Like most of us, I have been singing since I was born, from my wails as a baby to singing in the shower nowadays. I would definitely consider myself a singer, although I have not had any vocal training. Recently, I have found a growing interest in singing and I was wondering what voice lessons could do for me. Currently, I am in my school's Select Choir, which is a selected group of 20-24 girls and I have also made all-school musicals.

I was just wondering about what benefits most of you have experienced from vocal training. I know that you learn breathing techniques and other things, but do you really end up "singing better"?

One word:

YES

Even though my own lessons were focused on Clasical training, the benefits I have learnt from them have been far reaching into other musical styles and improves my ear training no end. My breathing, vocal production and tuning were vastly improved by the patient work of a very good teacher.

Just hope my pupils feel the same!

Absolutely.

My voice used to be quite thin and reedy, and was very nasal. I could sing in tune and hold a part, but not much more than that. Furthermore, I firmly believed I had an alto range, and that the back row was where I should be.

And now, my voice is much fuller, has a LOT more power, isn't in my nose any more and I'm a soprano soloist. All as a result of three years of lessons.

Not to mention the enormous boost to my confidence in choirs and singing solo.

Go for it!

Cheers

Katyjay

Thanks everyone. Now it's time for a follow-up question.

When you are looking for a teacher, are there any particular points you should look for? There is one in my town, but I really want to find a teacher that is worth it. Are their qualifications very important? How long should lessons be? A lot of voice teachers only offer one hour lessons, and I'm wondering if this is the best length to start with.

Hi again

Here's the advice Sarah-Flute was given when she was looking for a singing teacher. Hope it helps.

Cheers

Katyjay

(Subsequent edit) ps I have an hour lesson on average once a fortnight, and I find that I'm always taken by surprise when time's up - so it's clearly not too long a lesson. But on the other hand, I'm always quite tired at the end, so it's not too short either.

Katyjay and Sarah,
Hope I'm not hijacking, pm92?

Would anyone offer MONTHLY lessons? Won't the teacher think badly of you - you seem to be an "adult beginner" who lacks "commitment" from day one? I'm interested but I keep worrying about weekly commitments in terms of time and finance? Does anyone know of a good teacher in east London?

Thanks,
Tess
PS. Katyjay, I like your earlier suggestion of practising maybe, 2 or 3 times a day for 20/30 mins at a time. My son hates recorded singing (gets distressed with Jesse Norman!) but he lets me sing "live" to him.

Also important is to train in such a way that won't harm your voice, and to pick up and eradicate any bad habits. A good teacher will help in this respect.



Amber
x

Hi Tess

I'm sure that if you find a sensible person to teach you, they will be mindful of whatever other commitments you have, and will work out an arrangement that suits both of you. They will accept that you are doing this for your own choice, and that will probably result in more preparedness to practise on your own than a child being pushed into it by parents.

The only reason I wouldn't recommend monthly lessons to start with is that a month is more than long enough to forget the "feel" of your new way of singing, and to drift back into bad habits.

My teacher suggested an "intensive" burst at the beginning (which was three lessons in consecutive weeks in my case) so that the basics were really established, then we dropped to the ad-hoc fortnightly-ish that we now do.

Weekly lessons don't really work for me, I don't have enough prepared between lessons for there to be any value added, but fortnightly works about right. The biggest gap I've had was two months over Summer '03, when our diaries were just completely out of synch, and that was really worrying as I thought I'd slipped back a bit, and it took a while to feel I'd caught up fully.

Hope this helps.

Cheers

Katyjay