Questions about How to Practice

Hi,

I’m taking the 30 Day Beginner Course with Jonathan Estabrooks and currently going on Lesson 13, but so far, there has been no indication of how to practice these exercises?

1. Am I supposed to take one lesson a day and practice only that exercise until my voice starts to get tired? There is no indication if we need to keep practicing the exercise beyond what we follow in the video.
2. And if so, should I be doing the warm up routine of Lesson 2 before taking each subsequent lesson? So far, I've just been practicing each lesson, as there was no indication of how to incorporate this warm-up into the course.
3. So if #1 is correct, then I just need to move into the next lesson and I will never practice the previous exercise again, at least through the whole month? Correct? Is that how it works?

I’m a beginner singer, but I do play some guitar, know intermediate Music Theory, and can read music. Is perhaps because of this that I’m used to following precise instructions for how to practice and move forward like:

• "Do this exercise until you reach a tempo of 120 and can sustain it for a week, then move to the next exercise”
• or “Practice exercises 2, 3 & 5 every day for 6 days a week, and exercises 6 & 7 once a week"
• or "Practice this exercise until you achieve "this" then move on to the next"

Right now, I feel I’m going through a lot of material without really knowing how to apply it and without a clear goal of what to achieve with my practice time. So I would appreciate it if you could give me some direction on how to practice these lessons?

Hi, Zander! My recommendation is to use the day 2 warmup as your daily "general" warmup, followed by any specific exercises from previous days that you find (1) helpful, (2) challenging, and/or (3) well-suited for your current goals, trouble areas, and/or song work. I know that's not as straight-forward as an instrumental practice plan, since learning an instrument is much more linear. Voices and vocal experience are so much more unique, which means your practice might look different from mine. I do hope you find the advice here helpful, and please post again if we can be of further help in setting your goals and making a plan!

Please see below for some more guidance:

One lesson per day? How to practice for the best results: https://www.30daysinger.com/blog/one-lesson-per-day-how-to-practice-for-the-best-results

Getting better fast (when will I hear improvement in my voice?): https://www.30daysinger.com/blog/getting-better-fast-when-will-i-hear-improvement-in-my-voice

Building a daily routine for beginners: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwzvDGmHJvQ

Hi, thanks for your response.

1. You should probably add the first 2 links to the start of the beginner courses, the "Getting the Most From This Course" lesson, and the Where do I Start? section. Currently, this information is nowhere to be found unless we ask for it in the forum.

2. The "Daily Practice For Beginning Singers" video, seems to be aimed at people who are already working on songs, know what they are doing, and know what they need to work in order to improve.

3. But as a beginner, I really don't think I'm qualified to create my very first routine, that's why I'm taking your courses in the first place. Your experienced teachers probably have a better insight into how I should be practicing each week of the course. It will probably be beneficial if you add a weekly practice routine video, just with the exercises that we should be doing each week, at least for the last 3 weeks, even if that brings the number of lessons to 33. After taking the course, I assume we will be working on songs, but first, we need to learn the basics, right?

Leaving the burden of creating their own practice routines to a student who doesn't know what they are doing yet, and who doesn't know what is most important to work on, is not a good idea.

4. Also, you should probably add recommendations of songs for each voice type in different genres (rock, pop, jazz) that beginners can sing.

Thank you for your thoughtful feedback and suggestions, Zander! I think you've shared a lot of great ideas and I will forward this to the web team.