Singing Guide: Florence Foster Jenkins

Singing Guide: Florence Foster Jenkins

Vocal technique, exercises, tips and relevant resources

Are you a beginner or advanced singer?

Florence Foster Jenkins was an American socialite and amateur operatic soprano who was known and ridiculed for her unusual voice of singing. Despite being dubbed as the world's worst opera singer, Florence's passion for singing was remarkable. Florence's unique vocal technique was marked by her excessive vibrato and incorrect notes; yet, she connected well with her audiences and left them amazed by her sheer love of singing.

If you're inspired by Florence's love and passion for singing and want to learn to become a better singer, you don't have to go the same way as her. In fact, learning to sing like Florence is not the goal for most singers. Instead, you should aim to develop a vocal style that suits your voice and meets your singing goals.

Here are some tips to help you improve your singing:

  • Analyze your voice: Start by examining your voice with the help of Singing Carrots' vocal range test and pitch accuracy test. These will give you insight into your strengths and weaknesses.
  • Learn to control your breath: Breathing properly is essential for controlling your voice. Learn the breathing basics, breath support and active breathing provided by Singing Carrots.
  • Master your technique: Learning the various registers of the voice, chest voice, head voice, and vocal break that Florence did not know about, will give you the tools to adjust your voice.
  • Warm-up before singing: Singing Carrots' warm-up exercises are helpful for stretching and warming up your voice so that you do not strain it.
  • Learn articulation: Articulation is an essential aspect of singing. Singing Carrots provides exercises to teach "finger bite" and how to stop sounding nasal.
  • Practice makes perfect: Singing requires patience and practice. Use Singing Carrots' Pitch Training to practice and visualize pitch accuracy, range and agility exercises, and progress statistics to monitor your performance.
  • Find your authentic voice: Singing Carrots also offers an educational singing course to teach various singing techniques and tips for finding your own singing style.
  • Have fun with it! Remember that singing is about expressing yourself and having fun. Florence Foster Jenkins may have made mistakes but she was still able to leave a positive impact on her audiences because of the joy and love she exuded while singing.

To honor Florence's passion for singing, you can listen to her songs such as "Adele's Laughing Song" or "Les Oiseaux dans la Charmille" to appreciate her unique style. Moreover, Singing Carrots' search songs by vocal range matches your vocal range, genre preference, and difficulty to find suitable songs for you to improve your singing.

By following the above tips, you can improve your singing skills, develop your unique voice, and perform confidently, bringing joy to yourself and your audiences. Ideally, Florence's memory will inspire you to pursue your dreams with boundless enthusiasm, no matter how challenging it may appear.

Learn more about this artist vocal range, voice type and repertoire.