By Chris Chew

We all know that in order to have a good singing voice, you must have good professional coaching and practice with a myriad of vocal exercises to achieve the voice and singing techniques of a good singer. However, the development of your singing voice will not assure you of being a good singer if you do not take care and protect your voice and your voice production mechanism.

Unfortunately many aspiring singers think that if they are not performing regularly they do not need to take care of their vocal health. If you want to be a good singer, then you have the duty of care to protect and improve your singing voice. If you don’t do that, sooner or later your voice will deteriorate and you may even sustain vocal damages which sometimes can be permanent.

Your voice tone is created when air flows through the cleft created by your vocal cords and vibrates it. To create a clear sound, your vocal folds need to come together neatly to vibrate healthily. If the membranes and surrounding tissues are swollen or damaged, then the sound produced will be hoarse and unclear. Although the damaging effects of infrequent hoarseness are not usually permanent, it is certainly is a clear sign of vocal abuse and if left unattended to may cause permanent damages to your vocal cords.

So how do you protect your singing voice to prevent hoarseness and damages? Here are some guides you may want to adhere to.

First and foremost, and this is being ignored by many singers is to warm up and cool down your voice before and after singing. There are numerous vocal exercises in which you can do this effectively. Any good singing teacher will insist that you must do this.

Warming up will render your vocal folds more flexible, pliable and relaxes your singing muscles such as your diaphragm and of course, helps to prevent injuries to your voice. Cooling down after singing will take away the tension from your singing muscles and restore your vocal cords to its original relaxed state as tension in your voice can last a long time and can take its toll on your vocal folds.

Next, be aware that vocal hydration is very important to a singer and therefore it is crucial to have your vocal folds properly lubricated. So drink lots of room temperature water daily and before and after singing. Drinking hot or cold water may shock your vocal cord because cold water tenses it up and hot water relaxes it too much or may even scald it.

One common mistake many singers do is to try to sing notes that are beyond their vocal capability such as too high or too low. If you want to sing higher or lower notes, gradually train your voice to be there with the right vocal exercises. By doing sudden voice gymnastics, you can damage your vocal folds such as developing lumps and nodules on it.

The next tip may be sheer common sense, yet many people are unaware that they are abusing their voice by talking loudly over noises, shouting, screaming, talking too much or simply whispering too much. All of these things are very stressful to your voice and can cause vocal fatigue.

So if you want to be a good singer, not only must you develop your singing voice in a proper way, you must also take care and protect it to keep it brilliant and agile and away from vocal damages.

About the Author: Chris Chew is a music consultant and the resident author at

Sing better singing lesson

and

How to sing professionally

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Submitted by: Janice Jenkins

There are many ways you can market your business these days, most of them are inexpensive to carry out. You can always go with modern marketing strategies such as email and social networking sites. But if most of your target customers are not Internet savvy, it would be to your best interest if you stick with traditional marketing strategies such as business card printing.

Business cards may be old school but they remain an effective means of marketing and networking a business. All you have to do is hand them out to people who seem to be interested in your business and are likely to buy your products or services. Many business owners though make the mistake of being too limited in distributing their cards. This can be a big marketing mistake. If you are too picky in the people you hand out your cards, you are missing a lot on sales opportunities. It would help if you can get your cards to people who do not seem interested in your business. Later on, if you continue marketing to them, they would start to show interest in your offerings.

Here are strategies you can do in passing out your business cards as part of your marketing and networking activities:

1. Give your cards to new customers. Even if the person already bought from your store, it is still a good idea to give them your card in case they need to contact you. If you are able to satisfy your customers, they would start word of mouth marketing and refer you or give your card to people they know who might be interested in your offerings.

2. Do not forget to distribute your cards when attending trade shows, conferences, and other business events. These events are actually the best place to give out your cards as most people attending are those who are looking for the product or service you offer. If you can hand out your intriguing and interesting card to people, they will likely call you after the event.

3. When you meet someone at the grocery store, the street, or even at the movie house and the person seem to be in need of your products or services, give him your card. Make sure though that you do not just hand out your card. You have to make sure the situation is appropriate so your card will be well received. It would be inappropriate to hand out your card at a funeral, unless the situation is appropriate and the person is in dire need of your offerings.

4. When someone asks for your card, do not forget to ask the other person for his card. This will show them that you are interested in their business and they will likewise get interested in your business.

5. Get your cards posted in message boards. If there are message boards in the grocery store you visit often, do not forget to leave some of your cards in there. There might be shoppers who get interested in your business and take one of your cards.

It is important though that before your hand out your cards, you make sure that they are designed uniquely and creatively. It would be best if you can create business card samples to see how your cards will look physically. If you can ensure that your cards are designed well, it would be easy for you to get the attention that you desire.

About the Author: For comments and inquiries about the article visit:

printplace.com/printing/business-card-printing.aspx

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