1) Message from Your Personal Singing Coach

2) FEATURED Website Section: Singing Contests

o For those who are taking part in upcoming singing contests, do check out this section!

3) FEATURED Website Section: Vocal Exercises

o Vocal Exercises that target specific aspects of your voice and help you to develop your dream voice!

4) RESOURCE Website Section: Pitching Exercises

o Check out these FREE music resources for you to practice your pitching at home!

5) COMPLETED Website Section: About Me

o Read more about me as a vocal coach, singer and writer, and find out how my students are doing at my music school!

6) COMMUNICATE with Your Personal Singing Coach

o Keep those comments and feedback coming in, and I’ll do my best to answer your queries about singing!

1) Vocal Training Tip #9 – Ways to conserve your voice when singing outdoors

2) Pitching Training Tip #7 – Singing scales without music accompaniment

3) Rhythm Training Tip #5 – Clapping to develop body rhythm (part II)

Homepage URL:
http://www.your-personal-singing-guide.com

Message from Your Personal Singing Coach:

“Welcome all fellow singers and singing students!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to Everyone!

This 7th issue of Your Personal Singing Ezine happens to come during such a wonderful festive season, and I just thought that I’d share with everyone about how our website has been doing over the past year.

From a mere handful of visitors each month, our website is now attracting hundreds of visitors per day, and we are slowly gathering a great community of singers, musicians as well as people who just love to sing!

Back in Singapore, I have also received kudos from friends, students as well as even a radio deejay on 95.8 FM for having this website on singing for those who are unable to or can’t afford to take up singing lessons or who are just not fortunate enough to have a music school in their locality.

On reflection, I would never have thought that my website would be able to achieve what it has achieved now, and this goes to show how consistent hard work and perseverance can bring you. It has not been easy balancing my work and being able to allocate time towards doing up this website and its resources, but I’m glad that I have been able to do what I’ve done so far.

Looking ahead, my New Year’s Resolution is for my website to touch even more hearts and minds all over the world, and to spread the joy for singing to millions of people everywhere in every country! I also wish to be able to put up even more resources and content on my website, and build it into a world-class singing website!

Do feel free to share Your Personal Singing Ezine with your friends, or better still, get them to come and subscribe to their very own Personal Singing Ezine! I will be glad to share my singing tips and pointers with them too!

If you wish to share with them the back-issues of our Ezine, feel free to do so too:

http://www.your-personal-singing-guide.com/Your_Personal_Singing_EZine-backissues.html

Also, if you feel that our website is really beneficial to you, please do let us know by dropping us an email through our Contact Us section on the website! Your comments will be greatly appreciated!”

Yours Sincerely,

Aaron Matthew Lim

Your Personal Singing Coach

FEATURED Website Section: Singing Contests

o Here in Singapore, there are many singing contests that budding singers can take part in, and some of them are starting their auditions during the months of November and December.

Well, for those who are planning to take part in your very first singing contest, why not check out some of the tips that I have provided for you on this website?

It will certainly give you a boost in confidence, and with the tips and techniques I am providing you, you should be able to do much better during the auditions and various rounds of the competition.

The main thing that you have to do is to overcome your fear and your stagefright, and to sing as naturally and confidently as you can. Sounds easy? Well, it’s certainly not easy to do!

Do read up on these tips for singing contests and it will make your first audition much easier for you!

Singing Contests URL:

http://www.your-personal-singing-guide.com/singing-contests.html

FEATURED Website Section: Vocal Exercises!

o This website section is certainly one of the MOST POPULAR and WELL-LOVED sections of Your Personal Singing Guide.Com!

Many people visit this section everyday to practice their voices and to get tips on how they should train their voices more effectively.

Of course, this section is only a guide, and should not be used as a replacement for actual voice training. Nothing beats an actual instructor helping you and listening to you to sing, so that your training is targeted and useful.

But, if you are looking to open your eyes and mind to the world of singing and voice training, check this section out!

Practice some of the vocal exercises described here and you will find that your knowledge about singing will certainly improve!

Vocal Exercises URL:

http://www.your-personal-singing-guide.com/vocal-exercises.html

RESOURCE Website Section: Pitching Exercises

o This is also one of the more popular sections on my website, with many people around the world trying out the various exercises that I am advocating to improve their pitching ability when singing.

Pitching is actually a combination of listening to yourself when you sing, knowing what pitch you are producing, and being able to know how to adjust your pitch if you go off-key.

By practising some of the pitching exercises I am providing, you will certainly be more familiar with various pitch jumps and scales, and this will be an extremely strong advantage that you will have over other singers.

