On Careers, when filling out my CV, it is listed as being 145% complete.  Could someone tell me why this is?


Question: Can anyone learn to sing?
Answer: ABSOLUTELY! I'm very enthusiastic about this question, which I hope is conveyed by my use of exclamation marks. The reason being is because I can personally relate to this question.

I have always wanted to learn to sing since I learned to play guitar. I was very reluctant at first and very terrible. I was put down a lot by people telling me to stop singing or stop trying (including my loving mother), but alas I pressed on because I enjoyed it even if I was terrible.

I want to give you a few tips to learn to sing because I wish I had these tips when I was learning. I learned all on my own, and that's why I know anybody can.


First things first, the best piece of advice I can give you is to buy a good computer mic like the Yeti Silver (that's what I use) and it's currently at a big discount right now from Amazon. Then get a good pair of over-ear headphones. Connect your mic to your computer, and connect your head phones to your mic. Put em on and start singing. This is good because now you can hear yourself instantly how other people hear you and it lets you adjust your voice right away instead of recording and waiting to play the record back until you can hear yourself. Trust me there is a huge difference--while we can hear our own voices well enough to get the basics, it is a world of difference to hear yourself with a microphone.
Learn to accept that your voice has certain qualities that make it different from other voices. When I started I always tried singing with a sort of whispery head voice because I didn't like how my natural voice sounded and thought it to be aweful. The truth is, all of your voices (every part of your vocal system) can sound great with training. This includes falsetto which will sound bad until you practice and smooth it out. Actually I recently posed a question asking if I could make my falsetto like Brian Mcknight and I found out for myself not too long after because I was practicing it a lot. Check it out here.
Practice singing scales. It's good that you can play guitar because it gives you the advantage of having a musical ear over someone who doesn't play anything. Also it gives you something to guide your voice with. You know when you're tuning your strings to each other without a tuner--ie hit the sixth string on the fifth fret and make it so it sounds like the fifth string. Well you can hear when it's out of tune or not, so all you have to do is practice singing say a C scale. Sing it and when your voice is off fix it until it matches then go up and down. Practice the vocal dexterity of switching notes. I'll tab the C scale for you for convenience. At the bottom is the C scale tabbed for guitar.
Use Youtube to find vocal practice lessons. This is good to give you new ways of practicing your vocals. There's a lot more to singing that just being in tune, and you'll find that out as you sing more. Of course this can get kind of boring, but it's good to explore.
Pay attention to good singers. When you hear a good singer, pay attention to their vocals and what they are doing and how it sounds. The more I learned to sing, the more I could distinguish between different kinds of voices. (When I say voices, I'm referring to head, chest, and falsetto etc.) It's like when you can already play guitar and you hear a guitar song, you can pick out a lot more parts because you already speak the guitar langauge--bow chika wow wow. Did you just hear the wawaw pedal there? :)
ENJOY IT! Screw what anybody tells you about singing. You are your own person and if you want to be good at something or learn something you need to practice. When you start learning you're not gonna be good, but you need to have the conviction to keep it up and put other people's thoughts and comments out of your mind. One day you're gonna be good and they will eat their words. I was put down a lot when I was learning, but I kept learning because I wanted so bad to be good and I enjoyed it. Also, it helps to have a quiet place where you can practice to slowly gain confidence before you're practicing around other people. 


Hope this helps. Good luck and keep practicing.