Singing is a skill we can all practice even without anyone helping us.
Some people like to sing to their children or families, others at karaoke. Some people busk and use their voices to make a little money, and some people perform and have dreams of stardom.
No matter what level you’re at or what level you want to be at, you can hire a vocal coach to help you improve your voice.
If it’s something you want to be good at for fun, you can hire a coach. If you want to sing professionally, you can also hire a coach!
What Is a Vocal Coach?
There are actually a few different types of instructors who can help people learn how to sing.
A teacher focuses on the general subject, for example, how to sing.
An instructor teaches a more focused subject, like how to sing falsetto.
A coach teaches you individually to best use your own voice based on your personal anatomy, skills, and preferences.
Sometimes these jobs will overlap and you can find one person who can cover all the bases. Other times, you might consider having more than one person on your team to ensure you learn and practice in the best ways.
You can count on a singing, voice, or vocal coach to be your best advocate and they can help you decide if you need further instruction from a different specialist.
I'm also taking singing classes as well, not that I ever plan to sing in public in my entire life. I actually have a phobia of singing, so I decided to take some singing lessons to help me get away from the phobia.
Kelly Hu
Who Needs a Vocal Coach?
Everyone can benefit from a singing, voice, or vocal coach. Even people who don’t sing can learn to improve their voice!
But, who actually needs a coach?
If you want to kick your singing up to the next level, maybe in order to pursue it as a professional, then you will most likely need a coach.
While it’s possible to get pretty far being only self-taught, a coach can help you advance your skills quickly and more effectively.
Reaching a plateau with your singing or feeling unable to perform exactly what you want to do are things a vocal coach can help with.
If you experience strain or discomfort while singing, you definitely want to seek out the help of a professional. They will help identify the reasons you feel malaise in your vocal tract and give you methods to help avoid damage.
Pros of Hiring a Vocal Coach
Having your own personal singing advocate has quite a few advantages. Remember, a vocal coach specializes in helping you work with your own voice to the very best of your ability.
With a coach, you have someone whose job it is to help you improve, succeed, and meet tangible goals.
Improved Vocal Technique
Your vocal coach can help you improve your vocal technique by teaching you exercises, drills, and warm-ups.
They will teach you the best ways to breathe depending on what you are trying to achieve with your voice at the moment.
With their guidance, you can also learn tone and pitch control so your singing voice sounds exactly the way you want it to.
Mastering your tone is extremely important for singers because it’s one of the things that set you apart from every other singer.
Learn to Own Your Voice
For many people, learning to build confidence while singing is a really hard hurdle to get over. Singing can feel very vulnerable, and even if you really want to get out there and sing your heart out, you might hesitate because of your nerves.
Your vocal coach will help you learn to overcome stage fright. They will also teach you how to appear confident even if you aren’t, so the audience is none the wiser.
On top of that, a coach can teach you techniques to strengthen and project your voice and get it to perform exactly the way you intend.
Learning to ‘own’ the song you’re singing is a big part of becoming a successful singer. Feeling or appearing timid, unsure, or even bored will be perceived by the audience and critics.
Imagine if singers and performers like Michael Jackson, Adele, and Lady Gaga lacked conviction. Their performance would go from fabulous to flop really quickly. Part of the magic of any act is that the performer truly owns what they are putting out.
Find professional singing lessons Melbourne here on Superprof.
Repertoire Selection
To build your talent and broaden your skills, your coach can choose songs specifically for you to practice.
Some songs will fall within your existing boundaries, so you can work on honing what you already have. Other songs they choose might push your skills a little bit, so you can begin to grow your skills.
Your coach can also teach you modified versions of songs that would otherwise not fit your skillset.
With all of these thoughtfully selected songs, you will have practice material to use to measure your progress as well as a cache of songs at the ready for performing.
Having a mastery of these songs will also help you develop your own style, timbre, tone, flair, atmosphere, or whatever you’d like to call it. You can confidently modify songs to be very different from the source material, but that match the energy you want them to have.
