What are some things one should do to improve their singing? W/o actually taking lessons?

Answer 1

One option is to use free stuff found on the net, but that would take time and A LOT of effort - as most freebies aren't cohesive and may produce bad results. If you take your singing seriously, using the free stuff won't be enough. You SHOULD get singing lessons. If you don't want to hire a teacher, get an "online" singing lessons course. I used a learn-at-home course and it was both very effective and very inexpensive compared to hiring a vocal coach. Also, it enabled me to progress at my own pace, practice whenever I had free time.
Best advice i can give you is to go to ReviewsNest.com - the reviews site where i read about the course i bought: http://www.reviewsnest.com/SingingLessons . They give free reviews for several singing courses, tell U what to look for in a course, what are the best courses around, and what u get in each course they checked.
I bought the Singing Success course (their top pick) so i can only vouch for it - I don't know about the other courses. However - the course i bought is excellent, and their review of it was spot-on, and it looks like the other reviews they put for the other courses are good too. The course i bought costs $200, but all other courses reviewed cost only $20 to $50 , and also seem great.

Good luck, whatever you choose.

Answer 2

Practice practice practice! Its the only way to improve on anythin. I found that lessons were the only way to improve though as you often don't know what mistakes you might be making or where you could improve, and it takes someone else with a trained ear to point it out. It can often be rectified. My problem was poor breathing and "oversinging" which I was totally unaware of until my teacher pointed it out. It all made sense then. Some singing teachers are awful though so beware and go on gut instinct, if you don't like the way they teach you, find someone else. I once went to a very eminent teacher (who has taught one very famous British female singer in particular) who insisted I was a "Lazy" soprano and kept giving me soprano stuff to sing - I am an alto, always have been and couldn't cope with the stuff she was giving me to sing, it was impossible as it was just too high!! As a result she declared I had "no talent" and it was a waste of time her teaching me! It totally screwed up my confidence in my voice for a long time and I actually stopped singing for a while. I have since changed to another teacher who lets me work with my natural voice within its natural limits and I am singing a lot better as a result!!! You have to work with what you have, thats a lesson I found out the hard way because of this other teacher!!!

Answer 3

drink room temperature water before you sing. not too cold and not too hot because it'll freeze or burn your vocal chords. without lessons, doing things like this to take care of your voice will make it better. practice a lot and learn to match pitch as well. know what type of note your singing. know what key you are singing in and know how to find that note with your voice. for example, A is a common key played in modern music. learn how to sing in the key of A. also find what style works for you best. are you more of a higher pitched or lower pitched singer. maybe in the middle? dont sing something that is out of your range. your range is natural and singing like someone else is really hard to do even for the best of the best. do warm up exercises as well. also sing from your chest/stomach, not from your throat. you'll lose your voice that way. a way to tell whether you are singing from you chest/stomach is to feel how powerful your voice is. it is more powerful when singing from your torso rather than your throat. you'll see what i mean if you don't already when you do it right.

do not do things like smoke or drink before you sing. a common myth is that it will make your voice sound better and it is completely wrong. don't listen to that at all.

recap

room temp water
take care of voice
learn how to match pitch
sing in the right key
sing in your voice range
warm up exercises.
sing from your gut

hope thats helpful.

Answer 4

YOGA!!!
since yoga involves concentrated breathing it is excellent for improving your lung capacity!! Keeping in shape , especially the abs will improve your singing too!!

Answer 5

What i have done in the past, awarm glass of salt water .always remember to warm your voice by doing the scale.To get different ranges,always fala fala doe doe,always keep in mind where you whant to be at the end of 1 hour.

Answer 6

Just basic excersizes Doh,Ray...so on!

Answer 7

Relax (if you're tense, you won't sound very nice)