How to Find Your Singing Style

When you first start out singing, quite often you want to know how to find a sound that is unique to you. That ‘style’ that makes you stand out from all of the other singers out there.

So how do you develop that? How do you find your singing style?

Today I’ll explain how I developed my own style and I have three steps for you that will help you to start working on building your own singing style today.

Nicola xx

Tips for finding your singing style

1. Listen to a lot of new music

You won’t know what music you suit (REALLY suit) until you listen to a lot of new genres, singers and sing along to them as well. Expand your musical horizons and listen to music that you don’t usually hear.

Have a go at singing blues, rock, pop and all the sub genres that go with them to see if you can find a sound that you like. I get a lot of ideas by listening to Motown for example. No, I don’t sing this style but the way Motown singers phrase and slide their notes etc… is completely different to the way I sing. So when I want to refresh my style, I listen to new music.

It truly is the FASTEST way to improve your skills and its fun and easy to do!

2. Practice by copying artists in your current vocal style

Once you settle on a genre, find artists that you CAN sing like at your current skill level and copy a few of them. Listen to their phrasing, dynamics and technique and learn from them to begin building your own style. Usually learning how to sing like our favourite artists falls into this category, but if you happen to love massive voice belters, and you have a soft voice, for example, stick to other soft voice singers to start with.

3. Branch out into new styles for practice

Once your singing abilities and musical knowledge improves, you will find that other vocalists and songs become available to you. You may now be able to sing higher notes, or belt properly, which means you can add a new bunch of singers to your ‘copy me’ list. This will again mould your own sound and you’ll eventually settle on a sound that doesn’t sound like any one influence, but is uniquely your own.

4. Embrace your voice, flaws and all

When you first start out you might really dislike things about your voice and think of them as ‘flaws’. I used to hate that my voice was so warm and had no ‘cut through edge’ to it which meant I’d never be able to belt like Aretha Franklin can belt! However, I discovered that although my belt notes were not the strength of my voice, I did have really beautiful breathy notes that I could sing both low and high – which is something other singers don’t have.

The trick is to love your voice whatever stage its at, find ways of playing to your best strengths and what you may see as a flaw, your listeners may see as your ‘special quirky edge’.

5. Realise that it takes time, so enjoy the journey

Singing and music in general is a life long journey. The saying goes ‘the more you learn about music, the more you realise the less you know’. In otherwords, you can never, ever learn ‘it all’ when it comes to music because its such a massive topic.

So enjoy the journey! What you start off singing now may be completely different to how you end up singing in a year, or five or ten! I started off in classical and now I sing jazz-pop.