OK, so you’re starting singing from scratch and you haven’t been singing your heart out since Third grade. No problemo!
Everybody can sing, if you still have a doubt, read my previous article Can ANYONE Sing? Is Singing a Talent or a Skill? and check by yourself 🙂
Today, I’ve highlighted the steps of the singing process to help you start singing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Yzsxik_hXk
THE 4 MAJOR STEPS TO SINGING
When you think about Singing and how it is done, there are 4 major steps that need to be considered.
As everything we do and all physical gesture, singing starts in our head. Then your body “sends” air so you can produce a sound. After that you shape the sound (to speak or to sing). Finally, it all goes out traveling through the air until it hits somebody’s ears or an object. It is what I call the SOUND LIFE CYCLE!
FUEL YOUR BRAIN
Singing starts in our brain. First, we decide we want to sing and what we want to sing. We also choose how we want to sing (quietly, loudly…).
After a while, you’ll decide to sing in a certain way (jazzy, with r’n’b riffs or runs, etc.). To do that, to improve your singing and to give it your own flavor, you gotta FUEL YOUR BRAIN so you develop a great musicality!
Listen to different artists in the music style(s) you like but do not listen to only 1 artist. If you only listen to 1 artist, you’ll end up mimicking and, except if you wanna start an impersonator career, that’s not what you want. You wanna sound like yourself!
It starts by LISTENING and ONLY listening. Pick a song, stop doing anything else and close your eyes. Listen to it several times.
What you can do
- listen to the melody
- listen to the voice and its variations
- listen to the instruments (how many? which ones?)
- listen to the bass line
- listen to the drum beat
- listen to the piano/keyboard/guitar musical patterns
- spot the silences
- listen to the lyrics
SUPPORT YOUR VOCALS
The sounds we make are produced in our music box (in your throat, behind Adam’s apple) but they would not exist without our breathing.
It is the air you exhale (plus the decision to speak or to sing) that make our vocal folds vibrate.
The thing is we know how to breath, it is natural, we don’t even think about it. But if you really want to learn the right way, the good gesture to sing more than average, you need to learn how to breath the “singing way”!
You’ll achieve the “singing way” by developing a strong support with your abs and not letting your chest and stomach collapse. That’s how to start singing.
What you can do
- learn how breathing works
- learn to develop a strong support
- check out Spice Up Your Vocals (my online program)
TRAIN YOUR VOICE
The more you’ll sing, the more you’ll improve.
You’ll improve your musicality, your ear but also your vocal folds are going to be stronger. You can compare that to a sport. If you exercise well, you develop good muscles.
Also, the more you’ll repeat a gesture (in our case, a vocal gesture), the more your muscle memory will remember it. Be careful not to take bad habits though, if you repeat a bad gesture thinking it is the right thing to do, your muscle memory will remember it too 🙁
How to Start Singing is to start right now!
What you can do
- sing e-ve-ry-day
- sing easy songs to start
- sing the easier part of a song if the whole song is not something you can sing now
SHAPE YOUR SOUND
A sound needs to be shaped to form different vowels and to form words.
Physically, you shape the sound with your larynx, your throat, your tongue, your palate, your jaw, your lips… And mentally choosing where you want it to resonate and how you project it (softly, with intensity etc.).
What you can do
- try things: try to shape your vowels in multiple ways until you like what you hear
- record yourself and do it again and again (you’ll hate it at first but it’s the case for all of us!)
SEEK HELP
How to start singing is also about looking for help.
To start taking good singing habits and especially if you don’t have an amazing natural born talent (a few of us do), develop your skills with some help.
What you can do
- take lessons with a vocal coach
- join a choir (look for one with vocal technique, some only sing the repertoire)
- take online lessons (Skype…)
- take an online course (with vocal coaching included if possible)
Whatever solution you choose, make sure to select a coach you understand, a coach with experience.
The vocal coach, whether it is a 1 to 1 lesson or an online course, must be able to sing and demonstrate you the right and the wrong way to do something.
If the coach is NOT able to sing or to show you how it should be done and how it should not be done, look for someone else 🙂
How to Start Singing?
Wanna start to sing? OK, let’s do it!
So now, as your virtual vocal coach, I want you to:
- choose a song you really love
- listen to it carefully (I know you cannot wait to sing but please listen to it as explained above)
- pick up your phone, look for your recording app
- select a part of the song you can sing without difficulty
- record yourself
- listen to what you just sang
- sing again improving your tone, your articulation, your flow etc.
- let me know how it went in the comments!
Depending on your budget, you can also look for a vocal coach in your area, look for online singing lessons, look for singing ecourses with vocal coaching included but please do not buy any of the singing methods out there if you haven’t taken just 1 singing lesson, you could really harm yourself or take bad singing habits.
That was How to Start Singing! I’m sure you can do it. Go for it or you’ll never know 😉
Have fun singing!
Vahn
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