You will be better able to sing in key, and also know how the various notes in your songs relate to each other, and how you should sing each melodic phrase!

Check out some of these useful pitching exercises now and try them out for yourself!

Pitching Exercises URL:

http://www.your-personal-singing-guide.com/pitching-exercises.html

COMPLETED Website Section: About Me

o Here in this section you will find information about me as a vocal coach, a singer, a writer, as well as a business owner too!

You will also be able to read more about my music school and my students in Singapore, and how we are trying to change the lives of more people around us, by inspiring them to love music and to sing more, and also to perform and express themselves better.

There are many talented people in this world, and I am sure I will meet even more talented artistes and singers in the future. What is most important is for these musical talents to find confidence in themselves and to persevere in their quest for great music.

This is why we need to support the people around us in their quest for their dreams, and to help them acquire more confidence and to achieve more than they thought they could ever achieve.

Do check out the various links in this section too, and explore the activities and events that I am organising together with my friends and students! Hopefully, that will inspire you to do the same in your own country too!

About Me URL:

http://www.your-personal-singing-guide.com/music-instructor.html

You can also check out many performance videos featuring many of my students as well as myself, and see how we do our performances here in Singapore! We have over 100+ performance videos for you to choose from, so start watching now!

Intune Music School Performance Videos URL:

http://www.youtube.com/user/intunemusicschool

COMMUNICATE with Your Personal Singing Coach!

o We have set up a Contact Us page on our website, for those of you who wish to ask me questions about singing, or would wish to let us know how great a job we are doing with our website.

We welcome all your comments, and hope to hear from you regularly regarding our website and how we can improve!

Do also let us know what you wish to see on our website, and we will try our best to make the improvements as quickly as we can!

In fact, many of you have already sent in your positive feedback, and I certainly look forward to receiving more from all you readers out there!

Do take note that for the security word challenge, you will need to type the word in CAPITAL LETTERS exactly as it appears, or you will not be able to send us your comments and we would have missed out on valuable feedback from you!

Click on the link below to send us your comments and feedback!

Contact Us URL:

http://www.your-personal-singing-guide.com/contact-us.html

Vocal Training Tip #9 – Ways to conserve your voice when singing outdoors

During this festive season, many of us may have gone carolling or even done some singing at each others’ houses or outdoor parties. You may also have found much difficulty when singing outdoors, and may not have been able to hear yourselves when you were singing.

Well, the truth is, it is harder for us to hear ourselves when we are singing outdoors, as compared to when we are singing in a small room or any enclosed area.

This is because for an enclosed area, our singing voice reverberates in this area and bounces off the walls of the room to reach our ears better. In an outdoor area, our voices just travel outwards and very little of it bounces back to our ears.

In this situation, some of us would start to sing more forcefully and even use our throats to force our voices to become louder, so that we can hear ourselves better!

I would like to show you some simple and useful tips for us to conserve our voice when we sing outdoors, and also allow our voice to become more audible to others and to ourselves.

One thing we could try is to raise our voices slightly, talking in a slightly higher tone than normal. Raising our voices allows us to place our voice in a more forward and nasal position, thus making it easier for us to hear ourselves, and also for us to project our voices better.

The best vocal placement for us to use is in the ‘vocal mask’ area, or simply put, the area around our nose and our eyes. This area is where our voice is the brightest, and will allow our voice to sound stronger and more audible. (Just imagine ‘Batman’ or ‘Zorro’ and you would know where the vocal mask is…)

Another tip we can try is to focus our singing voice in one direction forwards, and not allow our voice to dissipate to the sides or in many different directions. This involves our imagination when we sing, in the sense that we need to visualize our voice travelling in one relatively straight and narrow cylinder in a forward direction.

This allows our voice to be more focussed, and also helps us to project our voices further, because if we sing in this manner, we would be doing our best to let our voices reach a further distance in front of us, instead of letting it float upwards or dissipate too widely.

For those who wish to develop more strength and power in your voice, do check out some of the vocal exercises that I have provided for everyone in the following URL:

Vocal Exercises URL:

http://www.your-personal-singing-guide.com/vocal-exercises.html

You may also wish to build up a stronger breath support for singing, so that you would be able to project your voice strongly and without straining your throat or neck muscles.

Check out the following URL for useful breathing exercises!

Breathing Exercises URL:

http://www.your-personal-singing-guide.com/breathing-exercises.html

Ok, hope this helps those who have to go carolling or singing during this Christmas, New Year or even Lunar New Year season. Have lots of fun! ;-p

Pitching Training Tip #7 – Singing scales without music accompaniment

Well, I’m sure you may have seen how the auditions for ‘American Idol’ are run, and what the contestants have to do during these auditions. Most of them have to present their talent in front of the judges, and this often involves singing without music accompaniment for at least 2 – 3 minutes long.

