What does good singing feel like?

For a long time as I was learning how to sing, I was seeking sensations. I thought, I should feel something here or there. After all, singing requires effort, right? It turned out that good singing doesn’t feel anything like I have imagined. Worst of all is that my concepts about what it should feel like hindered my progress big time!

Good singing is a healthy vocal production free of strain and tension especially at the throat. It is the sound fully connected to the breath and produced by the whole body. Good singing energizes the singer and strengthens the voice. Good singing actually feels GOOD!

I actually heard that a million times, but It took me years to realize that, and experience it myself. My concept of good singing was very off to say the least.

What I thought good singing feels like

Just so you know where I am coming from… My technique was bad, like really bad… Tension and strain were my two unwelcomed singing companies all along… I would start straining at around B3, and going anywhere beyond D4 was not even an option… I couldn’t sustain notes. It felt like my voice had a low ceiling… it felt heavy, and yet weak… I thought I was a bass.

My biggest misconception that hindered my progress the most was that as I am changing pitch (singing higher or lower), something should be moving up and down…mostly it was my larynx… 

Larynx moving up is a recipe for strain and limited range.

It is so easy to develop bad habit, and so hard to break it… and engaged larynx was by far the hardest one to break.

In reality, larynx was moving because I was engaging a lot of outside muscles (mostly in the neck). A big NO, NO, as I learned the hard way.

Generally speaking, I thought good singing should feel like work. Like there needs to be action… Because of that I was seeking sensations in my diaphragm, my abs, my throat, mouth, tongue, lips, soft palate.

It is not until I started working with a vocal coach and he started pointing at my bad habits, that I realized how much unnecessary action I had all over the place. Funny, thing is that I thought that I wasn’t doing those things…

He pointed out that I was

• over squeezing the cords, and attacking every note with a hard onset
• raising my head and moving my jaw as I went up the scale
• moving my lips and tongue on every single note of the scale.

Looking back, I think the reason I was doing all those things, is because I wanted to feel singing.
And it is not that I wanted to feel tension, no. I realized, that what I was doing was wrong. I just thought I should feel something…

What good singing actually feels like

It turns out that good singing doesn’t feel anything like I have imagined it to be.

Not that I mastered good singing technique, but I think I finally got it. It is just a matter of making it a habit, and using it constantly on exercises and in songs.

• Well produced sound is actually free of any sensations in the throat. The vocal cords are closing well, but you don’t feel them. There is no tension in the neck, or jaw.
• It feels good. It feels free and released… The sound is clear and loud.
• There is just enough energy. It is not pushed, nor strained.
• It feels effortless. Body is relaxed, but also active and engaged at the same time.
• It feels like the sound is coming from your abdomen, and not from the throat.
• It feels like the sound is connected to the breath.
• It feels like you will never run out of breath. 
• The higher notes don’t feel any higher… Actually, it feels like nothing is really changing in the throat. Perhaps just a bit of squeeze inside, but since there are no nerves inside the larynx the feeling is mostly psychological. Like I am just imagining that something is happening inside there.
• Depending on the vowel there might be a sensation of resonance and feeling of fullness in the mouth… almost like your mouth is full of sound. It is a weird sensation.

---

How I got there

Of course, all this didn’t change for me overnight.

First of all, it took me a while to actually get it, that is to understand what I am suppose to be doing, and what I should be looking for.

My vocal coach showed me what I should be doing, and what kind of sound I should be looking for. It wasn’t at all about sensations, but about the sound.

I’ve went through most of the popular singing courses out there, and watched countless videos on vocal technique on Youtube, but it is only during that one lesson it clicked.

Funny thing is that I stumbled upon the same technique on my own a while ago. But because I was overdoing it, I didn’t get anywhere with it, and I dropped it.

When I started working on the exercises that my vocal coach gave me it felt uncomfortable. I would get tired quickly. And I was also getting lightheaded frequently.

I found that practicing in short burst of 10-15 minutes through out the day worked wonders for me. A short break would give a chance for the voice to rest and recover. It was especially important if I abused it a bit in earlier sessions. If I didn’t take the break and would just keep going, I’d definitely regret it later.

It took me a while to find the right balance where I was working out my voice just the right amount, not overshooting and not just noodling around doing exercises that are easy but don’t work out the voice.

The only sensation I was looking for was the feeling of release: that is free and loud sound.

That is when magic started to happen!

Almost every single day I would discover that my voice feels different. Wrong muscles started to give in. It felt like my whole body is engaging to produce the sound. I felt like I am working out, yet I am not abusing my voice.

In other words, singing started to feel very different from what I used to experience, and also it felt nothing like what I imagined. It’s been a long journey, and I know it is really just the beginning.

I am still working on my technique every single day. My voice seems to be getting stronger, and richer, and more consistent every day at least during my practice sessions.

I do find that I still fall back on the old habits here and there, especially when singing songs. But now I am much more aware of the wrong sensations that act as warning signs that I am not doing what I am suppose to be doing. And now, when I know what good singing should feel like, I can know what to look for.