On singing

I thought I’d write a few notes on what I’ve learned about singing. This isn’t singing 101- although it certainly has much to help the beginner. Rather I have focused on stuff that is, in my opinion, underemphasized in many YouTube videos, electronic courses, how-to sing books, etc. There are some exceptions: I do chuck a few relatively commonplace things in, mostly when I think they’re often neglected or forgotten.

I’m not the best singer. I’m not even really competent, but in a way, I think that gives me a perspective that much better singers don’t have. Like the kid who is much better at explaining a bit of maths to you than the teacher, because she’s only just understood it herself. Yes, I’m a mediocre singer, sure, but you should have heard me two years ago when I started singing with literally zero experience- a terror to my friends, my parents and neighbors. Given that, I think I’ve come along okay.

In the interests of honesty, here’s me. I’m off-pitch in quite a few parts. I’m trying my best and it’s done in a single take:

My tips:

1. Do it. It’s beautiful thing. It will connect you with art in a way that writing, by itself, never will. It’s fun. It’s cathartic. It will deepen your appreciation of music greatly. Singing is probably the closest thing to real sorcerery that exists.

2. If I had to identify my single greatest mistake, it was not learning an instrument at the same time as I learned how to sing. A person who can sing but not play an instrument is missing a fundamental complementary capacity. For one thing, solo acapella music just doesn’t sound that good to most people, even if you’re absolutely incredible. If you’re unsure, the piano is a good choice.

3. If you get a microphone you can set it up so it sends the sound you are making directly to your ears as you make it. Why is this important? Because your singing doesn’t sound to you like it does to everyone else because it resonates in your skull. By having a microphone send your own singing through earbuds directly to your ear, the effect of the resonating bones is greatly reduced. Thus you can hear yourself, as you really sound, while you sing. This is a great way to train. It allows for instant feedback and calibration.

4. Even if you don’t do the above- and even if you do- record your singing and listen back to it. This one’s common sense, but I’ve seen so many people neglect this that I just had to include it.

5. Smule is worth paying for.

6. The difference between the quality of your singing on a phone’s microphone, and the quality of your singing on a proper microphone can, in some cases, be the difference between sounding not talented or talented all by itself.

7. Something I have learned in a bitter way is that you can’t just be ‘good enough’ at singing on pitch. Singing on pitch isn’t just a box you tick or hoop you jump before you get to the ‘real’ business of singing well. I have a reasonably good ear for pitch, I’m not tone deaf. I figured the best singers in the world are marked out by their timbre, not their pitch accuracy, so I should focus on timbre. But this isn’t true! There’s a huge difference between being approximately on the pitch- say 25 cents off, and being <10 cents off. Often when your song sounds subtly ‘wrong’ to you it’s because you’re a few too many cents off- and even people without a good ear can usually hear it unconsciously. There’s no ceiling to the gains you can make by getting better at pitch, or rather, there is a ceiling, but you’re almost certainly nowhere near it.

8. Everyone talks about the diaphragmatic breath as the key to support. In my experience, this is only half the story. Diaphragmatic breathing is pretty easy, the hard part is learning and remembering to breathe as you go, and having the confidence to steal a breath without thinking it will make you sound stupid. When I had problems with support, it wasn’t because I hadn’t taken a diaphragmatic breath, it was because I didn’t keep topping up my breathing. In some ways focusing too hard on the diaphragmatic breath actually made things worse, because I focused on getting it so right that it actually slowed down breathing- and didn’t allow me to draw a quick breath in a short pause. I’m not saying this will be everyone’s experience- I’m sure there are good reasons why traditional teaching focuses on the diaphragmatic breath and not refilling-, but it’s something to keep in mind.

9. There’s a standard list of vocal sins- for example, sounding too gravelly. However, it can be really difficult to identify these in yourself. I was very fortunate to have a skilled, free vocal coach help me identify a subtle, gravelly instability at the end of long phrases because I wasn’t taking enough breaths. A good teacher is so important because there are so many problems which, almost by definition, you can’t be fully aware of- if you were aware of them you would have already fixed them.

