Written by Shaun Letang from Music Industry How To.

Are you just getting started as a singer? Great!

What many beginners or wannabes have in common is that they’re a little unsure of themselves. They’re often self-conscious of their voice.

This comes across in their performance. And, for better or for worse, it can even negatively impact how they’re coming across.

If there’s one quality that makes a singer stand out, it’s confidence. If they sing with confidence, even if their technique isn’t perfect, the audience will often respond favorably.

But how does a singer improve their confidence? That’s what we’re going to look at here.

Practice At Home

We can all practice from home.

You could download an app or go onto YouTube and find some warmup exercises to follow along with.

After you’ve warmed up, you could pick a few of your favorite songs and try singing through them.

This will probably feel awkward and weird at first. But you can’t become a better signer without spending time singing.

You must learn to use your voice well, understand its limitations, and begin to develop good breathing and singing technique.

Breathing is half the battle, since you need to move air if you want to project your voice.

Consider watching a few tutorials or lessons online, so you have a good sense of how to use your voice without harming it.

Many singers don’t start out with the best technique and end up straining and even injuring their voice.

So, you should become a student of the voice and learn about the various do’s and don’ts to keep your voice in ship shape. Read up on best practices to keep yourself sharp.

Accompany Yourself Or Practice With Tracks

If you can play an instrument like the guitar or piano, you should try accompanying yourself on an instrument while singing.

Early on, I was better at guitar than I was at singing. In many ways, I still think I’m a better guitarist than singer, but in time I learned to sing a lot better.

This is partly because accompanying myself on guitar gave me a greater sense of confidence.

When you think about it, well-known artists like Bob Dylan, Britney Spears and Rihanna aren’t the best singers in the world.

They’ve learned how to make the most of their voices, sure, but that’s about it.

Interesting, then, that they would have the confidence to go out and sing in front of tens of thousands of people, isn’t it?

Anyway, I’m getting a little sidetracked. If you can accompany yourself on an instrument, awesome. If not, then find tracks to sing along to.

You should be able to find plenty of backing tracks or karaoke tracks on YouTube, and in some cases, you can even find them in your preferred key. How convenient!

You could even find jam tracks intended for lead instrumentalists and practice coming up with your own melodies.

Although singing a cappella should be part of your practice regime, singing along to your instrument or backing track can help you develop better pitch, and that’s super important.

Record & Listen To Yourself

Some singers have no idea what they really sound like. Unfortunately, the sound you hear while you’re singing isn’t accurate.

This is the reason you see so many audition fails on American Idol. These singers aren’t aware how they’re coming across.

There are a couple of important factors that play into this.

First, you must remember that your ears are not pointed in the direction of your mouth. They are pointed outwardly. So, you have no idea what it’s sounding like at the source.

If you’re using a microphone, it is pointed in the direction of your mouth, which makes it a more trustworthy source.

What’s coming out of the speakers is a truer reflection of your voice, though the mic and speakers are undoubtedly coloring your tone.

But even if you’re singing into a mic, while it may help you hear yourself better, it still won’t be an accurate representation of how your sounding.

This is because, second, your voice is vibrating in your head and your body, so it’s incredibly difficult if not impossible to pick up on all the nuances of your vocal pitch and tonality while you’re singing.

When you stop and think about it, singing is an incredible human feat!

So, I would encourage you to record and listen to yourself often to get a better idea of how you’re sounding.

A lot of people don’t like the recorded sound of their voice. It’s fine. Don’t panic. You’ll get used to it.

What you want to pay attention to is your pitch, timing, tone, enunciation and the like. Make note of any areas where you could improve and work on them.

Jam With Friends

Do you have friends who play piano, bass, guitar, drums or otherwise?

Why not organize a jam, get together with them and test out your singing chops?

Working on your music in a collaborative setting is a lot more fun than practicing alone.

And, if your friends are just getting started, they probably aren’t going to criticize you for your lack of skill.

Together, you can choose which songs to work on and have some fun with them.

This is generally a low-pressure situation since your friends will be more concerned with their own performance than yours.

Just make sure you have a microphone and preferably a PA system, as it may prove difficult to hear yourself over the instruments.

And, who knows? You might end up forming a band.

