Coach Bojana offers her song picks in the month of August for students to practice singing with!

Simply The Best - Tina Turner

Good for: Developing stronger chest voice, steady tone, belting, voice projection 

This song demands a strong projection of the chest voice, as you have to sing the song almost as if you are marching steadily unto each tone. I would recommend this piece for mezzo-sopranos and sopranos. While you don’t necessarily need a high voice to sing this song, the song is still reasonably high in register.

Highly recommended for people who are looking to develop a healthy, strong and confident chest voice!

Warwick Avenue - Duffy 

Good For: Developing a more modern-sounding edge, bringing out soulfulness in tone. Or any R&B/Mo’town lovers!

If you love Soul and R’nB and songs from the Motown era, Warwick Avenue offers a newer sound within this category that can bring out the soulfulness in your voice, as well as that rocky, quirky chest voice. The diverse mixture of voice qualities demanded by this song will help you in developing both your soulfulness in tone and your chest voice. 

The challenge of this song is to balance the soft, soulfulness of the tune with the cracky, quirky feel. Recommended for those looking to work on both these elements and fusing them together in a R&B song!

Rock With You - Michael Jackson

Good for: Improving rhythm, balancing between rhythm and softness of tone, switching between mix and head voice

Typical of older Michael Jackson songs with a groovy feel, Rock With You is a highly rhythmic song which also demands a softness in tone.The challenge of this song thus lies in combining rhythm with softness, as well as weaving in and out of your mix voice and head voice efficiently. 

While the song may come off as dreamy and soft, it is in fact a very technically challenging song as it demands a certain level of skillfulness across the different areas. Hence, this song is recommended for advanced singers who wish to take on a challenge!

Sweet Love - Anita Baker

Good for: Mezzosopranos looking to work on higher register (without damaging your voices!), belting, ear training

Mezzosopranos can excel if choosing this song as you can learn how to approach high notes in a safe way. A very good practice for using almost all voice qualities including chest, mixed and head voice. I highly recommend dividing this song into smaller sections when you are practicing it. With every new lesson, you can add in another section, such as a new verse or chorus.

To start things off, you can first work on Verse 1 and Chorus 1. As the lessons go by, you can continue to add the following verse, or even a chorus into your practice. With this song, it is important to take one step at a time, as it requires a lot of stylistic awareness. 

Sweet Love is a very good song for ear training as well - you really have to listen out for the various instruments, how they are played etc. in order to get the vibe of the song right! The improvisations towards the end are also able to help with belting.

All I Ask - Adele

Good For: Developing strong chest belting voice, cultivating emotional expression, voice projection

Adele songs are usually of a higher pitch, but still manageable for many people. This song is highly recommended for people who are looking to develop a very powerful chest belting voice. The song is also suitable for people who are looking to improve on the emotional expression of their singing voice. The challenge here is to express that emotionality, while having to sing and belt in a strong chest voice most of the time.

Below are also some other songs that I did not cover in the podcast, but do still feel free to check them out!

High Hopes - Panic at the Disco 

Good message, good lyrics! This song is great for voice projection as well as belting. However, you must be properly warmed up before you hit those high notes. Exercises designed for chest voice and projection can help a lot in singing this song.

Imagine - John Lennon 

The peace anthem. For all those students that need to work on their emotionality, softening their tone and cultivating their vocal expression, this song is a perfect fit.

Head over heels - Tears for Fears 

A great song for vocal gymnastics, pitch improvement and creativity boost. It works really well as an ear training song. I recommend it to beginner level students as well as more advanced students.