4 Elements of Vocal Practice That Create Real, Lasting Change

As my mentor, Dr. Brian Gill, has said more times than I can count, real improvement comes from consistent, mindful practice over a long period of time. If any one of these elements is missing, progress tends to stall.

For example, you might practice regularly, but if you’re distracted or unclear about what you’re aiming to improve, your growth will be limited. On the flip side, you might be highly focused in each session, but if those sessions are few and far between, your progress will likely be just as patchy. It’s a bit like tending a garden: plants need the right mix of sun, water, and care to thrive. Singers are no different. We grow best when the conditions are right and consistently nurtured.

In this article, we’ll explore the four key elements of that quote:

1. Consistency – how frequently you practice.
2. Mindfulness – your ability to focus and direct attention during practice.
3. Practice Defined – distinct from performance or rehearsal; this is the work you do to build skills.
4. Time – the long game; recognizing that meaningful growth happens in phases over months, years and decades.

Consistent Practice

There’s strong evidence that shorter, more frequent practice sessions, known as spaced practice, lead to better results than longer, less frequent ones. (Chen, 2018)

When I was in high school, I chose ten-pin bowling as an elective for a semester. I wasn’t very good at it. Gutterballs were my specialty, and I was frustrated. Especially when I looked down the lane and saw retired regulars in matching bowling shirts knocking down strike after strike. Even then, I knew their success wasn’t luck. They were consistent in their practice. They showed up week after week, probably for decades.

In my own journey as a singer, consistency has been key to my technical growth. To provide context on my journey, I grew up in a musical family and was exposed to a wide variety of music from as early as I can remember, with both my parents having performed professionally. I started performing regularly at age 11  in musicals, singing in church, and in choir. By age 15, I was in multiple bands and performed in a number of musical theatre productions each year. That meant countless hours of rehearsals and probably hundreds of performances during my teens, all before I had my first official voice lesson as a university student.

That consistent performing and rehearsing gave me a foundation, but not in the same way that my consistent practice routine that started a decade or so later would. With regular performance and rehearsing, I gained confidence, improved my technique slowly (listening also factored in), and learned how to absorb new material: lyrics, harmonies, dialogue, blocking, choreography, all through repetition and experience.

As an undergrad I finally started formal voice training. While my lessons and rehearsals were consistent, my personal practice wasn’t. Did I still improve? Absolutely. I was lucky to work with some of the best teachers, vocalists, and musicians in Australia. I applied what I learned during rehearsals and performances where possible. But because I’d never had a regular technical practice routine before, I didn’t realize what I was missing. That changed in grad school: first at Griffith University, and later at NYU. That’s when I started building a consistent, focused practice habit, and I've been maintaining and building it ever since. 

The technical growth I experienced in grad school and beyond far surpassed anything I achieved in my teens or early twenties. Of course, factors like maturity, continuing to work with world-class teachers, mindful practice, and defining clear goals played a role too, but I can’t overstate the value of consistency. Even five focused minutes a day, five days a week, can make a huge difference, especially with the guidance of a skilled teacher. I’ll add that any time I have a student who has made steady growth over at least a 6-month period, and especially over a number of years, I will ask them how they practice. One of the things these singers have in common is that they answer I practice regularly. 

Mindfulness

Mindfulness has become a bit of a buzzword over the past decade, and for good reason. In the voice world, Dr. Brian Gill (of Gill Mindful Voice Training) and respected pedagogue Lynn Helding (author of The Mindful Voice column in The Journal of Singing and the book The Musician’s Mind) are strong advocates for mindfulness in the context of learning to sing. I highly recommend exploring their work or listening to podcast interviews where they dive deeper into this topic. You may find their websites below.

So, what does mindfulness actually mean when it comes to learning how to sing?

At its core, it’s about being present in the moment and tuning in to physical sensations you might normally overlook. It involves filtering out distractions, whether they’re external, like noise or people, or internal, like wandering thoughts or unrelated physical sensations. Mindfulness means approaching each exercise or repetition with a clear intention and goal, and is closely linked with deliberate practice that will be discussed in the "Practice Defined" section of this article. It also requires self-awareness, which enhances proprioception and kinesthetic sensitivity. These are the skills that often separate advanced singers from beginners. With this heightened awareness, it gets easier for a singer to notice when they are being efficient, resonant, or, in the case that something is off: able to notice and adjust accordingly. 

