How To Practice

Below, I have described what ideal practice looks like.  Ideal practice is not possible all the time. 
Practicing when you can, in the way that you can, is almost always better than not practicing at all.  So
long as you use good technique, time spent singing is never time wasted. Make the most of any time
you have to practice.  If you’re singing in the shower, use that time to do warm ups.  If you’re singing in
the car, pay attention to your technique while you do it.  That being said, here is how students should
practice on a regular basis (at least five days a week).  

Listen to Your Lesson Recording

The day after your lesson, listen to/watch your lesson recording and take lots of notes, in and out of your
music.  These notes will be invaluable during your practice sessions all week.  Make an extra copy to turn
in at your next lesson.  Keep a copy of all your lesson notes in your music binder.  When you don’t know
how to solve a technical problem, go back through your lesson notes to find the answer.  

Practice 6+ hours a week

Practice at least one hour per day.  This can be all at once, or split up into shorter segments throughout
the day.  When you feel yourself fatiguing, or anything hurting, first, try to adjust your technique.  If the
pain continues, it is time to step away and take a break.  
Practice at least five days a week.  Do not count the day of your lesson.  If you do practice the day of your
lesson, do so afterwards and only briefly.  Lessons cause a lot of strain on the voice and should not be
paired with an intense or lengthy practice session.  The day of your lesson is a good time to do “silent
practice” – working on the acting, learning your translations, learning notes and rhythms, etc.
Do NOT practice “half voice,” “under your breath,” or in a place where you’re worried about people
hearing you. This will create terrible muscle memory and, in a way, is even worse than not practicing at
all. Practice in a place you feel comfortable being LOUD, and then sing full voice, on the breath, with full
resonance all the time.
Always practice your music in the correct key. Give yourself the starting pitch on a piano or phone app
keyboard before you begin.
Whenever possible, practice in a room with a mirror so you can use visual cues to tell you what you’re
doing well, and what you could improve on.
What we sound like to our own ears can be extremely inaccurate due to the resonance created in our
inner ear. We will also sound different to ourselves depending on the acoustics of the room we are in.
How we physically feel in different parts of our body, and what our face and body look like when we sing
can be much more reliable indicators and touchstones. When something sounds good, or you’ve
improved in some way, it’s important to think about what your body FELT like, so that you can try to
replicate that sensation later. If you’re looking in a mirror, think about what it LOOKED like, so you can
make it look like that later.

Warm Up
Warming up should comprise the first 15-20 minutes of your practice time every day.  Warm up time is
not simply a chance to warm the voice.  It is your time to work on pure technique.  Everything you
practice during your “warm up” can be applied to everything else you sing, and thus, it is the most
valuable part of your practice session.  Never skip warming up, even if you only do it for five minutes. 
Always warm up with a piano or keyboard. You should have a goal for how high and how low you want
to warm yourself up every day. This kind of consistency is the only way to increase your range. If you
don’t have a keyboard, download an app on your phone. Every warm up should be done up and down
the scale by half steps so that you teach your body how to sing every pitch beautifully with excellent
technique.

Working on Songs You Already Know

Work on specific sections of your repertoire..  Use your lesson notes to identify problem areas in the
song.  Go straight to those parts and start working on them using the techniques we used in the lesson. 
When you feel like you have made some progress on these sections, you can try recording yourself
singing some or all of the song.  Listen to this recording, then  go back to working on specific problems. 
Record the song again when you feel you’ve made progress.  You can repeat this cycle of “work on
details,” “record,” “listen to recordings” until the end of your practice session.  

Acting
For every song you sing, write up answers to Erin Speer’s Character Analysis Questions:
1. What do I need and from whom? Speak in very specific POV terms. Who is this person to me?
2. Why do I want that?
3. How am I going to go about getting what I want? TACTICS!
4. What stands in my way? OBSTACLES?
5. Where am I? What is my perspective on this place?
6. What is the moment before this?
7. STAKES! What happens if I fail -- What am I afraid to lose? What happens if I succeed?

Record and watch yourself multiple times.  

Memorizing Songs
Some people have more trouble memorizing songs than others.  If you are practicing as described above,
and still having trouble with memorization, speak to me  about other memorization techniques.  

Learning New Songs

It is fine to use a recording to help you learn a new song, however you should avoid listening to the same
artist/recording repeatedly. You will inevitably copy that person’s style, artistic choices, and mistakes.
Instead, find many different versions of the song. You can create a playlist to listen to when you’re
getting ready or driving in the car. Only sing along after you have done some work with the sheet music
in front of the piano, so that you know what is accurate and inaccurate about the performances, and
what they are doing as their own artistic choices. You need to be able to make your own artistic choices,
and in order to do that, you need to know exactly what’s written on the page first.
Divide the different elements in a song and tackle them separately.  Rather than trying to learn the
rhythm, words, notes, dynamics, and articulation simultaneously at the actual speed of the song, slow
the song down and work on a couple of these elements at a time.  
● Monologue all your songs.  
● Speak the words in rhythm, taking a slower tempo if necessary.
● If you are singing a foreign language song, be sure to write in a word for word translation above
the text.  
 ○ Hint: if a translation rhymes, it is NOT word for word.  
○ If a translation can be sung, it is NOT word for word.  
○ Best resource for translations: lieder.net
● Use a piano to plunk out your pitches.  
● Sing the pitches in rhythm, on a nonsense syllable like “dee” or “la.” Again, change the tempo if
necessary.
● As you become confident, you can add more elements together.  
● Speed should come last.  Learning fast songs too quickly teaches you to sing the song without
proper technique and with excess tension.  This results in the need for a lot more technical work
in the long run.  It is worth taking your time when learning a new piece: it saves you time and
effort later.  
● “Un-learning” wrong notes and rhythms is much more difficult than learning them the right way
the first time.  Actually read your music when you learn new songs.  Do not just listen to
recordings and look at the words.  Cover up the words when you are working on new music to
ensure you are actually reading the music that is on the page. 
● Do the acting work on every song you sing.  Write in subtext, verbs, “I’m going to blank by
blanking blank,” objectives, tactics, etc.