Tricks to sing better in tune?

Hi,

I am looking for advice/tricks/exercises that would enable me to sing better in tune, particularly in a PA system.

Even if I have a good monitoring system, I find it very hard to find the right pitch and I have to concentrate a lot, which means I am cut from the audience.

Are there voice exercises that could help me? Thank you.

Singing scales along with a keyboard helps me stay in key.

Sometimes I use tuning software, the same software for tuning a guitar. I sing into the microphone and it shows if my pitch is high or low.

I think it takes a long time and lots of practice. It's like playing violin, it takes longer than a week to sound good.

Just experience, developing your ear and the muscle memory involved in singing. Over time you'll realize you're getting better and better at it, no real shortcut or magic beans, even the schnerp method has a few drawbacks!

Keep practicing!!!!

As mentioned already, I think that singing in tune has more to do with developing your ear than anything.

I'd buy a $50 keyboard off of Craigslist, figure out what your range is, then play and record starting with your lowest note to your highest note (in your range) chromatically (in half steps) up and down the keyboard. Then, just listen (closely) to that over and over (a couple hundred times) and train your brain as to how far those pitches are apart from one another. After you've just listened and focused on how the pitches sound, then try singing them as it plays. Eventually, try singing them without playing behind it, of course using the initial pitch on the keyboard as a reference point.

(And yes, I did exactly this, and it helped me a great deal.)

Hope this helps.

Sing your major scale up and down with he he he, and ha ha ha and ho ho ho. This will put your voice where it needs to be. Its a good exercise.

You have to be able to tell whether you're singing in tune. If you play a (well tuned) guitar or piano you can hear the chords and how they sound "right" and how the individual notes combine to make a pleasant sound. If it's out of tune it sounds wrong. You should be able to sing with the instrument and know when it is right and when it is flat or sharp as compare to the notes the instrument plays. Sometimes the notes you sing are the same as played on the instrument so you should be able to hear that pretty easily. If you're singing a harmony note you have to know (through listening to instrument chords) how it's supposed to sound. To learn how to sing in key, sing along with songs and copy them and record yourself. Do karaoke too so you're not following someone else's vocals. Provided you're singing within your range you should be able to eventually sing it like the record. Your ear should be able to tell you with practice whether you''re singing in tune.