Hi everybody, I'm going to teach you the correct way to sing using the Basic Fundamentals of Singing : Breathing, Posture and Diction . Once you've mastered these skills you will be able to sing any song, no matter what genre, using these techniques and sound like the professional singer you are, just waiting to be discovered.

Step 1: The Basic Fundamentals of Singing = a Polished Performance

Ok, so you have a passion to sing, but you need that special "something" to give you an edge to be the next Celine Dion or Charice Pempengo. Using the Basic Fundamentals of Singing is what will give you that edge. It will give you a more polished performance and take you from being a karoake singer to a Vocal Performer! Let's get started!

Step 2: Posture: the Correct Way to Stand While Singing

We'll start with the first thing people see when you are singing: your posture. Your Mama always told you to stand up straight and Mama was right! We all know what proper looks like but let me show you how to achieve it. First, stand up as tall as you can, feet flat on the floor, reaching your arms as high above your head as you can. Next, gently and slowly let your arms fall back to your sides leaving your back and chest where they are. THIS is proper posture.

Step 3: The Diaphragm: the Power Behind Your Breathing

You cannot breathe properly when you sing unless you use correct posture because your air has to move through all the channels of your torso, stomach, chest, back and neck, before it carries your words out of your mouth. Breathing and Posture work closely together. The correct way to breathe is from your Diaphragm, a muscle in your stomach area that powers your breathing as you sing. Singers like Celine Dion and Michael Bolton cannot sing the big, powerful notes they do without singing from the Diaphragm.

Step 4: How to Breathe Properly

In order to breathe from the Diaphragm, inhale slowly without heaving your chest up, then slowly exhale allowing your stomach to move inward. When you take in a breath, your stomach should move OUTWARD . When you let your breath out, your stomach should move INWARD . This will take some practice but it will soon become second nature to you. Now repeat the steps above, but as you exhale, sing, la, la, la, la, la. Repeat this Breathing Exercise until your la's become stronger, then practice this same technique as you sing lyrics to a song.

Step 5: Diction: Can We Talk??

Using proper Diction, or properly pronouncing your words, is the foundation of a great vocal performance. Americans are said to have lazy tongues in speaking and this carries over into our singing a lot of times. We love to shorten our words. What good is a great performance if no one understands the lyrics? If you want to have a professional vocal performance, this is not the place to cut corners.

Step 6: How to Use Proper Diction

Here are some tips to achieving proper Diction:

1.      SLOW DOWN! Most people talk too fast. Singers sometimes sing too fast as well. This is the number one reason words are not       pronounced correctly.

2.     When using proper Diction, your audience should hear the FIRST LETTER and the LAST LETTER of your words.

3.     Practice saying your lyrics correctly, before you sing them.