Are You Straining to Sing? Advice from Celebrity Voice and Performance Coach Jeannie Deva

Tue, 10/07/2014 - 3:41pm
Written by Jeannie Deva
Topics: celebrity vocal coach, jeannie deva, online voice lessons, singing, singing coach, vocal strain, vocal warm-up

You can hear it in the quality and feel it in your throat when it happens. The muscles tense and pull, your tone gets kind of pinched, pitchy and shrill. And if your voice doesn’t break you can consider yourself lucky.

Perhaps you only experience strain on certain occasions. You might think it’s because you weren’t born to sing in certain keys or just have a naturally low voice or the song is wrong for you (even though you love it).

And it’s true; you can lower the key or simply cut out certain songs from your repertoire. But, there is a hidden reason why you may find yourself straining. Not knowing what it is makes it easy to blame it on other things. That, not being the real reason, keeps the solution illusive and at arm’s length. So, are you ready for the unveiling of the guilty party?

What is Strain?

Preparing for Your Best Vocal Recording, by Jeannie Deva

Wed, 10/09/2013 - 4:08pm
Written by Jeannie Deva
Topics: celebrity vocal coach, jeannie deva, Los Angles Singing Lessons, music, music pre-production, music production, recording studio, singing coach

preparing for vocal recording

The most important element of a recording is all too frequently given the least amount of time for preparation and recording. Yes, sadly, it’s the vocals.

Lack of preparation along with little understanding of the art of vocal recording can make it difficult or impossible to achieve a high quality captivating studio vocal within budget. Whether you’re recording a cover song or an original, acoustic or band arrangement, here are several effective steps you can take to improve your vocal recordings.

Song Choice: Sing songs with messages you believe in and which showcase the best qualities of your voice. Unless you’re purposely trying to be an impersonator of another artist such as a tribute band, your song choices should be ones that present who you are as an artist.