If you don’t know already, I teach singing lessons in Glasgow and have had a whole bunch of new students come on board over the last year all wanting to achieve really cool things with their voices.
However, I have had some people who do come in and they struggle a bit during the singing lesson because they don’t know what song to pick.
Well, I am going to give you a quick guide on how you can choose a great song so that your singing lesson will go really well:
- There are no clear rules to picking songs, but realise your ability
First thing I’d like to say is: there are no clear rules! This sounds a bit counter-intuitive to the whole ‘choice’ thing. You’re probably now thinking that you can sing whatever you want.
Well… yes and no. You see, although a song may have been written in a style or pitch, it doesn’t always have to live there – so technically, you could sing anything at all.
Let’s remember though that this is your first singing lesson so you may want to gauge your singing knowledge and ability before jumping straight into something crazy hard.
2. Your Vocal Style
Consider your vocal style and match it with the song that is of a similar style.
Once you and your singing teacher have worked on the song, you can then look at other songs with that vocal style and when you get confident, begin exploring other styles that you like too.
3. Be a fan of the song you want to sing
Singing is all about heart and feeling so to get what you want out of a song, you need to like the song to start with.
Have you ever heard a singer who is clearly not a fan of what they are singing?
It becomes instantly clear. Not only will it be lacking in passion during your performance of it, it will also lack discipline in your ability to practice it (which is one of the most important parts of learning to sing).
So, do yourself a favour and pick a song that makes you happy when you sing it.
If you are still struggling, you can always get a bit of advice from your singing teacher as to what might be best for you.
One thing that we do sometimes is look at your voice and start really simple with a song like ‘Somewhere over the rainbow’ and identify their vocal style.
Once we’ve identified that, we look at a list of songs that would potentially suit you and pick together.
Happy Voices offer singing lessons in Glasgow – with half price off your first lesson, allowing you a bit of a chance to get to know us.