How to practice singing

Question

So I’ve been practicing singing for about 4 months now about 4 hr a week doing 30min sessions when I have time. I’ve started recording myself over the past month to see what I sound like in recordings. I sound fairly decent but I feel like I’m still missing a clear voice a little and that I’m somewhat flat and lifeless on some recordings.

So what I wanted to ask is how to practice/what a good routine is. I plan on practicing 1hr a day soon. My current routine is 5-min warm-up exercises like scales, humming, and lip roles. Then I practice singing songs that I like that have clear vocals. I’ve been focusing on 5 different songs and been taking them apart trying to learn each.

I’ve search online but I’m still unclear what actual vocalists and even established artist do for practice. I'm 20 now I started in Dec, I have been wanting to practice now regularly for about 2 years just from thinking my voice is somewhat decent and I really love music and I want to create some amazing music.

I’ve also been practicing guitar a little after I sing. I’m not totally sure how musically gifted I am but I played sax in elementary school for about 5 years and never grasped musical concepts since I seemed to be more concerned with just playing what sounded cool to me and ignored all that stuff.

My plan is to keep practicing and then post to youtube/soundcloud when I feel my voice is at an adequate level and start writing some of my own music.

The songs I have been practicing are: I’ll be, Reason, Everlong, If you could only see, Drive

If requested I'll make some non-phone voice memo recordings to share.

Thanks.

Answer 1

I sound fairly decent but I feel like I’m still missing a clear voice a little and that I’m somewhat flat and lifeless on some recordings.[...]My current routine is 5-min warm-up exercises like scales, humming, and lip roles. Then I practice singing songs that I like that have clear vocals.

You are not satisfied with your tone. So you'll work 5 minutes on your tone and 55 minutes on your interpretation. On songs that you like, that you feel good about already because of the song rather than your singing.

I think you severely underestimate what you call "warmup exercises". Even when used as a mere warmup, 5 minutes would be an emergency measure. But the purpose of a warmup is to warm up and to quickly realign your voice and vocal production to its proper form rather than having to jump start it.

To realign to your proper form, you need to have it in the first place. If you spend an hour, it would be more typical to do 25 minutes of what you call warmup exercises (which are only partly warmup), 25 minutes on one to three song-like singing exercises in the order of 16 measure length, like that of Vaccai or Sieber (those are for classical singing/voice training, there might be something else for pop/musical and similar but it's not like the fundamental fitness and production should be much different), and 10 minutes on stuff you like, assuming that you like it because you pretty much already know how you want it to sound.

Spending much less on the first two categories is a bit of a waste of time. Also you should seriously consider taking vocal lessons until you are reasonably confident to know what and how and whereto to work on in the 25/25 parts, and occasionally afterwards. At least get some reasonably recommended/qualified training material/CD. That will not match your current requirements at a given time like a good teacher does but it's at least a reference point.

Answer 2

Remember the old joke about the guy who gets into a taxi in New York? He asks the driver which way is it to Carnegie Hall? And the driver replies, "Practice, man, practice."

Whatever routine you can stick with is good. Every bit helps.

It is very very good that you are taking the step of listening to yourself recorded. That can give you excellent feedback on sections and techniques you need to focus on.

Don't forget that aA huge part of practice is developing the muscle memory so your vocal tract can do what your brain asks for, without you having to micromanage each muscle. In that sense it is like typing.

The only way for it to be ingrained is for it to be second nature.

So keep up what your doing, and take Mr. user28900's advice, too. Your recordings will help you with your development.

I wish you the best. You're on the right track.