Hot take: Most of our favourite singers were not trained and did not take singing lessons. Many of them did take some vocal lessons when their careers were already established: Christina Aguilera and Lady Gaga take lessons from Don Johnson; Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder and many others took lessons with Seth Riggs; and we hear the occasional anecdote about rock singers taking classical vocal lessons or visiting various vocal pedagogues when they ran into problems such as nodules.
Why then do we hear singing teachers insisting that you must train the voice before you embark on a professional career, or if you don't know how to sing 'correctly', you'll ruin your voice forever? Here's what I think: If you love singing, spend a lot of time singing and are musically gifted, you'll eventually figure it out yourself. You'll get to know your voice inside out and realise it's strengths and weaknesses. You'll passionately and diligently work out your tone and nuances, and you'll identify when you need help and source that help with discernment.
If you have not yet arrived at where you want to be then the assistance of a good teacher can be the difference between giving up forever and really finding yourself as a singer
However, how long this will take is like a game of Russian roulette. If you are 22 years old, singing with a band, recording your music and happy with your tone and ability then you may not see the need to take lessons. However, if you have not yet arrived at where you want to be and are frustrated that your singing ability does not match up to the potential you feel you inherently have deep inside you, are regularly straining your voice, feeling inhibited when performing or not delivering consistent results, then the assistance of a good teacher can be the difference between giving up forever and really finding yourself as a singer.
It depends what your 'thing' already is. You might be incredibly expressive with a very unique tone and would benefit from some classical technique training to gain more control over your voice. Or, you might be wanting to sing higher than you can currently go and need some technique training to bridge from the chest to the head voice in a more balanced way. You might be a rock singer who suffers from hoarseness after a show and would like to incorporate a good warm up and warm down routine. Or you may simply be feeling like your voice is 'meh' and you're frustrated that you can't find a more strident or intense quality in your voice.
Choose a mentor who has mentors
As a singer and voice teacher, I have many mentors myself whom I love to take sessions with, as well as regularly picking the brains of singers I admire or simply listening intently to different singers to figure out how they are doing things. Professional, gifted and well trained singers develop an ear for listening to other singers' technique, delivery, nuances and tone, and they become skilled at emulating and adapting their skills. Shop around: watch live videos, research genres and singers and listen to what they do. Compare and contrast. Don't limit yourself to looking at teachers in your area, get online and find the best ones. Join the forums and communities and find out who's who. Google potential singers and hear what they sound like live. If they sound amazing and can relay that to their students with quick results, that's a great place to start.
To read about my teaching style, technique training and to hear me sing, have a scroll through my website by clicking here:
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