Rodney Atkins Quotes

When I first started singing - before 'Treat Me Like Fire' when I was working with a vocal coach - I realized that I wasn't even breathing when I was singing.

When you're singing, you're using extra muscles, and it requires a lot of exercise and breathing. You can't do that if you're a sissy. If I have any fitness advice for people, I'd tell them to sing more. It's good therapy, too.

To sing in a lower key is harder work. You have to use your diaphragm more.

I have learned how to breathe, to use my cords differently. I had been tilting my head in a way when I talked that wasn't good for my throat. I've been working on all of that, and it seems to be helping.

When I was a kid, my aunt coached me a little bit for choir, and what she taught me actually stuck with me. She basically taught me to sing from my diaphragm and not from my throat.

An athlete learns how to hold her breath, but that doesn't work in singing. You have to learn to relax.

The difference between an amateur and a professional is in their habits. An amateur has amateur habits. A professional has professional habits. We can never free ourselves from habit. But we can replace bad habits with good ones.

If you can sing, you never lose your voice. If you don't know how to sing, your voice goes away because you sing from your throat.

I try to frighten my very young colleagues into studying and understanding their voices before they attempt things that are beyond them. It's wise to take gymnastics and swimming to strengthen the body, because people don't realise what an athletic undertaking singing actually is.

Someone told me that you could learn to sing, and that there are muscles that if you build, you will sing.

I'm a lyric soprano. I can try to step outside that and do different kind of singing, but it's not something I can sustain over the long haul, and what is good for your voice is good for your career.

I think if you stop bad habits, and you stop long enough, you develop good habits.

I know how to treat my voice to make it sound as good as it possibly can - which is still not that good.

I have a half an hour warm-up I do that my voice teacher gave me. I exercise at least for an hour during the day. I don't have any superstitious rituals or anything like that.

You know, your speaking voice comes back, but your singing voice you use in a different way.

About 10 years ago, I took some vocal lessons. I'll bet that helped. I got a tape of exercises that the girl gave me, which I don't do anymore, but they were good. And I don't smoke.

I don't sing anything that hurts my voice.

The voice is an instrument that you really must take time to develop. It's like a good red wine Give it time.

I took vocal lessons all through my childhood and still do. I was classically trained.

I work on my voice through what I have to sing.

When you're insecure about your technique, you close yourself off. Your shoulders tighten. The first thing, you should open your body and sing. Be happy. Sing real vowels, real Italian vowels. When you're learning a good way to sing technically, you find it's very easy to sing well.

It happens to the best of them. You lay off singing and your throat gets out of practice. No excuses. I blew it.

I took some voice lessons here and there as a teenager but nothing too serious. I started taking it more seriously when I was in Miss Saigon. I needed to improve my technique in order to survive doing that show as many time a week as I was doing it. It's not an easy show to sing, so I needed all the help I could get.

An unfortunate thing about this world is that the good habits are much easier to give up than the bad ones.

I've taken singing lessons since I was young, just to work on technique.