Sometimes sitting at the piano to practice can be a drag – you can’t move around, you have to think about both your playing and your singing. While I still recommend having a keyboard to practice melodies and go deeper into technique, it’s also good to have a little freedom.
Enter: Erol Singer’s Studio
Although it’s only available on iOS, I’ve kept my ancient iPhone 5 just so I can have this (and some others) to practice. The recent upgrade packs even more into this little app.
The main features are:
- Vocal exercises that warm up your voice and work through various techniques
- Analysis of tonality
- Progress reports
I’m especially keen on the tonality because lord knows us sopranos can use all the help we can get.
Some tips on using the app:
- Use headphones so your device doesn’t pick up the piano sound.
- Listen to the example exercises to get a feel before launching into each lesson.
- Don’t look at the app WHILE you’re singing. Take little peeks to see if you’re on track and adjust as needed. But getting too focused on hitting the note will distract from other techniques you need master.
- Set your range to comfortable, not extremes, for most exercises. You can change your range for exercises you want to use to develop those upper and lower registers.
A little more on that last point: The main drawback for my practice is that it starts all the way at the bottom of my range and goes all the way to the top – most exercises don’t need to be done in your full range. Some you’ll only want to use in your middle-to-lower, and even just upper range. Make your adjustments as needed!
Try it and let me know your thoughts.