So you want to sing better?

How to Sing and Blow the Average Karaoke Singer Outta the Water Article Series!

Pt. 1–Memorize the Lyrics

In this first installment, we will start off with a rather easy idea and one that takes virtually no time to get used to and master.

One of the most important things you can do is memorize the lyrics. I know it’s obvious, but you would be amazed at how many people do not take the time to do this.  They rely on the television monitor until it becomes a crutch. There are several drawbacks to this, one of which being that if you tend to read the lyrics too much, you sound like you’re reading instead of performing the song.  Although, your brain can process information very quickly, it cannot give its attention to two things at once.  And trying to read the lyric and perform the song is asking your brain to do just that.  You will tend to sing at a lower volume and also, you ignore the audience. Not good.

By memorizing the lyric before you ever sing the song at karaoke, you will allow yourself to concentrate on conveying the song’s message. What is the best way to memorize the lyric? Away from the music. Print the lyrics out, which you can find by googling the song title in quotes and add the word lyrics and the artist name after it. For example, if I want the lyrics to Carrie Underwood’s song, “Before He Cheats.” I go to Google and I type, “”Before He Cheats” lyrics Underwood.” Volia! Highlight, copy, and print selection to avoid printing ads and other stuff that wastes your ink.

With those printed lyrics in hand, say the words out loud as if reading a poem.

Don’t try to memorize in your head.

Instead, you will hear the original singer singing the song. Go for memorizing a verse, then the verse and chorus, then the verse, chorus, verse, etc. Soon, you will have the whole lyric memorized-cold.

Also when you memorize the words without the music, you will notice where you can interject your own emotional content in the song and not just copy everything the original artist does. We will discuss more on improving your singing in future articles. If you have a topic, you want covered let me know.

Until then, keep singing!