You are on this page because you want to improve your singing but don't know why you should take singing lessons. In this blog, I want to give you important reasons why singing lessons will help you to sing better.
Singing is already very fun and only becomes more enjoyable when you better understand what you are doing with your voice and why, allowing you to progress a bit further each time. It’s like baking a cake: you know you can make something with flour, sugar, and butter, but when you also know the right quantities, you achieve the desired results. After that cake, you can take a new step and try baking something even more challenging.
Now you might think: ‘Yeah, sure, but singing is off-key and ugly OR beautiful… So, why take singing lessons?’ With singing lessons, there are many steps you can take, and your singing teacher is the one who helps you shape and execute them. I’ll give you 9 of them here:
A lot of muscles work together to make your voice sound. These can be trained like an acrobat to perform more intricate tricks. To do this, you need to create the most optimal conditions, for example by learning how to use your breath and relax your jaw.
The way you use your voice is called ‘singing technique’, and the more technique you have, the more songs you can sing and the better they will sound. In your singing lesson, your teacher will pay attention to what is needed to improve your technique and give you immediate feedback on it. It varies from person to person what can be improved. (Of course, you cannot see all these muscles moving, but with metaphors, explanations, your feelings, and your ears, you can get far.)
The more music you sing (or play), the more difficult music your ears and voice can handle, regardless of the style. As children, we are used to singing simple songs in an idiom familiar to us. With these songs, we build a repertoire. If you stop singing at some point, your voice and musical ear won’t develop further and it becomes harder to sing new and more difficult songs. This is why so many people think they can’t sing.
The more music you sing (or play), the more difficult music your ears and voice can handle, regardless of the style. As children, we are used to singing simple songs in an idiom familiar to us. With these songs, we build a repertoire. If you stop singing at some point, your voice and musical ear won’t develop further and it becomes harder to sing new and more difficult songs. This is why so many people think they can’t sing.
Fortunately, it doesn’t matter what level you are at, there is always room for new songs, songs that go just a step beyond those you have sung before. When you start running, you also don’t immediately run a marathon. Your instructor will help you find the right challenge at that time, so you can take a new step in your singing lessons.
What is so beautiful about singing is that you also have the lyrics to delve into. This is another point your teacher can focus on during singing lessons. What does the text literally mean? What do the words mean to you? Who wrote the libretto or poem? How can you ensure that the listener understands the text even if they don’t understand the language? Is there another way to interpret the text? You can make the text as important as you want. Singing from the text will always add another dimension to your songs.
If you can’t read music yet, you can certainly still learn. There is a difference between knowing which note you see on paper and being able to sing a melody with different notes on a paper. For the first, you don’t need to know anything further about music (besides that, it’s always useful to know some music theory if you’re making music anyway).
For the second, you need to train your ears and brain in such a way that they can link the written notes to the musical patterns you have in your head. This begins with recognizing a simple written melody that you already know and then moves on to predicting the notes that come before you see them written. You don’t need perfect pitch for this (the ability to sing a specific tone on request), but you do need musical imagination, also known as audiation.
Hear more about Audiation and Perfect Pitch.
It’s very nice to sing music that we know well and love, but it can also be fun to discover music in other genres with your teacher and see how you can make it your own (or not, if you decide that you don’t like it). It’s like food: sometimes you have to try it a few times before you get used to the taste and can appreciate it. There are so many worlds of music you can discover, so what are you waiting for?
Having confidence is incredibly important when singing. It is often underestimated how important it is. We love watching shows like “The Voice” where it is most entertaining when the judges harshly criticize those who cannot sing or make mistakes. The more nervous they are, the worse they sing, and the more harshly they are criticized (and want to sink into the ground).
This is a downward spiral for every singer. That is why it is so important to work on strategies in singing lessons to deal with nerves, bad voice days, comments from others, and your own thoughts.
When you are just starting out, it may take a long time to learn a piece or song. The more you study, the faster you become, and the more music you can sing. Your teacher can also help you to find the right pieces for you at that moment, so it doesn’t become too boring.
Most of us have had a decent upbringing, so we behave as society expects. We always speak politely, at the right volume, and usually don’t have emotional outbursts like a two-year-old. In singing lessons, you can make any sound you want, because only by trying different things can you change your voice and find out what works best for you and your voice. These sounds can be very rough at first, but they can then be transformed into a more refined, yet honest sound: your singing voice.
There is no set recipe for a step-by-step guide to singing. It’s important to find out what your steps are and your singing teacher can assist you with this. This is why you should take your first singing lesson.
Read more here about the singing lessons and schedule your introductory meeting.
Boukje wants to help you further develop your voice.
We all want to sound as perfect as our favorite artists, with just as beautiful a voice. But even they sometimes sacrifice their technique or intonation a little (or a bit more) for, for example, the message of the song or their unique vocal sound.
Are you also afraid of making a mistake when making music? You’re not alone. The problem with mistakes and making music is that you often only have one chance to do it right. But, is perfection really important? Or are you allowed to make mistakes in music?
In this article, I give four reasons why you might feel a strained sensation in your voice. In other words: why you are probably too relaxed in your body, causing too much tension on your delicate vocal cords. The first two are physical and the last two are psychological. They reinforce each other.
