I really can’t sing. I’m not being modest here. You may think that I’m saying that I can’t sing out of modesty when really I can sort of sing, or that I’m saying I’m a D singer when I’m really a C+ singer. It’s not that way. I really can’t sing. I would probably be kicked out of a middle school choir. If you had to hear me try to sing “The Boxer” (not a complex melody), you would experience agony.
I am not at all tone-deaf. I can play the guitar fairly well and can appreciate the subtle and not-so-subtle differences between chords and scales. I listen to lots of music and if somebody isn’t hitting notes while singing, I can usually hear it.
But the fact of the matter is that I cannot hit notes while singing and my tone is terrible.
I can’t afford voice lessons. I’m in college and I’m taking mostly Math courses. Taking music courses now at my university would get in the way of completing my degree. So I have to do this mostly on my own, for better or for worse.
Like I said, I just cannot hit notes and my tone is really weak. What would you guys recommend?
Note: answers like “if you can’t afford formal instruction, don’t expect to get better” are perfectly fine. I realize that there are some things you just can’t learn on your own, and if this is one of them, that’s fine.
I’ve occasionally seen group voice lessons, which would be much cheaper than individual. I can’t see any way to learn without lessons. The UW Experimental College cataloglists a group class for $80, beginning in Feb. Two openings left. Voice lessons aren’t only for people who want to become good singers, they’re also for people who want to become good singers. Another option might be to put up an ad for a voice student to teach you in exchange for something such as math tutoring. This really is something you won’t learn on your own.
Your idea about swapping math lessons for voice lessons is incredible…as many people do in this economy, I have much more time than I do money. That would be great!
I think you may have made a mistake in saying “Voice lessons aren’t only for people who want to become good singers, they’re also for people who want to become good singers”.
If you can’t afford lessons at ALL, you might be able to use the guitar to help train your voice. Try matching the pitch of your voice to a note you play on your guitar, one at a time. Once you can match every note in a comfortable scale, learn to play a simple song in that scale (like happy birthday, or twinkle twinkle little star) and play one note at a time as you sing it. If your voice fucks up, you’ll “hear” which direction you fucked up in. Once you get comfortable with simple note-matching and can sing a simple song in tune, find increasingly complex songs you can do this with, until you can sing most things in your range in tune.
This will help you sing in tune. It won’t help much for your tonal quality or breathing or resonance or anything else. By singing in tune you’ll be better than 95% of the rest of the population, but you’ll just be tolerable to listen to. You won’t be great unless you get professional lessons and take it quite seriously.
Good idea. Overall, I care more about being in tune than having good tone because I want to, say, sing with other people when they start singing without making it sound really bad. I think in scenarios like that it matters more whether you’re in tune than whether you actually have good tone, because your voice doesn’t really have to carry anything.
Solfege? Classic ear-training technique. You can learn it from a book, and all music-school students do just that, although with the aid of a teacher for those without the discipline to teach themselves.
I’ve heard it said anecdotally that it’s often singers themselves who are poor at solfege, while instrumentalists typically take it a little more seriously.
You’ll not only be singing in tune after working through a basic course in this, but transcribing bird-songs in standard notation, sight-singing basic things – it’ll change your life. It did mine and I never got that good at it by any stretch.
Yes, of course you’re right. I meant to write that they’re also good for bad singers who want to become good singers. Time for bed.
Mosier gave you excellent advice. That is how a childhood girlfriend was taught to stay on pitch (using her piano). She had a teacher who showed her how to do what Mosier described. She went from being 100% tone deaf to being able to carry a tune without embarassing herself within a short amount of time, maybe a few months.
Added bonus: If you are able to match up with a voice student, it might help you with this.
I am a very amateur singer who has never had professional lessons
I have found learning to breathe properly and increasing breath capacity can help. Oh and practice practice practice (I might just mention here that confidence plays a big part too) . I have never been a good singer but I love to sing. I ended up joining my church choir where they taught me some basic techniques. I still cannot sing very well quietly (which I do when nervous) but give me some volume and belt out a song reasonably well.
I find it less confronting singing with others around than by myself - but I have done it (I did my first ever solo a few weeks before Christmas and I reckon i shook for three days)
Out of curiousity- has anyone hear ever joined a church simply to sing in the choir? The only thing I miss about church was singing/choir- but I’m not religious at all. For those who sing just for the fun of it, what do you do?
Joining a choir isn’t a bad idea - in college I was a piano minor, and my freshman year they started a requirement that to get free lessons all performance minors had to join an ensemble. There aren’t, you know, many piano ensembles, so I joined the Collegiate Chorale. From what you say I could sing better than you, but not well at all - I learned TONS and had a fantastic time.
I pretty much joined a church in order to be able to sing in the choir. I’m not areligious, though, so I had to find a church that matched both my musical and theological tastes. I can assure you my choir would welcome someone who wanted to sing but wasn’t religious, as long as that someone shows up Sunday mornings.
Practice on your own, if you have the chance. If you have a car, sing in the car - your posture when driving is not at all ideal for this, but if you’re driving on your own, it does afford the opportunity to practice.
And by practice, I don’t mean just singing along with the radio. Pick a handful of songs, put them on a medium you can play in the car and sing them over and over and over again.
Might not be ideal, but this helped me a lot with parts in amateur musicals. Of course it didn’t teach me to read music, which is still my downfall with anything like this.
This is the primary reason I joined the Unitarian Church. The fact that I also agree with their philosophy made it easy. There are plenty of non-religious people there. OTOH I also know of an atheist that joined a Methodist church just to sing in the choir. As long as you go for one of the more liberal churches, nobody really cares all that much.