Like any other artistic domain, singing lends itself perfectly to self-learning. You can learn to listen to your own voice and correct notes that are out of tune, adjust the vocal cords and vocal timbre, master breathing and, little by little, you can start calling yourself a singer. It's a lot like yoga or self-disciplined sports. You always have to develop patience, inner mental strength, breathing technique through listening to yourself, feeling yourself, and a good vocalist, because you have to approach all that even with a mentor.
I highly recommend Berklee Vocal for Performance with Donna McElroy DVD, and then some practice, and then some silence, and then some listening, and rinsing and repeating. A simple way to train your ear to tune is to play a song out loud. Choose a note you hear, pause the music and try to match the tone. You may be able to hear for yourself if you have matched the tone, but you can also record the music and your voice and play it back.
A simple way to train the ear (and also learn the vocal range) is to play a note on a piano and then try to match the pitch you hear. And if you want to learn to sing for yourself, check out my full online singing course, Master Your Voice. Chest voice is a term invented by old-school Italian teachers to describe notes in the lower part of the vocal range. As a singing teacher who teaches singing lessons for beginners, I have worked with many students who taught themselves in the beginning.
Working to learn to sing for yourself can be a challenge; after all, you don't have a voice instructor to help you see when you make mistakes. Even if you're on a tight budget, there are plenty of completely free singing resources on the Internet: many singers have free YouTube videos where they teach singing techniques and even offer sample singing lessons. After wondering how I can teach myself to sing over and over again, I discovered a very effective method for learning to sing. So if you can't afford private lessons right now, learning to sing online is one of the best ways to start.
Whether you dream of playing your own songs or just want to get better at karaoke, learning to sing for yourself is an honorable goal. Learning to sing on your own requires discipline, and if you want to see improvements, you'll need regular practice sessions. This exercise will help you improve your breathing capacity and will teach you how to ration the air in the diaphragm, something essential for singing phrases of different lengths. So if you want to improve your respiratory support, increase vocal power and learn to sing in tune, learn good respiratory support.
And while I'll teach you how to eliminate vocal ruptures soon, right now it means you're singing out loud. The truth is that projecting your way of singing is one of the most important things to master when you are teaching yourself to sing. Finally, I would recommend hiring a teacher for at least one session every few months, just as protection against bad habits and as a check on your progress. And while singing lessons are the best way to improve your voice, the Internet has made learning to sing for free easier than ever.
