How did you learn to sing?

[dogonjon]

My Explaination

I joined the choir in 7th grade shortly after starting to play guitar. I taught myself how to play chords and melodies and then taught my best friend how to play guitar. We hooked up with a drummer and that's when I got a bass. We were playing Creme 'Politician', 'Sunshine of Your Love', 'I'm So Glad', Jimi Hendrix 'Hey Joe'. My brother got a Shure green bullet mike and I took it and tried to sing through my guitar amp while playing bass. I learned a lot about feedback and trying to coordinate singing and playing simultaneously. My friend encouraged me to join the choir, learn to sing and then try to play and sing. Twenty years later, after music school, years in choir, voice lessons with Maestro David Kyle, guitar, piano and bass lessons it started to come together. I was writing songs and no one would play them so I got a sequencing synthesizer, 4 track cassette deck and started recording backing tracks and vocals. I joined a band and we played some of my songs during our gigs with positive results (no one left and we didn't get fired). I took more voice lessons, I still didn't get it, I was forcing my voice so hard I would get headaches after a couple hours.

I recently discovered an online voice web sitehttp://www.thesingingzone.com Per Bristro sells a package of 4 DVD voice lessons called "Sing With Freedom". I tried them and they are very good. He has a forum on his web site for his students to communicate with him and each other. After the first months lessons there is a continuing course of lessons available online as well as a free personal online private lesson with Per. I found the DVD lessons to be more productive for me than the lessons I took from the Maestro and there is much additional information in the web site that directly relates to my professional life. The price is very reasonable and for a monthly subscription you can continue with coaching. If you are on a budget and really want to sing well this is an option I recommend.

 

[Supercreep]

Sing a lot until you get better at it.

Seriously, that's it. Sing everything, both at volume and in your "head voice".

Find your crossover spot and work that transition out.

Then work on mic technique, eliminating pops and smacks and unwanted mouth noises and getting even dynamics.

 

[Yonce N Mild]

Sing a lot until you get better at it.

 

[stevieb]

Sang in school and church choirs since I was eight. Have not had enough personal voice training/lessons, in my own opinion, but have had some.

Gonna get strong with you folks: 99% of the time, those with formal training are going to be better than those who are self-taught- IN ALL AREAS. This goes double with voice. Too many bad habits can be formed being self-taught.

And to put a sharper point on it: none of you fit in that last 1 percent.

 

[rayc]

I can't sing - the end!
The vast majority of voices I like to listen to aren't trained: they might have had the odd bit of tutoring at some stage but are, essentially, natural or brutally forced.
Trained, coached, developed voices end up doing Idol & becoming cabaret/all round entertainers it they're lucky.
Seriously though - training in diction, breathing, projection etc may well extend a singer's career options or longevity but they don't substitute for a natural voice with expression, passion and some level of savvy for the needs of recording (consistency, lips smaking etc as mentioned by supercreep) it.
These days Caruso may not have had IT. Groban has a trained sounding voice but is not the choice (and he makes bad choices too).
Piaf was as rough as guts, she did acquire some polish (but I think that was imbided). Leonard Cohen just is, could you imagine a trained Elvis Costello or Kurt ennunciating his syllables just so?
I'd rather gravel or at least well warn cobble to a rolled surface rumble absorbent tarmacadam any day.
Oh, & I can't sing - I did mention that didn't I.

 

[theobvioustroll]

I chose other because I did both, but two of the things that really helped were some things I bought online.

The first thing I bought was a specialized breath training program and a device that helps strengthen the muscles you breathe with. At first, I was thinking I got taken, but I wasn't following their program. I wrote to them and they said,"Follow the program, it works." So I started following the program, and within two weeks i noticed a major improvement in how long I could hold out notes and I wasn't...well, I quit runninmg out of breath... you know, like when you try to sing but you run out of air before you reach the end of a line in a song? Well, I didn't have that happening anymore.


The second thing I used was a program that I bought from the same place called P3: The Passagio Pitch-matching Program.

It's an e-booklet and a bunch of audio files in a zipped download. You listen to these audio files, and match the pitch with your voice while singing vowels, and it strengthens your voice. I thought it was pretty cool, and hard to beat for $20.
I just made a CD of the audio tracks - the cool thing is that each track is a different pitch, so you can loop it it to keep replaying a certain note if you need to work on that one note.

Both of them came from a place called "Vocalists Direct". Their mainpage is down for some reason, but I inserted links to both the things I bought from them.

 

[tateros]

either you have it or you don't. I do believe that you can fine tune your singing...once it is established that you can carry a tune for more than just a few notes.
If you sing a bit pitchy here and there, it can be corrected. If you sing totally off key and you're all over the place, you probably need to find another hobby!

I agree with most of what you said, except I'm unclear about the ability to correct pitchy voices.

Anyone have a solid example of someone who started as a bad singer & polished it up?

The only one I can come up with is Kurt Cobain. I'm not a fan, thus am unsure if he is a good example. I've heard some demo's where he sings like complete and utter garbage, yet as much a Nirvana fan as I am not, Nirvana's Unplugged is vocally amazing.

