I'm thinking of paying a tutor online, but I'm curious about other ways to go about it
4 hours ago by MrGando
I've been playing Piano for ~28 years, almost went professional (Jazz) but ended up doing engineering. My advice would be to find a teacher, if you know nothing about it you need a teacher that corrects you so that you don't develop bad habits. Once you're no longer a novice, you can start learning other things on your own.
When looking for a teacher, I wouldn't try to find "the best" or "most virtuoso" around, but what works for you. Try several teachers, get some sessions with 2-3 and find which one is the one that motivates you the most, and understands you the most. A teacher is like a coach and a partner in an adventure... the most important thing is that they can make you progress and keep you motivated.
Good luck :)
4 hours ago by neltnerb
I agree, I'd been singing a lot since I was 7, including touring Europe when I was 11. I didn't stop practicing at any point in there but also never had access to professional voice teachers because of the cost.
Taking a single course in college that got me a little one-on-one attention (just one in a class of ten or so) improved my technique so significantly that I can compare recordings of myself from before and after that class and it's night and day. I don't think I'd have figured out what I was doing wrong without that attention, but they were able to hear it instantly and recommend solutions.
And that's with a solid decade plus of experience in choirs prior to taking that class, it's not like I was a true novice. It's just really not as easy or obvious as it looks.
an hour ago by xrd
This is such a brilliant comment: "so you don't develop bad habits."
I went to Japan as an exchange student when I was 16. I had never studied Japanese at all. The thing that surprised me the most was how hard it was for foreign students to unlearn the bad things they learned inside their American classrooms by listening to their friends.
Most of them picked up bad pronunciations, bad grammar practices. Even if they were diligent (which is being generous for the high students they sent over with me), they would hear other students speaking in ways that made sense to them from their perspective of how English works. They would hear and repeat Japanese words in the bad pronunciation style their friends in class did, and those ways make sense. But, none of those practices were what Japanese people did.
I often remark on how fortunate I felt to have only learned Japanese in a setting where I only heard correct pronunciation and heard statements made by natives. In three months I was ahead of others who had studied back in the US for two or three years or more.
I would really love to see if anyone has studied this effect inside the world of software engineering. We pride ourselves in the hacker culture where self-directed learners are glamorized, but I wonder whether having good teachers and getting good feedback early on would make a large or small difference long term. This could be a startling alternative to the "naturally brilliant prodigy" stories we always hear.
25 minutes ago by songzme
I've been teaching coding (on the side) and doing software engineering for the past 10 years. There's a recent surge of self learners who believe in studying coding the way they believe should be studied (which is ironic, given how little experience they have). The moment they got a job, they turn around and proudly talk about "This is how I did it, you learn x, y, z and you can get a job like me" and influence the next batch of self learners. Bootcamps also buy into this ideology.
Instead, the engineers I appreciate on my team has very little to do with what they know. Instead of hiring engineers who only cares about the latest and greatest, I value engineers who: communicate openly, write good tests, and cares about the product enough to fix bugs without having someone create a jira ticket for them, and has good debugging skills.
When I'm not at work, I teach coding to a small group of self learners in my local community by telling them to focus on user experience and writing good tests instead learning every popular libraries out there. Its okay to know only 1 or 2, it is important to know it well. Together, we work on an open source project with 100% test coverage: https://github.com/garageScript/c0d3-app
We hired one of these students who was a core contributor and I hope to hire more directly once more recs opens up onto my team.
20 minutes ago by bobloblaw45
Having some sort of teacher also does a better job of holding you more accountable. So that you're a little more motivated to stick with it which is critical early on before the bug bites or before a habit/routine forms.
4 hours ago by pen2l
Where does one even begin to look for a teacher? Where do these guys publicize their services?
For context, I'm an amateur guitarist with an interest in singing Sufjan Stevens songs.
3 hours ago by CSSer
Usually local music shops or chains that sell gear also employ or rent space to instructors. Qualifications can vary a lot, which is why I strongly support the suggestion others have made to try out multiple teachers.
For lessons particularly, err on the side of thinking youâre not the problem. Youâre paying hourly for this, and if you donât click with the teacher it could be fairly expensive to âmake it workâ. Some people are also great artists but terrible instructors. That wouldnât be so bad if it werenât for the fact that they are also often completely ignorant of that fact.
3 hours ago by jimhefferon
In addition to the other excellent suggestions, you can check in with the music department of a local college or university.
3 hours ago by 5555624
Check local churches. If they hae a good choir, the director might teach people or know of teachers in the area. (Growing up, my local church the director of the choir was a first tenor in the US Army chorus for 30 years.)
