In life, we encounter moments where we have to sing, be it a sporting event, a birthday party, or worship meetings.
If you are the kind of person that feels self-conscious about your voice, or just hate your singing voice, you’ve probably asked yourself if it’s possible to learn to sing.
This article answers the question, “can anyone learn to sing” where we determine if singing is a genetic gift or a skill to be learned.
According to Joanne Rutkowski, anyone who can speak can learn to use their singing voice, which means anyone is able to sing.
What is the common problem?
Something people don’t realize is that your singing voice is different from your talking voice. Usually, our talking voice is in a lower range, while our singing voice is higher.
To get started on your journey to becoming a better singer, we suggest doing warm-ups to open up your vocal chords, and help relax your muscles so that you don’t strain them when you sing.
Unlocking your singer voice is just the first step, now you have to work on improving your breathing, your tempo, and the key you’re singing in.
Many people fear that they’re bad singers because they’re tone deaf. However, only 2% of the world is actually tone deaf, while the other people just have bad singing techniques.
If you’re part of the population that doesn’t sing because you feel conscious about your voice, here are some tips to help you improve your technique.
Practice makes perfect
The thing about singing is that there are techniques that are applied to make your voice sound better. A factor that affects most singers is their breathing.
When you consult with a singing teacher, the first thing they try to teach you is how to breathe with your diaphragm.
This is because breathing from your chest leaves you other of breath, and you have difficult projecting your voice.
If you’re looking to become a better singer, you can practice by improving your lung capacity, and learning how to breathe from your diaphragm.
Like all skills, to become a good singer, you should work on the techniques that usually mess up someone’s capacity to sing well. Here are proper techniques that can make your singing better.
Proper Techniques:
- Sing from your diaphragm: A common mistake everyone makes when they sing is singing from their throat. Singing from the diaphragm will allow you to project your voice more and won’t strain your muscles. Too much strain can cause permanent damage to your voice.
- Observe proper posture: When you’re shy your body automatically slouches, so if you’re singing try to stand up straight and allow the balls of your feet to carry the weight of your body.
- Squeeze the mic: If you have a difficult time reaching high notes, squeeze the microphone tightly because this will help expand your ribcage and breathe deeply.
Work On Your Confidence
If you like singing but struggle with stage fright, then you should practice performing in front of a group of people.
The best way to work on your confidence when it comes to singing is by going to a karaoke bar and performing. Yes, it can be daunting, but some people are already too drunk to notice if you mess up your song anyway.
Of course, if you need some liquid courage to get up on that stage, we recommend not drinking too much so that you stay on beat.
You can also do warm-ups by practicing in a private karaoke booth in front of your friends.
Confidence can be learned if you work on performing in front of people you’re comfortable with, and eventually you’ll find that performing in front of strangers isn’t too scary.
You should also look into being engaging with your audience, here’s how you can do that:
How To Perform Well:
- Choose a song you know: Being a singer means knowing the lyrics to the song you chose. Looking at the monitor to sing hinders you from enjoying the song, and looking down makes you look self-conscious, which can dampen your performance.
- Dance: If you choose an upbeat song, elevate your performance by dancing along to the beat. This will make the crowd feel more engaged to dance along too. You don’t have to choreograph anything, just make sure you aren’t stand off to one side.
- Remember to smile: One important thing to remember is to have fun and smile. When you feel nervous, listen to the song for a bit and try to feel the rhythm in your bones. When you’re having fun, you’ll find that the sound of your voice isn’t as bad as you think it is.
If you’re trying to improve your confidence, then you shouldn’t get caught up on singing well, but focus on enjoying yourself.
Learn To Accept Feedback:
Sometimes learning how to sing means being able to accept feedback. Improving your techniques and your voice can help you become a better singer.
Karaoke is a great way to have people judge your singing without it being too painful.
While singing on your own can be helpful, there’s not a lot it can do for you when you don’t know what you can improve.
Aside from that, you can always sign up for singing lessons and ask for feedback from your voice teacher.
But if you don’t have time to attend the lessons, you can sign up for a karaoke club where they can give you some tips on how to sing better when you’re on stage.
If you decide to join a karaoke club, here are some tips to take with you when you take on a karaoke session.
Tips to Improve Your Karaoke Game
Now that you have the three core tips to improve your singing with karaoke, here are other tips that can help you improve your status as a performer:
- Perform with your whole heart: Being a great karaoke singer doesn’t mean you’re just great at timing and nailing all the lyrics, it means being able to perform with your whole heart. The thing about singing in public is, people are highly likely to remember how the performance was over how well you sang all the lyrics. People who are able to perform and engage the crowd are more memorable than someone who sings all the lyrics but remained stagnant throughout the performance.
