5 Secrets To Instantly Improve Your Singing Voice

5 Secrets To Instantly Improve Your Singing Voice

Improving the sound and control of your singing voice is a result of the muscle patterning and technique you sing with. There are hundreds of vocal techniques, but most only manipulate sound on the surface of the voice and few make lasting changes. 

The Cole Vocal Method™ isn’t something you can find in a YouTube video, a book, a university, or another online program. In fact, it’s the only method of its kind on the planet.

I stumbled upon this method decades ago, tucked away in a private studio on 74th Street in Manhattan. A producer I was working with told me miracles were happening there—helping major artists not only reach new levels of performance, but save their voices on tour.

What I discovered was a groundbreaking approach to vocal science developed by a brilliant, quiet teacher who taught at the Metropolitan Opera and passed his work privately to a handful of students. My mentor, now in her mid-eighties, continued that tradition and never released it publicly. I’m the only teacher to have carried this full method forward—and I’ve watched it transform thousands of voices, from restoring those affected by vocal injury to helping singers reach professional power and freedom, all while keeping their natural sound intact.

And no—this isn’t just for professionals. Many of my students are everyday singers who simply love their voice and want to feel confident using it—teachers, songwriters, choir members, even those rebuilding after vocal injury. Whether you sing on stage or in your living room, the principles are the same: a healthy voice is a free voice.

This is literally the only place in the world where you can learn the Cole Vocal Method™ in its true form.

Here are my top 5 ways to instantly improve the sound and control of your singing voice.

• Open your mouth more for more sound
• Breathe into the lower 5 ribs to fuel more power
• Stop lifting your chin to get more resonance
• Keep your chest elevated to control your breath 
• Keep your neck lengthened to reach better high notes

1. Open your mouth more for more sound

This is a quick trick that will instantly increase your sound and make singing easier. When the jaw or lips are too tightly closed, the sound tends to be more muffled or closed. Just by opening your mouth up a little more on the vowels (where it feels natural) you’ll instantly get more sound.

This quick trick works by bringing more breath to the sound while also creating more space in the mouth cavity for the sound to resonate in.. 

Just like the body of an acoustic guitar resonates the sound of the strings in, the cavity of the mouth, when more open, helps to resonate more sound of the singing voice. 

1. Breathe into the lower 5 ribs to fuel more power

Breath is the fuel for the singing voice. The trick is to breathe deeper to collect more air inside the lower triangles of the lungs.

Contrary to what most techniques teach about breathing into the belly, the secret to deeper breath and actually moving the diaphrag is in the ribs. It starts with moving the ribs. This is where it begins.

Let’s do a quick exercise.

• Put your hands on your ribs. 
• Exhale. 
• Now hold your ribs firmly with pressure and breathe slowly only into your hands. 
• Do you feel the ribs slowly expand and swing outwards into your hands?
•  The trick is to breathe slowly and not too fast, and you’ll feel the ribs move. 

This is the beginning of breathing diaphragmatically and getting that air deeper in to the lungs, providing more fuel for your singing voice. 

3.Stop lifting your chin to get more resonance

It is common when singing a higher note to lift up the chin as if by doing so you’ll reach the high note. The reason you are lifting your chin is that you are contracting the back of your neck, actually using the neck muscles to fuel the sound. The problem with that is that it constricts your throat, causing tension, pulls the palate down, making it harder to hit high notes, and causes long-term vocal problems. 

The reason you do that is what is called common compensatory muscle patterning. Common compensatory muscle patterning is a complex name for a relatively straightforward process. When primary muscles do not work properly in movement, the brain tells other muscles to perform that movement instead.

For example, when you contract the back of your neck when making sound in an effort to reach a high note, the neck muscles jump in to assist the vocal production because the brain is telling it to. But these muscles only constrict the voice and make it harder to sing over time.

Try this: 

• Stand in front of a mirror to watch your head and neck as you sing
• Sing a scale or a phrase from a song that has a higher note in it
• Notice if you lift your chin
• Try it again keeping your chin level and not letting it lift
• Try it a few times
• What did you notice?
• Was it easier or harder?

If it was easier you have an instant result. This shows you that lifting your chin actually works against better high notes.

If it was harder, it’s telling you that you are relying too much on the back of your neck, and your true voice and vocal technique is not strong enough to support the high notes —yet.

Learn more about The Cole Vocal Method here.

4. Keep your chest elevated to control your breath 

Most people have a slightly slumped chest and a forward head which causes issues for singers as it prevents them from breathing deeper into the diaphragm and causes a disconnection from the support of the chest and torso of the body in singing. 

Good postural alignment affects the support of the singing voice by opening deeper breathing and anchoring the vocal muscles to the trunk of the body that supports the voice.

When the chest stays elevated during singing, the air stays in the lungs, supporting the singing voice and providing better breath control. 

Try this:  

• Stand at a 3/4 angle in front of a mirror to watch your chest position as you sing
• Sing a scale or a phrase from a song 
• Do you notice your chest dropping ever so slightly (or a lot) as you sing? 
• Try singing the phrase again without letting the chest drop at all
• Did you notice that you retained more air and had more sound? 

Chest posture plays an important role in controlling the breath. The more you can keep the chest elevated during inhale and exhale and during singing, the more air you will keep in your lungs and the more sound and endurance you will have. 

5. Keep your neck lengthened to reach better high notes

Just like I mentioned in number three above, using the back of the neck to sing with more power or to reach high notes will backfire over time. 

Keeping the back of the neck elongated as you sing will help you reach better and more consistent high notes that have more sound and power. 

Try this:  

• Stand front of a mirror to watch your neck position or movement as you sing
• Sing a scale or a phrase from a song 
• Do you notice the back of your neck contracting ever so slightly (or a lot) as you sing? 
• Try singing the phrase again without letting the neck contract and keep it long and lengthened
• Did you notice that singing was easier and the high note came out stronger or with more resonance?