How To Become A Professional Singer

Do you have dreams of becoming a professional singer, but don’t feel like you are ready to get on stage? Or maybe you’d like to perform with a band or vocal group just for fun?

Here’s what you’ll need to succeed.

How To Become A Professional Singer

1.) The skills to pay the bills- You gotta sound good!

Before you go and make your live performance debut, your singing skills should be on point. You need to sing in tune with good tone and time feel. I have tons of tutorials and vocal exercises to help you go from singing in the shower to singing on stage. Here are a few of my favorites-

How To Practice Singing

3 Breathing Exercises for Singers

2 Challenging Vocal Exercises For Singers

How To Sing In Tune

7 Amazing Remedies For Singers

How To Sing Runs And Gain Vocal Flexibility

Learn To Sing Harmonies

2.) Start with preparing 10-12 songs (one set). Get them performance ready.

Make a list of 10-12 songs (covers or originals) that you want to perform. Practice these songs with karaoke tracks, piano/guitar or a program like Band- In- A-Box. Keep all the music for the songs you learn in an organized & alphabetized binder or on a tablet or iPad. This is your “book”. It will have sheet music or charts for all of your songs. Bring it with you to open mics and jam sessions.

If you don’t have a group of musicians to play with, go out and sing at open mics and jam sessions. It’s a great way to test drive the songs you’ve been working on at home.

3.) Meet musicians to make music with. 

It’s a great pleasure to play music with talented people you respect. But where do you meet them? Well, open mics and jams are a great place to start. You can listen to musicians play and get in touch with anyone who strikes your fancy. Most musicians are looking for performance opportunities- and singers get hired a lot. You can also post signs at the music department of any local college or check out Craig’s List listings for musicians.

4.)You need to be able to communicate your musical ideas to the musicians you are working with.

This means learning some basic music skills like knowing the names of the notes on the piano, understanding key signatures (knowing what key you sing a song in) and understanding song form (especially in jazz- you’ve got to be able to keep track of the form during a 12 chorus saxophone solo and know where to come back in with the vocals). Learning how to write music charts for your bandmates, or any musician at an open mic/jam session, is a great skill to have as well (stay tuned for a video tutorial on how to write a chart!)

5.) Book A Gig!

Once you’ve found some musicians to play with and you’ve got a well rehearsed set of songs, it’s time to book a gig! You’ll need a few recordings and a website so venue owners can check you out. You don’t need anything flashy to start with (you can get better recordings/web design as you progress- just get the best possible quality you can to start with). There are easy website templates and hosting for musicians at www.bandzoogle.com and other similar sites.

Performing on stage in front of a live and listening audience is one of the things I enjoy most about being a musician. The exchange of energy between the artist and the audience is a beautiful thing. Sharing your singing voice in front of an audience can be intimidating, but the more practiced and prepared you are, the more you can relax and do your thing.