One of the best benefits of mindful practice is that it can reduce anxiety. When your attention is fully on the task at hand, there’s little room for outside worries. Many singers walk away from a focused practice session feeling noticeably calmer and grounded. There is an exciting new study by Boland et. al that backs up this long-noticeable trend. (Boland, 2025)

A Quick Note on “Not Thinking”

There’s a phrase I often hear in voice lessons. A student will nail something, and when I ask what they did differently, they’ll say:  I just didn’t think about it.

While it’s true that overthinking (even well-intentioned thoughts) can cause tension or mental paralysis, going too far in the opposite direction isn’t helpful either. Mindlessly hoping a motor skill just "happens" may yield the occasional good result, but it usually leads to inconsistency.

In my experience, the most reliable growth comes from mindful focus. Choosing one helpful thing to pay attention to and staying with it throughout the task leads to real learning and lasting change. That kind of intentional attention reinforces skills much more effectively than either overthinking or mentally checking out.

Of course, this takes practice. It’s easy to slip back into juggling multiple thoughts, or to try and recreate ease by avoiding thought altogether. But the real magic happens when you’re fully present with just one purposeful thought at a time. I often suggest that a singer try and find a thought that is both helpful in some way while simultaneously distracting them from unhelpful, or too many thoughts. This draws their attention to a helpful thing.

Defining Your Practice

From time to time, I’ll ask my students questions like “How’s your practice going?” or “Have you had any breakthroughs or challenges lately?” I might also ask, “Have you been consistent?” or “How are you structuring your practice sessions?” These kinds of questions give me valuable insight into how they’re approaching practice, especially with beginners who are still learning how to build a routine. If they only have a short amount of time, what do they choose to focus on? Their answers help me offer guidance on how to prioritize their time and energy more effectively. What I’ve noticed over the years is that whether the student is new or more advanced, they often respond similarly. They'll say things such as “I ran through the songs we’ve been working on,” or “I listened to them a few times.” But when I ask about technical exercises or how they’re applying specific skills to the songs, I’m sometimes met with a blank or slightly sheepish look.

I truly believe that learning how to practice well is a skill in itself, and one that takes time to develop. One of the most important distinctions I try to teach is that rehearsing or running through songs is not the same as practising (or skill-building). Rehearsal and listening to repertoire are both important parts of the learning process, but they are not the same as developing vocal technique.

In the context of this article, I define vocal practice as intentional work on warm-ups, technical exercises, and repertoire, with a specific goal in mind for each task.

For example, if I’m doing lip trills as a warm-up, my goal might be to get the air flowing freely through the scale. When that happens, the notes connect more smoothly, and there’s less pressure on the vocal folds. This results in more comfortable phonation—something that can be felt as well as heard. (Bradford, 2023) 

Once a singer understands the difference between rehearsing and practising, they can start to set targeted goals for each element of their practice. These goals might focus on a warm-up, a specific technical exercise, a song, or even a small section, phrase, or note within a piece. Ideally, this process happens with the support of an experienced teacher. When the singer is mindful and chooses a single point of focus (such as breath flow through a phrase) and that point of focus leads to a more resonant and free sound, both the singer and teacher now have useful feedback. That moment of clarity confirms that the chosen focus is effective for where the singer is in their development.

Being deliberate about what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and what you’re paying attention to in the moment is what turns an ordinary practice session into something truly transformative.

Give It Some Time

This part of the article might seem like the most obvious, but it’s worth stating clearly: it takes time to develop high-level vocal skills. That said, I’ve seen singers make really impressive progress in a relatively short amount of time; three months, six months, or a year, when they commit to consistent, mindful, and deliberate practice.

Still, for someone to not only develop those skills but also maintain them and apply them confidently in a variety of performance situations, especially under pressure, takes time (in the realm of years and decades more so than weeks and months). It also takes experience, time in the studio, time in front of an audience, time rehearsing, and making music with other musicians.

