Glad to hear that is helpful@studio.
When you watch it, can you see what I am talking about. You play some note correctly, but when you are whistling, or sing, you at times, kinda of rush thru a little progression of the same notes, or progression you played fine when not whistling or singing, as though you sort of fell begins and RUSH to catch up.
It is very slight, almost unnoticeable, and to someone who does not play, therefore listen to music the way we are training ourselves to, probably wouldn’t notice.
And I could be wrong, I am the only one who said anything about it. Maybe, me, training myself to pay attention to things like this, am getting it wrong, and hearing something that’s not there. So if others and you think it’s right, it may be, but if you also see / hear it, and some others do as well, then we know it’s there, and something to work on.
That challenge is really cool. Is that an SBL thing?
I thought I saw some challenges offered there. If so, I think I confused the Players Pass with the challenges offered.
My singing is so bad that even karaoke is embarrassing.
And it doesn’t help that my wife is a talented R&B singer who just slays at karaoke. She was also so good at piano that her high school/college piano teacher urged her to go pro. And she played drums for years. But she now has zero interest (actually negative interest) in music at all as she was more or less forced into music lessons as kid and quit as soon as she was able to. Just no joy there for her, despite talent.
As they say, FML
It made for some humbling conversations while dating though.
Me: “Oh hey, you played piano? I was a keyboardist in my college band.”
Her: “Cool! what classics can you play? I could play most Bach, Mozart, Beethoven…”
Me: “Um - I think I remember how to play Für Elise?”*
Her: “That’s, um… cute.”
*it turns out even this pathetic attempt was incorrect
No not SBL but another UK based bass school. I don’t want to plug another program on this forum out of respect for Josh and the great work he is doing.
Does anyone know of any good online singing lessons? Just like playing bass, I’d be starting from a complete beginner’s standpoint, so, would need something like a B2B, but for learning how to sing / manipulate your voice.
I find I sing sometimes when playing bass, or, just trying to hum or sing the notes at the same time I play them. I feel like it’s helped in learning notes, and improving on knowing what pitch something is, or, just to figure out a bassline.
That said, I’m pretty bad at it. That’s why, I feel like, with some practice, maybe things could improve, and also, some bass playing skills improve too at the same time? Has anyone tried this? What was your experience like?
Hey @Vik… Might try checking out your local music store. Many offer singing lessons much like lessons for instruments. I would think that Have a one on one live session for voice would be a much better option than anything online since there will be someone there in the room giving you live face to face feedback.
I recently started singing and have been looking for lessons.
The one I liked most were “Dans Voice Essentials” - not nearly as good as B2B, but I feel like that is a high standard.
They have an introduction course to tease you for it - once you register you get a one week course and after that you still can decide if you should buy the course or not. He also has a great deal of youtube videos.
I personally didn’t buy the course so I can’t review it. It’s not because I don’t think it’s worth the money, because it might well be. It wasn’t even that expensive. I ethink 60$? €? something. It’s because I’m at such a level that I personally think I have enough value out of the 7 day course and do those basic exercises until I feel a need to progress.
Currently I am doing singing exercises with my phone (sing sharp on android, but there are lots of those apps. I tried some and like this one the best so far) and playing UltraStar Deluxe (= Singstar)
The “SuperiorSinging” channel on youtube has also a singing course, but I very much dislike the presenter there so it’s a nono for me. Also his advertising is way more annoying on his free stuff compared to others. Basically you can stop watching when he adds “and I have one extra tip for you that will improve your sing…” because that’s just advertising his course.
That being said - I also took some technical advice from that channel.
Overall I gotta say the singing courses feel less structured. I think it’s also harder to structure a singing course compared to an instrument. The voice is an instrument everyone of us uses and it’s hard to say at which level the “start” or “entry point” is. Also the vocal range differs. To an extend you can train your vocal range, but it’s not like a bass voice does the exercises in the same pitch as a countertenor.
If you find a good course which seems structured for a “complete beginner” singer please let me know. The closest I have found is Dans Voice Essentials as said.
My experience with it is not that I get better at bass playing, but my overall musical knowledge and my ear for music gets trained when actively training sining. You can’t just press a string down at a certain fret. You have to hear the pitch and recreate it with your voice. So overall I would say it does not improve bass playing in particular. I would say it improves something I would call “musical awareness”, which assists in playing any music.
I did end up signing up with 30 Day Singer, which, has a 30 day set of beginner geared lessons with each of 3 different instructors. The videos are good, and are a short lesson each day, although, it is really self paced. I’ve been into it for a week, but am still only on day 4. Then, there are further lessons on specific topics, advanced lessons, a forum where the instructors are around for questions, and some weekly live webinars too. 14 day trial, but I signed up for the 1 year at $99 yesterday.
I think you’re right! But, I’m so new right now, my goal is to just learn the very basics with online instruction, get my voice acclimated a bit to this, and feel the whole topic out a bit, prior to delving into time with an instructor - also, I wouldn’t even know what to ask or focus on right now, I’m too new, just like when I started Josh’s course. Just stared at the forum topics here for awhile, didn’t really “get” what most of them were even talking about
I love hearing your experience with this so far, and, will look at Dan’s Voice Essentials here. From what I’ve done so far, totally agree with what you say there about musical awareness, which, indirectly, is useful to bass playing, or playing any type of music. It probably helps that my vocal register is in the bass-baritone range, the lowest of them all, so, for me, it helps me connect to the low notes my bass already plays
Please give me/us updates about your experience with the course. And also how you think it compares to Dans lessons since you wanted to take a look. It might influence my buying decision once I feel the need to progress.