Perform For A Small Group Of Friends & Family

Some people find this to be more nerve wracking than performing in front of a concert audience made up entirely of strangers, so beware.

Still, performing for a small group of friends and family should be an easy sell, because they all love you.

Whether you’re good or bad, they will clap and cheer for you. Just don’t make them sit through a full concert please (I’m being facetious, of course).

Even if you are nervous performing for people you know, the experience will be well worth it. You’ll learn and discover a lot through the experience.

More than likely, you will discover areas you need to improve upon – areas you weren’t even conscious of until you performed in front of an audience. That’s the value of performance.

You can set up as many “home concerts” as you like. It’s worth doing periodically to show off your progress and to get more experience.

Get Lessons

It’s all well and good to spend time in practice on your own. But without proper training, guidance and technique, you could end up doing more warm than good to your voice.

An experienced vocal teacher should be able to help you make the most of your voice.

Not only that, but they’ll be able to teach you singing techniques and tools you wouldn’t otherwise learn by yourself, such as minor scales, solfege, music note reading and more.

I’ve had a few vocal coaches who’ve helped me on my journey.

I recall that one of them once asked me:

“You’re not looking to become a singer, are you?”

He was asking me because there’s a difference between someone who can sing and someone who’s a singer.

I told him all I needed to do was to be able to sing with good technique and stay on pitch.

Now, you may have bigger ambitions than I, and if that’s the case, you’ll need to dedicate yourself to years of training and lessons.

But like me, maybe you just want to get to the point where you can sing well. If that’s the case, you may only need a few months’ worth of lessons.

Either way, lessons will prove invaluable to your progress as a singer and will help you gain more confidence.

Your teacher can help you find your range, work on your breathing technique, correct your pitch, project and more.

While there’s an argument for getting good at singing without lessons, I’d strongly suggest you take lessons if you want to speed up your learning progress.

Practice At Karaoke Bars

Karaoke audiences are generally easy to please (oftentimes because they’re drinking), and what matters is most is a) song choice, and b) confidence.

Keep in mind that the karaoke crowd is there to have fun, and that’s what you should aim to do too. So, if you pick the right song, you’ll be able to get them having fun and singing along.

And, if you perform with confidence, it won’t matter if you mess up. People will have fun anyway.

So, it’s fair to say a karaoke bar is a low-pressure environment, making it the perfect place for you to try out some songs and gain some confidence in yourself and singing ability.

Others who get up to sing will be quite good at signing. But most will not be. So, you should be in good company either way.

Get out there and sing. And, make it your goal to try a new song every time you go out to a karaoke bar.

Book A Show & Perform

It’s human nature to procrastinate and put off what we say we’re going to do.

It doesn’t help us reach our goals, but it does help us stay warm and cozy in our comfort zones. And, the desire to be comfortable is essentially hardwired into our DNA.

But our willingness to step outside of that comfort zone is what leads to breakthrough.

So, if you’ve been signing for a while, I would suggest booking a show at a local pub, bar, or coffeehouse immediately.

It doesn’t matter if you don’t have your set list or band together yet. Having a deadline will motivate you to prepare, practice and get all your ducks in a row.

If you’re a singer, you should absolutely go through this process, even if it proves stressful.

After all, if you end up loving performing and have the desire to make a career out of it, you’ll need to keep stepping outside of your comfort zone for a long time to come. Get used to it!

This isn’t to say it won’t become more comfortable in time, however, because it will.

Regardless, live performance is the best form of practice there is.

This isn’t to suggest that you shouldn’t rehearse well.

What I’m saying is that there are some things you’ll never learn if you don’t get out there and share your talents with an audience.

Conclusion

Many aspiring singers assume if they just keep practicing and get good enough at what they do, they’ll eventually have enough confidence to go up and perform in front of a crowd.

I’m here to tell you there is no correlation.

You can spend years, even decades, improving as a singer, only to find your confidence is about the same.

Confidence does not come from being good at what you do. It comes from being sure about who you are.

So, focus not on how good you are or what you get in the process. Focus on knowing yourself. That’s where true confidence comes from, and what will help you become a happier singer.

Then, get out there and sing, no matter how nervous it might make you feel!