Here's my thread for Tony.
Sooner or later almost every guitar player wants to learn to sing so they can sing along with their playing. Good goal. Hard to accomplish? Maybe....
I'm getting singing lessons from the vocal teacher at work. (we trade lessons) She started me off with a sheet of tongue twisters. Pretty tough stuff. But I do something already that she said was a great exercise and is fairly standard, although not the way I do it. LOL
Sit down with your freshly tuned guitar.
Start on the 1st string and play it open. Now, SING the name of the note (E) and tone match it at the same time. Work your way up to the 12th fret and do the same with all 6 strings. This does a couple of things.
1. You learn to sing the notes accurately.
2. You learn all the notes on the neck.
3. You train your ear.
4. You train your fingers muscle memory.
By singing the name of the note, you learn to associate the sound, name and location with each other and the finger position. This is an awesome skill to have and makes it much easier to learn almost any song as well as help you transcribe better.
It's also a first step to learning absolute pitch. (Yes, this CAN be learned, it's not an inborn gift.)
So, I've been doing this for a while now and I can see results in my singing. Not awesome results... yet, but I'm getting there.
Anyone else have any tips or training exercises to help learn to sing?
Singing? SINGING!
Andy wow,,i had the same idea to share some singin knowledge(can everybody read this topic,even free members),,
Its good to take exercises,,, i did take some vocal lessons 'cos i was curious,,,it all started to be consiously of your breath taking(low in the belly) and hold it(the belly and sides swell,,you can feel that while putting your hands in the side of your body)..then blow all the air out in puffs or counts,, the belly goes in..many people do wrong breath taking(to high) when you sit,lay or sleep you do this naturly..
When you do the breath taking and hold it right you can work thru a lot of scales(Cmaj scale for example,,,do-re-mi-fa-so-la-si and back) when you do a song and you know the key use that scale and do the scale exercice..singin in the right key exercise..?
you can also do interval exercise by using the chords(ah-ah-ah or Oo-oo-oo) and sing there notes and work a bit up and down(like the scale)..
Of course you must first hear those notes before you can hit them by voice,,you can hit them on your guitar but also on an a keyboard or piano,,also you can put/write the exerciises in an program like guitarpro play it back and sing along,,,
Often i try to play the melody from a song on guitar to get comfort with the pitch and find the most usefull pitch on the midlle four strings 2-3-4-5..
hope you understand me and maybe you can find yourself some exercises..
There is a lot more,,like articulate..
Oh ,,before you go singin do some gym with your shoulders,,head etc,,,its for the bleedings thru your vocal cord....
Its good to take exercises,,, i did take some vocal lessons 'cos i was curious,,,it all started to be consiously of your breath taking(low in the belly) and hold it(the belly and sides swell,,you can feel that while putting your hands in the side of your body)..then blow all the air out in puffs or counts,, the belly goes in..many people do wrong breath taking(to high) when you sit,lay or sleep you do this naturly..
When you do the breath taking and hold it right you can work thru a lot of scales(Cmaj scale for example,,,do-re-mi-fa-so-la-si and back) when you do a song and you know the key use that scale and do the scale exercice..singin in the right key exercise..?
you can also do interval exercise by using the chords(ah-ah-ah or Oo-oo-oo) and sing there notes and work a bit up and down(like the scale)..
Of course you must first hear those notes before you can hit them by voice,,you can hit them on your guitar but also on an a keyboard or piano,,also you can put/write the exerciises in an program like guitarpro play it back and sing along,,,
Often i try to play the melody from a song on guitar to get comfort with the pitch and find the most usefull pitch on the midlle four strings 2-3-4-5..
hope you understand me and maybe you can find yourself some exercises..
There is a lot more,,like articulate..
Oh ,,before you go singin do some gym with your shoulders,,head etc,,,its for the bleedings thru your vocal cord....
Maybe there is a song out of your very very young years (pre-schooler?) that has a various melody and maybe big jumps(intervals) that you know so well,,you can use that has a exercises,, i mean it..here in Holland we use often ''berend botje'''or ''kort jakje'''the last one is funny sometimes we must sing it minor too!!!
Your voice cord has breaking points,like registers on an organ,,when you discover this and can use it well maybe you can hit that higher note,,i believe it as something to do with what they call chest voice..head voice..
maybe you can discover it to sing the first acapella line in ''somebody to love'' by Queen, ''Can!! anyboDY! find me somebody to love.. Start on an A in your comefort zone.
Oh,do it OPERA..
maybe you can discover it to sing the first acapella line in ''somebody to love'' by Queen, ''Can!! anyboDY! find me somebody to love.. Start on an A in your comefort zone.
Oh,do it OPERA..
I found that when I started singing songs I tried to sound exactly like the original artist. This was a mistake. Once I allowed myself to just sing the song the way I felt it, I became a lot better and a lot more satisfied with myself.
beer wrote:
It is great to discover your own voice,,,i don''t have so much ear by listen to the artist and cover it,,when i want to learn a song i study the Melody as well,,i buy sheetmusic(standaard notation) and play the melody on guitar just the melody and try to remember or set it in my head,,,also when i think i got it i just strum ones the chord and let it ring and try to place the lyrics on that one measer with the right notes and so on with the next chords ........
i love to have it all written out..
I found that when I started singing songs I tried to sound exactly like the original artist. This was a mistake. Once I allowed myself to just sing the song the way I felt it, I became a lot better and a lot more satisfied with myself.
It is great to discover your own voice,,,i don''t have so much ear by listen to the artist and cover it,,when i want to learn a song i study the Melody as well,,i buy sheetmusic(standaard notation) and play the melody on guitar just the melody and try to remember or set it in my head,,,also when i think i got it i just strum ones the chord and let it ring and try to place the lyrics on that one measer with the right notes and so on with the next chords ........
i love to have it all written out..
I don't consider myself much of a singer and I certainly do not have anything approaching an ability to recognize "perfect pitch." But when I think about singing a song, I mostly just make sure I know what note the song will start on -- sometimes this involves getting hold of the sheet music -- play that note on the guitar, try to match it, and then run from there. Maybe not the most rigorous approach, but then it's all in fun. If I had more patience, I would probably do it as Willem suggests.
But when I think about singing a song, I mostly just make sure I know what note the song will start on -- sometimes this involves getting hold of the sheet music -- play that note on the guitar, try to match it, and then run from there
I do that too, Stuart. I really don't have a good "feel" for melodies, which is part of what makes singing so challenging for me. Over the last 6 months or so, I've started trying to work out melodies on the guitar so that I know what notes I should actually be trying to hit. Then I'll pick out the melody and sing along with those notes. But even just having a starting note helps hugely. If I start right, usually I can stay on target. But if I start on the wrong note, it's nearly impossible to get back on key. Sometimes it's easy to pick out the melody or the starting note, but sometimes i find it really challenging, maybe because of the way the person sings, I don't know. Oftentimes, then, I'll try to hunt down the sheet music and follow the melody there.
I do that too, Stuart. I really don't have a good "feel" for melodies, which is part of what makes singing so challenging for me. Over the last 6 months or so, I've started trying to work out melodies on the guitar so that I know what notes I should actually be trying to hit. Then I'll pick out the melody and sing along with those notes. But even just having a starting note helps hugely. If I start right, usually I can stay on target. But if I start on the wrong note, it's nearly impossible to get back on key. Sometimes it's easy to pick out the melody or the starting note, but sometimes i find it really challenging, maybe because of the way the person sings, I don't know. Oftentimes, then, I'll try to hunt down the sheet music and follow the melody there.