One of the biggest challenges singers face is maintaining consistency through all of life’s seasons. Think about the different stages we go through. Adolescence brings social dynamics and hormone changes. Adulthood comes with increased responsibilities, whether it’s study, work, parenting, marriage, or all of the above. For women, monthly cycle changes can impact vocal consistency. As we age, changes in the voice related to ossification and calcification are also real factors to work through. And that’s without even accounting for the unexpected, illness, injury, or other life events that interrupt our routine.

In the 25+ years I’ve been actively singing, one of the things that has kept me going is the joy of making music and a deep sense of curiosity. That desire to keep learning has never left me, and it’s something I try to pass on to every student I work with. All of my mentors (and I've been blessed with the best) also exhibit this life-long learner attitude.

So my encouragement to you is this: choose joy in your singing, even on the hard days. When progress feels slow or consistency is a struggle, let joy and curiosity carry you through. Stay active in your learning. There is always something new to discover, and today more than ever there are so many resources out there, many of them completely free. On the days you don’t feel like singing or feel too busy to do a full practice session, make the choice to sing and work on just one thing for a couple of minutes. This will help to keep momentum over the long term and keep your voice active. Doing something is better than nothing. 

Final Thoughts

While each of these elements - mindful practice, deliberate practice, consistent practice, and long-term practice - can be helpful on their own or in combination, substantial and sustained growth happens when all four are present regularly.

I encourage you to do a quick audit of your own practice. Take note of what’s going well and where your strengths lie in relation to these elements. Also, notice which ones might be missing or underdeveloped. If you're working with a voice teacher, ask for feedback. They’ll likely have a helpful perspective.

Maybe you have no trouble being consistent, but you find yourself going through the motions without clear goals. Or perhaps you’re deliberate and consistent, but not truly mindful about the specific things you need to focus on to reach your desired outcomes within each session. As we’ve explored in this article, there are many combinations that can either support or hinder your growth.

Action Step

With all this in mind, I’d encourage you to try James Clear’s two-minute rule, also mentioned in an earlier article in this series. The two-minute rule applied to singing is simple: consistently show up for the two-minute version of your practice session. That could literally mean doing a two-minute warm-up five days a week.

Once you build the habit of showing up, it becomes easier to expand maybe to five minutes, then ten, and so on. When showing up (consistency) feels manageable, it’s less overwhelming to focus on being deliberate about what you practice, being mindful about how you practice, and continuing over time.

As I’ve said before, practice takes practice. The only way to improve your practice and therefore your voice is to keep showing up and doing it. The good practice plan you stick to is far more valuable than the perfect one you never follow through on. Once you're consistently engaged, it becomes much easier to recognize what’s working and what needs to shift.

References

Gill Mindful Voice Training website:
Gill Mindful Voice Training. (n.d.). Awaken your best voice. Retrieved April 24, 2025, from https://gillmindfulvoicetraining.com

Lynn Helding website:
Helding, L. (n.d.). Lynn Helding. Retrieved April 24, 2025, from https://lynnhelding.com/

Atomic Habits book:
Clear, J. J. (2018). Atomic habits: An easy & proven way to build good habits & break bad ones. Avery.

Chen, O., Castro-Alonso, J. C., Paas, F., & Sweller, J. (2018). Extending cognitive load theory to incorporate working memory resource depletion: Evidence from the spacing effect. Educational Psychology Review, 30(2), 483-501. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-017-9426-2

Boland, A. K., Boileau, K., Oddy, N., Welch, L.-A., Stanson, N., Comeau, G., & Smith, A. M. (2025). The neural impact of a brief mindfulness and improvisational singing practice on music performance anxiety: An fMRI study. VOICES: A World Forum for Music Therapy, 25(1). https://doi.org/10.15845/voices.v25i1.4210

Bradford, Z. (2023, November 18).How to practice singing part II: Practice with intention. New York Vocal Coaching. https://newyorkvocalcoaching.com/article/how-to-practice-singing-part-ii-practice-with-intention