Vocal warm ups are an essential part of a vocal students routine. They help you limber up your vocal cords so they can perform, just like stretching before physical activity. They also allow you to focus on some fundamentals so that your voice learns to do what you ask it to do.

Here are two vocal warm up exercises designed to accomplish both of the above. They are broken into categories by vocal range.

One-Five-One Exercise: This takes you five notes up the scale and back down. I usually start every vocal student with this exercise. Sing it on "Mah", and focus on clean execution of the notes, connecting the notes into one phrase, and floating your high notes as you get into your upper register:

Female Voice (higher)

Female Voice (lower)

Male Voice (higher)

Male Voice (lower)


One-Three-Five-Eight Exercise: This exercise takes you through a major triad, and sing by saying the numbers. Focus on signing the notes without sliding, and singing in tune. Be sure to crescendo to the top note and decrescendo back to the bottom note. Pronounce each word with a mid-atlantic accent (not so nasally American, but with a more vertical pronunciation):

Female Voice (higher)

Female Voice (lower)

Male Voice (higher)

Male Voice (lower)

There are quite a few options when choosing guitar strings. Here are some guidelines to help you through the process. Look out for the next posting for some tips on changing the strings on your guitar.

Guitar strings fall into some broad categories:

Electric Strings and Acoustic Strings: They both have different sound profiles appropriate to the type of guitar. Most importantly, electric strings are designed to have a lower string tension.

Coated or Uncoated: Coated strings have a layer of polymer that is designed to reduce corrosion, improve tuning consistency, and reduce finger squeak. The trade off is that they are more expensive and sometimes less bright than untreated strings.

String Gauge: The thicker the gauge of string, the bigger and fatter the tone. However, this increases the string tension and thus makes it harder to press and bend strings. You ultimate choice is a trade off between tone and playability. Some other string gauge points to consider:

Strings gauges are often named after the thinnest gauge in the pack. So a pack with strings gauges of .012 inches up to .054 inches are called "twelves", .011 to .052 are called "elevens", and so on.

In order to simplify the process, most string manufacturers apply the name "medium", "light", and "extra light" to their string gauges. Here's how they break down for the most common gauges.

- Acoustic Guitar: extra light (tens - .010) | light (elevens - .011) | medium (twelves - .012)

- Electric Guitar: extra light (nines - .009) | light (tens - .010) | medium (elevens - .011)

Roundwound and Flatwound: Roundwound strings tend to sound brighter and feel coarser, they are also more commonly used. Flatwound strings are smoother sounding, and are often used in jazz.

Phosphor Bronze and 80/20: This is an acoustic guitar string type. There is a significant sound difference. Phosphor Bronze strings are darker in color and darker in tone.

Whew! That's a lot of information. Here's what I buy.

Elixir (that's the manufacturer) acoustic elevens (or lights, I figure it's the middle of the road in terms of tone and playability) phosphor bronze (80/20 strings are too bright for me). Oh, and Elixir only sells round wounds and all Elixir strings are coated. Oh and one last thing, I only use the nanoweb Elixirs, they polyweb coating is too thick for me.

Got it? I go in to the guitar shop and say:

"Yo, get me a set of Elixir Acoustics, nanoweb lights, and make sure they're phosphor bronze."

'Ukulele players players unite! It's usually pretty hard to find sheet music made just for the 'ukulele. Very often we have to use guitar chords and turn them into 'ukulele chords. This works okay, but what if you're trying to play something more complicated? I've got two places that you can go:

ukulelehunt.com - This is a website that I use quite often to source music for my students. The music is clean, accurate, and browsable by difficulty and genre. Very helpful.

dominator.ukeland.com - Dominator is a legend in the online 'ukulele community. He transcribes the hardest songs including "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" by Jake Shimabukuro, and he also travels the country performing and connecting with musicians over the 'ukulele. Best of all, he shares it online. Don't know what his real name is, but he's a great contributor to 'ukulele playing worldwide.