The ONLY "How to Sing" Post You'll Need

I know you’re probably thinking that this title is BS. How are you supposed to learn how to sing from just one blog? You’re not. You learn how to sing by getting a teacher (for example, me ;) ) and practicing the skills that you need to become a better singer. Of course, using online materials is helpful, but there is nothing like getting in front of a trained professional and letting them guide you to make more efficient and healthier sounds. 

Now, I want to re-emphasize that this is the only “How to Sing” Blog that you’ll ever need - and that’s because there is no right way to sing. You’ll notice that the videos you might’ve watched on YouTube after searching “How to Sing” or online ~blogs~ that promise to give you the answer to being an amazing singer, all give you different opinions and arbitrary rules about singing. They promise that their method is the only method. There are even some teachers that swear by a specific method that they teach all of their students. While there are some things that are tried and true over the years, your job is to learn all the rules you need to learn and then BREAK THEM. 

The answer to “How do I sing better?” is learn absolutely everything you can and then ignore all of it and do what works best for you. Can you tell that I love contradictions? Look, knowledge is power. The more you know, the more you can make informed decisions and choose things that work for you, otherwise you are blindly following what somebody else figured out for themselves. 

It is also helpful when you have a team of collaborators - People with whom you can discuss what you’ve learned and that can offer new ways of thinking about or executing a certain idea. That team usually consists of voice teachers, coaches, and maybe a really close friend.

So you’ve started your research, you’re learning how to sing, you know that there is no “right way” to sing. So how do you know you’re giving a good performance? How do you know that the effort you’ve been putting in is resulting in “Good singing”? The self-doubt starts rolling in because singing is arbitrary and up to the individual and how are you supposed to do things without rules and what if you actually suck and hwjrfknvaso;flEKJF;OENGDFLKZJSDFLSDKZ!

Okay. Stop. Breathe. Singing is supposed to feel good. It brings us joy as listeners and makers of sound. It is an amazing gift that we have. Singing is also an ART. Art is individual and interpretive. It exists in a separate dimension. All art forms have rules and all artists break them. If every singer sounded like the same “perfect” cookie-cutter version of themselves, singing would be boring. Singing is human, the way that breathing is human. It connects us to a form of emotional expression unlike anything else. Our voices communicate who we are, where we come from, our stories. That’s what makes singing entertaining and that’s what draws people to our voices - the storytelling and the innately beautiful human sound we are able to produce. The imperfections and flaws make it even more authentic. 

Technique is the backbone of all art. Learning how to sing, is understanding the fundamentals so that you have the skills to express yourself the way that you want to. It isn’t a hundred different 10-minute singing videos on YouTube. And it definitely isn’t this blog. 

As always, Happy Singing.