This is actually harder than it looks, because it involves singing the right melody, keeping to a steady rhythm, as well as listening to ourselves when we sing so that we do not go off pitch or off beat! I’m sure you’ve watched many people who have sung off-pitch or who are just unable to keep to any steady rhythm when singing…

For those who are aspiring to become the next American Idol or even Singapore Idol, you can start off NOW by learning how to sing a simple major scale to a steady beat, without any music accompaniment. You can use the solfege names to sing the various notes in the major scale:

Major Scales URL:

http://www.your-personal-singing-guide.com/major-scales.html

Yes, just sing a simple major scale. It’s that simple! If you can do that, most probably you would be able to sing a song with accurate pitch and rhythm.

This is because for us to be able to sing that scale without any music accompaniment, we need to remember our starting note and to be able to pitch upwards from there, all the while taking reference from our starting note, and ending exactly 8 notes above that starting note!

It certainly sounds easy, but it is not as simple for us to sing it totally accurately and without mistake. If we were to add in a steady rhythm, for example a 3-beat rhythm, you would find that the difficulty would be increased.

If, then, we were to improvise by adding words to this simple major scale, and to sing it as though we were singing a song, you would then have the basic building blocks to being able to sing any song well without any music accompaniment!

So for those who are looking to take part in the next Idol competition, or even your local singing contests, try out this simple tip and I am sure that your ability to sing without music will be greatly improved.

Pitching Exercises URL:

http://www.your-personal-singing-guide.com/pitching-exercises.html

Alright then, keep practising, and don’t forget to send me your feedback and comments regularly!

Rhythm Training Tip #5 – Clapping to develop body rhythm (part II)

In an earlier issue of Your Personal Singing Ezine, I talked about the benefits of clapping while singing scales, and also moving while singing so as to develop a good sense of body rhythm.

For those who have not read this issue, you can check it out at the following URL (Issue 4)!

Your Personal Singing Ezines (Back-Issues) URL:

http://www.your-personal-singing-guide.com/Your_Personal_Singing_EZine-backissues.html

Well, here in this issue, I would like to provide you with an example to try out, and since this is the Christmas season, I would like to use a Christmas song as an example!

Do you know the song ‘Feliz Navidad’? I’m quite sure that you would know this song. For those who do not know, do check out the internet to find out more about the song and how to sing it.

Well, when singing this song, what we can do is to clap our hands on the 2nd and 4th beats of the song, so that we can keep time and also develop a good sense of body rhythm.

If you are unsure of when to clap, a general guide would be to clap once just before you sing ‘Feliz’, and clap another time when you sing the first syllable of ‘Navidad’!

This trains us to be able to pick out the 2nd and 4th beats of the songs we are singing, and also gives more kick to our songs because we are clapping and raising the mood of the performance!

Those who are able to pick out the respective beats and clap at the correct time, you may wish to clap twice on the 2nd beat and clap once on the 4th beats. This is actually slightly complicated, and you might find yourself having some problems coordinating your clapping with your singing.

But, practice makes perfect, and this will certainly strengthen your ability to keep to a steady beat, to clap at specific beats, and also to keep your concentration on your singing. Try it now!

For those who wish to check out more resources on rhythm training, you can go to the following URL:

Rhythm Resources URL:

http://www.your-personal-singing-guide.com/singing-books-1.html

1) Singing Rhythm
2) Updating Singing Resources
3) Vocal Placement

Here ends Issue #7 of Your Personal Singing Ezine!

I hope that you will find the above tips useful in your singing practices, and feel free to email me at
Your_Personal_Singing_EZine@your-personal-singing-guide.com
or use the Contact Us page provided on our website if you have any feedback, requests or any questions about singing! I will be glad to reply and also to discuss singing tips with you!

Do also subscribe to the RSS feed provided on my website so as to be constantly updated about the new and exciting content that will appear on Your Personal Singing Guide website!

Also, if you find Your Personal Singing Guide and Ezine useful to you, please do spread the word and invite your friends to come visit our website and join you in your singing practices too!

Singing is always more fun in a community with more people!

Your Personal Singing Ezine will be back in another 6 weeks’ time, but be sure to check back at our website frequently and keep practising your singing!

Lastly, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to one and all! To those who celebrate the Lunar New Year, Gong Xi Fa Cai and lots of hongbaos for you all! ;-p

Aaron Matthew Lim
Your Personal Singing Coach
Your Personal Singing Guide

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