To pursue a singing career, aspiring singers should know and understand the basic components in singing before anything else. It is essential to have a solid foundation and knowledge of these things before jump-starting your career, to lessen your mistakes and failures in the process.
There are 5 basic components in singing. These are pitch, rhythm, breathing, voice and diction. Below is an overview of these components.
1. Pitch relates to the notes and sounds of a person when singing. How the pitch is emitted determines if the song (or the singer) sounds excellent or not. So it’s essential that you study the pitch of every song you choose very well. You have to hit the pitch of a song as accurate as possible and sing in tune, as expected from any singer, whether professional or amateur. To achieve this, singers have to undergo trainings under a singing coach, to recognize intervals and pitches, to be able to correct off-key notes, and to be able to vocalize different notes. In other cases, you can train all by yourself by recording how you sing and playing it over and over again to point out your mistakes.
2. Rhythm is pretty much the beat or groove of a song, which you have to keep up with all throughout the duration of the song. If you’re constantly trying to catch up with the beat of a song, it is an indication of bad singing. To be able to have a fantastic sense of rhythm, again you have to learn some singing basics, such as how to recognize diverse beat durations, to vocalize your notes with various beats, and to be able to hold onto the basic tempo of a song.
3. Breath or breathing is included in singing lessons most singing teachers would introduce to their students. Breathing is innate in us, but which becomes quite difficult to achieve for some singers because of body tensions. You have to familiarize yourself with breathing properly for a lot of reasons. For one, proper breathing creates better sound, and second, it relaxes the voice as well. So the solution to breathing problems is to learn the tricks in breathing correctly, especially when singing. Subsequently, the aspiring singer should get orientation as well of the importance of proper breathing to truly appreciate it. Take all these things together and the singer is surely on the right track.
4. Voice shouldn’t be taken for granted. After all, the first thing that your audience notices is the quality of your voice. This is like the defining line for most singers on how they will be judged. What you can do is to strengthen your vocal apparatus through singing exercises. These vocal exercises can boost the quality of your voice and help create wonderful sounds when singing. So voice will have to be one of the important singing basics amateur singers should master.
5. Diction refers to how you form the sound of the words or pronounce the words in your song. If you have a good diction, your listeners can easily grasp the lyrics and understand the message of the song. You should also be able to connect with your audience through the song. A good diction produces a clear and smooth sound of the words. Such is why having a great singing voice is not enough to please your audience. Being one of the basic components in singing, a good diction can be acquired in several ways, such as constant practice reading and studying the correct pronunciation of vowels and consonants.
If you want to become a singer, voice alone won’t take you to a successful singing career. It takes that and more. But begin by understanding these basic components in singing and mastering it by heart.
