Another untrained singer (like Geoff and Jerry) chiming in:

I'm a great believer in STANDING UP, although I suppose that sitting up STRAIGHT is almost as good for keeping your windpipe open and unobstructed. If you're bent over, your airflow will be restricted, with negative impact on your volume, your range, and your tone.

Using your imagination, surprisingly enough, really seems to work for projection -- if you "aim" your voice at something or somebody far away and straight in front of you, your voice will actually carry more strongly, and in the desired direction. Imagining that you're reaching out to your sibling at the back of the room is an idea I hadn't heard before, but it sounds like an excellent idea. Years ago, singing on the street, I used to try projecting to the tops of distant office buildings -- ridiculous, of course, but even though I'm sure I never actually reached those buildings, I know my ability to reach listeners in my immediate area was enhanced.

More recently, when I had an opportunity to sing with a rock/soul band with a big horn section, I began to imagine my head and torso as yet another wind instrument in the band. I even went so far as to "tune up" (actually, *warm* up my voice) by scatting along with the trumpets, trombones, and saxes, just repetitively intoning notes at the top and bottom of my range. During the two years I was part of that emsemble, I learned to sing louder than ever, and (more importantly) to sing loud more easily.

I even discovered that my *range* improved when singing loud and singing "like a horn," without straining for the added volume. Straining to be loud would normally decrease one's range, but learning to really open up your throat, and to sing loud without straining, can actually extend it.

In the end, it all comes down to experience, i.e., lots of practice -- but not to practice bad habits. Be consicous of your posture and your breathing, use your imagination to project your voice, keep at it, and try to *gradually* extend your vocal reach.

I once found an excellent website where someone selling voice lessons provided a great deal of good free advice -- sort of a free first lesson -- in hopes of enticing people to purchase the full course. I intended to find the site and include a link in this message, but was not able to come up with it. Maybe a more persistent web-searcher could locate some useful instruction -- there's probably more than one such site out there somewhere.