I wonder about asking this question sometimes. Singing is a very tough thing to achieve and requires a lot of training and dedication. I need a LOT of work (I'll post some stuff this weekend - you'll see lol). What I do is record my "singing" (and I use the term singing very loosely) and playback so I can hear how bad it is lol...
But when I'm singing, I can tell when I'm flat or sharp or just in the wrong key. Most of the time my issue is that I'm too scared to sing for whatever reason so I don't use my lungs at all so it comes out weak and often flat or out of key. I HEAR it very loudly even when singing. When I have some liquid courage in me, I don't give a hoot and just sing. Sometimes it comes out good, other times, well, maybe I had too much :D
My question is, though, do you guys hear yourselves singing out of key? I know for a fact I'm not tone-death but I can't help wonder about this when I watched the first week of American Idol (do they have a clue?)
To turn this rant into a valuable post, I ask the question. What do you do to improve your singing? Here's what I do:
- Record myself and then critique it
- Sing into a tuner to see if I can "tune" myself lol
- Pick random notes on the guitar (or keyboard) and sing a sentence or two
- Record again and ask others to critique (takes more guts than I have available)
I get hung up in the details, sometimes I get turned off so bad when I sing. I just give up and continue to just play guitar with mouth shut lol. I think having a sensitive ear is a curse sometimes. Do you feel the same, or am I just in need of meds or something lol
Thanks!
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My first idea would be that you need to be able to hear your voice coming back at you in the mix so you can adjust on the fly. Get your voice and the music in the foldback/ cans as it's happening.
"Be good at what you can do" - Fingerbanger"
I have always felt that it is better to do what is beautiful than what is 'right'" - Eliot Fisk
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Thanks for the reply, yeah I recently bought a mixer and I can send the info into Garageband (2 channels) so I can hear my "singing" and my guitar as I play it. My issue is instead of adjusting and moving on, I feel ashamed of myself and go into vocal "head in the sand" mood. Just need to suck it up though. No one starts off perfect lol
Download a bunch of cheat sheets and posters: http://stevesmusiclist.com/
Keep singing , that's what ! The more you sing , the better you will be at it . You need to develop confidence that you're going to sing the right note when you get to it . Back in junior high school our chorus teacher would start every class by playing the major scale and then have us sing it .(Do re mi fa sol la ti do !) Then she would move the scale up a half tone and we would sing it . Then another half step .. and so on . It served two purposes , it warmed up our voices and it made us practice the interval between each note . Just keep in mind , you'd probably want to be alone when you do this as it may seem a little strange to other people . :wink:
If I claim to be a wise man , it surely means that I don't know .
Keep singing , that's what ! The more you sing , the better you will be at it . You need to develop confidence that you're going to sing the right note when you get to it . Back in junior high school our chorus teacher would start every class by playing the major scale and then have us sing it .(Do re mi fa sol la ti do !) Then she would move the scale up a half tone and we would sing it . Then another half step .. and so on . It served two purposes , it warmed up our voices and it made us practice the interval between each note . Just keep in mind , you'd probably want to be alone when you do this as it may seem a little strange to other people . :wink:
Funny enough I'd been doing these on my own... I have this "song" Do Re Mi Fa .... lol I sing in the same octave, then a higher one... I also try to train my ear further by picking a random note on the fretboard and trying to label it. then I check with a fretboard/note infographic to see if I'm right or wrong... It's fun in a geeky kind of way. :D
Download a bunch of cheat sheets and posters: http://stevesmusiclist.com/
