Vocals, Bad Habits & Good Practices

Lou Fellingham

Position of sound:

Position of us: make sure that you are not slouched and not too stiff. Think about the position of your head. Make sure your chin is not sticking out too much or down too much. Otherwise we can strangle the sound. Also when singing, try not to stick your chest out or pull your stomach in.

Bad Habits:

The sound needs to be hitting back of teeth and always travelling forwards. Often when we think things are too high or we just get a bit tired, the sound can drop to the back of the throat for example as you sing ‘Beautiful Saviour’ you will find that your voice automatically wants to head to the back of your throat. Also ‘Forever’, ‘our’, ’hand’ , ‘proclaim’ these words automatically draw the sound back. Often using the sound ‘ir’ this can bring the sound forward.


Words that the sound drops to the bottom of your mouth on – ‘but’ above’ ‘and’ ‘jesus’,’love’ once again thinking about adding a bit of ‘ir’ into the sound will automatically bring sound forward

Dipthong – A dipthong is when you have a couple of vowel sounds in a word such as ‘like’ and ‘I’, If you listen to these as you say them you should be able to hear an ‘ah ee’ sound. (Laheeke). These words are helped when you smooth the words out – lahke, ah

Adding consonants that aren’t really there between words – ‘you are’ – we often add in a ‘w’ between these words that don’t exist! Try to listen if there are any other words that you do that with.

Or the sound can catch on the throat – this can often happen when we start a word with a vowel – ‘And’

Frowning, not smiling – this can affect the pitch. Keep smiling. Don’t suddenly lose it when a bit that you’re more anxious about is about to happen!

Ends of phrases – think about timings so that it doesn’t sound sloppy. Think about diction with phrases. The vowel is the singing part of the word, so we want it to remain open and alive for as long as possible. The consonants bring definition so we do want them, but not too early…who was and is. Don’t let the sound drop at the end of each line. Keep remembering that the sound is travelling forwards. Even during the gaps. If you let the sound drop and mentally you close down at the end of each line then you’ve suddenly got a lot further to go to get ready for the next line.

Syncopation – make sure you know what it is and you’re all singing the same syncopation.

Beginning of phrases – need to prepare before the next line. Not be surprised by it. Try to think ahead, or look ahead on your music, before you get there. Otherwise you will find that you end up sliding to or missing your starting note.

Breathing too much – sometimes, particularly because of the structure of a lot of our worship songs, we can breathe too much. This came as revelation to me. By just relaxing stomach and continuing to support the sound rather than breathing a lot I created a lot less work for myself. Once again I was having to bring the sound back up again instead of allowing the sound to remain forward. Also you’ll find that your stomach tightens and tightens and then you’ve got nowhere to move. We want to keep our stomachs as relaxed as possible.

Sliding up to the notes – this can happen either at the beginning of a phrase or in the middle. To break this habit you need to prepare mentally before you reach it. Hear the note. Know where you’re going and don’t panic. Combine keeping the sound travelling forward and using your stomach to connect with the note immediately. Sometimes it helps to think that you are coming down on the note, rather than going up. Sometimes a consanant in the middle of a word can hinder rather than help and you don’t always need it eg ‘Forever’

Sometimes the sound can be too nasal. You are probably getting the sound stuck a little too high in the palette or shouting

Sometimes too hard – You are probably shouting and this can really damage your throat

Too soft – this can have a tendancy to then let the sound drop to the back of throat because there isn’t enough support to keep it forward

We need the sound to be supported constantly. Need to listen to ourselves and others. Learn where you are struggling. Are there particular songs? Are there particular words? Start trying to listen and think a bit more about it and you will probably find a pattern.

Worship Leaders	Mission Ray of Hope	Conference	Articles	Media