Does your voice wobble when you sing? Can you sing a good loud note but worry that you’re wavering in and out of tune?
If you are able to basically match pitch but you’re having trouble holding prolonged, steady notes, there are a few things you can practice in order to improve.
1. Find the Singing Range That Suits Your Voice
All singers, no matter their expertise level, have limits on their range. If you haven’t taken formal voice lessons to identify that range, you may very well be trying to sing outside of your bounds.
One thing to try is to begin to speak in your regular speaking voice and then change it into a monotone note.
From there, try singing a good note at the pitch you were just speaking with. Because this pitch comes more naturally, you may find it easier to maintain the note’s pitch steadily.
From there, you can start to move up and down notes in a scale to explore the limits of your range. If you start finding it hard to produce the pitch or your voice starts to feel strained, you are probably at your current natural limits. Protect your voice and back off again into your comfortable range!
There are exercises you can do to gradually increase your range over time, but for now focus on singing clear, steady pitches within your comfortable singing range.
2. Vary Your Volume
How loudly or quietly you are singing strongly affects how easily you can control your pitch. For this reason you should experiment with different volumes to see what feels best for your voice.
If you’re singing too quietly, you may find it hard to project your voice and hit the correct pitch. If you’re singing too loudly, you may be putting a strain on your voice and again, your pitching will suffer.
Practicing volume control and adjusting your volume may well make your pitch problems disappear!
3. Listen Intently to the Notes
A key factor in reliably producing the right pitch is knowing exactly what pitch you are producing at any given moment. So make sure you’re listening to every note you sing.
This simple active aural awareness will help you fine-tune your listening skills and greatly help with your pitch issues.
It’s all too easy to let your active listening “turn off” when you sing, but if you practice you’ll find it can also be easy to remember to listen again when your attention wanders. This is closely related to “mindfulness” meditation!
In time, this awareness will become subconscious and you won’t have to work as hard to achieve your ideal pitching.
Summary
Every singer struggles with producing a consistent stable pitch at first. But use these three techniques to practice your steady singing and you will find you quickly improve!