How to Sing

Rating:
Summary: Excellent book
Review: If you need an intro to singing and want to learn "how to sing" in a concise manner, via learning all the basic principles which underlie using your voice to sing effectively, then I highly suggest this book. Just reading the first chapter alone is worth the price.

Rating:
Summary: Beware!
Review: It frightens me to find people turning to self help books to learn to sing. I have devoted over twenty years of my life to learning aboout and teaching the art of singing. Books can be helpful guides, but there is no substitute for a trained teacher of singing. Do not rely on books alone. Every voice, like every person, is different, and there are no pat answers for any vocal difficulties. Only the ears, expertise, knowledge, and heart of a trained singer will help you to truly find the voice within you.

Rating:
Summary: Well written and correct
Review: The basic information in the book is well written and correct. One does get a good introduction to singing. However, I tend to agree with the reviewer who says, "Beware." Having sung opera professionally for 30 years, and taught for 20, I find that so many books are out there about how to sing. Having studied the principles of singing all my life, I have to say, it seems there are no agreeing theories on most of it. Some teachers are very technical, others very imagery oriented without much actual understanding of the body. This book sort of draws the two together. The technigue is there, and we are given very practicle ways of figuring out what our bodies are doing, and images are used to get the idea of what one feels like. But like all books on singing, they cover only a scratch on the surface of what singing is, and how the body coordinates while actually singing. I worry about people who read a book, try the principles contained in it for a week, then talk about how they have really improved and they are on the road to perfect singing. So they now manage their breath better, that is a good thing, but doesn't mean you have learned to sing at all. I have worked with so many students, and tried to realine their voices, after they have used some book, or CD, to learn to sing. Sure, they were able to approximate the tone quality, but they used all the wrong muscles to do so. Even though they had good low breathing, I found that so many concentrated on the "Big amount of air" or on huge expansion (all because of books like this that imply you need a huge amount of breath to sing, when in fact you need no more than the phrase you are singing requires, and what most never mention is that if you have too much air in the lungs you actually cannot control it and appear to "run out of breath" quicker than you normally would just speaking), and they have never figured out how you use the air. It is easy for them to do the exercises and some even can expel the air taking longer than 2 and a half minutes to do it, but all that breath control disappears as soon as they have to sing.

The book is great to give you an introduction to what singing is all about, and what sorts of things you ought to be learning and developing, but that is as far as it goes. If looked at from this perspective, I would rate the book as I did, as it is clear, and well written, easily understood, and well, approachable. However, like I would say with all books on singing, once you have read them, and think you understand them, seek out a good teacher (and they can be as hard to find as anything, believe me; there are many completely unqualified people out there teaching voice, and NEVER confuse a vocal coach with a teacher, coaches know nothing of voice production, they only understand musical styles and I have seen more good voices ruined by vocal coaches than people teaching themselves). Then using their ears and eyes, learn what works, how to coordinate your body so it works perfectly, and then pay attention to what you feel like as you produce the sound (you will never hear yourself correctly, and in order to produce a sound that you do hear in your ears that sounds super good, full, resonant, you have done everything that produces a sound the audience hears as dull, muffled, and sometimes almost flat). Then in time you will be able to watch yourself and govern your own singing voice. A book in only an introduction and nothing more, and can only be judged from that stand point.