by Sam E. Jones

Created on: September 23, 2010

Pretty much everyone wishes they could sing like their favorite star, especially when it comes to singing in front of other people. Hollywood makes it look so easy, like just anyone can get up there on the Karaoke stage and sing like they’ve been making records forever. The sad fact is, most people can’t sing all that well, but they could sing better, especially at the karaoke bar, if only they would do some simple things first to help themselves sound better.

The first thing is, if you want to sing better, whether with Karaoke or in the shower, you have to do it more than just every now and then. Even professional singers have to practice all the time or their throat muscles start to get weak and they start to sound sloppy or off-key. So, before you even think about climbing up from your table at the karaoke bar and heading up to the stage, ask yourself first if you’ve been singing anything lately, and if so, if you have it down reasonably well.

Then, if you do sing now and then, do you do it alone or with your iPod, or maybe pull up some karaoke on your computer and sing along as best you can? This is truly a much better approach than just singing in the car with volume up so loud you can’t hear yourself, because it allows you to hear how your voice is matching with the music, or with the other person singing which is sort of critical if you want to get so you sing better. Doing this kind of stuff can help almost anyone not only sound better when they sing, but to do all the rest of it better as well, such as come in when you’re supposed, keep the right time, and of course as Randy Jackson would say, avoid being pitchy.

The next thing to ask yourself is, how much have you had to drink? It doesn’t take much to make people think they sound better than they do, just as it doesn’t take much to cause people to sing worse than they normally would. The moral of the story here is, don’t drink and karaoke, unless you don’t mind some ribbing later on.

And finally, one of the best pieces of advice anyone who is considering singing publicly at a karaoke place can get, is to pick the song or kind of song that you do best. Yeah, you might wish you could blast out a rock and roll ballad, but that doesn’t mean you can. Instead, figure out which kinds of songs you do best and pick one of those if and when you ever find yourself heading up to the microphone.

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