[Harp-L] Re: Learning to Sing



I may not be the best person to answer this question, as both of my parents sing, and I've been singing my whole life. But I never sang in public until college, and then it took several beers to loosen me up. The #1 issue for singing on stage is confidence. If you think you're bad, or if you're too scared to sing out fully, it's not going to sound good. If you know what you're doing and show some confidence, the audience will be along for the ride. Now, that's all apart from the musicality, but you can put on a great vocal performance even if the singing is pretty bad.

If you want to become a better singer (not just a better vocal performer), you have to work on actual technique. And I do have some experience with this process. On the three-hour drive between home and college, I used to put in my favorite vocalists and sing along with them the whole way. For one thing, that builds endurance and develops the muscles in your throat and mouth needed to sing well. As with playing harp, emulation of the masters is always a good starting point. Choose the singers you most admire, who sound like you want to sound, and go along with them. (My favorite sing-alongs were with The Beatles, Jeff Buckley, Pink Floyd, and Frankie Valli.)

Most importantly, LISTEN to yourself. You don't need perfect pitch to nail a melody; you just have to hear when you are too flat or too sharp, and adjust accordingly. It comes with practice and studious awareness of the music. Record yourself and listen back to it, if you have trouble doing this in real-time. Actually, there are some video games that might be helpful in teaching you to sing on pitch. Look into Karaoke Revolution, Rock Band, or one of the newer Guitar Hero games, which all support vocals through a microphone. They all have the same idea: the pitch is shown on your TV as a line curving up and down; when you sing into the mic, it puts an arrow at your actual pitch. Make it line up with the song chart, and you score points. It's great audio/visual feedback and doesn't involve any abstract plastic controllers.

One last thing: when singing on stage, do not stress your voice. Ask the sound guy to bring up your monitor so that you can hear yourself over the band, or ask the band to bring it down a notch during the vocal stanzas; otherwise, you'll naturally sing extra-loud, which sounds worse to the audience and can injure your voice. Practice singing very softly up to medium volume; if that's not enough on stage, have the mix adjusted until it suffices. This allows you to sing in control and with comfort, the same way you do during practice. (Thanks to Michael Rubin for helping me learn this lesson.) Also make sure to drink plenty of water if you are singing multiple songs, which keeps your throat lubed up in the presence of stage lights, hot equipment, and possibly smoke from the patrons.

Jonathan Metts
Prairie Dog PR
Ph: 205.435.0991
pr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx / prairiedogpr@xxxxxxxxx



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