... We Can't Go Into Another Key & You Stay In The Old Key ...

As Randy Jackson might have confirmed this, Lazaro Arbos' take on (They Long To Be) Close To You has been considered the worst live performance on American Idol to date. Also, listen to what Mariah Carey and Keith Urban had to say about a particular issue. Just skip the first 25 seconds of the clip if you don't care about some foolishness.

Lazaro Arbos - Close to You - American Idol 12... by IdolxMuzic

"That is horrible", "It's not the right song for you", and "He can't sing" are few common responses to this embarrassing performance. Randy Jackson pointed out that this type of performance typically occurred during audition round. While we can blame the judges and the whole show for letting the contestant to advance to later rounds, here are possible issues surrounding this particular performance:

• The Wrong Key: In order to choose the right key, singers need to understand the concept of key signature. A key signature refers to pattern of flats or sharps of a musical scale. Determining at which points are sharp or flats requires trial and error. Getting to the right notes and suitable transitions would still need further fine tuning. Lazaro indicated that he had gone through different keys that were too high and too low for the song, but he still struggled.
• Lack of Mastery: It would be easier to assume that the song was not right for him. Whether or not a better one should be chosen, it all comes down to preparation. Besides choosing the right key, other considerations that come into play involve choosing a sweet spot of vocal range, understanding song lyrics, and recognizing singer's vocal potential. After going through all of these, it is not unusual for a contestant to decide on another song at the last minutes. Proceeding with a song, Mariah Carey mentioned that a singer needs to own the song, to express it, and to have greater comfort in performing it.
• Misguided Messages: Each American Idol contestant has his/her opportunity to rehearse a chosen song with musical instruments accompaniment. During this time, a sample of audience that usually involves producers, vocal coaches, and stage managers, could offer feedback and provide constructive criticism on various aspects like song choice, pitch issue, and singer's movement. While any criticism or feedback should ideally lead to an optimum live performance, some contestants might have been misguided by mixed messages. Mixed messages have often occurred with the judges when one tells a contestant to focus on playing the piano while another encourages on dominating the stage, for example. This might have confused Lazaro as he tried to improve his vocal chops with his performance.
• Singer's Issues: A confident and proficient singer would not be swayed by judges' or producers' lack of clear directions. While it was revealed that Lazaro never had any musical training and vocal coaching prior to his audition, lots of better singers that went further in the competition did not get prior experience either. It was also discovered that he was not familiar with many well known songs from the past, which could make it more difficult. This means that Lazaro really needs more time to understand a song and extensive vocal coaching to improve his singing proficiency, which may not be available each week. Based on all factors mentioned so far, it was safe to assume that Lazaro Arbos was not ready for prime time.
• Manipulated Reality: The judges were not fooled by his voice in the audition round and Lazaro's talent seemed promising. He was shown to be stuttering when he talked, but could sing gracefully without any stuttering. Taking advantage on his speech struggle, the producers dramatized his story so the contestant's courage could touch many viewers, gain support from similar handicapped community, and possibly improve television ratings. Working with the judges, the producers might also have set up a strategy of favoring mediocre male contestants in order to boost female contestants' chances of winning the 2013 American Idol. Whether or not it was a real strategy, the show was left with five female singers when Lazaro Arbos, the last man standing, was eliminated from the singing competition.

The difficulty of choosing a key or flowing along with key changes was not the only issue. When the judges and the producers committed him to go further in the competition, Lazaro Arbos either did not get adequate support or the expectations were too high for him. Still, he managed to get votes or support from community that shared the same struggle, or from tweenies that focused on his cuteness or from Cuban community that would like to see him longer in the competition. It was unfortunate that he left the competition with the worst performance or one of the worst performances. Hopefully, Lazaro would seek further vocal coaching and other support to continue singing gracefully.

