As someone who has been self-taught mostly in everything, singing was definitely the one that tested my patience. But, it is having lived through the practice and a few home-recorded songs and having released a song that I can say this.
A complete beginner can learn to sing with the right knowledge, structured learning, and a robust practice routine. These three things combined can provide you with a structure to progress in the direction of your desired singing goals. Remember, everything is finite.
Everyone’s singing goals will not be the same but the complete basics will be. Knowing what to practice is not enough. How to tackle the practice session with effectiveness matters too.
Why an Online Course?
I have written about why online singing courses are important, you can read it here.
An online course for a beginner is highly important as it will give you the knowledge that is required to build your foundations strong. In other words, “what” to practice.
This course will go a long way into not only giving you a good head start but also what end goals look like. It will give you an identifiable and solid end. When everything is laid out like that, it’s hard to miss their values.
Although not the same structure I meant in the answer, the online course itself is nothing but a structured way for you to know what you can expect from the said course. This in turn allows you to have a clear understanding of how long each lesson is and upon finishing it and how difficult it actually is for you. Just you, because some skills are harder to master than others and this can vary from person to person.
Once having tried to replicate your teacher’s lesson in practice you will, in most scenarios immediately realize how you’re doing by self-analyzing your current skills with the desired ones you wish to have. This vague ability to quantify our own abilities will be made better as you practice and see yourself bridging the gap one small step at a time.
Indeed, it’s just an overview of what an online course ought to look like. If it doesn’t meet your requirements then it’s not for you but as a beginner, I believe it’s almost crucial to have something like an online course on standby rather than not.
Why Knowing Matters
You’re only going to practice what you know.
And you only sing confidently what you have practiced.
It’s a beautiful thing if you can make something like this work in your favor. Not just creating a habit out of it but the basics of basics. I can assure you your foundations in singing are the only thing that will carry you throughout every stage of your singing. From learning to performing.
So, we start with knowing what we ought to do as beginners. Before we open our untrained vocal cords to sing, we must first, stop. See and understand what makes the complete foundations of singing.
The Technical Things
You have to realize that once you are pursuing a course that you are trusting the course’s instructor to teach you the technical things. You must trust that what they are saying about how to use your voice is the best practice and method to do so. It is far more fun than it is daunting in all honesty.
If they are plunging into something that a beginner can’t do then it is time to find a different course. But, in most scenarios, the courses that are linked here and on the internet provide a very good foundation for beginners to start.
But for every other query that is not technical…
Ask Everything From Everywhere
When you first start out you need to ask every question imaginable in your head. In the act of doing so, you are asking the most basic questions that your mind can conjure up at that moment. Go online and ask. Google everything. YouTube everything.
What we want is for every question to be answered. I understand the urge and that is precisely why I have created this whole website. A one-stop shop for all the burning questions one can have when starting out to sing and possibly a mindset shift that will allow you to move forward with confidence in your singing journey.
Practice
You can only practice something when you are ‘aware’ of it.
After you have a course and an underlying knowledge (either from the course or otherwise) for what you need to do both in terms of technical and personal doubts you may have, it is time to actually put in the hours to practice.
At this point you should have a fairly good idea as to what you ought to practice, it should be simple enough in your head to begin practicing. It’s okay if you don’t “get” it in the first go. Watch the lesson again, understand the concept and make sure you are doing what the course is asking of you.
It is only through putting in the hours, one after another that you will begin to see results. For a beginner, it might come off as too strong to say that you ought to spend hours doing it. Start small and do something manageable, but don’t miss a day.
Do 30 minutes or 10. But do. Showing up to practice is far more valuable, especially on the days you don’t feel like it. Skip Sundays if you’ve done it from Monday till Sunday.
As someone who is just starting out. Make it as easy as possible for you to achieve the act of “doing” it rather than not doing it at all. Make it fit you. Make this new habit find a home in your everyday life with as little effort as possible.
