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Learning to Sing? Part 1: Group Lessons and Choirs

If you’ve always wanted to learn how to sing, but didn’t know where to start, now is a good time to look for group singing lessons that will start in September, or choirs that are recruiting for the upcoming season.

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Sign up for a Group Singing Class

Many community colleges and universities offer extra curricular courses to the public at large, including music and singing classes. Recreational departments of municipal organizations are also a good place to look for group courses, as some of these also offer singing classes.  A variety of levels are usually offered, starting with beginners, so this is a great place to start. Singing with a group is less frightening than on your own and since you will be with a group of other singers who are just learning to sing. You can expect to learn the basics of vocal techniques and some music theory.

These groups usually start classes in September and January, so now is the perfect time to look to join one.

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Join a Choir

Singing with a choir is also a great way to learn to sing with a group.  Look for ads in your local newspaper or on your local Craig’s List for amateur choirs who are recruiting new singers. Ask your friends and families if they know of any choirs, or anyone who sings in a choir, as gaining a personal introduction to a choir will be a bit less stressful for you.

Choirs come in all sizes, with varying repertoires and with different recruitment requirements. While the more advanced choirs will require singers to sight-sing, some choirs only need you be able to carry a tune.  Most choirs are split up into sections according to the different voices Soprano, Alto, Tenor or Bass.  Even if you don’t know whether you are a Soprano, Alto, Tenor or Bass, if you show up for the audition, and can sing something like Happy Birthday in tune, the choir director will place you in the correct section for your voice.  Most amateur and intermediate choirs will provide you with a CD recording with your section’s parts on it so that you can learn to sing the music by heart.

When you call to schedule an audition for the choir, ask about what you should prepare and what you should bring.  Most likely, you will need to sing something in front of the choir director.  Choose a song that you like and learn it by singing along with the original music or with a karaoke track.  You can print out the lyrics and take them with you to the audition, although it will be better if you know the song by heart, having the lyrics close by will give you confidence.  You may need to sing the song a cappella at the audition (without musical accompaniment) so you might want to practice singing the song by yourself out loud.  You could ask if it would be ok for you to bring along the musical accompaniment, in which case a karaoke music track would work really well.

If you’re wondering what a choir audition is like, here is an example of a typical audition:

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Choirs usually recruit for new singers twice a year, in August for the Fall session and in December or January for the Winter session.  It may take a few tries before you find the choir that is right for you, so don’t give up if the first one doesn’t work out.

See also:

• Learning to Sing ? : Part 2: Private Singing Lessons
• Learning to Sing ? : Part 3: Singing Schools
• Learning to Sing ? : Part 4: Singing Lessons on CD or DVD

We will continue this series on Learning to Sing with posts as follows:

• Part 5:  Online Videos and Podcasts
• Part 6:  Sing Karaoke

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