Recommended Physical Exercises for Singers

Whether you sing on live appearances or any practice sessions, you want to maintain stamina, flexibility, and concentration, which are some needed elements of a successful singing performance. You could certainly perform well with just committing to vocal practices, but you could gain more benefits by regularly engaging in physical exercises. Different physical exercises, if done properly, can target areas of your singing practice, like maintaining breath support, correcting posture, and sustaining focus. They also help singers develop mental endurance as singers cope with and overcome stress in discipline of practicing and performing. As you gather your elements, here are some recommended physical exercises for your vocal health:

• Jumping rope: If you can never find time to work out or gym membership is too expensive, get yourself a jumping rope. With this one, you can bring it everywhere and jump for  five to ten minutes each time. Regular rope-jumping helps with building breath control and upper body strength.
• Jogging: This one helps you maintain proper pacing and posture if done properly overtime. When you are doing a regular jog on a straight path, pay careful attention to your arms. Keep them as loose as possible in order to prevent them from locking up, which can lead you to be out of breath.
• Calisthenics: Including push-ups, sit-ups, and chin-ups, various exercises in this area can improve your agility, balance, and coordination. In order to achieve this, watch for tension in your neck and shoulders because it will affect your voice. Therefore, you want to make necessary adjustments between your hands as you do push-ups, and your lower back as you perform sit-ups, for example.
• Swimming: As it is necessary for singers to drink enough water, it provides free flowing therapy for anyone including those that are not even good at it. For those who are concerned or have problems with ear infection and sinuses, they should wear nose and ear plugs in order to take advantage of great stimulation around their body. For example, swimming under water for a prolong period helps you build endurance in your lungs.
• Yoga: Starters would need to take classes or have 1 on 1 sessions in order to take advantage of exercises that can energize and relax your body at the same time. Once you are proficient with practices that incorporate such things like variety of body poses, shoulders' works, and breath-works, you can apply those in your personal routine. Routine yoga practices offer some useful benefits like increasing breath control, preventing illness, and decreasing stage fright.

Like vocal exercises, you want to start from warming up to proceeding gradually. Bear in mind that any physical exercises that you adopt in your fitness regimen need to focus on helping you to become a better singer. A singing teacher or a vocal coach like Brett Manning in Singing Success can always help you achieve this along with a physical trainer or a yoga teacher. Any coach will also likely to advice you against overtraining since it will increase the risk of bodily injury that would also affect your vocal health. For your vocal health and your well being, remember to warm up and start slowly, then have a period of rest and relaxation after all the activities. 

Remedying Voice Loss - Few Tips on Restoring Your Singing Voice

Losing your voice is considered disastrous whenever you have to prepare for an upcoming gig. Generally unavoidable, voice lost is caused by variable factors including infection caused by common cold virus, strain on vocal cords caused by excessive yelling, and reflux caused by stomach acid. For more on possible causes, refer to the post on Few Things that Could Harm Your Singing Voice. Fortunately, there are always remedies, but you cannot rely on any as quick fix. In any situation, whether you have an upcoming performance or periods of rest, here are some tips on restoring your singing voice:

• Rest without whisper: Having more rest is not only necessary to recover from sickness, fatigue or any ailments, but it also lets your vocal cords to recover from any damage. During this time, you should refrain from using your voice, including avoiding any conversation, skipping vocal practice, and whispering. Whispering can be as worse as shouting, but if you have to talk, do so normally and briefly.
• Hydrate to lubricate: Drinking plenty of room-temperature water is good enough to consistently lubricate your throat and water can flush any unwanted toxin out of your system. Additionally, you can treat yourself to some herbal tea and fruit juices. While they might be helpful, you want to watch for and avoid drinks that can cause acid reflux.
• Eat with care: Just like drinks, you also want to avoid or minimize spicy food intake, since it can not only cause acid reflux, but can also burn your throat, which makes it difficult to sing higher notes. Minimizing the effects of discomfort food, avoid going to bed not long after you have your dinner or avoid eating late entirely. For more about healthy consumption and healthy diet, check out Important Nutrition to Maintain Vocal Health.
• Relax with therapy: While you are resting at home, get yourself a bowl and fill it with hot water. Then sit back and relax as you breathe the steam out of that bowl. Another relaxing therapy is taking a hot shower, which is also a good opportunity to soothe your vocal cords.
• Warm up gently: If you have to prepare for an upcoming show, gently warm up your voice by doing simple humming and lip rolls. When you find your voice weakening or tightening, take a break and repeat the process again without forcing yourself. Then, an hour before the performance, practice the simple vocal exercises again by gradually running through the scales.

