International Cinema Festival of India

Do you like to know how to train your ear and make use of it to become a better singer? A trained ear is a key component to understanding music.

Training your ear will provide you the potential to recognize rhythm, scales, melody, chords, and intervals.

Training your ear is not a one night process. You will need to dedicate yourself to practicing everyday, for an hour a day until you begin to recognize the key components of music.

However, once you do start to develop your ear you will become a better singer.

With an improved ear you will find you can play music by ear and sing by sight. Sight singing is when you look at notes on paper and sing the notes you notice.

You can really hear what the notes will sound like just by staring at the sheet music. This is a great skill to have for any singer.

Remember, you are not looking to produce perfect pitch. Perfect pitch means you can identify any note. You want to improve your ear for relative pitch.

This means you definitely will name a note when you evaluate it to a reference note. For example, if you hear a C note you will be able to find the following notes played by recognizing the intervals within the notes.

Now, let’s look at some great tips for training your ear.

*Read musical rhythms out loud. This practice will let you learn the tempo of the music before you sing the notes. Commence with simple one beat quarter notes and build up to more difficult rhythms.

*Know your ‘do,re,me’ syllables. These are syllables you use for singing pitches. A ‘do’ equals a ‘C’, a ‘re’ equals a ‘D’ and so on.

*Using short musical phrases, imitate the pitch and rhythm using the ‘do, re, me’ syllables.

*As you practice the above workout use longer and longer musical phrases and more complex rhythms. Repeat them over and over until you feel confident.

*Do not commit all your time singing or practicing in a group. Singing in a group is great for harmony but it does not teach you to recognize individual notes.

Be sure to spend time practicing on your own to exercise your ear for singing.

Most fantastic singers grow their voice by listening to amazing singers. Maybe they listen to great singers for hours. Maybe they have a musical family and grow up surrounded by wonderful singing.

Whatever they do, the greatest singers give themselves the greatest gift – a trained ear. They can feel the music, master it, and move to it. They know the melody and where it is headed before it goes there.

I’m not talking about the outer smile your fans see. The smile that modifies the way you sing is the inner smile. This smile will raise the pads underneath your eyes and the upside of your mouth.

*To get a great inside smile lift your eyebrows and pretend to yawn. Before the yawn absolutely starts sing your ‘la’!

This should give you a deep and rich tone. You will not think it is your voice. Combine this approach with your new ear training for a distinctive singing voice!

Don’t stop here, Check out this website about Learn Singing! It has tons of tips to teach you how to sing higher or increase your vocal range! Check out Singing Basics http://www.singingbasics.com/ Also published at Things You Have To Consider On How To Train With Your Ears.