POSTURE FOR VOCAL STRUCTURE

Posture
Posture is important to sing well. If all the parts for singing are lined up correctly, you stand a chance of getting wonderful sounds come out of your body. Knowing how to stand is not rocket science, but it may take a little adjustment on your part. If you aren’t used to standing tall all the time, you may feel a bit awkward at first. To sing efficiently, you need to line up all your body parts that are involved and get them ready to do their job with little tension as possible. If you are slumped over, you have more trouble taking the breath that you need to sing because posture and tension directly affect the muscles.
One means of evaluating posture is simply standing in front of a full length mirror, noticing the way you hold your body parts especially the head, chest, hips, knees, arms and hands. After the evaluation the next step is to create and feeling the right body posture. Good posture keeps energy flowing so that your energy is not trapped in one body part and aligns your body for correct breathing. There are two major ways of creating this correct posture:
Going to the wall:
Practice singing against the wall to find the correct alignment of your body; notice the position of your head especially when you sing. Stand with your back to the wall. Put your bum, shoulders and the back of your head against the wall (Once your head is aligned your neck is automatically stretched and well positioned).Try to feel the energy flowing through out your entire body and not just trapped in your NECK! Now that your head region is well placed finding the correct position for your chest, hips, knees and feet is the next step for exploring correct posture.

CHEST: Having a wide chest and open ribs allows you to breathe fully and positions your chest properly for singing. However, lifting your chest too high can create tension in your neck exactly where it affects singing.
HIPS: to find the center of your hips, rock your hips (pelvis) too far forward and the rock back to center. Rock far behind you and keep rocking until you find the center.

KNEES: After you find the center of your hips, don’t forget to unlock your knees. You need to keep your knees loose so that your lower back can expand when you breathe. When you lock your knees, your knees are pushed backward as far as they can go, and your lower back also locks, which prevents your lower back from expanding when you breathe.

FEET: At the root of good posture is the position of your feet. By placing your feet no wider than your shoulders with one foot slightly in front of the other, you can evenly distribute your weight. Balancing your weight on the balls (middle) of your feet rather than on your heels gives you a sense of forward motion and help keep your knees unlock.

THE BUCKET TRICK: Just pretend that you are carrying two buckets of equal weight .this will put your chest aright.