How to Read Music Notes and Practice Music Without Your Instrument

The foundation of our musical training is the practice time we spend with our chosen instrument. Musical study away from our instrument, however, develops our level of sophistication and understanding of the music we are playing. Many activities that we already participate in can be opportunities for developing our musical knowledge. We will explore some these activities, and how to integrate them into the learning process.
We probably cultivated our interest in music through listening to recordings and live performances. As musicians we want to engage ourselves in listening to music in the same way we would read a book or watch a movie. We can accomplish this by following along recordings with the score in hand. If you haven't attempted this before, it may take a while to be able to perform this kind of active listening, but is well worth the effort. You may wish to start by just keeping track of the measures as they go by rather than focusing directly on the pitches. With time your overall reading skills will improve.
Your choice of listening material should be quite diverse. Include pieces that you are practicing, and those that you are not. Explore many genres, instrumentals, composers, and style periods to broaden your understanding of music and help you generate new interpretations for your music.
You can enhance your concert experience by doing a little advanced preparation. If possible, listen to some recordings of the performers, and pieces on the program. Find out a little about the performers themselves such as their personal biographies, musical specialties, and musical training.
You can gain new insights into a piece that you are working on by studying the score. Outline and note its form, themes and the different keys that the piece moves through. You can also plan out your next practice session by identifying a particular section that needs work, or dividing the composition into different parts to aid in its memorization.
Spend time working on ear-training. Learning to sight sing, take musical dictation, and identify intervals and chords develops your internal ear, improves your sight reading skills, and facilitates learning new music.
Take a few months to learn the basics of a second instrument. Find an instrument that is completely different from the one you now play. If you play a melody instrument, develop some keyboard skills. Basic keyboard skills become essential if your musical studies involve any theory or composition. If you are a keyboardist already, try a wind or string instrument.
Finally, enjoy the learning process with a long-term perspective on your studies. Making music is rewarding lifetime pursuit whether as a professional or as an educated fan. Once you've mastered a few of the techniques we've just discussed, you'll find that you can take any spare time you have, whether a few minutes with your instrument or even without, and use it to help you become the musician you always knew you could be.
Small amounts of practice tend to be the most effective in helping you advance musically, shoot for 15-20 minutes of practice per day (no more than 30 to be sure) at music reading and music theory, and about 30-45 minutes per day of practice on your chosen instrument. Before long you'll be amazed at how much your musicianship has accelerated!

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How to Hum Your Way to Better Projection

It really pains me to see how people struggle with projection. If you sense your voice is weak or that it has no power behind it when you sing certain notes, you’ll need to take a quick step back to analyze how you sound. Take a good hard look at yourself in the mirror if you can while you’re at it. I’m going to point out the most common reasons why good projection eludes a lot of people, and how to quickly fix the problem.
I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but when you speak your voice is at its most powerful. Why then do you struggle to project the same power when you sing? The reason is very simple. You’re not using your speaking voice to sing. And I’ll warn you right here. This is the hardest bad habit to kick. And here’s another reason why you’re experiencing the undesirably low levels of projection with your voice. You’re lacking thrust. Yes, if you don’t push it isn’t going to happen. So how then do you fix this singing problem and break the cycle of bad habits that have plagued your advancement as a singer? Here’s what I’ll recommend you do.
What I like about humming is that, if you do it correctly, it helps focus the voice so that the voice projects through the mouth area. Now to be sure that it really is projecting, you’ll want to hear a powerful voice wanting to leap out of your closed mouth and furthermore, you should feel a buzzing sensation around the lips—and a tingly feeling at the front of your face. If your voice is weak and you experience none of the above, then this is what’s hindering your projection when you sing. How to fix this? Practice humming so that you experience all of the above when you do. Pick any old song and hum that song using, at first, your speech level and work your way up the scales as you hum. The irony is that, if you can’t project your voice on speech level when you sing, you’ll have a lot of trouble projecting a voice that’s not only fuller, but one that’s got timber in its vocal.
In Summary: voice projection is one of the most common problems untrained singers tend to experience. This little problem could hold you back from achieving your dreams of becoming a better singer. The solution is simple. Hum your way to better projection. Humming is by far one of the quickest ways to focus the voice so that you are projecting it properly and more effectively when you sing. Who wants to listen to a meek, thin, powerless voice that lacks conviction? I know you don’t. So why would you allow this simple-to-fix problem hold you back? Hum in your speaking voice and work your way up the scale, and you’ll be projecting your voice like a pro when you sing in absolutely no time at all. It’s definitely one of the easiest ways to correct this common singing problem.

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Are You Singing in One Straight Line?

Singing in one straight line is very typical of the untrained voice. To sound interesting when you sing, you’ll want to be able to work your voice around as many highs and lows within a note or a group of notes. Did that sound a bit like Chinese? I’ll explain. When a new student walks into my studio for an assessment, the first thing I do is ask them to sing so I could hear what they sound like and what I’m going to be working with. Believe it or not, the majority of them will jump to a high octave, thereby limiting their range and connecting notes rather awkwardly. It doesn’t have to be that way. This is a problem even YOU can fix when you know how and especially, when you’re aware of what’s holding you back and causing your limited range. This article will offer tips on how to easily broaden your singing range in a very easy-to-remember formula.
Pick a word like Malaika from the song Malaika, for example. And try speaking the word. All is OK? Are you sounding normal like you would when you talk to someone? OK, now switch on the record button on your phone (assuming you have a voice recorder on your mobile) and sing the word Malaika using your speech level, first. Stop and play that back and ask yourself: are you singing on speech level or did you shoot up to a higher octave all of a sudden? Chances are you jumped several octaves to sing Malaika and if that is so, endeavor to work your way down to speech level. Do this exercise again, recording and playing back until you’ve got it right.
Going back to the point in this article: are you singing in one straight line? Well, if you don’t use your entire range from speech level upward, you are limiting your range. Hence, singing in one straight line is inevitable because you basically have no room to maneuver. So the next time your vocal range is maxing out prematurely, take a look at where you’re singing from. If you’re too high at your lowest end of the scale, take it down a few octaves to where it’s comfortable for you (as you would in speech) and then work your way upward. It really is that simple!
Yes, you’re going to have to train your voice using the scales in order to train your voice and your ear, but above all pay particular attention to navigating the lower notes as this is the problem area that needs addressing should you fall in the category of the above (shooting off to high notes on a low key). Trust me, it takes a while to break away from this bad habit, but if you want to have a better vocal when you sing; to be in better control; and to widen your range, you will have to make a concerted effort to learn to sing with your speaking voice, first.

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