I wonder if he just wasn't trying in the demo's or if he polished up. Or if he was drugged. I think I just answered my own question.

Trent Reznor might be another bad live singer who has gotten a bit better, but not really. He used to use falling all over the place as an excuse to sing bad, but nowadays I can really tell he's trying. Still, with all that experience, he sounds pretty stiff & it doesn't seem to flow out naturally.

 

[Supercreep]

Anyone have a solid example of someone who started as a bad singer & polished it up?

I echo this sentiment. If you can't distinguish one pitch from another to begin with, all you're doing by taking lessons is helping somebody make a boat payment.

Practice, people.

Singing live into a PA is a different animal than singing in the shower, and singing in the studio is a different animal than singing live.

Join a band and work it out.

Knowing where you want to go is the most important part of getting there. If you have a Bob Dylan voice, a Bob Dylan approach is going to work better for you than a soul-singer approach. Dig? Don't get distracted by how you want to sound... Concentrate on how you do sound and focus on what you can realistically do to improve that.

 

[Supercreep]

Sang in school and church choirs since I was eight. Have not had enough personal voice training/lessons, in my own opinion, but have had some.

Gonna get strong with you folks: 99% of the time, those with formal training are going to be better than those who are self-taught- IN ALL AREAS. This goes double with voice. Too many bad habits can be formed being self-taught.

And to put a sharper point on it: none of you fit in that last 1 percent.

I think I will disagree with you here.

The natural sound of someone's voice, without taking into account any artifice or technique, can be a viscerally gripping experience. Singers like David Bowie, Peter Murphy, and Leonard Cohen have arguably terrible technique, but the quality of their voice, comined with a skillful delivery, adds depth and mystery to their recordings. Gary Cherone is a highly trained vocalist. Could he deliver "Everybody Knows" better than Cohen?

A singer is never going to be any better than his/her material. Content and delivery is everything. Being able to squeeze 25 notes into a descending phrase? Not so much.

 

[Dmann]

Anyone have a solid example of someone who started as a bad singer & polished it up?

James Hetfield of Metallica.

listen to any of the early live recordings, I mean ya, at the time it was Metal and it rocked, but from a technical standpoint, It was completely horrible probably due to the fact that he blew his voice out every gig and booze and smoking drugs are really bad for your voice.

Fast forward about 10 years later, James did a whole piece about how not drinking booze or smoking pot really helped him to clean up his vocals, which eventually led to him actaully training his voice through various methods. I saw one Vid where he warmed up doing 5 note modulating chromatic major scales with a piano while having steam blowing into his face and a white terrycloth towel over his head.

 

[tateros]

I echo this sentiment. If you can't distinguish one pitch from another to begin with, all you're doing by taking lessons is helping somebody make a boat payment.

Practice, people.

Singing live into a PA is a different animal than singing in the shower, and singing in the studio is a different animal than singing live.

Join a band and work it out.

Knowing where you want to go is the most important part of getting there. If you have a Bob Dylan voice, a Bob Dylan approach is going to work better for you than a soul-singer approach. Dig? Don't get distracted by how you want to sound... Concentrate on how you do sound and focus on what you can realistically do to improve that.

Beautifully said.

 

[jasonbmerrill]

i learned myself and im still learning, 10 years later.

i suggest EVERYONE that wants to sing take some kind of lessons whilst retaining your own style.

youll get there much faster.


and yes, recording your own stuff is important, as well as singing live.

 

[DarkFriend]

I picked "other".. In my opinion, you can't teach someone how to sing. Either they can sing, or they can't. You can teach someone how to sing better, but not how to sing.

 

[Moksha]

I've been thinking of taking singing lessons for a couple years now... I'm not sure if I should or not. I've got a good-sized "following" (just friends that regularly come see me play) that always tells me *not* to take formal lessons, because the teacher will try to change my voice. I really don't want to change my voice at all, but I know (even though my friends don't realize it) that I can definitely stand to be more consistent... note-wise. Like, I can sing pretty okay, but every now and again, I just have an off-day and I can't hit notes. I'd love to always have good singing days, y'know?

Take some lessons. A good teacher will help you to get your voice more consistent and let you know if you're doing anything that can damage it.
If you get the right teacher they won't try to change your voice unless your technique is really bad. I mean if you're a heavy metal screamer you're not going to take Opera singing lessons are you?

Moksha

 

[Moksha]

Other

I picked other.
Basically I taught myself to sing. I think singing is like walking and talking we learn by imitation. I think you can teach people to sing or perhaps it's helping them unlearn bad habits. Just as painting is a lot about learning to see as well as learning to use your brushes, Singing is as much about listening as it is about making the sound. If you can't hear the sound your not going to be able to reproduce it.
Lately I have kind of taken lessons but that has been as much about confidence as about technique.
I think learning an instrument helps a lot with tone and pitch too.

Moksha.

