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Hi everybody!
My name is Justin Stoney, and I'm the founder of
New York Vocal Coaching here in New York City.
Welcome to episode 29 of Voice Lessons To The World,
The show where we want to help you guys as singers
by answering your questions from all over.
And I'll give you a chance to ask questions later,
but our question for this week comes from Samantha T. in Dayton, Ohio.
And Samantha writes, "Dear Justin, how long should I practice?"
That's a simple and awesome question, Samantha.
And I think actually a lot of people want to know the answer to that.
Because everybody wants to be a great singer.
And hopefully everybody wants to practice.
But sometimes we just don't know as singers
how much is a good amount to practice.
So we're going to talk about that today.
We're going to give you some ideas.
But first I'd like to start with quantity.
Because that's really what you're asking is, "how much".
And first of all, I want to compare singing
to working out at the gym.
It's a little bit different than say practicing the piano.
I could sit down as a pianist and practice for eight hours a day.
I'll probably be getting very advanced very quickly if I did that.
But that's absolutely appropriate and a lot of
professional pianists will put in that kind of time.
But professional singers absolutely cannot.
You cannot ask your voice to do very, very long bouts of singing.
Opera singers can sometimes sing for you know, three or four hours,
but then they take a few days off after a performance like that.
Broadway singers are amazing at singing eight shows a week,
maybe an hour or two.
Very, very athletic singers that can do that much.
Even some rock tours you are singing night in, night out.
But in general the voice cannot withstand long
durations of usage day in day out.
So if you're practicing for say three hours a day,
that's not going to work out.
You will tire your voice, it doesn't matter how good your technique is.
If you're practicing for really long durations all the time,
you will hurt your voice, even with the best of technique.
It's a myth that good technique can just serve you all the time.
Perfect technique, you will get tired.
Just like if I go to the gym and I workout for a half an hour,
or an hour, maybe I'm getting pretty tired.
If I just push it for three hours,
that's actually probably going to overtrain my muscles,
and they'll actually deteriorate from overtraining.
The voice is muscles.
It really is physical training for the larynx, the larynx muscles,
and muscles of the body as well.
So just like you can overtrain, you can over-practice.
So we need to know that about our voice work,
that when we're practicing it's a physical event.
You can't just do really long practices
and not intelligent practices either.
So we want to have a really good strategy for our vocal practice.
Now, as far as the length and the amount...
First of all this is going to depend on your skill level,
how long you've been singing, and it also depends on the person.
Some people just have different vocal builds
so the amount of practicing that you do
will vary from person to person,
maybe style to style, but certainly level to level.
So you want to be aware of your own instrument
so you can make smart choices about your practicing.
Let me just give you some practical examples
about what I think would be an appropriate amount of practicing to do.
If I have a week, I would say the average person
who's trying to really work hard on their voice,
if you could practice anywhere from a half hour to an hour and a half,
about four to six days per week, that would be excellent.
Okay, so maybe for that,
for you that looks like, four of hour and a half practices per week.
Or maybe say six half hour practices,
or six forty-five minute practices.
Or maybe you want to do an hour here,
an hour and a half there, thirty minutes there.
But that's very similar to how if I work out,
I go to the gym for about those amounts of time.
That's going to help my muscles to grow.
I need to make sure I'm taking a day off,
I need to make sure that I'm doing different things,
and I need to make sure that I'm not going too long.
Just enough to make sure that you've used your voice
in whatever way you're working on,
and you've developed those skills, and then you're done.
You don't want to push it to the point where you're hoarse,
where you're losing your voice, where you feel very airy,
where you feel like you're straining something or hurting something.
If you feel like you're getting tired, you are.
If it sounds like you're getting tired, you are.
So don't just keep pushing, thinking that that's going to
build vocal muscles or build your strength over time.
You will find a time when you've gone too far.
It's okay to stop.
And again, you want to have quantities that make sense.
Like I say, somewhere between a half hour
and probably an hour and a half.
Now, if there's a day that you practice for two hours,
two and a half hours, or three hours-
that's a lot, and that's okay, it's not wrong.
But just make sure you're not doing that every day, day in day out.
That's going to be too much practicing,
you're going to wear out your voice doing that.
So be real smart with your lengths of practice,
and kind of keep it in those reasonable areas.
If you stay consistent, that is what is going to
make the difference over time.
Now the other thing is quality.
Samantha and all, I want your quality of practice
to be much more important than your quantity.
Because so many singers work really hard at their voice,
but they're not getting anywhere.
Not because of the amount, not because of the length,
but because of the quality of the practice.
They're either not sure what to practice,
or they're not being really responsible with what they're practicing.
Okay I'll give you some examples of that.
First of all, you know like I say, a lot of people want high notes.
And they just sit around all day blasting out high notes,
hoping that they'll happen.
That's not a smart way to practice.
The other thing is it's really, really fun to sing songs.
And so some people say, "I don't want to do my vocal exercises.
That's you know, that's kind of boring."
And maybe it is sometimes.
But if you're just singing songs all day every day,
yeah you'll get better...
But you're not going to really refine your instrument.
You need the right vocal exercises in order to pinpoint specifics
of your technique that a song may or may not hit.
So when you're practicing, it doesn't have to be every day,
but you want to make sure that some days you're
doing vocal exercises, working on specifics of your vocal technique,
other days you're working on songs,
other days you're working on both,
and trying to apply the technique that you're working on with
your exercises to songs, and just keeping it really varied.
Just like at the gym.
You wouldn't just lift the same muscle group all the time.
