A lot of people smoke. A lot. We all know that smoking isn’t good for us but rockstars and movies make it look so cool right (or not)?
If you’re serious about singing, you need your lungs and heart to be in perfect condition. Smoking doesn’t allow that. Your mental and physical health is highly detrimental to your ability to do focused work like practice and ultimately, singing.
You will realize that in the long term, you will reap the rewards of your habits. Both good and bad. Let’s read ahead and see how we can take a better look at this.
Why You Shouldn’t
It’s more about your health than anything else.
You can’t have two worlds that don’t attract each other. There is a positive way to interlink things like, can learning another instrument help me get better at singing? Can I do something that directly affects my ability to breathe? Would that help my singing? Does it matter? What is technique?
But to venture into this territory and ask if doing something harmful like smoking would still allow you to sing isn’t a very practical question. It just doesn’t work.
Don’t fight practicality. I know artists can be dreamers but don’t get it wrong. The older we become the more difficult it becomes to bring change into our lives.
Why the Question is Wrong
The question itself is wrong. You can’t look through the lens of something and then try to fit your reality thinking ‘This is going to work’ because you already have an end goal in mind.
It won’t. Smoking and singing are one of them. You shouldn’t try to make something that you know is harmful to you and try to make it into something that you think should be acceptable.
Especially a bad habit. Trying to make smoking fit into your life just because you want to and then asking if it is possible to sing, it is but at what cost? You give a lot more than you gain.
You Must Take Control
You are the only person who can improve your health at the end of the day. In all honesty, smoking doesn’t help you with anything. It’s just another bad way to cope with things and it will definitely not help you get better at singing for sure. The worst part is, that people try to find reason in things they know they are wrong about.
That doesn’t help either. We can be addicted to anything. Especially if it gives the illusion of relieving stress. But bad habits like smoking don’t bring any productivity in your life. The underlying problems, the cause of everything is still there.
If singing or learning anything related to singing is important for you then you will see that quitting smoking is something important. I suggest you read the famous book ‘Atomic Habits’ the author James Clear also goes into how to break bad habits and one of the key things in that is to create a distaste for it.
Nothing Beats Practicing
You might believe in the common misconception that it’ll turn your voice raspy or something else but it won’t. The only thing that is going to make your singing better is your ability to control your vocal cords better than you did before.
But it’s called something. Being able to do something that brings out the result? Ah, right. It’s called technique.
Musicians are masters of techniques. Guitarists have right and left-hand techniques and so does every musician who plays a stringed instrument. We practice becoming better at making sounds in various ways to become better than we were before. The struggle is endless but the ways to create music are as well.
The only way to achieve that is through deliberate practice. You can read more about it here. You must also realize that to practice singing is like meditating on something. You’re fixated on getting something done and you are using every mental faculty you have to achieve it. In order to be that focused, you cannot have something like smoking cloud your productivity.
Where can You Learn to Sing?
Obviously, if I am harking so much about techniques and how much you ought to practice then I should be able to tell you how you must be able to learn to sing as well. Right?
Correct.
I believe in and love online courses. You need to read this article to believe in them too. Gone are the days of old finding someone to teach you how to sing. Get educated on your own screen.
Then again, I ought to show you which courses you should be able to buy and which ones are going to actually help you sing. Right?
Correct again.
Check this page out for courses and prices of said courses so that you are able to make a difference in your singing!
A Word on Consistency
Also, if you quit smoking, your general outcome in life is going to be better. It’s one thing less you’re doing to make it better. Small steps go a long way. A very long way. The same is true for something bad, do it long enough and you will reap the rewards of it later. Like smoking, you may not see any issues with it when you’re in your 20s or even 30s the issue is, wouldn’t you rather be a better singer than reap the rewards of a bad habit?
For singers learning how to sing from their head voice and chest, the voice needs to be mastered. Singing falsetto and improving their vocal range and getting better at singing in different genres.
After you have the fundamentals of singing down and mastered then you can focus on other skills like learning how to write songs and even compose better.
I hope you keep on pursuing your dreams of becoming a better singer!