Here in this article, we have summarized tips for learning to sing and improving your notes.
Most people believe that learning to sing requires a beautiful voice. The truth is, you need a lot of practice to learn to sing. Practice is a lot more important than your voice. Singing lessons speed up the process of learning, but, if you can't take singing lessons or hire a vocal coach, there are a few other ways through which you can improve your singing.
How to Learn to Sing
Let’s take a look at what you can do to learn how to sing, no matter what age or gender you are.
Breathing Exercises
When it comes to singing, the breathing pattern plays a vital role. If you can control your breathing, you can easily sing and amaze the audience. If you can’t control your breath, you can’t sing as well, no matter how good your voice is.
Learn proper throat opening by practicing regularly. Have you seen a fish opening their jaw when out of water? Try doing that. This will help you begin to use your facial muscles.
Here are a few breathing exercises.
- Imagine that air is heavy and try to inhale a few deep breaths.
- Inhale air until you feel it below the belly button and then exhale it.
- Repeat this a few times.
- Get a lightweight paper or a feather. Blow the air towards it and try to keep it in the air. Try to keep it in the air by exhaling for as long as you can.
- While keeping it in the air, ensure that you are exhaling from the diaphragm.
You can find more about breathing exercises in this article.
Warm-Up Your Vocal Cords
Singing is quite similar to exercising. When you have to work on a muscle, you warm up before going too hard on it. The vocal cords are muscles that need a warm-up before you start singing. If you don't properly warm up your vocal cords, then you can damage them. Here are a few ways to warm up your vocal cords.
Start practicing with the middle C scale. While practicing your major scales, don’t push yourself too hard. Remember that you are just warming up.
What Is Your Vocal Range?
Vocal range is the measurement of pitch between the highest notes and lowest notes you can hit. You need to find your vocal range by trying a few classical songs.
Search online and try to repeat them. You will find out what high notes and low notes you can't sing clearly. This is how you can determine your singing range. You can find more information in our article.
Sing With A Song
Get a voice recorder and try to sing with a song. The volume of recorded music should be very low because you want to hear your voice. Turn on the voice recorder and sing the song. Play the recorded version and check if you were hitting the right notes.
Additionally, you need to check whether you were breathing correctly or not. Once you understand your mistakes, you need to repeat the process and try to practice on vowels and articulating words.
Drink Water
Most people prefer to drink cold water. However, you shouldn’t be one of them if you want to improve your singing. Drink lukewarm water only. Also, when you are going to practice, ensure that you don’t drink any thick drinks, including dairy products.
Practice Everyday
Practice is the most important thing to help you sing like a professional singer. Spend at least two to three hours every day listening to music and then practicing it. Listen to it, find out where you didn’t hit the notes, and repeat.
How to Develop Your Voice
The second step in improving your learning skills is to develop your voice. There are few certain things to consider and practice to improve your vocals. With a combination of right notes and a good voice, no wonder you can become a professional singer.
Use Your Nose
When you listen to a good singer, you can note that they are partially using their nose. However, it doesn’t mean that you keep using your nose all the time. You need to practice opening your throat without sounding nasal to others.
Hit The Right Notes
If you have seen a singing competition, you must have heard an expert telling the singer that they were not hitting the right notes. It is the most common mistake because it is not easy to hit the right notes all the time.
Hitting the right notes requires a lot of practice and effort. You need to know your range so you can tell which notes you can hit and which notes you can’t. You need to practice the notes you are not hitting correctly. Keep practicing until you are hitting them perfectly.
Do beware of the condition called tone-deafness. Very few people suffer from tone-deafness. If you are unable to hit the right notes and follow the rhythm of a song, then you might be suffering from this condition.
Expand Your Breathing Skills
You have probably learned how to breathe while singing. Now, it is time to expand your skills. Here are some breathing exercises that you need to perform every day. Try to be consistent and do these exercises daily.
- Inhale for four seconds and exhale for four seconds.
- Inhale for six seconds and exhale for twelve seconds.
- Inhale for four seconds and exhale for sixteen seconds.
- Inhale for 2 seconds and exhale for sixteen seconds.
- Inhale for 4 seconds and exhale for twenty seconds.
- Inhale for 2 seconds and exhale for twenty seconds.
Learn Music Theory
There is no need to learn music theory when learning to sing. Yet, learning music theory will give you a better and deeper understanding of music. This will give you an edge compared to many other singers who have no knowledge of music theory.
In addition, you'll be able to learn new songs more easily by simply reading the sheet music of those songs. Especially, if you join a choir, this will come in handy.
Conclusion
When it comes to learning how to sing, the most important thing is consistency. Try to be consistent with your practice routine. While practicing, your aim should be to improve each day. You can take notes on your performance every day and take a look back after a week.
Once you think you have become a reasonably skilled singer, you can try to participate in a local competition. Before participating, you need to have practiced for at least six months. Singing competitions help you improve your singing skills and confidence. It is not an easy task to perform in front of a large audience.
It is better to start with a small group of people who encourage your skills, and then you can move to the next step. Always pick songs that are within your vocal range.
If you can afford the time and money involved, it is a great idea to enroll yourself in a singing class or hire a vocal coach. Another possibility is to enroll in an online course like Singorama 2.0.
