The academic definition of self-taught is somebody who learns independently without a teacher. Self-taught students are, therefore, tenacious, passionate, fearless, and creative. But is it possible to learn to sing by ourselves? Believe it or not, singing perfectly connects to self-teaching like any other artistic domain.
You can learn to listen to your voice and adjust out-of-key notes, adjust your vocal cords and timbre, and master breathing, and then, little by little, you can start calling yourself the next Celine Dion. With that in mind, let's examine how you can teach yourself to sing!
Learn to Sing on Your Own: Prepare Your Body and Learn to Listen
To start learning to sing, it would be best to adopt the correct posture, pay attention to your breathing and vocal technique, perform warm-up and cool-down exercises to relax the vocal muscles, and work on ear training to recognize the correct pitch, rhythm, and intonation. Let's find out all these and more below!
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1. Physically and Mentally Preparing Yourself to Sing
Before you start singing, you must ensure your body is in the correct position. Like in sports, good posture allows you to maximize your physical abilities.
Correct singing posture is essential to proper breathing and free vocal delivery. Keep your feet planted on the floor approximately shoulder-width apart to provide stability. Keep your spine straight but relaxed, and avoid slouching forward or backward. Dropping the shoulders down and back, avoiding tensing them, will also help open the chest and allow for deeper breathing.
Finally, ensure you are generally relaxed, as tension can negatively affect your vocal technique. Remember that practicing regularly in front of a mirror can help you adjust and maintain good posture while singing.
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2. Breathing: The Other Fundamental Rule
Since the voice is a wind instrument, breathing makes up 80% of singing. First, instead of breathing shallowly with your chest, you must learn to breathe using your diaphragm, a large muscle under your lungs that contracts and relaxes to control your breathing.
When preparing to sing, inhale profoundly but in a controlled manner, imagining that you fill your abdomen, sides, and lower back with air without lifting your shoulders and keep them relaxed. During the inhalation, allow your abdomen to expand outward, indicating that you are using your diaphragm correctly. Once fully inhaled, begin to exhale slowly and in a controlled manner while singing.
We recommend that you practice specific breathing exercises for singing, such as sustained breathing, which will improve your breathing technique.
3. Learn to Listen to Yourself
Once you start singing a song, you'll want to develop your singing style. However, first, you should listen to your voice, develop your ear (musically), and believe in your abilities and potential. A singer rarely has a perfect pitch or a finely-tuned musical ear when they start singing.
Ear training is essential to recognize the correct pitch when singing and to stay in tune. For these reasons, we recommend performing active listening exercises and interval exercises starting with simple intervals, such as seconds, then progressing to wider intervals, such as fifths or octaves. For example:
- Major Second: C - D
- Minor Third: E - C
- Perfect Fourth: C - F
- Perfect Fifth: G - C
- Major Sixth: A - F
It is also good to look for solfège tests, a music reading system that assigns syllables to each scale note. Remember, a vocal coach can provide specific ear-training exercises to help you improve your singing.
4. Relaxing the Vocal Muscles
We must work our vocal cords to prepare to sing like a pro. Below are warm-up and cool-down exercises to relax your vocal muscles and sing like an angel.
Warm-up Exercises
Deep, controlled breathing:
- Whether you choose to stand or sit, keep your back straight.
- Inhale deeply through your nose, feeling your abdomen expand.
- Exhale slowly through your mouth in a controlled manner.
- Repeat several times, filling your lungs with air and letting go of any tension in your body.
Vowel Scale Exercises:
Sing ascending and descending scales in different ranges of your voice. Begin by identifying your comfortable vocal range that is capable of producing a stable sound.
- Start on the lowest note of your vocal range.
- Then, move to the following higher note in the scale.
- Continue ascending note by note until you reach the highest note in your comfortable range.
- After reaching the highest note, begin descending the scale.
- Sing each descending note one by one until you reach the lowest note in your comfortable vocal range.
- Maintain controlled breathing.
Cool Down Exercises
Breathing and Relaxation:
- Inhale through your nose and exhale slowly through your mouth.
- Repeat several times, focusing on completely relaxing your body.
Singing on Low Volume:
- Sing a song at a very low, soft volume.
- Concentrate on maintaining a relaxed vocal delivery.
Gentle Vocalizations:
- Perform soft vocalizations in different pitches and ranges of your voice.
- Maintain a relaxed posture and controlled breathing.
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Know Your Voice and Learn to Sing on Your Own
Let's start our vocal training by learning how our voice works. Discover the five fundamental elements of any good voice:
- Breathing: By controlling your breathing with your diaphragm and opening your chest cavity, you can relax your body and circulate air more effectively when you inhale and exhale.
- Elocution: Elocution in singing refers to the clear articulation of words, proper pronunciation, enunciation, and expression of lyrics.
