What to do while having a bad technique

[haver26]

Hello,

I'm kind of new to singing, I'm 27 years old male, and in the beginning I was a very lousy singer. Now after I've been studying 7 months with the SLS method, I can see some big improvements. But still I don't have a control over my middle octave c3-c4 (I'm a bass baritone starting from g1, and actually feel pressure from e3 and above).

For now, my most comfortable way of singing in this middle octave is to sing quite light and not bassy, although I'm not completely satisfied with the sound because my voice can sound strong and powerful in some exercises but when I sing 'naturally' it's much lighter and kind of weak.

So my question is whether I should wait until my technique gets better and I have a stronger sound, or just put it aside when I sing and concentrate on delivering the song and putting emotions into it. It's frustrating because I'm not happy with the way I sound but I really want to perform and just "go for it".

What did you guys do when your technique was lousy? Did you just ignore it when you sang, or you tried to work on the way you sound? I feel like I don't have control over the way I sound unless I make manipulations which make me sound funny.

I will be happy to hear opinions

Thanks in advance,

[Owen Korzec]

A few things I've done while my technique was not perfect...it still isn't and I still have to do these things quite a bit even as an intermediate singer:

-Be able to pull chest high to "push" for the note when your head voice or mixed voice isn't in top shape. It might also help, when doing this, to remove any fear of being too loud which could prevent you from hitting the note with good pitch and stability. And practice this too. Practice reaching high notes in chest voice, aside from your normal training. You really will need the more primitive belting approach, or any kind of other technique you can pull out to reach high notes when your main way of singing isn't working, as a backup plan. Same thing with some kind of falsetto or whatever...if you can't yet hit a note the right way, spend a little practice time hitting it with less optimal technique if that's what you need to sing it live.

-Train like you perform. Practice SINGING the songs the way you want them to sound...many many many times. Vocalizing alone doesn't cut it, you need to spend some practice time running through the specific material you need to perform, and sing it like it's a performance.

-Go full throttle on pre-performance prep: drink lots of tea, warm up for a good 45 minutes, take deep, slow, quiet breaths right before you go on. Sometimes you won't be able to get all this in so just fit whatever you can and do whatever you find makes you sing well.

-Do what it is your voice can do, don't do what it can't do. I cannot emphasize this enough for beginning and intermediate singers when performing. You don't HAVE to take this approach (I will mention the alternate route later) but it will have the best effect on your audience...it will make your performance be perceived as better. So how do you do this? Careful song choice. Key changes. Rearrangements. Altered melodies. Paying attention to easier details like singing with emotion, or singing with good pitch, or good tone, etc. Or whatever your strengths are as a singer, highlight them. And leave the weaknesses out.

The alternate route:

Maybe you don't care about sounding amazing and you just want the experience of performing, as a way of rehearsing by experience. In this case, go ahead and put your mediocre work in progress techniques to the test. See how they respond with the extra pressure of an audience watching you. And ask close friends/family for critique afterwards. This is better for you, worse for the audience. Because it probably won't sound great, it's just a way of practicing performing. If there are attractive women in the audience you're trying to impress this is probably not a good idea haha. If you're playing for an audience you don't care about really, or that don't care about you, or generally in any kind of more casual performance situation, that's when it's okay to do this. This is kind of what you hear at karaoke nights you know...it's not expected to hear great singers, but it's about singers getting a little performing experience before they've mastered their craft.

Or anywhere in between. Anyways, just understand that there are two approaches here and you can adjust the balance of the two as you wish. But just understand that, as you are saying, using your new techniques and sounding great doing so just isn't going to happen, yet. So don't expect that.

Hope that helps. I'm just an intermediate singer, this is stuff that has helped me personally in the past, to get by. And like I said some of it I still do because it's just best practice. But it's extra important as a beginner.

[Simon Magus]

Just sing, dude. It's supposed to be fun. If you plan on waiting around for your voice to get to some certain level, you might never get to performing. Do some karaoke or something where there are no expectations.

[VideoHere]

i would say a lot depends on the songs you have in mind.....certainly don't forego singing....you may have songs that by singing them will benefit you, you get a stretch while not going overboard, while others will require a level of development you simply don't have right now.....

and the inability i'm referring to does not just pertain to range.

[gno]

Singing songs is part of technical development. You should always be working on songs right along with any exercises that you do. Pick songs that are within your current range. You might not like what you sound like at first. The best is to record yourself singing a song and try to figure out what you like and dis-like. Work on that song for a while. Re-record in a couple months and check progress.

[Remylebeau]

Also, pick songs that challenge your current range. Don't hurt yourself doing it, but work outside your comfort zone little by little.

[haver26]

Thanks a lot guys you really helped and motivated me!

And Owen Korzec Thank you for you detailed answer, I think I'll go towards the first route, I just really want to perform with confidence