Whichever remedies you rely on, it generally takes time for you to recover your vocal strength. For certain vocal health issues, you may want to consult a specialized doctor (ENT) just to be sure. Consulting with a vocal coach/singing teacher like Brett Manning in Singing Success is considered the best source since he/she can relay an experience of having to perform under sickness. If your voice is not cooperating with you even after simple vocal exercises, it's better to call off your appointment right away. Then, get yourself comfortable and recover with a twist. 

Few Things that Could Harm Your Singing Voice

Almost every singer would experience any vocal ailments whether it's due to abuse or misuse, exposure to climate variances, certain food & drinks, or other factors. Vocal ailments like hoarseness, laryngitis, and vocal nodules are unfortunately part of your learning process to become a better singer. As long as you try to improve your vocal range, perform in many gigs, or practice any routines, you will somehow experience some vocal discomfort. Like anything else, this can certainly be prevented. Going along with the idea of prevention, let's take a look at few things that could harm your singing voice:

• Alcoholic beverages: Alcohol is a type of drugs that will impact your judgment, if it is not consumed in moderation. Just like the case of driving under its influence, too much of it can numb your senses and it will contribute to the bleeding of your vocal cords. Therefore, an advice of any vocal teachers still hold: Never drink alcohol before any singing performances or you'll be reckless and sorry.
• Cough cough: Coughing is unavoidable when you are sick or have a cold, but too much of it will contribute to damaging effect if you don't treat it promptly. Treating it, get an over the counter cough suppressant and take it with some water to soothe your throat. You may also want to consult with an experienced vocal coach about an effective cough treatment.
• Relief medication: Relying on aspirin, antihistamines, and other over the counter products to relief allergies, bodily aches or cold can easily cause dryness and other damage on your throat. Instead, consult with a doctor or a vocal coach for a better alternative in anticipation of a singing performance. Otherwise, it is best to keep yourself and your voice a rest.
• Acid reflux: This refers to the back flow of stomach contents up to the esophagus or throat, which can often leave bitter taste in your mouth. It would make it difficult for you to hit high notes as you might have to cope with other discomfort like hoarseness, frequent coughing, and persistent throat clearing. Treating it requires changes in lifestyle and avoidance of food and drink that might cause heartburn and difficulty in swallowing, such as caffeine, spicy food, and dairy products.
• Loud shout: Shouting as a cheer or to get an attention in a basketball match is different than screaming or yelling in singing, but either one can hurt your vocal cords. The former should be avoided as much as possible and if you really need to get someone's attention from a distance, just use non-verbal cues like clapping, waving, or whistling. The latter requires practicing some techniques like making a scratchy sound, raising and lowering pitches repeatedly, and flexing your diaphragm.

The list is not exhaustive, but you should be well aware that too much of everything can generally be detrimental to your vocal health. Protecting it simply requires avoidance or moderation of certain consumption. Also, knowing and practicing proper singing techniques can lessen the damage to your vocal cords. Additionally, a doctor and a vocal coach like Brett Manning in Singing Success can offer advice on how to cope with any vocal discomfort. Whenever possible, they would advice that it's best to rest than to force it. 

Important Nutrition to Maintain Vocal Health

Water and plants are two elements of nature that should cover the basics of nutrition. This does not mean that aspiring singers should all become vegetarians. Even if you are a vegetarian, you still need proteins, vitamins, and fat, which most people can easily get from meat and poultry. Whether you eat meat or just veggies, proper nutrition with above elements is vital for your development as a better and stronger singer. So, let's take a look at some elements of important nutrition that can help you to maintain vocal health:

• Water: Not many of us can follow the general recommendation of drinking 8-10 glasses every day, but you want to at least drink enough to hydrate your throat consistently. It depends on how much you utilize your voice other than singing. Other than water, drinking various herbal teas, fresh fruit-juices and any non-alcoholic & non-caffeinated beverages will help protect your vocal folds.
  