- Rhythm: Rhythm in singing pertains to the organization of sounds and silences during a vocal piece. It is the arrangement of notes and patterns of duration that create rhythm within a song.
- Pitch: Pitch in singing is determined by the frequency of vocal cord vibrations, influenced by tension and length, and refers to the perceived highness or lowness of a musical sound.
- The Voice: Every person has a unique voice distinct from all others. The characteristics of your voice, such as your gender, age, body, and vocal cords, determine its general qualities. They also define your vocal range and tessitura, the range of notes you can comfortably produce.
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Start Singing on Your Own
- Often, several steps are required to achieve any goal, such as teaching yourself to sing. We recommend that you first warm up your voice.
- Then, continue to work on your vocal scales. Try a mid-range scale, then a low scale, before finally moving on to a high scale. Then, repeat this pattern until your voice is relaxed.
- Following that, attempt to raise the volume of your singing gradually, then gradually lower it. This exercise aids in expanding your vocal range.
- Now, move on to something more complicated: sing the notes in a C major scale (including the semitones) and return to the original C. Singing all the notes (including the sharps and flats) will help increase your vocal agility and flexibility.
- You should then do scales for 20 to 30 minutes to strengthen your vocal cords and find your range (tenor, baritone, alto, mezzo-soprano, or soprano).
Learn to Sing with YouTube
Learning to sing alone means you can use resources to help you improve your vocal techniques and singing in general. There are plenty of videos on YouTube that can help beginners to make quick progress, such as:
- Eric Arceneaux is an excellent place to start. His videos cover various aspects of singing, including protecting your vocal cords, vocal workouts, warm-up exercises, ways to sing in key, and standing correctly. Eric has plenty of great advice for those who've just started learning to sing!
- Felicia Ricci has plenty of videos on improving your singing, including how to sing with emotion, how to sing without tension, how to sing into a mic, how to fix your singing using breath, and how to sing high notes. She also has videos on how to memorize songs and how to relax your tongue while singing.
- The Superior Singing Method is a popular online singing program created by vocal coach Aaron Anastasi. The videos include testimonials, vocal exercises, and singing tips and focus on helping singers improve their vocal skills through instructional videos, exercises, and practice routines.
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Learn to Sing on Your Own in front of a Camera
Once you've got all the tools you need to get a good voice, it's time to use them wisely: practice, listen, then evaluate yourself. Recording your voice is a great way to keep improving and better understand your abilities and the errors you'll need to correct. Elocution is essential when vocalizing, and every vocal coach tells their students to look at themselves in the mirror when they sing to help them avoid making the wrong notes.
Filming yourself can be helpful for:
- Identifying when you're going wrong.
- Looking at your gestures and correcting the unpleasant ones.
- Listening to the notes to ensure they're the correct pitch.
- Listening to your vocal timbre, tessitura, and resonance.
- Improving your vocal range.
The best way to do this is to choose a song you like. Then, watch the video and see what isn't working. Start again until you're happy with the recording. Once you've done this, you should then show the video to a friend or family member so you can get constructive criticism and see the positives and negatives of your performance.
You can also try singing in a group to learn more techniques and meet people passionate about this art, just like you.
Singing in front of anAudience
Most people avoid this because they're scared of being judged, have anxiety, or are overcome by stage fright. Here are ten tips for preventing this and performing in front of a large crowd.
- Practice: There's no secret to getting good at singing! Practice makes perfect.
- Start with friends and family: Taking criticism from people you love is often easier to manage than strangers' opinions.
- Carefully choose what you'll sing: Carefully select the song you will perform, ensuring it fits your vocal style and highlights your strengths as a singer.
- Choose your outfit carefully: Avoid wearing something too tight or uncomfortable, hindering your ability to breathe.
- Relax before you get on stage: Breathing exercises, meditation, and singing classes are good ways to prevent stress before you get on stage.
Learn to Sing on Your Own with Superprof
You're not the first person to embark upon this singing journey, after all! Be patient with yourself, practice regularly, and don't try to become a famous opera singer after your first practice session.
If you ever feel lost when carrying out your vocal training, excellent vocal coaches are always available and can push you in the right direction. Go to the Superprof platform and find the best singing teacher near you anywhere in Canada. If the cost of private singing lessons worries you, worry not. On Superprof, you will find plenty of options for singers on a budget. Are you ready for fame?
Wrap Up!
- You can learn to sing on your own. Although it may require more work, with the correct methods and recommendations, you will be one step closer to singing.
- To start learning to sing, it would be best to adopt the correct posture, breathe properly, perform exercises to relax the vocal muscles and work on ear training.
- You can help yourself with online resources like YouTube channels and music websites.
- It would be best to film yourself to see where you're going wrong when you sing. Eventually, you will sing in front of an audience.
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