11 minutes ago by nolite
superprof.com
10 minutes ago by songzme
I've been paying a tutor to teach me korean for a year with a twist. I told my tutor to not teach me anything, all I want is honest feedback about how I sound. What accent I make and how to say things a certain way. She just listens and tells me the impression I give off.
With her feedback I am able to self adjust to reflect my personality when I speak Korean.
Personally, I feel like getting a tutor to "teach you" something in the artsy space may slow down your search to find your own voice that resonates with you. Maybe you can pay a tutor to just "listen to you" and tell you what you sound like to the other person.
On the other hand, if your goal is to just to imitate other singers, I would suggest getting a tutor to teach you like many other are suggesting.
13 minutes ago by amelius
Join a choir! Find one with suitable level, and with the kind of repertoire that you like, and with a teacher that actually teaches the technical aspects.
But it doesn't really matter actually, because once in a choir you will meet people, learn from other people, learn about other choirs, and it's quite normal that people switch to different choirs every so often.
Also, people say that a choir is important for one's musical development, and I have to agree.
PS: the first few sessions may feel overwhelming but this is quite normal and most choir members have learned that new people will need some time to get accustomed to singing. In my experience, most new people will sing along very softly, and then suddenly after a few weeks they will become more confident and more audible. This is totally normal.
PPS: until the covid19 situation is over, perhaps "online" lessons as others have mentioned are a better idea.
3 hours ago by mrxd
Getting a voice teacher made a huge difference for me. I wouldn't have been able to make anywhere close to the same progress on my own.
Having tried it, I think singing is poorly suited to self-learning. In my experience, vocal lessons are designed around identifying and overcoming problems and habits that are unique to each person. Identifying problems is done by ear or by observing subtleties in body posture, which require experience and training.
21 minutes ago by alexilliamson
For everyone saying "find a teacher": what specifically will the teacher will pick up on, that I can't pick up on my own listening voice recordings of myself?
The situation is, I've known that I should find a teacher for many years. However, I can be quite stubborn and have instead been recording myself playing guitar/singing for the past several years. With debatable progress.
I know I should find a teacher, but what should I look for? My guitar is fine.. I've played since I was 12 and had a lot of lessons back then. So I feel better about self-studying guitar.
I've also been singing for that long, but without any actual instruction. Help!
4 minutes ago by stannic_pidgeon
> what specifically will the teacher pick up on Singing is not at all intuitive, and it is likely that the actions to take towards a goal will be counter productive and place an upper limit on your progress.
For example, if you try to sing a note on the top of your range you will likely resort to "muscling" the note by adding tension, but this approach if far from optimal, and will limit the amount of range you can add.
This is coming from me as a semi-professional classical vocalist, but I will also admit that my advice is likely much less useful for people interested in the kind of singing common in country or indie/folk music, as these kinds of music require much less technical complexity in their vocal production.
5 hours ago by jbms
I personally got a lot of benefit from singing teachers who posted daily vocal warm-ups on Youtube that you can try and sing along to, and they tell you what to do and what not to do. Exercises to separately work on and develop your posture, airflow, vocal chord usage etc are useful as you can improve the individual parts. I'd never had any vocal training and am not trying to be amazing - just to improve and have some control and consistency. Some also post classes, where you can see them coaching others and learn from them.
Particularly I'd mention Eric Arcenaux: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5hS7eukUbQ
Listening to podcasts by performers about their daily routine might be useful if you want to know what they need to do to care for their voice in order to be able to perform daily.
37 minutes ago by kinleyd
Eric is highly recommendable. He has lots of free lessons on Youtube that provide a foundation for all styles of singing.
4 hours ago by rahimnathwani
Eric also has Udemy courses:
23 minutes ago by undefined
2 hours ago by GSGBen
Get regular Skype lessons with Kegan from https://www.bohemianvocalstudio.com. He also has YouTube videos up so you can get a taste for what he focuses on first. Don't worry if he doesn't sing in the exact style you want, because it's all about foundational principles. It's life-changing stuff.
If that won't work for you and you're set on in-person lessons, try to find someone who was never a natural singer, and had to learn everything from scratch. They'll be able to pass on more than someone who started with a basic natural ability.
an hour ago by scottmcf
Agreed. I trained under an opera singer in college, which couldn't be further from the genres of music I play in, but the underlying principles of bel canto singing were transformative for me.
Daily Digest
Get a daily email with the the top stories from Hacker News. No spam, unsubscribe at any time.