10. Group vocal lessons are good. They can be better than solo lessons if you listen carefully to each performance and listen carefully to what the teacher says to each student. This will give you a sense of a range of possibilities, skills, horizons etc. Plus you can sometimes get them for free.

11. Most singing tutorials I’ve seen on YouTube, in books, etc. undersell the importance of learning to sing on rhythm, especially if you don’t have a natural sense of rhythm and didn’t do music when you were younger.

12. For me, the metaphor of charging directly at high notes, not trying to duck or weave past them, was really useful. I don’t want to be too normative about this- other people find contrary metaphors like floating more useful. Still, it worked for me at least to some degree, because I had a fixation on sounding shrill, and would (and still do!) try to darken my tone on high notes far too much to avoid shrillness. Charging the high notes worked for me. Slam yourself into them without fear.

13. I focused a lot of attention on emotional authenticity in singing. What I finally learned though was that, in the main, people are much more interested in the beauty and purity of your voice than they are in the nuances of your emotional expression. In the “Hurt” rendition above, for example, you can pretty clearly hear me focus too heavily on emotion. Balance these, but tilt two-thirds towards vocal purity.

14. You can practice subtleties of emotional expression etc. not even by singing, just by reading aloud to yourself- by performing a dramatic reading. This is a good way to get better at emotional expression and acting for singing without taxing yourself through too much singing.

15. When you get to audio-editing, EQ, compression and a little reverb, in that order of importance, make a huge difference to your sound, and I’ve found most guides on the internet undersell how heavily you should apply EQ. You can call it cheating if you like, but I don’t think in art there’s such a thing as cheating. If there were a form of autotune that worked without sounding awful, I’d use that as a tweak too. Remember: Your goal is beauty, and in a curious sense, every artwork has no history.

16. I learned this long before learning to sing, but A) for God’s sake, breathe through your nose, it’s better for you, sounds better to those around you, and will be useful in singing B) if you are having trouble remembering to do this, put your tongue gently on the roof of your mouth and leave it there.

17. In writing, it is important to read back what you’ve written straight away. However, you won’t truly know if it’s any good and be able to assess it objectively, till at least two weeks, ideally, a month, have passed. The same is true of singing. Listen to it right away, but if you really want to assess it in a neutral way, also listen back to it weeks or months later.

18. VocalFeel on the Android App store can be used to assess the singing power ratio. I’m not sure whether or not it actually helps, but it’s fun to play around with.

19. Your mileage may vary, but I think a lot of beginning singers don’t draw their notes out long enough and sing too staccato. But again, your mileage may vary on this! A singing teacher once put this in terms of doing each note full justice and that metaphor has stuck with me. Every note matters.

Edit: my personal singing cheat sheet

External and internal stance

Stand if you can although it’s not the end of the world if you can’t. Take a deep diaphragmatic breath and keep the stomach inflated. ‘Lean’ and tighten the abdominals, like you are trying to keep them from deflating as you breathe air into the song. It is like there is a big balloon inside you, ‘supporting’ you, and it should remain this way through the song. Now begin a yawn- your mouth should be 1.5 to 2 finger widths apart, your soft palate raised.

Ideally, the tongue rests behind the teeth to help create ‘mask resonance’, but don’t stress any aspect of this stance stuff except support, which is vital. Do keep practicing all of it though, it is important.

Style

Now for you, a breathy style works well. Feed breathe into your singing like you’re whispering it. Purity, prettiness, and on-pitchness of voice is worth 80% of your grade, emotional expression only 20%.

Do NOT DARKEN AND SWALLOW YOUR HIGH NOTES. Do not hesitate at high notes, charge at them.

To practice

You need to learn to sing on rhythm

Being able to take quick breaths is a good thing to practice.

KEEP practicing pitch

Listen back to what you sing ideally listen to it while you sing through a microphone.

Bonus/non-essential features

Play around with the solidity of your sound.

Try to keep the tongue loose and tension out of the top half of the body. This has never been a big problem for you, but worth keeping an eye on.