Change Up Your Singing Practice Routine and Gain the Motivation to Sing Again (Simple Questions to Ask Today to Get Better Results)

Intro

If you feel like you have been stuck in a rut when it comes to your singing, try changing up your practice routine.

You have been practicing your singing but you are not making the progress you expect. Assuming you are doing the techniques correctly, it most likely has to do with your practice routine.

Let us explore the benefits of changing up your practice routine. Then, we will go into the “how, what, why, when, where and who” of your practice routine.

Benefits

As a musician, I am still discovering my musical identity. A while ago, I decided I wanted to write sad, angry rock songs. I wanted to incorporate metal screaming into my vocal style. I am quite inspired by metal music because of its energetic rhythms and aggressive vocals.

However, metal screaming was not something that felt natural to me. I have had to experiment with different practice strategies before discovering ways to do it sustainably.

You may not want to do metal screaming and that is totally fine. You may be a beginner trying to find your way around the mysterious world of singing.

Changing up your practice routine will take you down routes you would not normally travel. As a result of doing things differently, you will be getting different results. Some of these results would be classified as “failures” but some of these results may just take your singing to a whole new level.

You will find out what is not working with your current routine. Your inspiration and motivation levels increase as you discover new and effective ways to practice. You will start getting better results and this further increases your motivation.

How

How you practice can mean a few different things. For example:

• Do you warm up your voice before singing songs?
• How do you warm up your voice?
• How do you practice your songs? Do you always sing from the beginning? Or do you do targeted practice for specific areas that need more attention?
• How do you fix your vocal issues in specific parts of the songs you sing?
• Do you practice the more difficult songs first? Or do you start with a warm-up song before tackling the newer songs?

What

Closely linked to “how” is the “what”. For example:

• What exercises do you do to warm up your voice? Are they effective?
• What tools/instruments/equipment do you use to enhance your practice?
• What do you do when you run into a vocal issue you cannot solve?

Why

This has to do with your internal motivation and justification of vocal exercises. For example:

• Why did you want to learn singing in the first place? Are you doing the things that move you towards your goal?
• Why do you practice? Do you do it just for the sake of it? Or do you have a general objective in mind for each session? Or are you on autopilot and not really thinking about what or why you are doing certain things?
• Why are some exercises harder to do? What are you doing about that?

When

Many people struggle to find time to practice, myself included. There are things we can do to overcome that issue. For example:

• When in the day can I find 10-15 minutes of practice time? Or maybe just 5 minutes? (Over time, they will add up)
• When should I practice so I have more energy to focus on what I am doing?
• Should I be practicing when I am having a cold and potentially hurting my voice?

Where

Closely linked to the “when” is the “where”. For example:

• Where can I practice so I can have privacy?
• Where can I practice so I can get to the location quickly and start practicing right away?
• What should I do to set up my practice space so I can focus on singing?

Who

This one is not as straightforward as the others and may not apply to you. It is still worth thinking about. For example:

• Who should I get feedback from about my singing?
• Who should I practice with so we can motivate each other?
• Who should I ask to accompany me on guitar/piano when I am singing?
• Who am I trying to please when I am practicing? Is it myself? Or others?

Conclusion

Even if your practice routine has been working well, it is worth monitoring your progress and see if anything can be done better.

If you do decide to change up your practice routine, change only 1 or 2 things at a time. This way, you can gauge how effective the change is and whether it is working for you or not. Keep the useful routines/strategies and discard the inefficient ones. Over time, you will end up with a practice routine that gets you the results you want.