Improve Your Band’s Singing in 5 Steps!

August 15, 2020August 15, 2020 Dan

Learning to sing is one of the most important things your band needs to do right now. Why? Because almost everyone in your audience will be able to sing along with you right away! Today I’m going to show you how to improve your band’s singing in 5 steps. This might sound simple, but improving your band’s singing is critical to becoming better musicians and growing your fan base.

The Bad News

I know what a lot of you are thinking. “Wait, what? Learn to sing? What about my killer guitar solo? Shouldn’t the drums come in here? Bass solo, bro!” Well, I got sour news for you. The one thing most people listen to and immediately relate to is your singing. Don’t get me wrong, a lot of people will like your instrumentation, the cool breaks, and how your band kicks the turn arounds. The bottom line is if you can’t sing, you’re going nowhere.

The first band I played in was a pretty solid group instrumentally. We were kids and could rock out as well as the next band. But none of us knew how to sing. I sang one song in our early days, and did such a terrible job, I didn’t sing again for at least a year and half. It took a while to gain confidence. I started with some harmonies and eventually sang lead on a song or two.

When I listen to bands that can’t sing, here’s my typical reaction. First, the band will count off the song and initially, they sound pretty good. Everyone can play their instruments. Then the singer steps up to the mic and starts belting high or flat. The voice cracks. The singer is yelling, not singing. And what do I think?

This is awful, I’m leaving and going to the next bar. So how do you keep this from happening to you?

If you’re uncomfortable singing, then you’re going to need to start working on it and building your vocals.

1. You Need to Learn How to Sing

Yes, you! The first step to improve your band’s singing is to work on your own skills and abilities first. You need to begin shifting your focus from nailing your guitar, bass, or drum parts and start listening to the vocals.

Are you sharp or flat? Is there a song you dread in the set because it’s too high or low for you? Identify these things you struggle with, work on strengthening your voice, and learn how to sing so you do not injure yourself.

“Ok, great! I need to know how to sing. Where do I start?” If you’re already in a band, you probably know how to carry a tune, but I’ll bet you rarely warm-up your vocal chords before rehearsal or shows. Before you seek out a vocal coach, you can start by simply adding a vocal warm-up to your routine.

One of my favorite warm-up videos is from Eric Arceneaux. Why? Because it takes less than 15 minutes. He walks you through some techniques to warm-up your body, and he also guides you through some exercises to engage muscles that you may not be using while you sing.

After you complete the video, sing something you normally sing (like Eric’s video suggests) and notice how light and easy it is for you to hit and hold notes. Your voice should feel better, and you may even find your voice sounds stronger right away. It’s amazing!

2. Harmonize

The next step is one of the hardest. Your band needs to learn how to sing harmonies. Audiences are easily impressed with bands that can sing good harmonies. Notice how I’m not saying great harmonies. They just need to be good.

If you and your band are new to vocal harmonies, start by adding one harmony to the melody line. It only takes two band members to start the process and it will improve your sound immediately. But how do you learn harmonies?

You’ve got to start having vocal rehearsals. Go to one of your bandmate’s houses, order a pizza, and then sit down with only an acoustic guitar or a piano. It’s extremely important to only bring ONE instrument. DO NOT bring a bunch of gear to a vocal rehearsal. You’re having this rehearsal to work on your singing. Not your instrumentation.

Start listening to the songs you cover, or if you’re an all originals band, listen to some of your favorite songs that inspired your music. Take note of the main melody line, and most importantly listen to the vocal harmonies. You should be focusing on when harmonies are used (chorus, verses, or a little harmony everywhere) and how many voices you are hearing.

Learning Harmonies Takes Time

Hearing harmonies takes a trained ear, so you may struggle at first. That’s OK! You’ll improve & develop an ear for harmonies, and your ear for music will improve too!

If you’re covering songs this is a bit easier as you’re trying to copy what people have done before you. If you’re writing your own songs or taking liberties with cover songs, this gets much harder. I recommend you listen to the songs that inspired your music and start by imitating their vocal harmonies in your songs.

If you’re in a 4-piece band, and there are only two singers, maybe you just do a rehearsal with three people: two singers and one piano or acoustic guitar. Focus on the harmonies, and run through every song. You’ll find that you spend at least 15-20 minutes on each song (sometimes much longer) working out vocal parts and singing them over and over until you commit those parts to memory.

