need certain ingredients and quantities for obtaining a specific vocal sound. You can mix a certain vocal quality or vocal mode (smooth, twangy, classical), with some vocal effects (like vibrato, breathiness, riffs and runs, distortions) and sound colour (lighter or darker sounds). This way, you can sing many songs from different styles or come up with different approaches to singing the same tunes. 

Vocal technique gives you reliable tools to play with your voice and makes room for the artist within to come up with ideas of using them. This will come in handy for young singers who participate at popular TV shows like The Voice or X factor and are required to sing so many styles. Maintaining your authenticity while singing a particular style is not that easy to accomplish.  So, be yourself, work on your technique and continue exploring your voice and its potential.

Confidence| Joy | Comfort

For a singer, confidence plays a vital part in shaping the stage character and establishing a connection with the audience. It plays a key role in credibility and the ability to amplify the desired artistic expression.

Improving your vocal technique may boost your confidence. With every successful and consistent vocal delivery, you will get the validation you so much need for improving your self-confidence. Experiencing this over and over again, you will have no choice but to start believing. Also, if your technique is well grounded, you will be prepared and know what to do for overcoming unexpected vocal dilemmas and stage fright. 

Your voice will be tension free and capable of sustaining your vocal needs, leaving you with nothing but comfort, joy and liberty to perform. We all enjoy listening to excellent singers that manage to manifest spontaneously and seem to have so much fun while doing it. 

So, practice daily, don’t let frustration stick with you and have faith and patience. Don’t forget to enjoy your singing journey while doing all the above!