Oh, the anger that boils in me when people put off learning to sing saying that it’s a talent thing. If I could achieve one goal from this website it’d be telling everyone that they’re wrong about this.
Singing is a learned skill. As long as someone is willing to put in the time to practice and understand how singing works, singing can be taught. It’s a great myth that singing is a talent and is only reserved for a few when in reality, singing is a skill anyone can learn.
Do you wish to see how this unfolds? I know this is true because I used to have a bad voice myself, even when I already had years of experience in music as a bassist. Now I have been complimented for my singing a few times.
It’s Not a Talent
The first misconception that I would like to break so that we all can just move beyond this once and for all.
Singing doesn’t require talent. So much so that I had to write another article just dedicated to that. You can read it here. I have taken personal responsibility to tell everyone that singing is not a talent and you don’t need to be born with it in order to learn how to sing well.
I think this is the biggest misconception people have when they ask if singing can be taught or if they can learn to sing if at all.
Yes, singing can be taught and it has more in common with learning other skills, so we need to take that into consideration.
The best example I give people is asking them if they decided to take tango as a hobby and started to learn it and stuck with it with a daily practice routine and lessons, would they be better at it compared to you two months back when they didn’t even know how to do the basics?
The answer is yes.
Why isn’t it the same with singing?
Why It Can be Learned
So following the principle from before that if you had two months’ time that if you actually gave something enough time and practiced it with due diligence you actually would end up learning how to do it.
My logic is simple.
If you break down singing and its techniques to its core principles, the stuff that makes singing happen to the point where you understand how something works and even if you may not be able to perform it right now, nothing is stopping you from becoming good at it.
You will do nothing that is too hard or too complicated that it can’t be practiced.
I am not trying to sell it short either though. It will require work and you will have to work decently hard for it but the more you do the better you will be.
Your age and your talent don’t matter.
Whether you’ve had basic singing or musical training before might come in handy but it’s not mandatory for you to start to learn to sing.
So, the only thing left for you to do is sit down and learn to sing. Because right now the only person who’s stopping you from becoming a better singer is no one but you.
How You Can Learn
Now, you might be asking, how can singing be taught?
There are of course various ways to learn how to sing. The most common thing you may think of and even hear other people say is to join singing classes. Makes sense, someone will sit down with you and maybe with other students who will be taught alongside you. But I beg to differ.
While I do believe that there is a place for private lessons I would like to take this opportunity and make you take a look at your finances because online courses these days are amazing for the price they cost.
Beyond that the time savings you gain from doing something like this can’t be measured in dollars. Imagine this, you get free around the evenings after work or maybe after hanging out with your friends you feel just energetic enough to do something productive even if it is just 30 minutes of practice or learning how to sing.
You can always pop open your online course because you’ve already paid for it and it’s yours to keep for life. The opposite robs you of the opportunity to live a freer life. Quite literally, more than money it’s who you give your time to.
If you don’t have the freedom to give time to your friends and loved ones or things you wish to do in your own timeline then it’s not really worth it.
College Student?
If you’re a student then this is going to save you even more time and you’ll have something to work on whenever you get time to do so.
What if you’re a music college student? I believe then there is a palace for online courses in your life and it’s before you join a music college. Because music colleges reward those the best who are already good at music.
Also, it’s going to cost you a fraction of your credits in college than online courses to learn tons about singing and what you’re supposed to practice.
Future is Online
The way of the future is online. Whether it’s working, making money, businesses, or even learning. It’s already here.
No need for us to stick to the old ways either. So, the more you capitalize on learning something that you’ve always wanted, the sooner you will reach the goal of becoming better at something.
Future Endeavors
Think about it like this, the faster you learn the easier and quicker you’ll be able to show your skills to the rest of the world and the more you network the better your chances are of getting some kind of a gig.
If that isn’t in your plans, I understand but if you do plan to take music a bit more seriously than a hobby then you should really consider having an online course.
I have written another article in which I explain how one can get better at a rapid pace.
Why You Need to Practice
I think a little bit of advice on why practice is important is due.
First, it starts with understanding what practice can do for you and me. Practice can take a rather new and difficult skill and make it easier for us to perform.
