Advice for Singers – Page 8 – Best Online Singing Lessons

Another wonderful question for me to answer and as usual, I am not going to let you go without a satisfactory answer. I am cracking my knuckles because I am about to type a really neat article regarding practice times and nobody’s gonna stop me. Singers should strive to practice 30 minutes a day, 5-6 days a week. 30 minutes allow for consistent progress without becoming too much of an inconvenience in your life. 30 minutes also ensures your voice doesn’t lose its range or your ability to perform complex skills. 30 minutes are also more of a general guide that works for both professional and hobbyists. But, there is so much to talk about that I can’t wait to tell you. More than 30 Minutes? So you’re someone who can afford to put more than 30 minutes in a day? That’s wonderful! It’s really great and it's absolutely doable as well. I want to write this part first because the subheadings following this one are for everyone and show the benefits of and the reason why I say 30 minutes is really good. More practice definitely would mean that you can progress faster compared to just 30 minutes in a day. The max amount of practice you ought to be focused on is around 3-4 hours a day. With breaks of course. You will develop your stamina to practice that much over time. Don’t try to push yourself to practice 3 hours straight in your first go. Though, I doubt you’d enjoy it that much in your first go either. Build it up. 1 hour then 1 hour 30 minutes and so on and so forth. Don’t Over Practice Never allow yourself to go beyond four hours of practice in a day. Ever. You have your voice to take care of and I need to stress this very strongly you cannot do deliberate, thoughtful, and meaningful practice beyond four hours. It’s just a fact. Without deliberate practice, it is going to be hard to make anything more than 30 minutes count as productive practice. It’s highly important for you to know that you don’t get distracted while you are practicing. Flow You need to strive for ‘flow’. There are books written on this and one of them is really famous and I am a big fan of this book, it’s called ‘Deep Work’ by Carl Newport. It’s an amazing book and you should try to get through it once. Essentially you’re enjoying the work you’re doing so much that you actually don’t know where the time goes. I have done writing articles like these and also while mixing my songs. If you’re a video gamer, you know what it is. Even though it takes 20 minutes to enter flow, you have to realize that consistency is 10 times more important than having a staggered practice routine that is going to be hard for you to follow. Why 30 Minutes? Over the long term, let’s say a period of one year. Everyday practice of 30 minutes is going to reap more rewards than having 3-hour sessions of practice over the weekends. The reason behind it is simple. When you work out, you gain your newfound muscles, and stamina increases not while you do the exercises. You get your gains in your sleep. That’s when the body is repairing itself and since our vocal cords are a muscle too, training them over the weekends for a marathon will simply not work out. It’s also like trying to take your wall down on the weekends and exhausting yourself in three-hour bursts but if you take 30 minutes a day, it is also easier on your day instead of you trying to find three hours (need to go out on weekends or what?) on a particular day instead of just 30 minutes every day. You will also find that when you know that you have a certain amount of time to practice then you are better prepared to enter the practice shed. 30 minutes is a relatively easy target to hit for anyone. If you are someone who can’t find 30 minutes of time for yourself, I suggest you do. I suggest you try to sleep an hour early or an hour late. If you’re serious about getting results with your singing then you ought to be able to put 30 minutes down. I am sure if you’re not able to do it at the moment, you will find a way somehow. Not Everything is Perfect Even though 30 minutes of practice is really an easy amount for anyone to achieve, I suggest that you make it count because you kind of have to. 30 minutes is all you have, you can’t allow 10 minutes to get ‘warmed up’ into the rhythm of practice. Five is the way to go. You need to come prepared, you need to know what you ought to practice. Whether it’s increasing your range, preparing a song, or anything else. If you’re using audio files to help you sing on the pitch then have them prepared. Keep your phone on airplane mode if you must but you can’t let a buzz from your friends disturb you while you’re practicing. I am not joking about the seriousness because the results over the course of the coming months are also going to make you feel like the discipline was worth it. The only thing is, if you’re putting in 30 minutes which is relatively a short time, you must also come with the right mindset and preparations. Finite Practice I tell this to everyone. Basics are finite and so is practice. Eventually, you want to reach a place whether you’re someone who has put in four hours of practice every day for the past three years or someone who has been working on it consistently for 30 minutes a day for a year. You’d realize that eventually, your practice is more for the upkeep of the quality of your voice and not really to progress anymore. By the time you reach that level, you’d be a better judge of how much you ought to practice or not. Depending on your genre selection and how much time you’ve spent already and where you are with your skills, you will preferably want to practice less and perform more. Though, I suggest you keep that 30-minute routine with you as long as you plan