Never forget this, without practice you are not moving anywhere. No practice means no progress. It’s in the act of practicing that you master things. Whether it’s the basics or the most technical skills.
Which Online Courses to Buy?
There is a good amount of online courses out there. Remember you have to choose one that will provide you with the knowledge and what to practice.
The Vocalist Studio has everything you’ll probably ever need to improve as a singer and I think it’s going to propel you forward at an amazing speed. It’s going to be pretty great! The price is perfect and you can check it out thoroughly before confirming your purchase.
This page talks about which courses you can invest in so that you are able to learn how to sing
You can always keep it aside and only refer to it only when you feel the need for it.
I personally hope that you will take this time and opportunity to invest in your singing skills and one day look back at this moment and remember it fondly.
Advice For Beginners
I would personally take a sentence or a two-out just to say thank you for reading this far! These are going to be my advice to someone who is just starting out on their singing journey, let’s continue forward!
Listen, Don’t Act
Walk before you run. Flap your wings before you fly. Turn your engine on before you put it in gear.
Sound advice like this is what makes our lives smoother and more effective to live. You should consider these words worth in gold.
As a beginner, I ran too fast for my own good. If I could do something even moderately well, I’d skip it and move on to the next thing. That came back to bite me back in the future, don’t be like me. Learn learn learn. Absorb like a sponge. Absorb everything.
If You Already Play an Instrument
I would highly encourage you to pick up an instrument as you are learning to sing. Here is why.
But it’s definitely beneficial because all singers ought to be able to support themselves while singing live. It’s not just about being a common thing either, it’s also very convenient as well.
If you already play an instrument then it’s amazing! You actually have a backbone, whether you’re a pro or not, you have something to stand on! In this case, try to practice both of them together and try to incorporate your said instrument in your singing practice.
Remember to Have Fun
Nobody should come and tell you that you can’t start having fun with singing from the first day of practice or lessons. Do what you want, your skills will catch up to your dreams soon enough. So sing the songs you can’t sing yet, knowing very well that one day you will be able to do it perfectly!
Also, the whole reason to practice singing is to get it to a point where you just do it without thinking about it so much. Never forget that. But, also don’t forget to have fun from time to time.
Record Yourself
This is highly important, regardless of what your skill set is you ought to record yourself from time to time, not to look back and see if you’ve made progress but for capturing new ideas and just to have fun sometimes.
If you’re up for a little challenge pick up basic music production as soon as you can. This will save you tremendous time in the future. By allowing yourself to do things that you didn’t think were possible! Like sending demos and making a mockup to make other people or bandmates understand what you’re going for in a particular song.
But think of this as an addition to your feedback system (read up on that here). With the basics of music production in your hands, you can have friends send you feedback from anywhere in the world! Now, that is the proper use of technology!
Help Others by Sharing What You Know
Give back what you once struggled with!
I encourage you to do this not just for singing but with everything else. Once you’ve gone through the basics and are able to do them flawlessly, you should think about helping another newbie to catch up.
Because for one it’ll reinforce what you already know and instill a sense of authority on the basics of singing as you teach someone else. You never know, you might even actually like to teach.
Social Media It!
You have to start posting online if you have anything decent to sing. Hell, even exercises would work. You really should start posting online, take it from me, I have suffered for it! Now, I am trying to post at least a small post a day. You never know how it’ll come in handy.
It’s proof of your work and works perfectly fine as a portfolio these days. In your social life, having work to show online can only bring exposure and rarely brings anything negative these days.
You should think about this as posting online doesn’t even require you to have a high-end recording setup these days.
Don’t Get Overwhelmed
Progress can be painfully slow.
If this ever happens, remember to bring yourself back to the basics. Because basics are easy. It’s okay, things can seem far away and especially as a beginner but don’t let that deter you from the path that you have taken. Show up and practice!
Stay on course and bring yourself to the basics of your practice and knowledge base. Start again from where you left off!
Thank you for reading, I hope this article helped you out!