1. For Pitch Accuracy in your ears, eyes/fingers, voice, breath, conscious, and subconscious

Four Objectives:

1.  Your ear listens and tunes into the frequency of the note while your voice matches it and you see and feel the notes on the keyboard.  This conditions the subconscious and muscles to sing the correct pitches.

2.  Check your accuracy with a voice tuning app while doing this exercise (I use… “Tuner – Pitched!” by stonekick)

3.  Your breath is to be totally exhausted after after a tuning fingering. 

4. Taking quick breaths … like between the note run and the arpeggio

*  Take your voice to your highest possible note that you can do without excessive straining, and also to the lowest.

*  Tightening your stomach muscles when singing notes … for when you use this in a song

Tuning Your Subconscious —————

Use your Keyboard to generate note tones for you where you match with your voice.  Five first notes of a scale, walking progression up and down, then the notes of the chord up and down for 5 notes.  Your fingering should be exactly like it is when playing a full scale in that key. 

Time Allotted———–

To sing your very best you should spend an hour or more tuning your voice.  You will know when you are in peak singing condition from the tuning when your hard palate becomes totally relaxed. 

Before coming to a recording sesstion Elvis probably tuned his voice for a time on the piano.  When he arrived at the recording session Elvis would come in and immediately sit down at the piano and do melody tuning by playing and singing mostly gospel songs.  His backup singers would join in.  He would do this for one to two hours while the studio musicians sit there and would wait.  He wouldn’t stop until he felt his mouth could form anything he wanted it to.  This can be shown by his talking during a concert.  He would talk in a very nasaly voice as almost singing voice.  That is the objective when tuning your voice before a performance.

Accuracy———————

To practice as accurately as possible put headphones on with a microphone amplifying your voice along with the keyboard notes being played. 

You can also record your session on a DAW and see how accurate your pitch is (I use Cubase – It’s designed for artists).  Try recording without any microphone sound, just the keyboard notes and then check the accuracy of your pitch. 

Start by holding double whole notes!  No occasional wavering.  Just long pure notes.  Put the metronome on.

Lower Notes————

Start at F below middle C.  

First:  In your right hand play the 3 notes of the F scale at the same time, 1 3 5, hence a chord.

Second:  Play independently the first 5 notes of the particular scale up then down 1 2 3 4 5 4 3 2 1

Third:  Pay the chord notes independently, 1 3 5 3 1

Fourth:  Play the 3 notes of the scale at the same time, 1 3 5, again a chord.

Then move down one semitone down and do the next 5 notes of that scale.  Tune your voice in this manner until you reach your lowest note possible.  Concentrate on making your voice matching the piano tone exactly.

Repeat.  You should do this in all the 5 vowels, a e i o u.    Vary the note sounds coming from the keyboard from piano to organ to violin to guitar, etc.

The Singing Range Notes—————-

Start at A below middle C.  This is the lowest note you will ever have to sing (with rare exceptions).  Do the same four step fingering-vocalizing exercise.  Go to your highest note possible.  

Play the lower octave when playing a chord with the right hand.

Repeat, starting back on A below middle C.  You should do this in all the 5 vowels, a e i o u.    Vary the note sounds coming being played by the keyboard — from piano to organ to violin to guitar, etc.

If you have time constraints at least pick three vowels and alternate to the other vowels every tuning session.  This is only when you need a quick warmup.

Caruso’s Favorite Vocal Warm Up

Elvis singing Santa Lucia

Jumping Notes

Starting on G below middle C, play and vocalize slowly the notes of the Gmajor7 chord.   Move up a semi tone and repeat.  Do this to your highest note.

Pro Tuning – Scales

Tune with all the 7 notes in a targeted scale, plus the 8th note.   Tune up the scale, take a breath, then tune down the scale.  The scales to practice start at G below middle C. 

Example:  UP = C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C  DOWN = C, B, A, G, F, E, D, C. .

After completing the lowest note of a scale, play the chord, the root note, the subdominant and the dominant note of that scale.  Then move up one semi tone, play that chord, then play the notes of that  scale.  Do these scales to your highest note then come down doing scales to your lowest note.  Use the same fingering you use for practicing scales

Note the feeling you get with each note.  The root is the most stable.  the 2nd is the most dissident.   The 4th and 5th notes of the scale has a tension that wants to be resolved to the root.  The 6th note has a pleasant melody sound.  The 7th note has a just about octave root sound.  This is ear training practice.  

Register Tuning 1

The phonation is…   mmmmm aaaaaa.   Hold the mmmm sound for a few seconds, let it vibrate in your head, then transition into the aaaaa sound with an vertical open mouth.  The mmmm sound is to resonate your head cavities.   Hold the aaaaa sound for 3 or 4 seconds.  This exercise will help develop your ear by humming note pitches that will help you decode melody tunes.  

If you are using an electric keyboard it is best to do this exercise with the organ sound so it will have a sustained note sound while you vocalize.

Vocalize the 7+1 notes of the scale (add the higher root note for 8 notes).  Then move up a semi tone and repeat.   Vocalize to your highest pitch.  Then come down stopping at your lowest note you can sing.  Alternatively vocalize up the scale with all the 12 notes in the octaves up to your highest note.  Then come down vocalizing to your lowest note. 

At the end play the one, four, and five chords of that scale.  Then play the scale with the proper fingering. 

While the right hand is playing the notes you are vocalizing, in the left hand play a lower octave, or play the chord, or arpeggiate the chord.  Just sound this briefly.  This facilitates you to playing piano while singing  when you later grow into playing chords and even melodies which is a must for top level singing.

Register Tuning 2

Same technique except with phonation ….. mmmmmm ae……………ae   The shape of the mouth (embouchure) should be a horizontal oval when vocalizing the  ae.