30 Days

Now that i have finished the 30 day course, which was awesome. I would like to know exactly how to keep the momentum going, like how many times i should practice a day and what other leasons i should take on here. Along with other resources that might help. 

Hi, Gerardo! Congrats on completing the course!

I recommend keeping your momentum going by replacing the 30 day lessons with lessons from any tutorial you're interested in. Keep warming up daily, and start to challenge yourself with ear training and more advanced song work!

(I just wrote a few articles on this topic - they'll be published soon, but I'm going to include some of the text here!)

A good daily routine can look like (1) Warm up, (2) New lesson or repeat previous lesson, (3) Ear training or Active listening, (4) Working on a specific song. 

The reason my guidance is open-ended is because every singer has different goals and is starting from a different point of ability and experience. It's up to you to decide whether you're ready to move onto a new lesson or if you need to repeat the previous day's. If you feel totally lost, the best thing I can suggest is booking a private lesson (and we have a stay at home discount right now, which I'll link below). 

I hope that helps! See below for discount links and a more thorough explanation. 

60 Minute Lesson (regularly $85, now $59.50)

30 Minute Lesson (regularly $45, now $31.50)

What should my daily routine look like?

 Most importantly: get into the habit of exercising your voice every day. A complete warmup/exercise routine can be about 10-15 minutes and should start with easy, gentle exercises like lip trills, humming, or singing on an NG. You want to gradually open up to syllables that start with a consonant (like MUH or NO), and end with open vowels. It’s okay if you don’t always follow this format, but your warmup (and singing in general) will be easier if you start with gentle, closed exercises (including lip trills, MM, NN, singing through a straw, etc). You can find a variety of warm-up routines on our warm-up page! Day 2 of the 30-day beginner course also contains a complete, gentle warmup you can use daily. 

If you don't have it already, here's the link to download warmup mp3's for each voice type: http://30daysinger.com/audio/bonus-warmups/Vocal%20Warmup%20Bonus%20Gifts.zip.

Once you’re warmed up, you can follow along with a new lesson video. If you want more practice on that specific skill, feel free to repeat the exercises within that video. 

If you have more time and want to keep practicing, here are a few ideas:

1.     Active listening + analysis: listen to your favorite singers to analyze their style and technique. Look for live performances (no lip syncing!) and take note of their posture, mouth shape, vowels, etc. 

2.     Listen to music from different genres: there’s something to learn (and hopefully something to like) in every style of music! It can be especially instructive to listen to the artists your favorite singers have cited as their influences, and see if you can hear similarities. 

3.     Train your ears: to start out, use a virtual keyboard to get a reference pitch and see if you can match that pitch. See how close you can get with a chromatic tuner. We like https://www.harpkit.com/online-tuner and https://tuner.ninja/. 

4.     Consider using an app like SingSharp (android + iPhone), PerfectPitch (iPhone only), or a karaoke app like Smule (android + iPhone), to analyze your pitch accuracy as you sing.

For beginners especially: pay attention to how your voice feels! If you’re experiencing vocal fatigue, cut back on your vocal use and incorporate more listening into your routine as you build stamina. And if you’re ever experiencing a sore throat, please rest your voice! Return to singing when you feel healthy.

Final thoughts:

As with any new skill, you can expect the best results with focused practice in shorter sessions, over a longer period of time. For example: ten minutes a day for one week will produce better results than a single 70-minute session once a week. The more often you return to new skills and coordinations, the easier they sink in and start to become second nature. 

That’s our ultimate goal: training healthy technique as we grow our skills so that healthy technique becomes muscle memory. That’s how we prevent injury AND ensure that even in a high-stress situation (like an audition or performance), our body will know what to do. So while it’s true that building muscle memory takes time, good singing technique can benefit you for the rest of your life.

Best of luck, and happy practicing!

Thank you very much, this is all great information and i will continue building on it. However, I have questions as how to study songs or start to learn them, should i attempt to learn them at the keyboard, which song to choose, and most importantly how to make sure im hitting the pitch that they are hitting. Are there any online music sheets to help with all of this?

You're welcome, Gerardo!

Have you determined your vocal range yet? That will be an important first step in choosing songs. Here's a range finding tool to find your highest and lowest note: https://www.myvocalrange.com/yourvocalrange.php. That site also has a search function to find songs within your range. 

Once you've determined your range, you can use this article to identify your voice type: https://www.30daysinger.com/blog/low-voice-types-bass-baritone-and-tenor-range. 

I've listed several singers for each voice type to get you started choosing songs in your range! You can also search, for example, "best songs for beginner baritones" (or something similar, with your voice type) to get some ideas. If you can sing along with a song comfortably, then it's a good choice! If you have the ability to transpose, then you have even more options, because you can move the key up or down as needed. 

Apps like Smule, PerfectPitch, and SingSharp can help you analyze your pitch in real time. There are plenty of other karaoke apps out there that do the same thing! And you can look for sheet music if that'll help you (if you sight read). For me: I usually learn a song's melody by ear and look up the chords on Ultimate Guitar so I can play along. But you can look for a lead sheet or full sheet music - and if it's an older song, you may be able to find that for free by including "free pdf" in your search. Newer songs are available, but you usually have to pay for them.