 

[azraelswings]

Clearing Up Misconceptions

I'm going to go ahead and apologize for my tone ahead of time. I don't mean to sound personally dismissive. However, every time someone pops on this board asking about singing, they receive a bunch downright misled, ignorant ideas about vocal pedagogy. Somehow, these threads wind up implying that your voice is either gifted or not, and that studying voice will somehow limit you from having a tonally unique voice. So, to anyone who disagrees with me, please understand that while I may find your ideas idiotic, that should not imply I think you are an idiot. To avoid making anything personal, I'm not quoting. I don't mean to sound like a self-righteous prick, but quite frankly every time one of these threads pops up, the replies are often ignorant and discouraging.

"A teacher will try to change your voice." Wrong. A good vocal teacher will guide you in correcting pitch mistakes and developing technique so that you have the freedom to color your singing the way you would like. This misconception seems related to the idea that all instructors will want you to turn you into an opera singer. If you are taking lessons from a teacher that does this, find a new one. Your vocal teacher, really any instrumental instructor, should embrace your musical interests and hopefully introduce you to new ones.

"If you can't carry a tune, you can't learn to sing. Give up. Try wood shop." No. No, no. Find a good teacher who has experience working with beginners. Be willing to do inane, boring pitch drills with yourself. Be prepared to be discouraged. But, even if you're next to tone deaf, you CAN learn. To draw a parallel between voice and guitar, if someone were to say, "If you can't fret a note/chord or pluck a string, you're hopeless," we would rightfully balk at their ignorance. We are somehow willing to sound terrible and make mistakes at instruments sooner than we are at voice.

"Untrained voices are so much better." <Sarcasm> Right </Sarcasm> Okay, how should I put this? There's really no way for me to discount personal opinions of a listener's emotional response to certain voices. However, I think that the comparisons often made in these arguments are a little misguided. Taking the example of Leonard Cohen — I'm borrowing the example from Supercreep — who I believe to have reasonable technique, compared with that of say, Dylan, Cohen's technique isn't poor, his voice just happens to broach the nether regions humanly audible pitch. I think it's a rather dishonest argument to compare the delivery of a singer-songwriter who is intimately associated with his own work, to that of the same song by a highly trained vocalist. It takes two vocalists at completely divergent ends of the spectrum and compares them. Further, whether or not a particular trained vocalist could make an engaging version of a particular untrained singer-songwriter's composition is rather inconsequential to the question of whether or not an individual is well-served by vocal training. Besides, if we are going to consider particulars, Cohen's "Hallelujah" is an easy counter-example — both of the Wainright and Buckley versions are more engaging, both by more technically adept singers. Infrequently in these conversations do we ever discuss technically proficient singers. Consider Pat Stump of Fall Out Boy — very well developed technique. Could he have written the same melodies, expressed the same ideas, without that technical freedom?

Whenever these discussions crop up, responses make it seem like studying voice will rob you of your voices natural expression. The evidence? Dozens of untrained singers with gripping natural voices. Please, someone find me a recording of a person who sounded like Kurt Cobain and lost his natural voice due to vocal instruction. Show me a before and after recording of someone who attended vocal instruction and sounded worse in the latter. Comparing someone like Cobain to Josh Groban doesn't make sense, unless Groban sounded like Cobain before all those scales.

Yes, there are wonderful, emotionally brilliant voices possessed by singers who have not studied seriously. But, to say we should just embrace our current abilities because of these singers is limiting and silly. Developing your technique — by the way, let's take a second to define vocal technique: the ability to smoothly sing at all volumes, pitches, vowels, and tonal colors, to be able to sweetly falsetto, belt, or metal scream — will free you artistically, not limit you. End of story.

 

[jasonbmerrill]

if you let technique limit you, well, its really YOUR fault.

 

[adam.carstensen]

Bravo azraelswings.

That's exactly what I tell all my friends and students who pin the fact that they're not willing to try hard enough on the idea that "you've got it, or not"... that's an excuse, not a theory.

 

[azraelswings]

Bravo azraelswings.

That's exactly what I tell all my friends and students who pin the fact that they're not willing to try hard enough on the idea that "you've got it, or not"... that's an excuse, not a theory.

Thanks, Adam. Appreciate it.

I would tell them, "Well, you're half right. You've either got the maturity and dedication to work for it, or you don't."

 

[gecko zzed]

Yes, there are wonderful, emotionally brilliant voices possessed by singers who have not studied seriously. But, to say we should just embrace our current abilities because of these singers is limiting and silly. Developing your technique — by the way, let's take a second to define vocal technique: the ability to smoothly sing at all volumes, pitches, vowels, and tonal colors, to be able to sweetly falsetto, belt, or metal scream — will free you artistically, not limit you. End of story.

The strength of your argument is revealed if we expand our thougts not just to singing, but to nearly any possible human endeavour: sports, crafts, whatever.

I can think of no pursuit where training and practice were not beneficial: making furniture, playing golf, writing documentation, driving a racing car, cooking. I agree that some people have natural talents in certain areas that make it easier for them to pursue their particular bent. Tiger Woods, for example, has innate fluidity of movement that helps him get where he is. Nevertheless, I am quite certain that he doesn't rely on natural ability alone, and makes use of the best coaches available. Me on the golf course? I'd probably make more headway with a spade than an iron, but I am sure that with a (very) patient teacher, I could make some reasonable progress.

Why should singing be any different?