Why Every Musician Should Be a Singer Too - Music Performance

So why must every musician sing? Because every musician deserves to reach their full musical potential. This music performance lesson considers the broad benefits of singing for our mental, physical, and emotional health then goes on to explain how singing is every musician’s first instrument in the sense that singing was the earliest musical experience most of us enjoyed. The physical aspects are clarified relating to the connection between the voice and the ears and the benefits for improving pitching and relative pitch are explored. Barriers to singing are identified, including being tone deaf, or inexperienced in singing, or breaking voices for teenage boys, or reluctance to sing, or reticent tone. The benefits to expression in instrumental playing are also considered by using the voice to feel the shape of a phrase, learning how to breathe at phrase endings and much more.

🕘 Timestamps
0:00 - Introduction to why every musician should be a singer too
1:10 - Physical and emotional health
2:47 - Your first instrument
3:43 - The voice is your own instrument
7:03 - Expressive benefits
13:11 - Are you really tone deaf?
14:45 - Common barriers to singing
17:20 - Responding to these barriers
22:38 - Conclusion

🎓 Learn Music Online with Music Matters
Learn music theory, aural tests, composition, sight reading, orchestration and more! Prepare and practice for music exams and diplomas with Music Matters Courses. Whether you're just getting started with learning music, or you're an experienced musician looking to expand your abilities - we have something for you in our course library. With hours of step-by-step training, our courses will truly help you elevate your musicianship skills to the next level.

👥 Social Media

🔗 Affiliate Links

#MusicPerformance #SingingTips #TheAllRoundMusician

[MusicMattersGB]

Learn Music Online - Check out our courses here!

[joebloe]

Singing is an absolute must for any musician.
In college they made all of us musicians master singing, even if your voice was horrible like mine. We would sight-sing everyday.
In composition class we had to sing every line of music that we wrote.
The whole point of this was to make us good musicians.
The sight-singing taught me to make my instrument sing.
Singing also taught me to hear any piece of music and write it on paper.
It greatly enhances your theory, aural perception, and mastering your instrument.
It also helps you to understand how to backup a singer on stage, not just harmonies but to actually HELP the singer to sound better with your instrument as well.
I cannot say enough about singing.
Great video.

[frankspears]

Before the pandemic, there was a singing group at work (nhs). I came more alive, my mood improved and felt relaxed for an hour before returning to work.

[jayducharme]

You're correct: in my freshman year, the chair of the college music department told me I had no musical talent and should forget about singing. Fortunately, I didn't listen to him and kept on caterwauling. Eventually, I improved and found to my surprise that singing helped me with composing. So I'm glad I kept at it. The way I learned pitch, BTW, was to get a pitch pipe, pick a note and then hum that note into it. I could clearly hear the varying beats as my voice drifted off pitch, and could adjust my voice accordingly.

[randolphmitchell]

Great video! In my experience in the US, singing for the general population has dropped off dramatically in, say, the last 50 years. We used to sing in school, sing in the movie theaters (follow the bouncing ball!) and sing in church. People would gather around a piano at parties and sing. Today, there is hardly any group singing. Even at churches, songs written for professionals are presented by bands and are often pitched well beyond the range of the average person, so there is little congregational singing. This is a sad loss! I am part of a small group that goes around and sings hymns at nursing homes. You can actually see some of the benefits you talked about being realized in the residents as they join. I would love to see more singing in our part of the world!

[violinstar]

As a violin teacher I have always included singing because it improves intonation and pitching of notes aswell as learning challenging rhythms.

[carlstenger]

Excellent video. I had the very good fortune to start my musical journey as a member of a world class boys choir. With 90 minutes of rehearsal 5 days a week, we learned a lot about all aspects of music. Unlike Great Britain, the United States does not have a large contingent of choir singers versus sports fans, more's the pity. All the arguments you offered are one hundred percent accurate and true. I hope than most (if not all) of your viewers will take your advice to heart and leap into the world of singing. Thanks!

[TheStobb]

Singing is always something I’ve had a problem with I’m an amateur musician and songwriter my work has been severely hampered by my terrible voice I’ve tried all kinds to improve it where it has improved but it is nowhere near palatable to the ear. And to make things worse I have a cousin who is a top opera singer I think he got my share. Thank you I love and appreciate what you do

[stevewilson]

Brilliant video as usual. I began my musical journey as a trumpet player, but my music teacher initiated my love of singing by asking me to sing just one note. That note was part of a chord with 3 other brass players singing the harmony(acapella.) We were in a huge hall and the sound of that single chord changed my musical life. The teacher believed that all instruments are capable of beautiful music, but only the voice is capable of beautiful music AND words. She taught us intervals by comparing them with songs we knew. Somewhere over the Rainbow = octave, Auld Lang Syne =perfect 4th etc.

