Frequently Asked Questions "How much should I practice?" First and foremost the most important part of your practice is your warm-up. You should be singing warm-up vocal exercises that include chords and scales and utilizing all the vowels a,e,i,o,u throughout two and one half octaves of your range and another octave for your falsetto if you are a man. It should be thirty minutes a day. "Can I just warm up with my songs or cover tunes?" Singing just your songs or other cover tunes will never improve your voice. The singing exercises that a teacher gives you will improve your voice in strength, flexibility, endurance, range and quality. "I sing my set and I am hoarse after it. What is wrong?" When you are hoarse after you sing, you need to seek help from a professional teacher of singing. Hoarseness is a sign that you are singing technically incorrect. In most cases, vocalists who are "hoarse" are singing and using the muscles of their throat. "What should I do if my voice is strained on tour?" Some natural remedies to help your voice should include gargling. Put ¼ tsp. of salt in 1 cup of hot water, but not so hot that it burns your throat, and gargle every hour on the hour. Also buy a Neti Pot to irrigate your sinuses as well. Stop talking, do not whisper, get plenty of rest, and drink Throat Coat or Breathe Easy teas. "I just feel like I can’t sing very long." Stamina is incredibly important as a singer. Your body needs to be like an athlete’s. Core Pilates exercises are great for increasing strength in the abs. Swimming is excellent for upper body strength. If you do weights, you don’t need to go for heavy weights, just do more reps with smaller weights. Or just start walking every day, start doing sit-ups and eat in a more healthy fashion. "I take lessons once in awhile. Is that a bad idea?" First of all, your singing instrument is a "wind" instrument. If I gave you a saxophone and you tried to play a note, you probably couldn’t. The singing instrument must be able to support the tone using the abdominals and diaphragm muscles, place the tone so it is not in your throat, and blow air using all five vowels throughout your two and a half octave range. It is like spinning a plate on a stick. It takes coordination and if a singer wants to be good at their craft, then they need to work on it for at least one year. "Where do I find a teacher?" I belong to the National Association of Teachers of Singing. On their website (www.nats.org) you can find a teacher in your area. "I work all day at a job where my speaking voice gets tired. What should I do?" Your speaking and singing voice are one. If you spend 95% of your day speaking and your voice is tired or hoarse, chances are your singing voice will suffer. I recommend going to a speech therapist or simply begin to make the sound, "Hum-Hum", like you are agreeing with someone. Feel the placement in your check bones and upper lip. Then say: "Hum-hum 1, hum-hum 2", and continue on matching the hum-hum placement with the number. Try it with "thank you", "goodbye", "my name is...", "hello", and try reading your lyrics with the hum-hum placement. "What was it like working with famous musicians?" What I really appreciate about singers who are professional is that they want to become better at their "craft." They want to be the best at what they do. They know that their voices are their commodity and in order to make it through a tour they need to know how to keep it strong. That is the mindset of a professional.