Learning to sing is less of a destination and more of a journey.If you plan to sing professionally and make a career out of entertaining with your voice, you'll probably spend a lot more time, money and energy on learning to sing than a hobbyist. I'm going to address both of you - the singer who wants to sing professionally and the singer who just wants to get good as a hobby.
Learning To Sing In Preparation For A Singing Career.If you plan on singing professionally, regardless of style and genre, you'll need some vocal training. It's true that there are a lot of self-taught singers out there doing just fine without ever taking a single lesson but I can tell you from living and breathing singing since my teens and working in the music business that it's definitely the exception and not the rule.
There are a lot of other learn-to-sing programs out there but they just don't compare to Singorama: This is the best of the lot, the only one you want to think about utilizing if you are serious about obtaining the results you've always wanted. Make no mistake about it, Singorama is about the highest standards of singing professionalism and yet, as valuable as it is, it has been carefully produced to be straightforward and a joy for you. Its well-written directions are extremely easy to follow. It is jam-packed with twenty-eight interactive lessons, two-fully-illustrated books which contain step-by-step directions which are reinforced by audio files. Also built-in is Singorama's "Perfect your Pitch" software as well as the "Mini Recording Studio" software.
You'll be given lots of original songs and audio exercises for you to learn with. These include solo singing, singing warm-ups, singing in harmony, singing for auditions and very much more. The included Singorama "Mini Recording Studio" software features many tools including a virtual piano for working on scales and songs. Just imagine adding a WHOLE OCTAVE to your vocal range! Imagine how others will be blown away by your pitch-perfect singing. Just imagine how much your self-confidence and stage presence will soar! You'll be singing from your heart, not your mind, and your audience will see that right away.
These vocal coaches are usually the best trained and most experienced singing teachers around. Certainly you have a better chance of connecting with a truly great voice teacher there than by pulling a number off a paper flyer. Learning to sing is expensive...prepare to pay good money for your voice lessons! Anywhere between $40 and $100 per hour, once a week is common. If you decide to go to college, I'd recommend auditioning for a vocal program at your college or university. You may have to sing classical or jazz, but it won't turn you into a classical or jazz singer, just teach you another style, great musicianship and how to use your voice.
Record yourself as much as possible and get as many expert opinions as you can. Network a lot and connect with other musicians. Challenge yourself daily. Be cordial with others because this very much a business about who you know, and there's no reason to piss anybody off when they can make or break your career or at the very least hurt your reputation.
OK but how do I learn to sing. Well for me the key lies in breath control, if you can't control your breath then you'll not be able to sing properly. It's logical, think about it: the wind coming through your mouth is what pushes out the sound, if it is not coming at a clear consistent rate then the sound (song) will be all broken up.
As you're learning, remember the part about singing being a very technical subject because you WILL find yourself frustrated often by this challenging yet ultimately rewarding and beautiful art/skill.A step up from books about singing are all the various video courses and tutorials about singing that you can find both in stores and online. Some of these are really excellent and fairly comprehensive; others are total garbage; and others still are good but only cover specific things while leaving something else out. For instance, if one singing tutorial doesn't teach you much about breathing, then a second tutorial DOES, but neglects to discuss how to sing high notes.There's no cure-all product or solution. Singing is a huge subject with a lot to cover, so no ONE course could possibly teach you everything you need to know!
It's easy to get dogmatic about what constitutes correct singing and I definitely have some strong opinions on the topic, myself, but everybody has their own musical ambitions and who am I to impose my preferences on you? That's why I say that these learning tools are complementary pieces of your overall singing education. Just like Bruce Lee said: "Adapt what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is specifically your own." If you think of singing sort of like a martial art, then that's great advice.While most of the items I talk about are online vocal training courses proper, there are a few that can be legitimately called "singing software". Some software, for example, visualizes your voice on-screen on your computer or iPhone/iPad and let you see whether or not you're singing in tune, how steady your vibrato is, and other parameters.In my opinion, these are extremely useful tools, especially for people who are visual learners, as I am, and as many singers I know are. In fact, more and more vocal coaches are using them in their studios now because actually SEEING a visual representation of your singing on screen helps you adjust what you're doing when you sing more quickly and accurately. It's immediate feedback and cuts the learning curve big time.
The above breathing exercise is the most basic breathing exercise you can get, it is one you should do every day - four or five times a day. It's something you can do on the train, walking down the street, standing looking in through a shop window and no one will ever know you are doing it. Given a little time and practise you will soon learn to master your breathing and as you do start to increase the breathing count - eight, twelve, fifteen and as far as you can go.
I remember my somewhat progressive choir director (she was hot, too) telling me that "singing is singing" and I was like "pfft, not it isn't. There's right singing and wrong singing, my opera singing books told me so!" Man, what a jackass I was! Pardon the language, but it illustrates how easy it is to drink the "my way is better than your way" kool aid.The point is, she was right. Singing IS singing. But with that said, every singer needs to learn how to sing in tune, how to sing high notes with ease, how to keep their body relaxed, how to listen, etc., regardless of your favorite style of singing. These are just fundamentals.After leaving my singing career, I began to see singing education more objectively and democratically and now I realize that the modern singer can and should add as much as possible to their singing toolbox and even the best teacher in the world will be wrong sometimes and it's good to consult with other sources. One person can't know it all, especially when it comes to something as incredibly rich and complex as singing.