[Mezilesialan]

Thank you Gareth for this interesting talk. I am teaching children to play guitar by ear. We hear the song. We sing the song. Then we play the Melody, phrase by phrase. Frere Jacque. Drunken sailor etc….. The children love it and so do I. Alan

[rethavanzyl]

Great video!!! Thanks Gareth. I wish I could get schools to all have singing time again. The kids are not singing anymore and it is audible when they do. I hope many people will be inspired by this video to start singing again.

[CalebePriester]

It's been like two years since I started learning the intervals. I started learning ascending melodic intervals. Then I realized I also needed to know how to sing descending melodic intervals, right? So I started working on those. Now I always manage to guess melodic intervals 100% right. Melodic intervals are not hard, especially when you have songs to associate them with. For instance, I associated the perfect fifth with the opening theme of Star Wars and the major sixth with the love theme of Star Wars. Descending melodic intervals were harder for me, I had to sing them and then invert then to be able to guess, but with practice I managed to be able to know them without inverting them.

After that I started learning harmonic intervals. At first I had a bad time with them, but with practice I got better. I did like 50 exercises every day and with time I got better. I can't tell them all the time with 100% accuracy, but I always manage to be around 85%. After that I started to sing, and whistle, the major scale and then the minor scale. Then I did think I might as well learn how to sing all the seven modes, right? I should be able to sing them, they just start at different points so if I know how to sing the major scale then I should know how to sing all the seven modes, right?

Now I'm working on major chords, minor chords, augmented chords and diminished chords. At first I had a bad time differentiating between augmented chords and diminished chords, but with practice I got better. I started in root position and worked my way into first inversion chords. After I get really good at then I will add second inversion chords into the mix. I also train seventh chords, but only in root position. I still mess up half dimished chords and fully diminished chords, sometimes I get them wrong, but I'm getting better. I also started trying to differentiate between sus2 and sus4 chords. I'm having a bad time with those, but I know with practice I will be able to differentiate between them. And after that I will start inverting them as well.

My music teacher always said to me that I should sing, but I would not listen to him and now I see that he was right. Sometimes we don't have our instruments near us and we should be able to sing and use our voice to make music. I just wish I had realized that sooner haha

By the way, I use this website to train perception, it's called teoria dot com, it's free!!

[ryanEstandarte]

20:49 Just want to share that in my early days as a chorister, unknowingly I would rehearse my pieces on my way to school or going back home. Sure many people would look at me when I'm doing it in the bus and I do make mistakes. But as I look back at it, it helped me gain my confidence in singing whether they like it or not (as long as I sing in tune).

[izabelatomaszewska]

Yes, you are right, I agree with you 👍👍👍👍

[tortoiseperson]

Great video! Singing can be really cathartic and excellent for mental health as well as so fulfilling. I honestly think singing saved my life at a time when I extremely unwell.

[sideman]

With regard to singing, I grew up thinking you either have it or you don’t. I tried singing in the church choir but I never could find my voice. It seemed that my range fit halfway into one register and halfway into another. Therefore, I concluded I don’t have “it”—whatever “it” is; but I’ve always wanted to sing, especially to complement my guitar playing. I’ll give it another try. Thanks.

[The_real_dj_farmer]

The Best of the best thank you sir ❤️💚💛👌🔥🔥

[viggosimonsen]

You have convinced me. I am a saxophonist. You are a great teacher and motivator

[thepianoplayer]

A lot of Pop musicians including Elton John, Billy Joel, Paul McCartney, etc. are both singers and play an instrument like a guitar or piano. On the other side of the coin, there are professional singers but play no instrument. Some don't even know basic music theory.
Many people listen to music on radio & recordings all the time. Not many including those who took lessons (piano, violin, etc.) feel comfortable playing or singing in front of people. Every year around Christmas the movie "Sound of Music" from the 1960s featuring Julie Andrews & Christopher Plummer would be aired on TV. Some in the family would record the music off the TV with whatever means available. The songs are memorable and easy to sing. Getting relatives to sing in a holiday gathering would be next to impossible.
I have a few friends who sing in a church choir. One would host a party in December getting everybody to sing Christmas carols & holiday favorites. I usually avoided singing by playing violin to accompany the pianist.

[MatthewCastro]

I’m so glad I started singing. I wanted to learn guitar so I can sing with it. I totally agree that musicians should learn how to sing, it’s the instrument we’re all born with we should learn good to use it as well.

Dylan and Townes actually really inspired me. I’m going to release a new song I’ve been working on here in a few days on my channel. I just started to learn how to sing last year. Definitely recommend it to everyone.