- Improve your voice: While karaoke is helpful in improving your vocals, there are other ways you can improve your voice at home. If you read music, you get an idea of how notes work, and it can be easier for you. Or you can take voice lessons to make your projection and technique better with a professional. Karaoke can make anyone learn the basics of singing and breathing, but getting formal lessons will give you more of the technical skills like music theory.
- Choosing the right song: If you want a perfect performance without any hitches, then you should choose a song that is perfect for your vocal range. Sometimes people choose a song that is way too high for their vocal range, and it causes them to strain their vocal muscles to reach the note. Getting to know your vocal range will improve your singing ability, and make singing in public a lot easier for you.
Causes Of Bad Singing
Bad singing is easily recognized, whether or not you are musically trained and there are some musicians who are amazing with instruments that can’t sing.
A lot of people who feel like they are bad singers aren’t as incompetent at singing as they assume. Almost everyone is biologically able to sing, but even then, bad singing is still rampant. 60% of the population have a difficult time singing, and someone who has musical aptitude doesn’t necessarily have a golden voice.
People who are bad at singing are deficient in three aspects: timing, note memory, and pitch accuracy.
Most bad singers struggle with pitch accuracy, and are considered weak singers when they are off by over a half semitone.
However, some bad singers are said to have bad vocal folds, and that the muscles in their throats aren’t the reason they can’t carry a tune.
Another cause of bad singing is when a person can’t hear the notes correctly or don’t have enough control over their vocal cords to mimic the note they hear.
The brain has the potential to signal your voice to produce the correct tune, but sometimes the signal is mapped out incorrectly, and it fails to match the note you perceived.
Everyone’s brain is capable of good perception, which is why most people can enjoy music without being a musician, but some brains just can’t provide voices with the right instructions. The scientific name for this error is an imitative deficit, when a bad singer hears the note, but incorrectly imitates it, we hear the mistake but we can’t program the brain to make the correction immediately.
Now that we know bad singing is scientific, here are some tips that can help you improve your singing.
8 Ways You Can Improve On Your Bad Singing
Don’t Allow Opinions To Fester
Everyone has their bad days, even some professional artists get flack for a lackluster performance. You have to remember that not everyone is going to love your singing, and that’s okay.
If you’re hitting the right notes and have good timing and people still have something to say about your singing, then they’re the ones with the problem, not you.
Your Confidence Matters
A lot of times, people put themselves down before they do something, and that causes them to fail. Instead of going into a karaoke bar with a mindset that your singing is bad, try to think that you’re there to have fun, and in tune or not, enjoying yourself is all that matters.
Don’t shoot yourself in the foot before you do something because if you psyche yourself up to feel bad, you’re highly likely to perform worse than you normally would.
So when you get up on stage, just focus on having fun.
Sign Up For Singing Lessons
Bad singing isn’t always a permanent thing, so if you’re learning to sing on your own and you have some difficulty, don’t give up.
Taking singing lessons can help resolve problems with timing and pitch, which means you can improve your voice if you work hard enough for it.
However, if there’s some difficulty finding voice teachers in your area, you can always look for online singing lessons and consult with a voice coach online.
Change Your Breathing Technique
Anyone will tell you that breathing is an important support to singing. Most people don’t realize that they’re not breathing properly which affects their performance.
One way you can improve your breathing is by doing some exercises that can help expand your lung capacity, and you can find a lot of videos on how to breathe when singing online.
Observe Artists With Distinctive Voices
A lot of singers have debatable talents, for sure there are singers you hate that everyone seems to love and vice versa.
Studying singers with strange voices can show you that being a “bad singer” isn’t that bad.
Aside from that, if you have something in common with singers who have unique voices, you can use that to your advantage.
Keep An Audio Diary Of Your Voice
Most people hate the sound of their voices on records, but this is the best way to track your progress.
How you sound in your head might be a lot different from what you sound like in real life, which is why it’s a good idea to record your voice and keep an audio diary.
You can do this by selecting a song you love and singing it every day. Record yourself singing and check how much your voice has changed after the first day.
Work On Your Listening Skills
As we have mentioned, bad singing is caused by bad listening, when your ears hear the right note, but your brain gives your voice the wrong instructions.
When working on your singing, listen to how the note sounds and try to visualize it. You can try to play a note on an instrument and focus on listening to that note, when you feel like you’ve heard it properly, try to repeat it.
One way to see if this is working is by recording yourself playing the note and repeating the note with your voice.
If you work on your listening and keep an audio diary, you’ll have a log on the progress you’ve made.
Focus On Your Performance
If all else fails, you can distract the karaoke crowd with a stunning performance. Choose a great outfit and bust out some dance moves.
If you’re a bad singer, and impressing the crowd is your goal, then do so with a bang.
Key Takeaways
Learning how to sing may not be easy, but it’s not impossible. To answer your question, yes, anyone can learn how to sing.
However, learning how to sing doesn’t mean being good too.
