P.A Equipment

The most common question I get asked by professional singers is, "how do I set up my P. A. (public address) system to achieve a good sound?"
It saddens me when I hear a singer with a good voice and well produced backing tracks have their performance ruined by a poor sound caused by their lack of knowledge on how to set up the sound system... Read More

Equipment

A singer is only as good as the equipment they use.
You can be the best singer in the world but if you sing through an inadequate P.A system, no matter how good a singer you are your sound will not be good.
The same rule applies to being able to use the equipment to it's best.
In other words you can have a great voice and top of the range sound system but if you don't know how to set a good sound it will still sound terrible.
Read more in my article http://www.thesingingtutor.com/equipment.htm

New Joseph

I see James McCracken whom I sometimes work with is down to the last 50 in the new reality TV show which is looking for the new joseph for the musical "Joseph and his amazing techicolor dreamcoat".
Well done James and good luck you deserve to win.

Keep Singing!

Todays Tip On Good singing

Don't take any dairy products such as milk, cheese, butter or chocolate on a day when you are going to sing.
Taking dairy products causes a sticky film to form on your vocal chords and makes it extremely difficult to control your voice.
Make sure you drink plenty of water in order to keep your vocal chords hydrated.

Taken from The Singing Tutor E-Book

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X Factor Winner gets £100k for five songs.

X Factor winner Leona Lewis was flown from Los Angeles to Glasgow and paid £100,000 to sing five songs at a birthday party.
Bra tycoon Michelle Mone payed the extorionate price as a surprise for husband Micheal's 40th birthday.
Leona has become Michael's favourite singer since appearing on ITV's The X Factor reality talent show.
Nice work if you can get it!
Michelle also gave hubby a new Bentley and flew guests to Barcelona to finish the party.

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Vocal Exercise

I can't stress enough how important it is to do regular vocal exercises.
This is especially true if you are not singing for a few days.
An Olympic runner doesn't wait until he's on the starting blocks to get ready for the race.
We don't see the months of intense training that is carried out before this race.
Like the Olympic runner it is important for singers to learn the correct methods of singing and to exercise the voice in order to keep a good and strain free vocal sound.

Keep singing!

Backing Tracks

I went to see a singer working self contained (using backing tracks) a few days ago.
She was a good looking girl, with a good voice, nice stage presence and a good P.A. system.
Did I enjoy the show?
No!
So what was the problem you're probably asking?
The problem was her backing tracks. She had paid great attention to everything in her act except her tracks.
Don't get me wrong some of them were very good, but that was the problem. In amongst the few good quality tracks were tracks from karaoke discs which had fade outs (very unprofessional), tracks made directly from midi files which included the melody line and badly recorded tracks.
Most of the tracks played at different volumes so she spent most of her act making adjustments at the mixer.
I always advise singers to get all their tracks from one source, that way they are guaranteed to be the same quality and play at the same volume.
For great quality backing tracks, listen to some of the samples at mp3backingtrax.com and you'll see what I mean.
This cabaret act had obviously spent a lot of time and effort getting her act polished and yet it was all for nothing as it was spoiled by bad music.
Don't let your stage performance be ruined by inferior backing tracks.

Keep Singing!