Not immediately of course, but I would like to know what you think after another week or so.
Haven’t heard of you @Vik so I thought I check and I have a little bit of an update myself.
I still practice and still sometimes use videos because purely apps don’t teach you technique. At least I haven’t found one.
Still I have found the practice app I like the most so far: Riyaz
It starts with determining your range/shruti and then adjusts the basic lessons for your range. Other apps had adjustable ranges but this one is the most beginner friendly I have seen so far. I liked it so much I started a subscribtion.
It seems it offers 3 different courses but I am just interested in the western style singing course.
The lessons are in sequence and you learn different intervals and speeds bit by bit and it kind of builds up on each other and often repeats the basics you started with. I’m not very far into the course but so far I’m happy with it.
Then I had an episode of training the same song over and over and over on UltraStar and I improved for that song but everything else did not get better. Should have known better.
Now that I returned to “normal” and generic workouts my scores in Ultrastar imrpove steadily but for all songs. I did not nearly reach the same score as I did when binge training the one song. So it seems to make sense to train for a specific song if one has reason to do so but it barely improves your overall skill. At least that seems to be true for me.
I am not trying to start any argument with you @Lanny and @Vik , but let’s think about this. I will never say a live lesson has less value then an online lesson, in principle.
For instance, a singing lesson with a glorified singing coach to the stars would ALMOST always be better then an online lesson with the same glorified singing coach to the stars. I would not question that, and in this scenario, I question the need for the two to be in the same room as each other for this to be effective, I mean, there is no physical instrument, they are not going to physically place your fingers on the strings correctly. Like I said, not saying the online lesson is not better, just wonder why it would not be as effective, assuming conditions are on par, good internet connection, good audio and video on both ends. All this in place, I don’t know I can see a difference. Doesn’t mean it’s not there, but other then possibly, comfort of the student to be in the teachers presence, I don’t see it. And for some, that might be enuf off a difference.
But Flip that around,
A- Live lesson - singing coach of the stars
Vs.
B - Online lesson - new employee at GC
Obvious winner is A
But
A - Live lesson - employee of GC
Vs.
B - Online lesson - singing coach of the stars
Think I would go B.
Just saying, online holds a lot of value, and has a rightful place for good instruction
Sure. Another argument that is that it is easy to come by even during these corona times. The other thing is that you have different sources you can easier pick and chose from and find a teacher that ‘clicks’ with you.
I also feel like the app assistance is something that did not exist a decade or two ago (or I didn’t know of it) and it is really helpful to have instant visual feedback instead of having to rely on your ear as you can mainly focus on your voice. The downside is probably that you don’t train your ears as much with that training anymore.
Then there’s also the aspect of “I don’t want to sing in front of others” (yet).
That said what I am missing is guidance. This could also be provided by an online teacher but I haven’t been looking for 1on1 lessons yet. Maybe I’ll have a look around soon.
This is so true, I’ve found that there are so many apps for singing, from practicing getting pitch correct, to karaoke types of singalong apps. You can self correct yourself with these, which is helpful, but they don’t really provide any instruction. Glad you found a practice app you like though - I think just practicing is helping to improve at some level!
For sure, with a good instructor, that’s the biggest variable, I think, for any lessons, online or live. I tried an online one-on-one session with a voice coach, we really narrowed down my vocal range, and I got actual confirmation of what it was instead of trying to guesstimate with apps and such. Only thing with online, Zoom doesn’t work so well with simultaneously singing, so, difficult to sing scales along with the instructor, she had to play a note on a piano, then I sing it back, then she can let me know if I’m flat or sharp.
All good though! @juli0r I am curious, have you found your vocal range yet? I ask, because mine is a baritone, about an A2 - A4, which is actually perfect with bass, it covers so many of the notes on a bass, so I’ve found I can sing the notes as I play them. I can sing some lower notes and some higher, but this is my comfort zone.
Does anyone sing their bass notes as they play? I think Gio recommended this, and it is helpful, you start getting comfortable with knowing intervals by ear, though, I still need practice on this! It also helps in being able to identify a note by ear. Still a long ways off on this though too!
Pretty sure we’re around the same range. I can’t say because I guesstimate as beginner and with apps and so on but the apps tell me something like G2 - E4 while it is really straining to sing the edges of the range I still manage to do it without “oversinging” as I call it. The awful scream sound/voice that’s created when you just push more air through in order to reach a higher pitch.
Also the upper end depends a bit on my daily form. Sometimes I do better and sometimes worse in the upper range. Lower edge of my range is pretty consistent though unless I bring vocal frag into play but I don’t practice that on purpose due to the strain on vocal chords.
I know the feeling! I mean, I can sort of do higher pitches, it just hurts at some point, and, sounds bad, and one early lesson for me was to stop trying that!
Yes, we’re probably the same range. I can get to the low E2 of the open E string on my bass, but that’s the lowest, and my voice gets crackly there, and doesn’t have power.
