How to make the most out of Singing Lessons
Keep it playful!
Welcome to the exciting world of singing lessons, a journey in which your voice becomes a powerful instrument ready to express the depths of human emotion and creativity. Whether you’re a beginner or have some experience, here’s an in-depth guide on how to make the most out of your singing lessons.
1. Record Your Lessons
This is the number one key to accelerating learning.
Almost all smartphones have a default voice recorder app (or free ones can be downloaded). Naturally, ask your teacher/coach before you hit the record button.
The knowledge and exercises are yours to keep forever to refine at your own pace, and you can let go of having to absorb all the information at once in the heat of the moment!
You will be amazed, and perhaps even feel a little silly at how simple that little evasive concept seemed in the moment once you are listening to yourself as a 3rd party.
Good.
That means you are learning!
This is especially useful when you are starting out with a teacher, or approaching new and challenging frontiers with your singing. Record yourself, then listen back throughout the week and when you come to practise. You can pause when you like and sing in the improvements and adjustments, because you now have the gift that your past self didn’t have: hindsight.
2. Don’t Judge Your Singing, That is Your Teacher’s Job
Which leads nicely to this: I still have lessons on a weekly basis, and my teacher, despite performing all over the world, still has coaching.
Don’t judge yourself too harshly, we all have different natural starting points with our voices, but it is dedication and craft that turns a voice into an instrument.
The voice you have now is not the voice you are stuck with. There are thousands of different ways we can produce a sound, as even a fleeting knowledge of accents (like somewhere as small as Britain), might reveal. Over time, you will develop your sensation for what good singing feels like.
I don’t know anyone who is especially keen on their own voice. We outsource our singing instrument to a set of ears we trust. We internalise their feedback, and over time make improvements. Each seemingly small step eventually becomes a Fait Accompli.
3. Trust the Process
Learning to sing is a high-trust process, bordering on faith. Getting better at anything doesn’t look linear. A good teacher will be able to guide you, and help extract a potential beyond what you can currently conceptualise.
Yes. It takes time. Nobody would take the claim that a single gym visit, or even a month of visits is going to award you the fitness levels of your wildest aspirations.
Not least because there is so much more to singing than squeaking at the right pitch.
On a given day your biology, psychology, and technique are all competing and shifting. It takes time to build consistency, and you certainly can’t force any of those three factors to behave how you want all the time!
In time, our technique develops so that excellent singing becomes the norm, even on days when affected by Biology or Psychology.
Sometimes you get ill, physically or mentally. We get tired. If you are nervous about a note or phrase, coupled with the fact that you have been having one of those days, weeks, or months, you might not feel you are singing your best.
Take this example: When you are in a heightened state of anxiety, your ribcage drops slightly along with your posture, in defence of the vital organs around the stomach. Your breathing then becomes shallower, because these organs have nowhere to go when the lungs come down as you breathe. Good luck singing with all that going on!
Yet this is all part of growing.
As you grow through this singing process, so does your character.
I’ll discuss the effects of singing on confidence in greater detail in future. In time, what may feel like a particularly bad day for you, regardless of the factor, sounds like your birthday to your audience.
Eventually, even your ‘bad’ days will sound impressive!
4. Consistency Creates Confidence
Self-confidence grows from comfort in the self.
It is really that simple.
We develop comfort in ourselves when we know we are the kind of person that we can rely on. Our goal is consistency. Singing is a habit that involves developing a strong internal mirror, and just the right sensation. Regular singing lessons are key to this.
We need an instrument that is there for us when we need it, so our end of the bargain is to nurture it, every day in some small way if possible. We treat our voice in this way, and we can be confident that it will be there when we need it.
Practise little and often, daily wherever possible, and your progress will amplify. Enjoy the challenge of developing your singing, checking in regularly with your voice like an old friend, because like an old friend, it changes with you.
The opposite is also true.
Inconsistency and sporadic effort create anxiety and uncertainty. It’s a bit like waiting until the very last minute to prepare for an assessment, only to learn that the task ahead requires much more time than you have to complete the task. You won’t sing your best, and you will get frustrated at yourself, which can quickly become a negative feedback loop.
Better to have regular, short bursts of singing and regular lessons that create a strong positive feedback loop, than desperately trying to get match-fit the week before a major performance.
Like you, your voice has a personality that is unique in the history of the world. Treat it well, check in regularly and know it like a dear friend, and it will be there in turn for you.
5. Enjoy your Singing Lessons
I promise you this last one isn’t generic. Singing is exposing our souls to the world, and anything so vulnerable will always feel like it comes with risk, because to share something is to risk losing it.
Singing well is an exhilarating experience, connecting us to our deepest instincts of communication. For millions of people, singing is their happy place. It connects us not only to each other and our audiences, but to our culture and our ancestors across time, who have handed down this wealth of knowledge and tradition.
Singing Lessons are the conduit for this.
A playful, childlike curiosity when learning a new skill is exactly what you need to absorb the craft. Learning to do it well, especially if you are really serious about that goal, doesn’t have to be serious in itself.
For so many people, myself included, singing is a means of connecting to an inner child. Most children have remarkably little inhibition, which gradually through experience gets socialised out of us. One reason why so few adults sing (which is an entirely new cultural phenomenon that would have seemed alien to our ancestors) is because the fear of singing badly, and therefore being judged, prevents them from singing at all.
It’s easier to claim you can’t do something than to risk going through the process and finding out.
The antidote is to approach singing like a child approaches a new challenge. Your body is your instrument, and it is unique. As you warm up and sing exercises and repertoire, always retain a playfulness or a curiosity in the sound.
A singer with good technique will always sound better when they concentrate on communicating.
Which is what singing is all about!