Do you have any tips on keeping rhythm while singing?

I recently received this question! And for those of you who have been following this podcast.

You know that to sound good with your singing.

You need to

1. Be on pitch

2. Be on time

3. Sing with appropriate vocal colours

Now what I realised is I haven’t really talked too much about being on time.

So let’s tackle that today! How do we keep a better sense of rhythm whilst singing.

Real quick! For those of you who don’t know me. My name is Ivan, I love making music and also teaching singing to students all around the world. On this newsletter my goal is to make learning to sing simple. If that’s up your lane, consider subscribing. If you want to improve your voice faster, check out the links down below for ways to work with me

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Whilst we can get into the whole idea of bpm, time signatures.

I find that for us as singers. What’s more important is building a good sense of rhythm through intuition. What this means is being able to listen to the music or context to being able to sing your words at the right time

So let’s start here [please see videos for audio examples]

Step 1: Get a sense of the rhythm

Start off with a song that you know. In this example, I’ll use Verse 2 of my original song - Watching Over Us

And what I’ll do is I’ll just listen to the song and try to clap or tap at rhythm that feels like it fits in.

To do this, we’re looking for cues. Maybe how frequently the instruments play or even better the beat of the drum.

Step 2: Try subdividing

Once you can find a basic beat, this is where you can really improve your rhythm.

But what exactly is subdividing. Basically, you can think of splitting that beat into smaller EVEN chunks. Which means instead of every beat you clap once. You would split it into 2 claps. Or 4 claps.

Give it a try!

Step 3: Try noticing which words land with the beat

So how does all of this actually help me keep rhythm when I’m singing? This is where it gets cool! Now that we’ve got a feel of the tempo. To make sure we sing the right words at the right time.

Remember how I said earlier that music is pattern?

Rather than figuring out the timing for every word. Why don’t we just focus on a few select words which lines up with the beat.

This can act as a little marker, to know if we’re on time or not.

See if you can notice this with your clapping!

Step 4: Try singing it acapella!

Now the final step here is applying it to our singing. Now that we’ve got a steady tempo, we’ve got a sense of which words land on the beat.

Let’s try singing it and see if your singing lands on the beat too.

If you can get this! Try to change the tempo and see if those words are still landing with the beat.

The reason why, is we want your brain to recognise patterns. Not necessarily rote learn.

That’s a wrap

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If you feel stuck! Reach out for a voice lesson or check out the links down below for more. You don’t have to figure it out on your own.

Thanks for joining me! I'm Ivan - your voice teacher. See you next Thursday/Friday for our weekly tutorial.

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