How to sing better

Here are some simple advices on how to be a better singer:

1. Standing posture
Stand up straight with your feet apart. Next, suck in your stomach, push your hips forward and stick your chest up. You want to be standing in an upright and comfortable position. It’s a bonus to have a full-sized mirror in front of you, so you can see yourself while you’re singing.
2. Breathing:
Proper breathing comes from your belly, from the core. Your shoulders shouldn’t go up when you’re breathing. Try to practice breathing slowly in with your stomach, and not with the chest. When you’re doing this right, you notice your stomach slowly contracts inwards. Take several deep breaths before you start to sing. Imagine blowing a candle without putting out the flames.
3. Song choice:
When choosing a song to sing, consider your range and choose a song that suits your voice. You need to feel comfortable with this song, and it’s not too high or too low for your range. Pick an artist and a song you like and enjoy to sing. But remember to challenge your voice. This is hardly recommended for everyone who wants to be a better singer. Try to sing a notch higher than you would normally do, to increase your vocal range. If you’re running out of breath, take a deep breath before you enter long notes.
4. Listening:
When learning to sing, a good method is to sing along with a song, and try to identify the pauses, and tempo of the song. You would learn how to sing any song much faster when you become familiar with the lyrics and the beat of the song.
5. Record your voice:
In order to become a great singer, you need to listen to your voice so you can make improvements and ingest your style. It’s important to know how you sound.
6. Practice:
Sing anywhere and everywhere, not just in the shower, where no one can here you. Then you will have a lot more possibilities to practice a lot more often. If you’re shy, you can of course start in front of the mirror.
7. Warm up your voice.
This is very important to not strength your voice. Singing is like a sport. Like before a soccer game, you should always run and warm up especially the biggest muscle groups, before the game starts. Therefore, before singing demanding songs, you should always warm up.

Do you like to sing? If you have any more tips, please let us know!

Insomnia?

Here's a list of songs and bands that helps you relax and fell asleep faster:

- Coldplay (Fix you, Yes, Viva la vida)
- Enrique Iglesias (have a lot of songs, fex: Say it, Hero, Addicted)
- Radiohead (Reckoner)
- Lifehouse
- Enya (Adiemus, Relaxation, Now we are free)
- Josh Groban
- John Mayer (one of our favorites - Your body is a wonderland, Free fallin', Daugters, and so on)
- The fray - How to save a life
- Eva Cassidy ( more appealing to girls, but has a beautiful, relaxing voice)
- Celine Dion (I want you to need me, Think Twice, I am your Lady, ..)
- "Fast car" ( You should download Mutya Buena's version, it's much better then the original, I think)

...And, if you haven't felled asleep after all those songs, you can always try to count sheeps. Good luck!

Here's a video of relaxing music. If you feel stressed, it's amazing how much it can help to lay down for 9 minutes, (the time this video takes) and forget about all the things you have to do today. Think through your body, muscle by muscle, and try to relax them as well as you can.
- Or, as our brilliant teacher Richard recomends as relaxing,go and hug a tree!!:)

Here's a contribution from our teacher Richard. Thank you!



Feel free to add your personal favorite "sleep-songs" to the list!

Kanye West interrupted Taylor Swift in her speech at MTV's Music Awards 2009

Kanye West, who is known for being an outspoken person, outdid himself by storming the stage after Taylor Swift was announced the winner of the Best Female Video. As the thrilled country singer began her speech, Kanye grabs the microphone from the stunned 19 year old, and announces that Beyonce was the one who really deserved the award for her “Single Ladies” video. Beyonce looked horrified and the crowd booed as the camera cut away from the rapper. But later when Beyonce won for the Video of the Year, in an all so classy move, she asked Taylor to come up on the stage and have her moment.

Taylor Swift walked on staged and gave Beyonce a hug, before she finished where she left off.
Later, Taylor told the reporters that she was standing on the stage and was really excited because she just won the award:” And then I was excited because Kanye West was on the stage! But then, I wasn't excited anymore, after that..”

Kanye, who was seen drinking before the show, apologized to Taylor Swift on his blog, saying:”I'm so sorry to Taylor Swift, her fans and her mom.” But, only couple of days later, the apology was nowhere to be found.

What do you think of Kanye West's behavior?

This week's artist!

This week's artist is the new and very young talent  from Canada; JUSTIN BIEBER !

The last six months, the Canadian sixteen-year-old boy Justin Bieber set the American music industry on its head in a way not seen since Britney Spears released "Baby One More Time". The little charmer's mother posted videos of her little superstar singing on You Tube, were he was discovered by Scooter Braun, who later became his manager.  Braun flew Bieber to Atlanta, Georgia, to consult with Usher. He soon was signed to a joint venture between Braun and Usher called Raymond-Braun Music Group. There was no big surprise to us when he was listed as one of the top 10 You Tube stars of the 2000s decade. 

His breakthrough single, "One Time", was released in the summer of 2009, and charted within the top thirty in over ten countries. Here's some other hits from Bieber:

-"One Less Lonely Girl"

- "Love Me"

- "Baby"

This kid is obviously going to conquer thousands of little girls now that he's a celebrity, but we think he was "cuter" when he was sitting on a chair with a guitar playing cover-songs. Here's two videos of him, one of his old from You Tube and one of his new hits, now you can determine if he's as cute now as before!

What do you think? Still cute, but not that innocent maybe?

Party song of the week!

It's time for party song of the week; TREY SONGZ - SAY AAH !

The 25 year old man from New Jersey has already made his mark in the U.S., and has also worked with Stargate and Espen Lind (known Norwegian artist). It seems that he is now ready to conquer the rest of the world, and releases the song "Say Aah" which we think you'll like.

ENJOY!

Spotify

Have you ever heard about spotify?

-If not, take a look here

Spotify is a music streaming service from a Swedish company. It allows instant listening to specific tracks or albums, with virtually no buffering delay. Music can be browsed by artist, by album, by record label or by created playlists as well as by direct searches. It's currently only available to providers in Sweden, Spain, Norway, Finland, France and the United Kingdom.

Spotify comes in three versions; 

1. The normal one that's a hundred percent free, but with some short commercial clips. o get this version you need an invite, but if you just google "spotify invite", it will take you 5 minutes to get one.

2. The daypass version where you can get the same advantages as with an premium account for about 10 NOK for 24 hours.

3.The premium version is premium with no commercial for around 100 NOK pr month. If you have the premium version, you can also use it as an application on a iphone.

Spotify also has a blog to keep you updated; Spotify blog

Interested? If you have any questions, just ask!

The man who always raises again

One of Norways most famous singer is Jan Teigen, born 27 September 1949. No other Norwegian artist has had that many hit songs on the "Vg lista" as this man. He started his carrier in 1977, as a solo artist and participated his first time in Melody Grand Prix with an unforgettable skeleton costume.

Last year he gathered his 40 greatest hits on a complementation release.

In this year's "Spellemannsprisen", which is an award to Norways greatest music artists, he won the most coveted prize, called the honorary award.

We are sure we haven't seen the last of him yet. This man is never gonna give up.

Some of our favorite songs of Jan Teigen:
-"Det vakreste som fins"
-"Optimist"
-"Mil etter mil"