Happyboyz

My advice is to be wary of singing 'methods' and 'exercises". I've found the most efficient and quickest way to improve my voice has been singing songs, lots and lots of different songs, day after day after day. But NOT singing along with already made recordings where there's other vocalists ... that's useless. I'm a musician so I can easily accompany myself, and I usually spend 1 to 2 hours a day practicing songs. It really works well for me. +1 Yep, nothing beats good old fashioned PRACTICE. Just sing in your "own" voice and do it often; and don't slavishly copy other singers when you're not vocally equipped to do so, as that can damage your voice.

This is one of the best and most accurate posts I've read on this site. I'd advise any up and coming singer to read it over and over, as it contains a lot of wisdom. I've been associated with many singers over the years, and a common serious error they often make is to sound like other people, people who have radically different physical vocal capacities. Rockaronie uses the term "they try in vain", and that's so true. For every person that can sing in multiple styles/ways/voices/pitches, there's thousands who can't. Not because they are lesser singers, but simply because they are not physically equipped from a biological standpoint. So they struggle, year after year, and often "in vain". Many do damage to their voice. Struggling to achieve what you're not biologically equipped to do, will not make a person a better singer. Rockaronie also wrote "successful singers sound like themselves, and sing in their own unique voice". More words of wisdom. The vast, vast majority of really capable and famous singers over the last 100 years of popular recorded music all have voices that are unique to them. Trying to do what multiple singers do, and/or trying to sound just like all of them works for the very occasional and gifted singer. But, it's a disaster for the 99.99% of singers who don't have the biological vocal equipment to achieve the result. These are the people who damage their voices, or struggle for years and end up very disappointed. Good on you Rock, you write with good sense. Good singing is definitely not about singing in multiple different ways (except for the occasional singer with a 'gift' for this), good singing is about sounding magnificent in whatever way the singer sings, and effectively communicating the lyric to the audience. Rock mentioned Frank Sinatra. Now there's a singer who sang the one way, song after song and year after year, and he's one of the great legends of magnificent singing of popular music. My advice for singers is to be yourself. You'll get no better advice than that, if your desire is to make a mark as a good singer. +1