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Yes, you read that right. As much as we might love singing there are times when we need to be quiet, whether that’s because we

are in a place where we can’t sing full volume, such as if it’s very late and you’ve got neighbours, a sleeping baby, a housemate with a headache
we’re going about our daily lives in public, like in queue at the post office or on a train on the way to work, or
we have a vocal health issue that needs vocal rest

In these kinds of circumstances, there are still several ways of practising singing without actually singing. Here are a few ideas for silent practice:

Visualisation and audiation

This is where you see, hear, and imagine your whole performance in your mind without physically doing anything at all. This is a favourite technique of top athletes who visualise victory before a big competition, and it’s been proven to be highly effective for musicians as well. The trick is to be as focused and as specific as possible.

You imagine your musical performance in as much detail as possible - and you imagine it going REALLY well. Where are you? What are you wearing? What is the lighting like? What is the temperature? Where are the audience? What’s the lighting like? What can you see? Where is the music coming from? Then you ‘hear’ your song in your mind, and you run through it as a perfect musical performance. You hear the accompaniment (if there is one), you hear the sound coming out of your mouth, your phrasing, you imagine your breath, the tone, the lyrics, you imagine the sensations of resonance in the space and in your body.

Memorise lyrics

You can run through song lyrics in your head as a monologue, in different rhythms with your steps, make up a story to link the song narrative together.

Listening

SO much learning can happen when you truly listen. You can listen to unfamiliar artists, or your favourite singers, but (and I’m pretty sure you’ll sense a theme emerging here) it’s all about the focus. There’s a difference between hearing and listening. What can you learn from someone else’s phrasing, from their articulation? Can you detect their inhalations? Can you listen to their tone and timbre and imagine how that would feel in your own voice?

We can also, more obviously, listen to new repertoire and expand our musical interests!

Breathing exercises

Singing happens on exhalation, so learning to control and coordinate your exhalations with your inhalations is a super way to practice singing silently. Try exhalation for different durations, counting to 4, 6, 8, 10 and however long you can manage. Experiment with Janice Chapman’s SPLAT breaths (Singers Please Loosen Abdominal Tension - releasing and relaxing your abdominal wall at the end of an exhalation so that the lungs fill up with air naturally without a conscious inhalation, also known as a recoil breath). Have a play with feeling the air in different parts of your body and tracking its journey - can you feel it on your upper lip, in your nostrils, at the back of your nose, at the back of your throat, in your neck, in your upper check, behind your front ribs, in your back ribs?

Relaxation and release

Singing requires us to be aware of our alignment in our bodies, and of tension and relaxation. You can have a stretch, from head to toe. You can work particularly on relaxation and release exercises for the face, tongue and jaw.

Active silent practice

This is where you do all your normal activity in a singing practice, with the exception of phonation! You can do silent sirens, articulation exercises (unvoiced), SOVT breath exercises with a straw for phrasing.

The Estill Model really advocates silent practice for high intensity voice qualities like belting - a lot of the effort used in sustaining a belt note does not happen at the vocal fold level - it happens in many of the muscles surrounding the larynx that help to flexibly anchor and support it, all of which can be exercised silently. An Estill teacher such as an EMT will be able to help you with this.

So now that leaves you with fewer excuses to avoid practising (sorry!) Hope you find these tips helpful, if you think of any more, let me know!

Happy silent singing,

Laura x

6 Ways You Can Practise Singing Silently