How do I work up the courage to sing?

[Wiley]

OH TonyW  I can't wait to hear you sing either.  Let it rip!!  I share more here to than anyone else knows about. LOL

[OsCKilO]

Tony has a real good voice ! I have heard some of his mess around stuff. Great bro!

[Maverick31]

LOL

I dunno, how noisy does "solo" performance really get when it comes to that?

Anyway, another concern of mine is that I'm no lyricist, I know nothing when it comes to songwriting or poetry or anything, so I think my first attempt will be a cover of an existing song.

Old thread, but what the heck...

I fee the same way as you do. I have never recorded my singing voice, nor have I ever written and lyrics (up until VERY recent). But as much as I want to sing, I'm very concerned with the outcome.
The only time I sing, is when I'm in the car with me singing with whoever I have playing in the CD player. I have the volume up loud enough to hear myself, but not very much, it causes a blend of voices.

[Ferryman]

The only time I sing, is when I'm in the car with me singing with whoever I have playing in the CD player. I have the volume up loud enough to hear myself, but not very much, it causes a blend of voices.

Great point - you don't sound too bad because someone else is singing and you're not sure if it's their voice or yours that sounds good. So apply that technique when you record vox. What a lot of producers do is get the vocalist to sing the same thing twice and then mix the two vocal tracks together. This thickens the vox (in just the same way you hear in the car) and gives a natural "chorus" feel. You have to be able to sing the two parts pretty similar, but you'll be surprised that it's not that hard. 

There are all kinds of production tricks you can apply with this method (eg make one of the vocal tracks very toppy in EQ terms, apparently rap producers tend to heavily compress one of the vocal tracks to give the vox much more "body") but just doubling them up and mixing together makes a huge difference.

Cheers,

Nigel

[peterp]

I've always thought of picking up some karaoke disks and practicing vocals with them.
Haven't gotten up to doing that (yet), but I have taken some tracks and tried to suppress the vocals.

Worst case do like some not so good guitarists and crank up the reverb & chorus dials  (and get a pitch corrector, I suspect that is used on a lot of modern music )

Myself I wait for times I am left alone to try vocals, I did just buy a pop filter for my mic and that helped a LOT.
Helps suppress the strange desire to try to stick the mic right up to your mouth, which causes a few problems, as well as helps gets rid of the breathing pops and wheezes.

Who knows someday might even get up the courage to let others hear what I've been messing up with

And to start keep it simple!
I keep trying to work on some simple songs like "The Edmund Fitzgerald"(Lightfoot), "Turn the Page"(Seger) & "Lets Impeach the President"(Young)  (all just 4  strummed cowboy chords and I manage to mess up very quickly on all of them if I try to play and open the mouth at the same time.

Never mind trying some simple picked songs like "House of the Rising Sun" and singing, don't make it off the first bar on that one.

[Oldrottenhead]

hi peterp the beauty of todays digital mulitrack recorders is you dont have to strum and sing at the same time, saying that i have lots of friends that cant sing when they dont have their guitars,  mmmmm to hide behind thats a strange one. im talking guys with fantastic voices but give em just a mike and they cant do it.

i think what you need to find is what you are comfortable with, and i mean that in the broadest sense, environment, whose there etc etc.
i always find a couple of cognacs loosen me up. but enough about my constipation.

[nathanclarke]

Just go for it mate. All it takes is one bit of nice feedback and you'll be set.

By the way....."I've considered taking advantage of battery power and taking my Micro BR into a remote location in the woods or something but I'm afraid I'll piss off an eagle or get attacked by a confused coyote."........That is genius!! Made me laugh!!

[Groundy]

Just do it pal, and the more you do it the better you will become, Stay Lucky      Alex

[launched]

Who knows someday might even get up the courage to let others hear what I've been messing up with

And to start keep it simple!
I keep trying to work on some simple songs like "The Edmund Fitzgerald"(Lightfoot), "Turn the Page"(Seger) & "Lets Impeach the President"(Young)  (all just 4  strummed cowboy chords and I manage to mess up very quickly on all of them if I try to play and open the mouth at the same time.

Ah, just go for it, Peter!

I have been trying to sing and play at the same time over the course of the past month or so. It did seem like an ominous task at first, but things did eventually get better for me. I also found that simple, original material helps a lot because it's easier to find your own groove rather than somebody else's.

[Maverick31]

Yeah, I'm going for it right now. That is the best way... as far as I know. I haven't posted anything here, but I am working on it. I'm starting off doing some cover song, although they are probably more challenging than most people would start off with, but what's the point of creating art if it isn't challenging?