Whether you’re a professional or an amateur singer, it’s important to stay fit and healthy. To maintain proper breathing ensuring that you have full use of your lungs, regular exercise should be part of your day. Walking and swimming are particularly good for performers because they don’t add unwanted stress to your muscles. There is less chance of injury when you swim or walk, which is important if your aim is to perform professionally. Time out from singing could mean a loss of income. Maintaining a good, balanced diet will help to keep your body fit on the inside. Make sure you eat plenty of fresh vegetables and fruits. Singers should try to avoid eating too much dairy food as it often builds up phlegm which can adversely affect your vocal chords and sinuses. A number of professional singers gargle with and swallow pineapple juice. It can be a natural way of cleaning the gunk off your vocal chords before a performance.

TAKE SINGING LESSONS
Choose a good singing teacher to help motivate you and keep you practicing on a regular basis. It’s very important that your singing teacher is qualified and experienced. Word-of-mouth is usually the best way to find the right teacher or you can contact the Music Teachers’ Association in your local area for some sound advice. A good singing teacher can help you to get rid of bad singing habits and give you individually tailored vocal and breathing exercises. I recommend that you book in for a half hour or one hour lesson once a week. Regular lessons and regular practice can do wonders. Many professional entertainers that I know continue to have singing lessons. Some even take their teacher with them on tour!

DON’T STRAIN YOUR VOICE!

Always warm up before you start singing your songs. I recommend some relaxing breathing exercises then gentle humming first. Don’t sing too loudly at first. Give your muscles time to prepare. If you feel that something is too high then sing it an octave lower. You will need to have a set of exercises that develop different aspects of your voice and musicality – they should include major, minor and chromatic scales and arpeggios in a variety of pitches using different vowel and consonant sounds. Remember that the vowel sounds you use in singing can be quite different from the way you speak. They can also vary considerably from one music style to another, including Country, Rock, Jazz, Musicals and Classical. Keep in mind that the key you are singing in may be too high or low. If so, ask your teacher to transpose the music into a key that suits your individual voice. With the advent of computers and midi backings, it’s easy to change keys these days.

DAVID WILLIS – Singing Teacher to the STARS!
Over the years, David Willis has made quite an impact on Australian EDUCATION and the ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY. An accomplished pianist, singer and actor, David owns the Gold Coast branch of the Australian Talent School, teaching professionals and amateurs of all ages the art of Singing and Presentation, whilst nurturing their passion for Music and Performance.
As a specialist Singing, Speech & Presentation Teacher for over 20 years, David is proud of his SUCCESS STORIES including STARS from TV and Stage! To find out more about David’s unique style of teaching, his success stories and his special Singing Exercises offer, log onto…
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David’s unique WARMUP EXERCISES have been graded from Beginner to Intermediate and Advanced. They are guaranteed to greatly improve your singing in a very short time. All it takes is a few minutes each day. Amateur and professional singers world-wide are thrilled with the results they get from the exercises!

Those days are gone — but there are still deals if you know what to look for.

The simple thing to remember in vintage guitar collecting is … American guitars. Not to say Japanese or European luthiers haven’t made fine guitars, but the vintage market isn’t looking that way. If you stay American-made, you’ll have the best chance of an instrument that will appreciate in value.

Next, forget about those who claim certain years of American guitars aren’t desirable. It’s true that folks once looked down on ’70’s Stratocasters — but folks are now scrambling and paying top dollar for 70’s and 80’s models! Same thing with ’80’s Gibson guitars — once thought of as poor-quality examples, people now bid high amounts for them.

Why? Well, once the most desirable pieces are gone, whatever’s left is going to command attention.

So — to find the next “deal” — look for American made guitars that collectors are currently ignoring. Because — soon enough, these will be at the top of the food chain.

How about specifics? Well, think “student” models. Some models are already desirable — Fender Mustangs and Gibson Melody Makers, for example; other models haven’t gained notice yet … but they will!

For instance, Fender Bullets, made in the early 1980’s, are student model guitars, but are American made and use parts found in Telecasters of the same period (pickups, etc). These are great-sounding, easy-playing, and nice looking instruments. You can still find Bullets for less than $300 … although they’re beginning to gather attention. Note, we’re not talking the Squire Bullet Stratocaster-type model, but the American-made Fender model (looks like a Telecaster).

Fender also put out a Lead series — the Lead I, Lead II, and the Lead III. Again, these were an American made student series — but are great playing, solidly made, and sound wonderful. You can still pick up Lead’s for less than $300.

Gibson Melody Makers have already been discovered by collectors — but there’s not a lot of action with Gibson’s Kalamazoo line … yet. These student models are similar in quality to the Melody Makers and Fender Mustangs. I’ve found Kalamazoo models for less than $100!

I haven’t mentioned other brands — Epiphone, Gretsch, Guild, etc — because either their student models have already exploded in price or they really don’t have student models. Stick with Fender and Gibson, stick with American made, and keep your eyes on lesser-known student models … and you’ll find deals that will likely join other lines in appreciating over the coming years.

Joey Robichaux operates the Free Sheet Music site at http://www.freesheetmusic.net and is an avid vintage guitar collector.

After learning to finger pick my first guitar chord, I wrote a gritty, poetic one chord song and performed it on stage for a small crowd at a downtown Toronto coffee house. Roberta Richards, a Canadian music impressario who became a cult legend mentoring folk artists like Dan Hill and Leon Redbone, was there that night. Wonderfully talented musician play in bands practicing for months in their basement without ever taking a single booking. I broke every rule in the book by performing that night but somehow Roberta was impressed..

It’s hard to know when you’re ready. There is, after all, an audience for everything and everyone. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Getting an audience isn’t hard; any circus sideshow can do that. You don’t have to be perfect to be heard and to be liked. One of the best kept secrets in the music industry is if you do what you do well audiences will always take you at face value. They don’t know how much you know or don’t know, what you can or cannot play. As long as you do whatever you do well – no matter how little that may be – an audience will respond to what they hear. If they find you interesting and they like what they hear, they’ll stick around. If they don’t like what they hear, they’ll leave. It’s as simple as that.

The critics hated Bob Dylan. He sang two and three chord songs that sounded like gibberish. They didn’t understand stream of conscious writing and the “sound” that would make him famous. But, there’s no accounting for taste. Audiences didn’t try to analyze Dylan’s songs. They related to what he had to say. What drew them most of all was the impregnable aura of mystery that surrounded him.

Inspired by Hank Williams and Woody Guthrie, Dylan started performing folk songs at coffeehouses in New York’s Greenwich Village. Beat poet, Allen Ginsberg said he, “wept hearing ‘Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall’”. Bob Dylan wrote the Beat poetry of a new generation. His stream of consciousness imagery was the most exciting, subversive thing in the air. Dylan became folk music’s Elvis. The folk scene embraced him.

It wasn’t long before Columbia Records A&R man John Hammond signed him in 1961. Peter, Paul & Mary made his song “Blowin’ in the Wind” a huge pop hit in 1963. And by the time “The Times They Are A-Changin’” was released in early 1964, Dylan’s song writing was clearly influenced by rythm and blues inspired by the British Invasion and his new friends the Beatles. With artistic achievement that stretch over 30 years, Dylan refuses to categorize his music as being the voice of anything although those of us who lived in that era had our eyes and ears open.

You may not be Bob Dylan but write a few songs anyway. Play a folk guitar if you have to. The more you learn, the better you get, the larger your audience and following will become. Eventually, you’ll get good enough to be paid even if it’s busking for dollars at the corner.

Dennis Walsh progressofmusic@hotmail.com