How to Learn Singing Without a Teacherš„(2024)
In this article, we’re going to be discussing how you can learn how to sing without a teacher.
Now let’s continue discussing the areas of singing which will propel you to the next level.
How to Learn Singing Without a Teacher
We’ve included several tips and areas which you will need to focus on, to learn to sing without having a physical teacher.
- Learn the basics of singing
- Create a good basis of breath support
- Relax your facial muscles
- Light is right – The dopey sounding technique
- Learn the correct singing posture
- Vocal exercises to learn
- Lip trills
- Sirens
- Hissing
Learn the basics of singing
As with anything in life, learning the fundamentals in the right way creates an optimal foundation of knowledge for further, more comprehensive improvement.
In this case, learning the foundational elements of singing is the number 1 tip!
To do this properly, you will need to have tuition, there’s no way around this. However,Ā we won’t be talking about taking conventional 1-on-1 singing lessons.
Instead, we highly advise an online singing program, suitable for those who are beginner/intermediate singers, so that they can learn the basics of singing, including posture, techniques, and exercises.
After talking about the best online singing courses within this article, we highly recommend those wanting to find a high quality, reputable program, look atĀ 30-Day Singer, who offer a 14-Day Free Trial of their program and even provide a 30-day money-back guarantee for those who decide to buy it after the trial is over.
Because of this, there’s no risk for you as the trial user or the buyer.
Create a good basis of breath support
Breath support and control is another fundamental aspect of singing, and without it, it can cause you to strain your voice and potentially injure your vocal cords.
In essence, good breath support relies on being able to sing from the diaphragm instead of the throat, which means using the abdominal muscles to help engage the diaphragm when breathing, which helps maximize airflow, helping to eliminate throat and neck tension, especially when trying to hit those high notes.
Here’s a workout that you can try, to help engage your stomach muscles and begin building muscle-memory:
- First, you want to lay down on your back whilst keeping your knees bent. Then place one hand on your stomach and inhale through your nose as deeply as you can, letting your stomach expand. As you breathe out you’ll begin to feel the abdominal muscles contract.
- You can then practice singing whilst lay on the floor, and you may notice it’s quite difficult at first, but as you train and develop your abdominal muscles, this will get easier over time.
Relax your facial muscles
Tension is something we want to stay away from, and tension in the face can lead to tension in the jaw and neck muscles, which will cause vocal strain.
With that being said, it’s important to stretch your facial muscles to help eliminate any tension that they are experiencing.
It’s extremely useful to incorporate this into your daily singing practice, in a stretching workout. One of which we’ve described below, and also we’ve included a video demonstration:
- Using your thumb, gently massage your chin to loosen the muscles surrounding it.
- Next, yawn as big and wide as you can to stretch your face and jaws.
- Stretch your shoulders and neck to get rid of the tension that is building up in those areas.
Light is right – The dopey sounding technique
Most beginners will try singing with intensity, right off the bat, and this can be particularly damaging to the voice when it comes to singing more demanding songs, with plenty of high notes.
With this being said, how exactly can you avoid damaging your voice, whilst working out your vocal cords?
It’s all about singing lighter, and using a technique to lower the larynx, despite how ‘dopey’ it makes you sound.
How do you do this? Choose a song that you want to sing along with, and allow your throat to completely relax, don’t worry about pitch, what we’re doing is helping lower the larynx.
You can then begin to slowly wean off the dopey-sounding character of your voice, whilst ensuring that your larynx is still low, until it’s capable of staying low whilst singing normally.
Learn the correct singing posture
In addition to singing posture, you should focus on assuming the right singing position too.
The first step is to open your mouth wider. When your mouth is wide open, there will be less tension in your jaw and tongue, which is the most common culprit of vocal strain. Aside from that, it will be a lot easier for your sound to flow from your vocal cords. Most singers make the mistake of turning their heads up to hit high notes. The lifting of the chin will make it harder for the sound to flow through your throat.
Third, press your tongue down. When you are singing high notes, you may notice that you tend to produce thinner sounds. This is because our throat tends to close when we are singing higher. One way to avoid this is to press your tongue down on the back of your throat to prevent it from closing.
As mentioned, hitting high notes can only be made possible through dedicated practice. This means that you should invest your time and effort to train your voice to hit high notes without straining.
We know you already have the time and the dedication needed, but what should you do with it?
Vocal Exercises to Learn
As we’ve briefly talked about, exercises are key in helping you train your voice to sing higher with ease.
Here are a few of such exercises that will help:
1) Lip Trills (Lip Bubbles)
In order to do this:
- Place your two fingers on the sides of your cheeks, near to your mouth. Purse your lip together and blow your lips and let them vibrate, sounding similar to a horse
- Sound the vowel “uh” while your lips are vibrating
- You can then add pitch to the sound, sounding the note at a comfortable pitch within the middle of your vocal range
- Perform a scale with the vowel sound starting from the lower notes to the higher ones then work your way back lower.
- Repeat this process, but instead starting at the lowest possible note, leading to the highest. You’ll begin to get comfortable with this and notice that your range begins to expand and notes that you once strained to hit will be much easier to attain.
2) ” Ooh” and “Eee” Vocal Siren
In order to do this:
- Sound “ooh”, as though you are saying “oops”
- Again, try to do this at a pitch within the middle of your vocal range
- Sing the “Eee” sound (in the same manner as before)
- Then begin alternating between these sounds, like a siren, starting from the lowest pitch leading to the highest note in your vocal range, and vice versa.
- You can do this until you feel minimal strain when transitioning between your low and high vocal range
3) Hissing Exercise
In order to do this:
- Either take a lay-down, sitting or standing position
- Begin to breathe in slowly through your nose and allow your lungs to fill with air
- Exhale whilst closing your teeth together and using your tongue to control the release of air.
Conclusion
We hope that this article has been exceptionally useful to all of you beginner/intermediate singers who are looking to improve your voice, without taking 1-on-1 vocal lessons.
However, as we’ve expressed in this article, we do recommend taking an online singing program, as it will help guide you through the best exercises and techniques to strengthen and increase your vocal range, improve vocal stamina and tonality.
If you are interested, we recommend checking out 30 Day Singer and their 14-Day Free Trial of their online singing program if you want to learn about specific exercises with HD-quality video lessons.
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