[How To Sing]
Learning To Sing In Preparation For A Singing Career.If you plan on singing professionally, regardless of style and genre, you'll need some vocal training. It's true that there are a lot of self-taught singers out there doing just fine without ever taking a single lesson but I can tell you from living and breathing singing since my teens and working in the music business that it's definitely the exception and not the rule.
There are a lot of other learn-to-sing programs out there but they just don't compare to Singorama: This is the best of the lot, the only one you want to think about utilizing if you are serious about obtaining the results you've always wanted. Make no mistake about it, Singorama is about the highest standards of singing professionalism and yet, as valuable as it is, it has been carefully produced to be straightforward and a joy for you. Its well-written directions are extremely easy to follow. It is jam-packed with twenty-eight interactive lessons, two-fully-illustrated books which contain step-by-step directions which are reinforced by audio files. Also built-in is Singorama's "Perfect your Pitch" software as well as the "Mini Recording Studio" software.
You'll be given lots of original songs and audio exercises for you to learn with. These include solo singing, singing warm-ups, singing in harmony, singing for auditions and very much more. The included Singorama "Mini Recording Studio" software features many tools including a virtual piano for working on scales and songs. Just imagine adding a WHOLE OCTAVE to your vocal range! Imagine how others will be blown away by your pitch-perfect singing. Just imagine how much your self-confidence and stage presence will soar! You'll be singing from your heart, not your mind, and your audience will see that right away.
These vocal coaches are usually the best trained and most experienced singing teachers around. Certainly you have a better chance of connecting with a truly great voice teacher there than by pulling a number off a paper flyer. Learning to sing is expensive...prepare to pay good money for your voice lessons! Anywhere between $40 and $100 per hour, once a week is common. If you decide to go to college, I'd recommend auditioning for a vocal program at your college or university. You may have to sing classical or jazz, but it won't turn you into a classical or jazz singer, just teach you another style, great musicianship and how to use your voice.
Record yourself as much as possible and get as many expert opinions as you can. Network a lot and connect with other musicians. Challenge yourself daily. Be cordial with others because this very much a business about who you know, and there's no reason to piss anybody off when they can make or break your career or at the very least hurt your reputation.
OK but how do I learn to sing. Well for me the key lies in breath control, if you can't control your breath then you'll not be able to sing properly. It's logical, think about it: the wind coming through your mouth is what pushes out the sound, if it is not coming at a clear consistent rate then the sound (song) will be all broken up.
As you're learning, remember the part about singing being a very technical subject because you WILL find yourself frustrated often by this challenging yet ultimately rewarding and beautiful art/skill.A step up from books about singing are all the various video courses and tutorials about singing that you can find both in stores and online. Some of these are really excellent and fairly comprehensive; others are total garbage; and others still are good but only cover specific things while leaving something else out. For instance, if one singing tutorial doesn't teach you much about breathing, then a second tutorial DOES, but neglects to discuss how to sing high notes.There's no cure-all product or solution. Singing is a huge subject with a lot to cover, so no ONE course could possibly teach you everything you need to know!
It's easy to get dogmatic about what constitutes correct singing and I definitely have some strong opinions on the topic, myself, but everybody has their own musical ambitions and who am I to impose my preferences on you? That's why I say that these learning tools are complementary pieces of your overall singing education. Just like Bruce Lee said: "Adapt what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is specifically your own." If you think of singing sort of like a martial art, then that's great advice.While most of the items I talk about are online vocal training courses proper, there are a few that can be legitimately called "singing software". Some software, for example, visualizes your voice on-screen on your computer or iPhone/iPad and let you see whether or not you're singing in tune, how steady your vibrato is, and other parameters.In my opinion, these are extremely useful tools, especially for people who are visual learners, as I am, and as many singers I know are. In fact, more and more vocal coaches are using them in their studios now because actually SEEING a visual representation of your singing on screen helps you adjust what you're doing when you sing more quickly and accurately. It's immediate feedback and cuts the learning curve big time.
The above breathing exercise is the most basic breathing exercise you can get, it is one you should do every day - four or five times a day. It's something you can do on the train, walking down the street, standing looking in through a shop window and no one will ever know you are doing it. Given a little time and practise you will soon learn to master your breathing and as you do start to increase the breathing count - eight, twelve, fifteen and as far as you can go.
I remember my somewhat progressive choir director (she was hot, too) telling me that "singing is singing" and I was like "pfft, not it isn't. There's right singing and wrong singing, my opera singing books told me so!" Man, what a jackass I was! Pardon the language, but it illustrates how easy it is to drink the "my way is better than your way" kool aid.The point is, she was right. Singing IS singing. But with that said, every singer needs to learn how to sing in tune, how to sing high notes with ease, how to keep their body relaxed, how to listen, etc., regardless of your favorite style of singing. These are just fundamentals.After leaving my singing career, I began to see singing education more objectively and democratically and now I realize that the modern singer can and should add as much as possible to their singing toolbox and even the best teacher in the world will be wrong sometimes and it's good to consult with other sources. One person can't know it all, especially when it comes to something as incredibly rich and complex as singing.
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