You might want to run one day,
you might want to lift weights the next day,
you might want to swim the next day.
Keep it varied.
Give yourself a lot of variety.
Now, vocal variety is important too when you practice.
If you're open to it, I'd recommend doing a lot of styles.
If you're a rock singer, be open to doing some classical songs,
some Broadway songs, and vice versa.
If you are a more traditional singer,
try some pop songs, try some R&B songs.
It really will give your instrument a lot more variety.
Also, make sure that you're trying different artists.
You might have some favorites, but break out of your comfort zone.
The more artists you try, the more sounds and
styles that you're going to become confident with.
Also you want to make sure that you're singing in the right key.
We've talked about this in the past.
Don't be afraid to move the key to suit what it is you're working on.
If it's too high for you or too low for you
and you just keep practicing that every day,
of course that will cause limitations to your voice over time.
And then make sure that you're finding a great space to practice.
A lot of times people are worried about their neighbors,
they're worried about what their parents think
or what you know what their family thinks,
and so they practice you know, really soft and sort of off the voice.
You need to get in a place where you can
really let the instrument be what it is.
A place where you're not shy, a place where you can just
sing freely and without inhibitions.
So make sure you've got a great practice space.
Then my ultimate recommendation for a quality practice,
even if you're not a pianist or an instrumentalist,
is to have an instrument.
You could just play one note on the piano,
and then move the notes up and down to practice your vocal exercises.
That's the way I would recommend practicing,
so that you can be in real time.
You can say, "I got this one right, I'm moving on."
Or, "Oh - I didn't get this one, let me stay here for a second."
It's great if you can practice, with a live instrument, your exercises.
Again, even if you don't play.
If you do play the instrument, great.
But I would recommend even non-pianists get a little keyboard,
maybe a little app for your phone or something like that, that can give you
the notes so you can practice in real time.
Another good thing, is to get with a great voice teacher,
and make sure that you record the lessons from that teacher.
Record the exercises that they gave you.
If you want to sing along to the exercises,
that's a really smart strategy.
Or maybe you can remember what exercises they gave you,
and then practice at the piano.
Also a really good strategy.
And then finally you can practice along with these videos,
if you remember some of these exercises that I've given you.
You can practice along with me, or any other exercises from
teachers that you like that help you.
You can practice along with those.
But again, I recommend doing it yourself with an instrument
if that's at all possible.
So those are some tips for making your practice really quality.
Again, you could practice shorter lengths.
You could really only go, honestly twenty or thirty minutes a day,
six days a week, and if you're doing quality practice,
you're going to get better really fast.
You could practice an hour and a half a day and be slamming stuff
and be singing every song in the book
and really actually setting yourself back.
So just make sure that your practicing is really smart and
you know what it is you're focusing on and work on that.
And finally, I want you guys to not practice haphazardly.
That's another tendency that I see of singers, is you know,
Well, I feel like singing now, so I'm just going to sing for,
you know, an hour, and I'm in the shower
now I'm going to sing, I'm in my car now I'm going to sing.
And that's all fine, it doesn't really harm you to do that.
But, if you can get on a real practice plan,
that's going to be much better for you.
You want to schedule it.
Put it down in your planner.
Say every day at five o'clock that's my practice time.
If you can be consistent and make it a discipline to practice,
and not just sporadic, you're also going to really
help yourself because you're going to stay consistent,
you're going to train those muscles.
It's like going to the gym like I said.
If you go every single morning,
you're going to see those results.
If you kind of just play a sport when your friends are playing
or run up and down the stairs sometimes,
you might be in decent shape,
but you're not going to be in the pinpoint top shape that you'd need to be.
Same thing with the voice.
You need to keep your practice consistent.
So make yourself a plan, make yourself a schedule.
There are things that can help you stay consistent.
Like I say, a teacher can help you develop a practice plan,
tell you what exercises you need to be doing to work on your voice,
and give you that routine to constantly be doing.
You could also practice with a friend.
Get a friend and say, you know, we're going to practice every day
and keep each other sort of accountable, and check in with each other.
Set some vocal goals for yourself.
That's another good strategy for making sure you stay consistent.
Then finally a really important one would be keeping a journal.
If you either record, do like a, recording journal, or a written journal,
that talks about each day when you practice, what exercises did I do,
what songs am I working on, what feels right, what doesn't feel right,
what did I accomplish, what do I want to accomplish.
If you're really, really intentional about your practicing,
you're going to see huge results.
So to recap, make your practicing on purpose.
Make sure your practicing is really quality.
You're focused on the exact things that you need to be growing with in your voice.
Get with a teacher if you don't know what those things are.
And then make sure the quantity is in line with what your body can handle,
so that you're not pushing things, but you also have a good routine for growth.
So, Samantha and all, I hope that gives you some more strategies
on how you can really focus your practice and make it
really, really excellent for your vocal growth.
I hope that's been helpful for you guys today as singers.
If you have questions that you'd like to see us answer on the show
you can send an email to: Questions@VoiceLessonsToTheWorld.com [♪]
We just encourage you, don't lose that joy, don't lose that passion. [♪]
Keep that practice routine really quality, keep it consistent, [♪]
I just know you're going to see your vocal goals. [♪]
Get with a great voice teacher in your area to help you. [♪]
If you guys are in New York City [♪]
you can check us out at: www.NewYorkVocalCoaching.com [♪]
And if you like these videos you can check out: [♪]
www.VoiceLessonsToTheWorld.com [♪]
I'm Justin Stoney. [♪]
We'll see you next time. [♪]
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