I'm a singer, but I am getting anxious because of being rhythmically challenged. I've had vocal training, but none seemed to really know how to help me out in this respect. I'm fine with everything else but this.
I can sing along to a song track or singing along with other people, but when it comes to singing to a backing track or instrumentals that don't have a clear cut beat as well, I get so lost. I can tap my foot to the beat and everything, but when I have to sing as well, I sound like a robot I've heard. I'm not much of an instrumentalist so when I do practice myself, I just play the chords on every beat of each measure. I can sing fine like this or when I have a metronome on or if I have the sheet music in front of me, but otherwise I have difficulties as to where I am in the song.
If someone is playing the piano and it's mostly arpeggios and such or guitar without strumming but only fingering, I cannot for the life of me keep the rhythm and beat of the song. If there is a beat I can latch onto, I will keep beat by tapping my foot, but I can only keep that up for so long because my foot gets tired from continuously tapping to every single beat and it doesn't look too good when performing. Another thing I do to try and keep rhythm and the beat for performances is to just memorize the sheet music itself to know exactly when to come in and when to cut off, but that is becoming difficult to do every time. I want to be able to feel the rhythm so I just need to memorize the lyrics and melody.
I also asked a lot of my musician friends and all they can tell me is that they just feel it so they know where they are in the song or when to come in, etc.
Is there anything I can do to fix this? I see so many people who aren't even musicians or ever formally learned music who has rhythm and can keep beat while they sing.