Don't Be Afraid To Sing
Don't be afraid of singing, and know the importance of having a repertoire.
Well, in fact I'm not the best guitar player since I've played for about 5 month now only, but I think I can tell you something about singing. Many people I know started learning guitar because they wanted to sing with their friends. But they still are afraid of singing alone. You may like to play a piece - a classical tune for example - for people's listening enjoyment, but if they ask you to sing a song, you'll feel very bad. Your hands start trembling, and cold sweat is running down your skin. You fear to sing alone. With your eyes staring at your fingers you'll play a few chords and with a small voice you start singing - or something that seems to be singing. But what's so hard to sing for others? I know this problem. I actually fear to sing while my family is listening to me. In other situations, I sing everywhere: when I'm sitting around with friends, in school, everywhere - but not if my family is listening. I don't know why.
Let me tell you something basic about the way many people behave while singing: don't look at your fingers. Look around to the people listening to you. You can - if it meets the meaning of the song - look into the distance or do a crazy smile or something. Try it first with friends listening to you. They wont laugh at you if you do a mistake. You just have to practice, like you've practiced playing your guitar.
The Repertoire
Repertoire means having a "playlist", and you need this to be flexible. You can influence the mood of your audience, but be careful. It's bad to sing sad songs if the people want to have fun, and you shouldn't play happy songs if the people want to be sad.
In fact, you should know a lot of songs, and not only the songs you like most. Just take a few well-known rock-tunes (i.e. Jailhouse Rock), something to think (i.e. Bob Dylan-Songs), something sad (sad lovesongs), something to sing along with (traditional tunes) and something to - well, in Germany we'd say "mitschunkeln" (I don't know the english phrase), but it's the type of song where you link your arms to the people sitting next to you and you sway left and right with the musik, that's "Schunkeln". It's also good to have an instrumental piece handy as well as the folk, country, pop, and blues tunes that everybody knows and likes (Cat Stevens, Dylan, Donovan, John Denver, et al).
Posture
Try to be relaxed and "cool". Keep your head upright. If you're sitting on the floor, lean on something with your back.
Volume and Pitch
Before you start singing in front of an audience, examine how you sing the song. If you don't know how, it's better to start too low than too high, because you can get the higher notes if you press it.
Pronunciation
Normally we speak careless, just cutting off the end of a word. If you speak, this isn't important, but if you're singing, it is. So here's a simple trick: concentrate on every letter in every word while you're singing it. Try it at home and practice it. It will take a while to learn it, but it's very useful.
Vibrato
Just imitate the sound that a sheep makes and increase it's speed more and more. You can use this in many songs - it's a great effect.
Timing
Concentrate on the rhythm, melody, and the lyrics, and develop a feeling for these things. Again, you have to practice a lot, but if you know the song well, it shouldn't be a problem.
OK, that's all I can tell you for the moment. I hope it will help you to start to enjoy singing. It's great fun to sing, and it's even greater fun to sing together with others, and it's the greatest fun to be able to sing alone in front of an audience.
Think of it!
Submited on 2007-08-13 07:33:20
Author: Christoph Pascher