So, if you want to get good at singing or anything else in music, you need to practice. The reason for that is that nobody is born with talent.
Prerequisite of Practice
You need to be aware of some kind of knowledge that will allow you to practice something. If you don’t know and aren’t taught how to sing a scale then how will you ever know?
If you’ve never been shown an example of what good breathwork looks like then how will you replicate it?
So, there needs to be a sort of understanding of how something is done for you to practice it.
So regardless of who and how you learn something, it is when you absorb this knowledge and then re-apply them in your practice that you actually practice becoming better.
It’s only in the completion of this circle that one is able to look back at things as a whole and realize that one has been taught well.
Why Consistency Matters
I will always say this and I will keep on saying this until everyone on this planet listens to this.
Practice needs to have an end goal.
But, the other part of it is equally important, even if your practice has an end goal you still need to be consistent.
So, a practice with an end goal is good but without consistency, there is no reaching that goal.
Until you sit down and seriously show up for the things that you need to improve upon on a daily basis, it won’t happen. Consistency allows you to turn your practice into habits.
You need to practice things until they become second nature to you. That’s when you know that practice has given your hard work its shape, form, and function. It’ll show itself in how you managed to practice.
It is only when practice becomes second nature that you no longer practice a particular thing anymore. Practice essentially makes harder things easier for you to do. Do this with enough skills and you will be well on your way to mastering singing.
The sooner you have the realization that something is becoming easier for you, it’ll instill confidence within you that you can now reliably call upon a particular skill, which will allow you to confidently put in time onto the next one. A self-feeding cycle of productivity.
But to reach those levels of mastery of particular skills, consistency is key. Without which everything you seek to achieve is a pipedream.
The Opposite is Also True
If you aren’t consistent, the skills that you’re practicing on and off will not become second nature at all. They will not stick and that is the hazard you don’t want to get into.
Because you’ll put in the time to get something out of it just to realize that it is not something that will stick and you will end up with a lot of productivity on and off throughout the months and even years just to find that consistency is key to making something permanent.
Age Isn’t a Factor
Are you worried that you’re too old? Let me make it worse.
The more you wait the worse you’re going to feel that you didn’t pick singing up. I understand, with age comes a lot of responsibilities and a lot of things that require your time.
Just like talent isn’t required for you to sing, the same is with age. Age is quite literally just a number in my opinion when it comes to learning anything.
Everything I’ve talked about is something that age can’t be factored in. If you have the time to study and practice music as if your life depended on it then you will end up learning things.
How much you practice, how well you practice, how much you know, and how well you understand the content from the lessons aren’t a matter that age can be factored into.
The only difference between an adult and a child who’s learned how to sing since they were a kid is the amount of time put in. I humbly believe that this can be compensated by adults by being able to understand things much quicker than a child would and making sure they get every second of practice and make it count.
So, why think about it?
It’s The Company You Keep
I do believe that in order for you to become a good singer you do need to put in the required time but I also believe that the environment can shape someone.
I am obviously talking about hanging out with other musicians.
Just being in the presence of certain people will allow you to sit back, relax and absorb their thoughts and how they look at the world and music.
The more you talk and even perform music with them the better you will be. Plus, the more you network locally in your area the better your chances are of getting a solid gig if that is something that you’d be interested in.
Also, singing and music are meant to be shared with other people. It really doesn’t serve a purpose if you keep it to yourself.
So if you find a few good people with whom you can share and perform music, make sure to friend them up.
Record Yourself
Now that you know that singing is something that you can learn I would like to tell you this.
First, try recording yourself to measure your progress. I mention this in another article in which I talk about how singers can progress really fast.
Second, it’s going to encourage you to learn a little bit of music production and that is a different beast altogether but something I believe will help you tremendously when you’re moving along your musical journey.
What Else Can Help You?
Knowing music theory and improving your ear are the two things that you will have to study and develop as you go further in learning music.
They’re highly correlated.
Music theory is our understanding of how we understand music. We use it like a language to communicate with ourselves to explain to each other what is happening and how one might be able to play along with us.
Ear training is understanding the relationships and being able to differentiate the sounds that you hear. Without music theory, ear training cannot work. Because you wouldn’t be able to understand what you’re hearing.