The main point of a learning the piano as a vocalist is to be able to use it to help learn the melodic lines that you are required to sing. As such it is important to be able to comfortably play melodies as soon as possible. While the five finger scales are being used to instill technique and familiarity with the keyboard…

Once all of the primary major scales are comfortable I begin teaching the minor scales concurrently with the secondary major scales. This post will present an overview of the minor scales, with the details of each…

The five finger patterns described in piano technique are important for vocalists to learn because they are the basis for so many vocal warmups. They are also the first step to building some technical skill and prowess in playing piano…

To be an effective vocalist one must possess at least basic keyboard skills. I began my musical career as a violinist. There was a piano in my home growing up and one got used in my lessons, but I did not know very much about it at all. At some point my middle school orchestra teacher taught me where A440 was so that I…

Once I have established a good sense of space with my voice students I move onto two concepts that are crucial to voice study, but are difficult to talk about; resonance and placement. Part of what makes discussion of these topics tricky is a lack of standardization of the language of vocal pedagogy. These two

The final set of primary major scales are the green pattern scales. These are the scales that begin on the second finger. They are also the first scales in this system that use flats. I will have already discussed what…

The major scales that begin on the first finger use the yellow pattern. When I was developing this system I debated for a long time about starting with E Major or E-flat Major. E-flat is perhaps the more common key, and both keys are equivalent as far as resonance is concerned, with two open strings to resonate freely (A

Once we are able to take good, consistent breaths and are getting good supported sound we can focus on improving the tone. The best place to start with is what I call space. When I refer to space I am talking about the openness of the cavities in the skull that allow the sound to resonate – the sinuses, mouth, and

Once the red scales [link] have been established and are comfortable for the student we can move on to the blue scales. The blue pattern should be introduced around the same time as the A major scale, so that momentum can be continued between the scales. Making the transition this early in a student’s…

Before you read this post, make sure you check out my posts on breathing and quantifying the breath which both deal with the initial phase of singing. The intake of breath is the basis for all of our vocal technique, but a good, supported sound is the next step. I will once again use a couple of terms from

Since I tried to make this system build up in skill level as much as possible it made sense to begin with the scales that start on the open strings. Once my beginning students have spent time with the red pattern…

I have always loved scales. They are the first thing I try to figure out whenever I am handed an unfamiliar instrument. Because of my obsession with them I have found, modified, and invented many different ways to practice them. As a teacher, I love them because they can be used to work many different aspects of…

There are countless books with exercises that are good for warming up the voice. Some of these books even give examples of sets of exercises to do, but they don’t go into much more detail than that. It can be helpful to see a sequence not only in terms of the exercises themselves but also in terms of the range used. In this post I’ll detail my personal sequence and how I modify it for my private voice students and choirs I work with.

Intonation is one of the biggest issues string players face. Getting the left hand fingers to the proper positions at the right time can be incredibly complicated. There are so many different scales and keys and exercises that have the potential to confuse and misguide us. The more I have worked as a string player and a teacher the more I have come to realize...

In my experience breath control is the first thing to deteriorate if I am not singing regularly. Unfortunately teaching voice lessons and running choral rehearsals is not really singing regularly, despite what people may think. I first noticed this when one of my voice students was working a piece I had sung on my senior recital. I had difficulties making phrases that had...