So you want to learn how to sing? You’ve made up your mind and you’re willing to commit the time and effort it’s going to take to pick up a new skill that many people think that you’re “just born with”? Good for you. Step one in learning how to sing is realizing that you can. Nobody would expect somebody who had never been taught to play guitar to know what to do the first time they picked it up, but for some reason people have that expectation of new singers. Most likely it’s because we use our body and not a physical instrument that is separate from our bodies. Not singing well feels like something is wrong with you. It shouldn’t. Just realize that singing is a skill just like any other and you can and will learn how to do it.
You might not end up being a professional, but there are a lot of people who learn to play basketball well who will never play in the NBA. So let’s get to it. Here we’ll cover some basic instruction to get you started. For more in-depth training click here.
The first thing you should be concerned with is pitch. Pitch refers to the note that you’re singing. If you’re singing along with the radio and what you’re singing is below the notes that the lead singer is singing, you’re flat. Flat simply means under the correct pitch. The opposite of that would be singing to high. In music we call that sharp. There is a more complicated definition of both flat and sharp, but for learning how to sing we’ll focus on the basic definition of these terms. When you’re listening to music and you hear two pitches played at the same time or sequentially try to determine which one is higher and which one is lower.
A basic exercise to get you started in ear training so you can recognize pitch: Sit at a piano and reach out and play any two white tones that are one key apart. Listen for both tones and once you can hear them both distinctly, sing them from the bottom up. This is a classic ear training drill that will begin to sharpen your ear so you can detect subtle differences between tones.
The second concept to focus on is vocal tone. Tone means the way your voice sounds when it is producing a pitch. Tone is the way your ear distinguishes an “ooh” from and “ah”. There are a lot of different ideas about vocal tone for specific vowels and we won’t get into breaking every single one of those down. Suffice to remember this overarching concept. Keep everything that you use while singing relaxed. For all vowel shapes, “a”, “ah”, “ooh”, “oh”, be sure to remove tension from your facial muscles, throat, neck, etc. Form all your vowels as naturally as you can; like you would while speaking.
This is a great starting point to get you focused on the basics of what it take to start matching pitch and producing a pleasing sound that people will want to listen to. The Singing Success system has helped tons of people who had zero singing experience add an octave to their range and achieve all that they wanted when learning how to sing. See here if you’re interested.
Thanks to 7D7 Studio for the picture.