Look at some covers of songs like Lorde’s cover of “In the Air Tonight” by Phil Collins or Nirvana’s cover of “Where Did You Sleep Last Night” by Lead Belly. The cover sounds completely different from the original, but it matches the tone of the cover artist perfectly.
Injury prevention
Even seasoned singers can find that they’ve been practising sub-optimal vocal techniques. This leads to injuries like vocal cord strain which causes chronic hoarseness, pain when speaking, changes in vocal pitch, and odd-sounding speech.
Other injuries can include nodules (like callouses on the vocal folds), polyps or cysts, fibrosis of the vocal folds, and rupture of the vocal cord lining which causes bleeding.
They can be caused by straining while singing, forcing the voice to hit pitches it’s not comfortable with, singing too much, smoking, laryngitis, physical damage to the throat, and shouting or screaming.
Some of these injuries can change how your voice feels and sounds permanently.
Prevention is the best way to combat these injuries. Your coach can give you warm-ups to practice as well as instructions on how to protect the voice while singing. Cool down and resting tips are also helpful.
Personalized Feedback
The absolute best part of having a personal vocal coach is the expert feedback they can give you.
They want you to learn everything there is to know about your whole body as it sings. Their skilful eye and ear can identify where the trouble is coming from and how to fix it.
From head to toe, your vocal coach can help you improve your posture, breathing, singing technique, confidence, and more.
You can find a personal vocal coach for singing lessons Adelaide or any other city (or online!) with Superprof.
Cons of Hiring a Vocal Coach
There are very few downsides to having a personal vocal coach on your side. But, it’s still good to be aware of the negatives.
Cost
The biggest negative factor to having a coach is the cost. If you have a lot of income that can be used to fuel your passions, you shouldn’t let this stop you.
If you have fewer funds for things like this, hiring a coach might be something you need to put off for a while.
You can always try to find group classes or a coach who works with a sliding scale to try to make costs more affordable for you.
Another solution is to take lessons with your coach for a short time, or at a lower frequency. Maybe you attend a lesson once per month rather than once per week. Or, you work with your coach for an intensive one month and then go off on your own until you need a coach again.
Time Commitment
Schedules need to line up in order for you to attend vocal training sessions.
If you and your coach don’t have the same free time in your schedules, you simply will not be able to learn from them.
If your training is in-person, you also have to factor in commuting time any time you go. You also won’t be able to change your mind on a whim or cancel last minute unless you don’t mind paying cancellation fees.
Compatibility
While your coach’s job is to help you, you might still have a personality mismatch that is not conducive to good coaching sessions.
Any time you seek out someone to work with, be it a therapist, a house cleaner, a business partner, or any other person, you need to ensure that you have good chemistry.
Sometimes the chemistry just isn’t right, and you might need to seek a new coach.
Pressure and Discomfort
Even if your coach is being extremely helpful and understanding, you might feel pressure to perform. Perhaps you have a fear of singing in front of others and it’s making you very uncomfortable in your sessions.
You might even feel like your coach is pushing you at a pace that is too fast (or too slow) than what you want.
If these are issues you can’t work out with your vocal coach, you might have to find another coach.
Risk of Dependence
Even if your coach teaches you well, it’s possible that you might find that you have a hard time internalising the skills they are giving you.
In the beginning, your coach might be doing a lot of heavy lifting so that you become equipped to help yourself more later on.
You have to be sure to learn and use the skills your coach gives you or else you might fall into the trap of leaning too heavily on your vocal coach.
Overall, the benefits of having a vocal coach far outweigh the drawbacks.
If you want to develop your singing voice, craft your tonal style, or otherwise become a better vocalist, consider hiring a vocal coach for professional singing lessons!
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It is very concise and accurate article which covers almost everything I needed to know
Hi Jaagrat, thank you for reading! I’m glad you found the article helpful.