to sing. Pro vs. Hobby To take it professionally or as a hobby is going to be on you and if you’re trying to go pro you’d initially have to practice quite a bit to start sounding as good as someone who can be considered a professional singer. However, there are no rules as such for hobbyists. If you want to be in a band and just enjoy the weekend gig, that’s fine and your call and you’d be the better judge on how much you need to practice. What to Practice What to practice is probably going to be the best and biggest question you can ask yourself. Also, the one that might lead to being very perplexed to the point of decision fatigue and that might to never getting to start at all, much less practicing just 30 minutes a day. A lot of this can be taken out of the equation if you don’t have to think about it and have a roadmap of what you ought to practice. This is one of the primary reasons why I made this website. Online courses solve exactly that and allow you to focus more on learning and planning your next 30 minutes of practice rather than scouring the internet to find what you need to practice. Here is an affiliate link that will allow you to do exactly this (being an affiliate link you’d be helping me out if you buy from my link at no extra cost to you). This course is probably one of the best ones out there and allows you the convenience I am talking about. Here is a link on how and why online courses are better. You should really think about having a course in your library even if you know the basics or have been singing for a while, it’ll really uplift your singing for sure. If you’re a beginner then it’d be even more important. Time to Get out of Practice? I am not an advocate for ‘I practice 24/7’. Why? Because I myself don’t do much practicing anymore. Why? Because I found a place for music in my life and I no longer push myself to ‘learn’ more. Why? Because knowing ‘more’ won’t result in producing and composing ‘better’. That’s the truth. If you'd like to know how and what is the best way to learn to sing these days, this is it. Spoiler, it's through online courses. I have curated a list of high-end courses that will help your singing reach the next level. You can find them all here. Vision It’s fine if you don’t have a vision yet. I didn’t when I started out but everything you do in music practice should have a meaningful end. For example, you start out learning to sing because you didn’t know how to sing. In your journey of learning, you might fall in love with a certain genre or a sub-genre and you might try your hand at writing and composing like your heroes. You might run into some problems and find a band to help you. You might realize that your own songs are killer and you should try your hand at recording them but due to the steep prices of the studios you might set yourself on a path to learn music production and end up with a home recording setup. Too specific? That’s because, minus the band part, it’s my story. I can’t express how grateful I feel for that. I know exactly where I need music and that allows me to open more time for creativity rather than ‘practicing’ all the time. This by any chance is not to discourage you from practicing. It’s more like advice on the terms of investing money. If you invest a decent amount of money at an early age you can not only just retire early but also quit the ‘rat race’. You do need to put in the hours of practice that are required of you to reach a level where you can focus more on ‘creating’ rather than ‘learning’. But, It Also Never Stops In a way (more philosophical rather than practical advice), I can say that I have shifted from practicing particular things to just practicing composing music. Which is my love and passion for music. You could say that but it is no longer a ‘deliberate’ practice. It just happens for me and I don’t see it as a practice session. I see it as a way to express my idea in the best way possible. This is what composing is but I also have gotten ‘better’ as I have composed one piece after another. So, in an idealistic way I suppose, I am just practicing how to compose better than I do before but I am seeing music as a whole rather than anything else. My Vision My vision is simple. I want to create really good songs and instrumental pieces and be able to mix and master them at home. My biggest weakness at the moment is not being able to mix better. I know for a fact that I can mix a decent song but it takes too long for me. I just need to sit down and mix more songs and strive to do better than I have before. That. Striving to be better than before is a knife you can’t have dull in your musical journey. Ever. How to Find Your Own Vision All practice must come to an end. Like the curtains do when the final act is done. It’s not theatrics. It’s necessary. Like journeys across the world, it’s only sweet because you came home to tell the stories, otherwise, it’ll always be a tragedy. The only way to know which journey and steps you must take in your musical life is to experiment with what you like and what you don’t. In my case, I hate being in a band and I love composing. Once you start shaving things off from your musical life you will start giving it shape. It could be that you like one genre but would never delve into it. For me it’s rap. I am not a big rap fan but I admire and am aware of the genre. Modern-day rock bands on the other hand? Wonderful. I want to compose like that. So, experiment and shave things off. If you don’t experiment with what you like or don’t like you will never find a vision and you will never be able to get out of the cycle of ‘practicing’ all the time. Remember, you will only practice with all your might and soul when you know something will result in your favor.