Your FIRST Singing Lesson (Beginner Lesson from a REAL Vocal Coach)

YouTube has so many singing videos you want to learn to sing but when you can't afford private lessons YouTube is a logical place to get started but it's confusing don't go down the rabbit hole instead I'll show you exactly what makes the difference are you ready this is your first voice lesson and it starts now let's go hey guys it's Matt Ramsey your vocal coach and congrats on taking your first voice lesson I always see first lessons as a challenge a challenge for me to prove to you that with the right techniques and feedback you can become the singer you're meant to be how do I do that by teaching you the same proven techniques that have been used to develop singers like Ed Sheeran Lady Gaga Michael Jackson and Beyonce don't believe me check out this quick clip of Michael Jackson singing during his [Music] lesson today we're going to cover five crucial exerc exes that I teach in every lesson covering posture breathing eliminating bad habits building a strong singing foundation and hitting high notes if you master these exercises you will hear that you are actually singing better we'll get to the exercises in just one second but first we need to get something straight if you don't believe that you can be a better singer or if you've worked with other teachers or other techniques and been frustrated and have gotten cynical then I won't be able to help you you there's nothing I can do if you have a closed mind but if you can stay open and practice what I teach you you will see results before we start singing We need to actually look at the instrument itself in the case of singing your entire body is your instrument of course yes the singing comes from the vocal cords that are inside of the throat but if you're slouched or if you have bad posture or if you're crouching over your guitar you're actually going to make the instrument sound different and not work as well so we want your body to be relaxed and optimized for good Singing in singing technique we call this singing with tall posture so go ahead and stand up and bring your feet to about shoulder width apart your feet should be in line with your hips and your hips should be in line with your shoulders next stand up straight and keep your chest just slightly elevated we don't want to push it out too far or be slouching too much either we want to just keep that slightly elevated with your chin and your gaze is forward that's easy right okay great well unfortunately just standing with good posture is not going to be enough to make you sound like a great singer right off the bat we also have to fuel the voice correctly in order to sound your best that brings us to breathing for singing the proper breath can make the difference between good singing and bad singing now breath is the fuel for singing so it doesn't matter how much talent you have if you're running on empty you're not going anywhere in other words you're not going to sing well so in good breathing Technique we teach the diaphragmatic breath or singing from the diaphragm here's how you do it in order to find the diaphragmatic breath first place your hands around the bottom of your stomach now inhale but inhale so that your shoulders and your chest don't rise up but instead the inhale actually allows the stomach to expand or extend and that will push the hands out now keep in mind that you don't want to force the stomach out as you're breathing in instead you just want the breath to do that passively now that you have your inhale go ahead and sing and hold a note and as you hold that note allow the stomach to gradually come back in and your hands will follow now keep in mind you don't want to lift up your chest or your shoulders as you're inhaling that's actually taking away from the breath that we want here the diaphragmatic breath is going be more about just allowing that stomach to naturally expand on the inhale and gradually contract as you sing or as you exhale so just keep it all to the stomach with the correct breath and posture for your singing you'll notice something you still haven't actually sung anything yet we're going to fix that right now most singers have bad habits and often times that's because when we're trying to sing something we're actually manipulating or tensing up something in our singing so as as a singer if you're just getting started out it can be really difficult to know where you are for example a singer might be straining on high notes and so they'll think that the high notes are the problem but actually if the bottom part of their voice is a little bit too light and too breathy they may feel tempted to strain as they sing up to those higher [Music] notes in other words if the bottom part of the voice isn't supported then those top notes will be straining or you may be a singer that starts off fine but as you go up in Pitch you start getting heavy and strainer as you go higher and if you don't relax those notes your entire range will sound bad today I'm going to show you a simple scale that I used to assess all of my firsttime students it's a simple ftone scale where you sing up the first five notes of the major scale and then come on back down so let's use the simple scale but rather than singing words let's go ahead and sing it on an a vow like you're saying the word awesome [Music] a as you do the simple assessment scale record yourself and try to see if you can tell where you're off ready ready let's [Music] go that's [Music] it [Music] right right you got it a a [Music] awesome way to go right oh a a [Music] a one more great job guys now as you sing along with that scale what did you hear were you flat were you strain were you sharp did it sound really tight and really tense listen carefully back to the recording so that you can hear what your natural singing tendency is and many beginning singers will sing too lightly on the bottom notes in their voice and that makes it more difficult to sing up to the higher notes without straining you may have actually heard that in your assessment so when you listen back to your recording listen for anything that sounds like this [Music] uh and this exercise will help simply take this same ftone scale that we just did but rather than singing a replace each one of those notes with a number like you're counting up to the number five and back down to one like this 1 2 3 4 5 4 3 2 1 1 2 3 4 5 4 3 2 1 1 2 3 4 5 4 3 2 1 1 2 3 4 5 4 3 2 1 1 2 3 4 4 5 4 3 2 1 1 2 3 4 5 4 3 2 1 1 2 3 4 5 4 3 2 1 1 2 3 4 5 4 3 2 one now remember you're not actually singing yet so don't make it pretty like 1 2 3 4 5 or anything like that we actually want you to do your best robot impression because again the point of this exercise is singing really strongly on those bottom notes and the best way to do that is by using your speaking voice that 1 2 3 4 5 4 3 2 1 kind of sound so instead of singing pretty just say the words on pitch and that's going to make them so much stronger now that you're singing Stronger on those bottom notes let's start hitting those high notes luckily you've already done the hard work of giving those high notes something to connect to in other words you've sung strongly in the bottom part of your voice so those top notes will feel more supported but unfortunately many singers often go really flat and really strain when they try to sing up to higher notes instead let's use a bratty nay as in neighbor exercise to hit those higher notes the brat sound actually helps thin out your vocal cords and that that nasal kind of sound gives your voice a little something to hold on to but rather than using that five tone scale where it's just five notes start to finish we're going to use this octave repeat scale where I walk up three repeat and then come back down so I walk up three repeat four and then come on back down let's get started here neigh neigh ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne neigh NE neigh neigh neigh neigh NE neigh neigh neigh neigh NE NE neigh neigh neigh neigh ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne neigh ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne some of these exercises may not work perfectly for you and that's okay every voice is different and needs different exercises the best way to improve your voice is to find the the right exercises that work the best for you and practice them daily like these here