How to Improve Your Voice for Worship

Whether you would love to hit higher notes to sing along with your favorite artists, 

sing on the worship team at church and feel more comfortable, or improve your voice for personal enjoyment to be able to worship God more freely, I want to walk you through the most essential vocal technique you’ll need to master.

It wasn’t until I grasped these techniques and was able to apply them to my own singing that I was really able to sing with ease, sing higher notes than ever before, and really feel that I could express my heart through my voice in a way that I never could before. So, I wanted to share these essential techniques with you as well.

If you’d like to dive deeper into each one of these techniques, check out this vocal course we just launched called Vocal Groundwork. Or if you’d just like to get your feet wet a bit more (before making the plunge into the full course!), I put together a free Mini-Course which you can find here as well.

1. Breathing from the Diaphragm

One of the most foundational techniques to good singing is learning how to breath correctly. Since your voice is a wind instrument, the way in which you breathe is of utmost importance. It is crucial to make sure you are doing this correctly every time you breathe.

When you inhale, you should focus on expanding your diaphragm while making sure there is no movement in your chest and shoulders. Often when people think of taking a deep breath, they instinctively move their chest outward and upward as they inhale. But, this will actually cause undue tension in one’s shoulders and neck which will inhibit good, effortless singing.

I suggest placing your hand right below your ribs and focusing on breathing “into your hand”. When you inhale, you should feel your hand coming out, and when you exhale, your hand will sink back in a bit. 

Another good way to feel the sensation of breathing into the diaphragm is to lay down and breathe (sometime I’ll even have people place a book on their diaphragm and watch it go up and down as they breathe). By doing this, you will eliminate any tension in the shoulders and chest and will feel the effortless breathing into your diaphragm. Then stand back up and make sure you feel the same expansion around the center with no chest movement as you inhale.

Alright! You got it. Now make sure you do that every time you breathe for singing. It may take a few weeks of diligent attention to make this a habit. But, believe me, once it’s a habit you won’t have to think about it much any more and you can turn your attention to other things.

2. Posture

Since your voice is part of your body, the way in which you hold yourself as you sing makes a significant difference. Tension is the singers worst enemy, and much tension can be eliminated simply by maintaining good posture. Here’s the basics to good posture for singing:

• Feet should be shoulders width apart (not too narrow, not too wide)
• Shoulders slightly back so as not to slouch (but also not pulled back too far). Standing straight…
• Head should be kept level, looking straight in front of yourself. Not ever tilting up too much or looking down (scrunching your neck) as this will introduce tension.
• Hands should be comfortably to your side.

3. Resonance 

It’s important to create enough space in your mouth for your voice to resonate. The most fundamental way to do this is to open your mouth wide enough when singing. This will drastically improve your sound! Although this seem rather common sense, you’d be surprised how many people don’t open their mouth wide enough when singing. It’s understandable, because when we talk, it isn’t necessary to open our mouth wide at all. All that to say… here’s what you should do.

You should open your mouth 2 fingers wide for singing whenever possible. Hold your index and middle finger together and place them vertically in your mouth. You should be able to do this without your fingers touching your teeth or tongue. That is how wide your mouth should be for singing.

Another aspect of creating a resonant tone is what is called “head resonance”. It’s important to sing with enough head resonance in your voice. To quickly understand what this is, sing any short melody on a loud hum… (did you really do it?… ok… try it for real now). Whatever melody you chose, if you sang with a loud hum you should be singing with a good amount of head resonance. You may feel a slight vibration in your sinuses or forehead. 

So, now that you got the feeling of head resonance, it is important to carry this into all your singing. Just so you’re clear, the opposite of head resonance would be a breathy, whispery tone. It would sound very anemic and soft. (Feel free to watch the video at 3:58 to see what I’m talking about).

4. Breath Support

Once you establish breathing from your diaphragm every single time, it’s crucial to learn how to supply enough breath support to your singing. Because, it is possible to breath correctly and still not be engaging your breath in the right way. Your vocal folds need just the right amount of breath pressure supplied to them in order to properly and effortlessly phonate on any given note. And the higher or louder that note is, the more breath pressure is needed.

The way to do this is by engaging your inner abdominal muscles to create the correct amount of breath support. The best way to feel this is by doing a loud “Hey!” while pressing your fist firmly on your upper abdomen (directly beneath your ribs). You could also try a nice loud football “hut hut”. You should have felt your core engage and press out or bounce out into your fist. That is breath support! So, the higher the note or the louder the note, the more breath support is needed.

When I understood how to correctly engage my breath and support my voice properly without straining, I was able to hit higher notes then before with ease and freedom. It was quite exciting. If you’d like some exercises and warm ups to work on this, you can find them in the free mini-course as well.

5. Tone

It’s important to sing with a tone that is both crystal clear and forward placed as well as rich and warm. To get a clear, forward focused tone, you should maintain the feeling of singing into your mask. Another way to think of this is to place your singing very forward. If you only sing with a forward placed tone, however, your voice may sound too piercing (you can hear this at 6:20 of the video). That’s where creating a warm tone comes in!

To add a richness and warmth to your voice, you must raise your soft palate. The best way to feel this is to begin a yawn. When we yawn, our soft palate raises. So, if you can maintain the feeling of a beginning of a yawn, then you got it! This takes a bit of practice and diligence, but it will create a much more warm and pleasing tone. I must warn you that it is possible to sing too far back in your mouth and almost swallow the tone when trying to do this… and so I want you to guard against that. You’ll want to feel as if you’re singing “normally” and placing the tone forward while maintaining a raised soft palate.

6. Sing with Connection

Singing with connection is what makes singing so beautiful. The musical word for this is “legato” which means “fluidly” in Italian. When speaking, it isn’t necessary to sustain the vowels or words. Instead, the vowels are very short and similar in length to consonants. But, when we sing, we must sustain the vowels on pitches and connect the words by elongating the vowels as long as possible. 

The best way to practice singing with connection is to sing your song on a hum and then on a single vowel (ah, eh, ee, oh, oo). This will help to give you a sense of connection between the notes on a single vowel. After you’ve practiced on a vowel for a certain song, then go back to singing the words while maintaining the same sense of connection. In practice, you will be elongating the vowels of each word and making the consonants as quick as possible… and as close together as possible.

There you go!

Those are some of the most fundamental techniques you’ll need to master to be able to sing with freedom and ease. If you can get down even one or two of these techniques, you’ll be on your way to really improving your voice. If you’d like to go more in-depth on each one of these techniques, I cover these (and way more!) extensively in our course called “Vocal Groundwork”. And, if you’re not yet ready to take the plunge on this course, I also put together a free mini-course which cover a few of these techniques as well—along with some vocal warm ups to get you going in the right direction!

Well, I hope that these vocal tips can help guide you on what to focus on in your vocal journey for God’s glory. And, please feel free to reach out with any other questions you might have about your voice. I’d be happy to share any advice!