Singing Louder Without Straining: A “Need to Know” Guide

Many singers wonder: how loud should I be singing? This hub gathers expert advice and practical tips on vocal volume, projection, stamina, and control—without ever pushing or straining the voice.

Explore Articles in This Cluster

• How Loud Should I Be Singing? – Discover the ideal vocal volume zone for most singers and why singing louder isn’t always better.
• Sing louder without straining – three aspects that the pros understand.
• Shouting vs Singing – Learn the difference between healthy projection and shouting, and how to avoid vocal tension.
• Why Do I Keep Losing My Voice? – Understand overuse, misuse, and how loud singing habits may be damaging your voice.
• Vocal Health Issues – Strategies for maintaining a healthy, strong voice when singing frequently or loudly.
• The Icarus Effect – A long-term view on building vocal stamina and volume safely over time.
• Changing an alto into a soprano – how we can transform a low voice into a higher voice.

Common Questions About Singing Volume

Is it bad to sing too quietly?

Yes — overly quiet singing can cause tension and airflow issues, just as singing louder than you can handle is bad for you. The general advice is to aim for a natural “speech-level” volume. We don’t want to remain at that level forever, but this is where we start singers. You can learn more about this by reading more about such a speech-level approach.

How can I sing louder without hurting my voice?

It starts with vocal balance. Build coordination first, then power will follow naturally without strain. Have a read of this article to learn how to sing louder without straining.

Should I push harder for more volume?

No — pushing harder often leads to constriction. True volume comes from resonance and balance, not brute force.

I feel like I’m stuck with a lower voice – can I become an soprano/tenor?

Absolutely! This is all a matter of training not just your range, but your tessitura. I work with clients on this all the time, and have turned dozens of baritones into tenors, and altos into sopranos. If you’d like to learn more about this process you can have a read about how we change an alto into a soprano.

If you’d like to experience this in your own voice, I’d love to work with you. You can book in via my booking form using the button below.

It’s been a brutal winter for colds, chest infections, flu, and many other illnesses. Sessions since the New Year have often involved putting singers’ voices back together after illness. I thought I’d walk you through what I typically do. Then we’ll conclude with how our process of voice training engenders a ‘bulletproof’ voice.

My first client of the year had been suffering from an awful chest infection. They had been ill for 3-4 weeks, and coughing up mucus throughout that period. In our session, they’d said they’d tried the usual warm-up of lip bubbles the week before, but anything more demanding than that was just a train-wreck.

So what did we do?

Warm-ups
We took it slow, starting with our usual warm-up, but kept it light and breezy. We didn’t try to access their whole range all in one pass, but instead started with a short pass. Then we took a rest.

After that we did another pass. Going a little deeper, and a little higher than before, then another short rest.

Then one more pass unlocked the whole range, before another rest. I enquired as to how it felt at each step, to ensure that (despite it sounding fine), everything felt OK to continue. It’s a slow warming up process when we want to solve how to sing when sick. Continue reading “How to sing when sick or at half-capacity”

Well, it’s that time of year again. Illnesses of all shapes and sizes are going round. I’m on my second consecutive weekend by being wiped out by something or other. Even as a professional vocal coach and singing teacher, I am not immune to bugs that affect my voice.

I only recently sent out this regular article on how to bounce back after illness. I don’t like re-sending articles so I thought we’d go over the different illnesses that you can catch that affect your voice, how to distinguish them, and some suggestions for attending to them.

NOTE: I am not a medical doctor, and I’m also trying to cover a lot in a very short space. As such, I’m going to talk in broad generalities to get the message across. We’ll group more similar things together, and discuss the range of symptoms you’ll generally get. Almost all of these will benefit from paracetamol to take down infection/inflammation.

If you’re struggling with your voice – whether due to ill health or not – I’d love to help you fix those issues.

Get Expert Help

1. Colds / Sinusitis

We’ve all had colds, so I don’t need to linger on this. Runny nose, snot/mucus either out the nostrils, or down the back of your throat (post-nasal drip). Some facial pain, swollen eyes, etc. If it lasts a while or gets bad, it can become sinusitis, i.e. an infection of the sinuses. This can sometimes requires antibiotics to aid recovery. Continue reading “How different illnesses affect the voice”

I wrote this article a little while ago on how sleep benefits your voice and your brain.

I thought it also worth discussing how poor sleep impacts your voice negatively, so you can recognise the signs. I’ve copied the relevant bits from my other article, so we can make reference to the consequences that occur when we don’t sleep well.

1. Mucus

When we use our voice every day, it suffers wear and tear. A bit like if you work in a job that keeps you on your feet all day every day, your legs acclimatise, but they are tired by the end of the day.

The vocal folds are remarkably small, so the tiniest tear or swelling can yield a tremendous difference in vocal quality and (most importantly) how your voice feels to you. If you want to reach high notes with no strain or difficulty, even a little bit of swelling or vocal fatigue that hasn’t recovered from the day before can just shut down any chance of that.

The chief protection mechanism our body deploys against wear and tear, is mucus. The vocal folds are meant to have a thin layer of mucus on them to protect them during normal wear and tear, but if we don’t get the necessary recovery, the body deploys MORE mucus.

This is why after even one night’s poor sleep, you may notice your voice is gunkier than normal the next day. Continue reading “How Poor Sleep Impacts Your Voice”

How loud should I be singing? The Ideal Volume for Singing

In my vocal coaching studio this week I’ve had some VERY different singers in for back-to-back sessions. Some have lighter voices with an abundance of range and ease, while others are weightier voices that operate well at much higher intensity levels. All need to know how loud they should be singing.

It struck me that I’ve not often talked about the ideal volume for singing and practicing singing. So let’s cover it.

Pssst… This article forms part of our “Beginner Singing Technique” collection of lessons. Click here to dive deeper.

Short Version

Singing around the volume of your natural speaking voice is about right. It’s the Goldilocks zone — not too loud, not too quiet.

The key word is around the volume of your natural speaking voice, because…

Continue reading “How loud should I be singing? What is the ideal volume for singing?”

Like many people across the UK today, I woke up a little groggy at my usual wake up time. Why? Because the clocks had changed. This meant that my usual wake up time of around 6am was actually the equivalent of an hour earlier than normal – so 5am.

And boy, did my voice FEEL like a 5am morning voice.

What is morning voice? What causes it?

The short version is fairly understandable. No one expects to be able to wake up and be able to ask their body to be on top form IMMEDIATELY, right? No one can do a personal best in running or the gym upon waking. Our voices are no different.

We grasp that our body needs a little time to wake up from sleep. This is partly biological, and partly neurological. Our body has to do certain things to get us to sleep, do body “house-keeping” while we sleep, and then it needs to pack all that away as we wake up.

There’s a myriad of factors that can come into play, including some more serious health issues, but let’s cover the four most common things that most of us can recognise in our voices: Continue reading “Morning Voice”