Singing as a Hobby

Singing as a Hobby

Learn breath control, physical rules and techniques.

Singing can be a fun and rewarding hobby.

In essence, singing is using the human voice as a musical instrument, and a very flexible instrument at that. It’s the only form of music where there are words to give specific meaning, augmented by the melodies, tones, and rhythms used by other instruments.

Singing as a hobby implies performing in public, and without a bit of basic knowledge extended singing can lead to issues from a simple sore throat to nodes on your vocal chords that may require surgery.

While the basics of singing transcend musical genres, having a goal in mind can help kick start your hobby. Keeping in mind both the type of music you like and the where you’d like to sing, choose a simple goal. “I’d like to join my community choir” or “I’d like to enter a karaoke contest. Joining a band and winning a Grammy can come later.

The instructor will help prevent incorrect techniques that can ruin your singing voice. Investing in an experienced voice teacher is well worth the money. If your voice is weak, you should know that is usually caused by under-developed muscles or improper use of the resonators (the pharynx, the mouth, and the nasal cavity).

Muscles can be strengthened and with training you can learn how to use your resonators to project a powerful voice. Community choirs will often provide some basic level of instruction as well. Even if you long term goal doesn’t include choral singing, the skills learned in a choir and the support of your fellow singers can be invaluable. It’s often a great way to ease into public performance as well. The first lesson or two will typically include determining your vocal range and avoiding vocal injury.

A caveat here - almost anyone can learn to sing, but a small minority of people is tone deaf. Tone deaf people cannot correctly match pitches by ear, even though they may enjoy listening to music played by others.

Even this isn’t necessarily a Show Stopper; it may just require additional time and effort to learn to pitch match. This doesn’t affect the ability to play most instruments. In fact, playing guitar or piano is a good way of working on pitch matching.

Your vocal teacher (or choir leader) will probably start by teaching you vocal warm ups. Vocal warm ups are essential, like any muscle in your body, your vocal chords need to stretch to avoid injury when you sing. These warm ups often consist of scales or vocal drills, often rotating vowel sounds.

To sing well you need proper breath control. Eighty percent of proper singing begins and ends with proper breathing. When breathing in, try to fill your lungs from the bottom up, let your stomach extend before your chest expands. Breathing out, the stomach should contract first, then the chest. This is breathing from your diaphragm, the muscle wall at the bottom of your chest. The diaphragm is more powerful and controllable than the muscles that expand and contract your chest.

Components of good singing posture include:
• Head forward

• Shoulders back

• Back straight

• Chest out

• Feet slightly apart
On sitting, stick with this as much as feasible. Sitting limits the ability to breathe deeply.

Keep in mind that vocal training is for all styles, not just for opera types. Voice training is there to help make your voice stronger.

Singing without accompaniment is called ‘a cappella’, either solo (alone) or with other singers. Singing can range from accompanying oneself by playing the guitar while singing, to singing in a choir with dozens of other singers while accompanied by a symphony orchestra.

Tips to Help You Successfully Market Your Music

How to market your music the personal way

If you want to get anywhere as a songwriter or a performer, it’s crucial that you learn how to market yourself and your music. Sell and distribute your music online. Here are some of favorite liner notes:

1.   Sell your music 100% commission-free, directly from your website. Easy music sales, means more money in your pocket.

2.   Spread your music to over 120 of the most popular music channels on the Internet, without leaving. Distribute your tunes to top online stores and streaming services like iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, Rdio and more (distribution is a premium feature).

3.   Wanna push your gigs? No problem! Wix Music offers seamless integrations with BandsInTown or Songkick so you can promote your shows and sell tickets directly from your website.

4.   Sell your merch by adding an online store to your website.

1.   Include industry essentials like an EPK (electronic press kit) in your Wix Music site. This password protected page is the easiest way to give labels, press and other industry heavy-weights the most pivotal info about your band.

2.   Beautiful templates that come ready-made with everything you need for a professional looking website. Did we mention that they’re totally customizable too?