Once you start getting parts down, keep rehearsing. Practice makes perfect, and one vocal rehearsal will be forgotten if you never return to it. It’s like when you learned to play guitar. It took hours to learn that one guitar solo, so why wouldn’t it take hours to learn vocal parts.

3. Choosing the Right Key

After 2-3 weeks of warming up your vocal chords everyday, you should start to see some results! Your voice should have a bit more power and you may find you have more control over your pitch. Maybe you can hold a longer smoother note and have new found confidence when you step up to the mic! If you bandmates have been working on their vocals everyday, they’re probably starting to feel a big difference too!

This is great! Plus you’ve got some harmonies figured out too, and things are starting to sound really good! But, maybe there’s one song where the chorus is still just too high, and your voice drops into a weak falsetto. Maybe you have to yell or scream to hit that high note and in the process you wreck your voice for the next song.

It’s time to think about what key you’re playing in. If you’re doing covers, a lot of pop singers sing very high, and this can be discouraging and difficult! One simple solution is to lower the key a half or whole step. Heck, lower it 2-steps and maybe the song takes on a new life! The point here is you need to make the music work for your voice.

What if you or your singer is going through the motions and the vocal on one song just seems kind of bland or boring? Maybe you need to raise the key so the singer can get a little more oompf in there!

Changing Keys Was Invented to Help You

What I’m trying to say is be flexible with your keys. The more rigid you are and the more you stick to the “record” or the “rules” the harder it’s going to be. Take care of your voice and your bandmate’s voice. If you’re straining to hit a note and tiring yourself out, you’re not doing the band or yourself any favors. If it’s only one song that’s giving you trouble, maybe move it to the end of your set. That way when the show is over you can pack up your stuff and not worry about being hoarse. But if there’s a lot of demanding songs, you should consider adjusting the key.

I’ve changed the keys for myself and other singers in every single band I’ve ever played in. If someone is feeling uncomfortable or feels like they’re singing badly, then they probably are singing badly! Make it easier on the singer, and make the singer more confident! The more confidence and swagger the song’s lead vocalist has, the more an audience is going to enjoy the performance!

4. Sing and Play Your Instrument

The tricky part now is learning to sing your parts and play your instruments…at the same time! I remember being a teenager watching Paul McCartney’s Back in the US dvd and being amazed at how he could play bass and sing at the same time. I thought strumming a guitar and singing was the best you could do, but had no idea that you could rock bass lines and sing simultaneously. So why couldn’t you do this on guitar, or drums, or piano?

You need to take what you’ve learned at your vocal rehearsals, go home, and practice singing your harmony part while playing your instrument. Focus too much on playing your instrument and you’ll miss the vocal que! If you’re focusing on the vocal que, you’re hands will botch your playing! So what’s the solution? Practice. Play both parts really slowly. The slower the better.

When you can play and sing slowly, start increasing the speed. With enough practice, you’ll be able to do this in your sleep. And the more you sing and play, the easier it gets!

5. Bring It All Together

This step is the simplest step, and is kind of a no brainer. You need to start practicing the harmonies at full band rehearsal. Bring an extra mic or two, and start making vocals the main focus.

It’s going to be hard! At your vocal rehearsals, everything was isolated. You could hear yourself, and you could hear your bandmates vocals clearly. You were all in sync and it sounded so amazing you couldn’t wait to get the amps out and make some noise! But when you finally bring all that hard work to rehearsal, your mind goes blank. Or you jump in to sing the chorus, and the harmony is flat! Or you forgot what notes to sing! Did you just sing the same part as someone else? What happened?!

Nothing happened. Be safe in knowing that you do remember the harmonies, and you didn’t just spend months learning how to sing for nothing. When the band comes back together to rehearse, your ear is going to be flooded with a lot more information. The bass, keyboards, hi-hat and snare are all playing simultaneously and it’s extremely distracting for someone trying to harmonize! It’s going to take some time for you to hear your note in your head with all of the noise your band makes!

Keep working at it. After you practice a song, go back and ask the band to play the chorus repeatedly so you can lock in that harmony part.

The Difference

You don’t have to be a great singer. Bob Dylan is a famous example of someone who’s not a fantastic singer, but what Bob has going for him is his voice is authentic and in tune.

If you can do this, enunciate, and get your story across to people, audiences will listen. And if you throw in some harmonies to spice it up and get some wow’s from the crowd, all the better! Good luck, and get singing!