Learning how to sing better can be a mountain of a task if you’re not equipped with the right tools to help you improve.
The improvement comes by doing the ‘simple stuff’ over and over again, until it’s so ingrained that you can do it in your sleep. It doesn’t get any easier than that.
What ARE the first tools you need to sing better?
I’ve laid out the 5 Easiest Ways For You To GET STARTED on improving your vocal talents… and they’re probably a lot more simple to do at home than you think!
How to sing better tip #1
Listen To Music
Yep… I told you it was simple! Listening to music actually HELPS you improve your singing voice.
However, it’s how you listen to music that’s the key. Surprisingly, not everyone listens to music in the same way.
For example, you may be the type of person that can’t stand silence and NEEDS to have music on in the house to avoid the quiet.
While you may be playing music, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re actually listening to it.
Alternatively, you might be crazy about music. You’re the kind of person that gets complaints from your neighbours because anything under maximum volume is pointless and kills the mood.
Or, you could be a massive music nerd and live for nerding out over the composition of a song, or the analysis of a singer’s voice. By the way, if this is you and you’re not doing song react videos on Youtube, it might be time to start.
Already, we have three different ways of listening to music, but which one is the best?
You can listen to music in whatever way you like, but the key is to actually LISTEN to the music itself, rather than just have it on as company in the background.
Bring the entire song to life by taking notice of every word, every instrument and anything else you might notice if you were paying attention to the details.
This will help tune your ear and stimulate the required processes in your brain to get everything working together correctly, which will lead to better pitch, more accurate rhythm and an all round better quality of tone.
How to sing better tip #2
Sing Along To Your Favourite Songs
A big reason for wanting to learn how to sing better is to be able to sing your favourite songs, and sing them well.
You’d be surprised how many singers I work with on a daily basis who come to me struggling to sing their chosen song.
But after listening to them, I notice that they don’t even KNOW the song all that well to begin with!
You can’t sing something well that you haven’t memorised properly first.
It’s bad enough trying to remember the lyrics without trying to apply techniques to sound better on top of it.
Your brain can only handle so much at once!
Learn the song PROPERLY before you start trying to sing it better…
You’ll be surprised that half the battle is already won!
It’s important to note that singing along to your favourite songs will help improve your singing, but it shouldn’t be the only thing you do to improve your voice.
If you treat your singing as more of a reward for the work you put into your practice sessions, you’ll see much more of an improvement and it’ll keep you motivated.
While singing songs will help build endurance in your voice and will make a song sound better, it’ll only benefit that particular song and you’ll have to start all over again for your next song.
Your goal shouldn’t be to be able to sing a song, it should be to be able to sing, and how we learn to actually SING is by training our voices with core vocal techniques and exercises like the ones we teach in the Voicehouse program.
Start focusing on this and you’ll progress a lot faster.
How to sing better tip #3
Ear (Aural) Training
Ear training is one of the bread and butter components of learning how to sing better, yet most people skip it.
Imagine trying to walk before you can crawl. This comparison is exactly the same as learning vocal technique before training your ear.
Even if you have a relatively good ‘natural ear’, you’d be surprised how much laser accuracy can be achieved with the right ear (aural) training, boosting your average sound miles further than the average person.
Most people forget that the difference between a good singer and a great singer is the attention to detail.
If you want extraordinary results, you have to be willing to do the work that most singers won’t.
When you first start singing, it’s enticing to jump straight into vocal technique and start singing songs because you’d think that would help you improve the fastest.
However, what you may not know is that ear training is a quick win hack for making you sound better in a much shorter time frame.
So how do we do it?
Start by training your ears with pitching exercises (which you can find here on our Soundcloud).
These are done by playing a note on a keyboard or piano app on your phone and singing the note back on a simple sound like ‘La’.
You’re aiming to connect your voice with the particular note, not trying to sound like the instrument itself.
It’s important to understand that this is an instinct based exercise, it’s not about trying hard to find the note, it’s about going with what you hear first.
The attention required for pitching exercises stimulates a process in your brain called the feedback process which is what’s actually responsible for your ability to sing on pitch.
Your ears are the main gateway to this process, which is why we call it ear training. Ten minutes a day of this kind of training will improve your singing, ten-fold.
If you’re really struggling with ear training, I would encourage pursuing vocal lessons with a trained vocal coach, to help get you on the right track. Alternatively, downloading an ear training app like EarMaster can also help.
However, you should never rely solely on an ear training app or a vocal coach to tell you when you’re right or wrong because you’ll never build trust with your ears that way.
Therefore, it’s important to practice these on your own as well, without any aid.
To begin with, ear training is tricky and might feel like you’re getting nowhere for a while. But perseverance really is key and it takes time, so make ear training a staple in your practice routine for the first year or two and be patient.
As long as you show up and do the work, it will happen in time!
How to sing better tip #4
Vocal Warmups
I’m sure you’ve heard of vocal warmups before, even if you didn’t know the correct name for them.
They’re typically the exercise that singers do before they jump up on stage and sing to an audience.
What you may not know is that they play a key role in learning how to sing better. Most people think of vocal warmups as just a boring exercise.
While vocal warmups are important for helping to protect your voice, they also improve your singing.
When you do a vocal warmup, you’re using your voice throughout your entire vocal range. Your vocal range is measured from the lowest pitch to the highest pitch you can sing.
When you sing a song, you’re using your voice in a smaller area of your vocal range, meaning that some areas of your voice will not be used.
This is why just singing songs isn’t the best approach when it comes to improving your singing.
Imagine how much better your singing would be if you were to do a vocal warmup every single day. Not only would you be strengthening the weaker, more inconsistent parts of your voice, you’d also be improving your ear at the same time.
The more you do this, the more you develop the coordination of the tiny, intricate muscles of your voice that need to come together to create a solid sound.
The combination of both ear training and vocal warmups are simple tools that you can start doing on a daily basis to train the muscles and brain processes needed to transform your voice.
How to sing better tip #5
Learn from a professional
The fastest way to learn how to sing better is by learning from an expert. This is true in all aspects of life.
What you can learn by yourself will always take far longer than what you can learn from someone who is already in a place that you’d like to be with your voice.
Taking vocal lessons or doing a singing program or group class creates consistency, accountability and a supportive environment for you to learn in.
A vocal coach is able to guide you through the ear training and vocal technique process by offering step-by-step instructions and helpful tips to support your improvement.
They’re able to teach you how to use your voice to its real potential, while simultaneously un-training bad habits picked up along the way, which will save you from a lot of pain in the long run.
Mentorship has been a powerful form of education since the beginning of time, and for singing, this is no different.
So whether it’s in-studio lessons, online lessons, a group class, choir or online program, Learning how to sing and sing better is not reserved only for people that want to be ‘superstars’, it’s a form of expression for everyone!
Your vulnerability is a superpower that when harnessed can change your entire life.
I applaud you for wanting to learn how to sing better and I know for a fact that if you implement the strategies listed within this article, you will notice great improvements within your voice.
These are some of the strategies myself and the team here at Voicehouse use with our students on a daily basis and the results speak for themselves.
If you enjoyed this article, we’d love to offer you a FREE value packed resource that’ll help kick start your singing journey immediately.
Until next time,