Simple Tips to Maintain Vocal Health During Summer Months

High temperatures/humidity during summer months won't deter anyone from participating in outdoor concerts/festivals or going on extended travel. Even with lots of joy and excitement, your health may be vulnerable due to variabilities of air quality, pollutants, and other environmental elements. Your body has to adjust to any environmental variabilities like room air conditioning, sun, and wind. Whether indoor or outdoor, any aspiring singers should not only practice to improve their vocal range, but should also exercise to maintain their vocal health. The following are some simple tips to help you maintain vocal health during summer months:

• Eat healthy diet: Avoid the perception that you have to spend more money on preparing a healthy diet. Preparing food from scratch and eating more fresh fruits & vegetables actually can save you more. Consuming healthy or balanced diets helps you avoid fatigue, increase stamina, and recover from stress quickly among many benefits.
• Drink plenty of water: You don't need to follow general recommendation of drinking 8-10 glasses a day. It depends on your summer activities and whether or not the heat exposure makes you rely more on water intake. Drinking at least few glasses of water can not only hydrate your throat, but it can also assist your body's immune system and fend off any hoarseness or scratchiness in your voice.
• Exercise regularly: Not having enough time in your daily lives should never be an excuse for not exercising regularly. You can always do simple exercises like walking, jogging and practicing yoga. Exercising regularly will give you benefits like improving your mood, preventing diseases and illnesses, and managing your overall health.
• Rest easily: You may try to work harder by having a very loaded schedule to meet ends meet. Whether engaging in any summer activities, working at two jobs, or having lots of important things going on in your life, you should not underestimate the importance of rest. Having proper and enough rest will cool down your stuffy head, cure any vocal ailments, and boost your immune system.
• Take natural supplements: Getting used to following healthy routines like above, you don't need to be concerned about other things. Taking additional supplements like vitamins, protein, and herbs should be useful in promoting and boosting your health. In regards to maintaining vocal health, recommended supplements involve balm (to soothe and relieve soreness in the muscles), essential oil (to cool and refresh your body), and Prime Again (to combat cold and allergies).

You can certainly find other healthy tips on maintaining vocal health through Brett Manning's Singing Success. Brett Manning and other vocal coaches are there to assist you with not only improving your singing voice, but also maintaining your vocal health. Due to differences and variabilities in each season, you should follow any healthy tips all year long. Once you get into routines of exercising regularly, maintaining healthy diets, or resting easily, things will be easier during summer months. You will appreciate your healthy body and a solid voice. 

How to Sing in Key? Lifting Up Your Singing Potential

There are few simple tricks that can help you learn to sing on pitch. They complement this post. There are also other posts about mastering various aspects of vocal techniques.

Like many singers who have auditioned in American Idol or other talent shows, you have not been able to sing in tune with or without a musical instrument. You might have been going too high or too low on interpreting notes. This could be due to the lack of singing practice, which leads to possible lack of knowing proper techniques, lack of learning one's own voice, and lack of practicing different voice exercises. For further reading on the above topics, check out Vocal Exercises for Singers, Improving Vocal Range, and Additional Tips to Singing Better. They can lead you to figure out how to sing in key.

Visit Brett Manning's Singing Success. Ask other members in online forum. Sign up to learn with a vocal coach who can help you with figuring out how to sing in key. 

In order to dig deeper on how to sing in key, you simply need to routinely practice your voice. Also there are some important tips mentioned in other posts that will be discussed here again. The following will provide some ideas on how to sing in key:

• Recording and playback: If you haven't done this, pick up a voice recorder and a microphone. You can also sing with a piano (if you have one) and record yourself. Listening to a recording of your voice is a simple step towards learning what is not right and how you would improve it.
• Breathing and relaxation: This should go along routinely when you perform any vocal exercises/warm ups. You should make an effort to breath constantly before, in between, and after each exercise. To help you breath and relax better, take some yoga classes where you can also learn some relaxation techniques.
• Vocal ranges and pitches: It is somehow necessary for you to learn about chest voice, mixed voice, head voice, relative pitch, and perfect pitch. They are basically the skills for you to master different notes and to become a better listener/interpreter. You can learn them yourself or take a voice class.

Sing with Confidence. In order to get there, you need to master the skills suggested. If you need help, visit Singing Success today and sign up for a lesson.

Figuring out how to sing in key is also figuring out how serious you are with singing. In order to lift up your singing potential, you should do what have been suggested in other posts and ideas above. Going along with all ideas and suggestions, you should consider taking vocal/singing class traditionally or online. A vocal coach and your classmates in a singing class can provide better support and help you learn better. You may also learn better through video demonstrations if you choose to take online vocal lessons.