Singing on karaoke tracks is fun. However, many of us find it tricky to get the timing right. Maybe we are a couple of seconds slower or faster than the track tempo. So how are other people able to match their singing exactly to the track. Here are a couple of tips on how to sing on a karaoke track for beginners.
In my experience, I realized that the problem was that I had no reference to start or stop at various sections of the song. So I would wait for the lyrics to get highlighted on the screen and take that as starting point to start singing. Now the problem is that sometimes the timing of these lyrics is milliseconds off. So I would miss the actual beat of the song and that would spoil my entire song.
So how did I solve my problem? I followed the steps listed below to improve my singing on karaoke tracks.
Don’t bother reading the lyrics
I know it sounds counterintuitive because people are meant to read lyrics and sing along on these karaoke tracks. That’s right so long as you don’t care much about how good you sound. But if we take karaoke singing one notch up then probably you might find sense in these steps.
I figured if I actually don’t pay attention to the lyrics displayed on the screen and rather get a hang of the beats I would do better. This takes a little bit of practice because you need to train your ears to listen to the beats. I know that it’s not easy. But with conscious effort, you can easily achieve this. Think of it as counting the foot taps that you subconsciously do when listening to dance numbers or high-energy songs. Each section of the song typically starts on one of these foot taps. Each foot tap can be considered a beat. So you will notice that various sections of the song are always on the beat. So long as you time your singing to these beats you will never go wrong. Yep, you need to know the lyrics by heart so that you can just focus on singing.
Counting beats and the theory behind it is a complex subject. If you want to dig deeper, here is a good article.
Choose songs that are in your vocal range
There are songs that are sung on high scales and octaves. If your vocals can reach that scale and octave without sounding like you are screaming then you are good. But for most of us as a beginner with no music training, I guess it is really difficult to sing those high notes. The same can be said for low notes. So pick those songs that are in your comfort zone. How will you know that a song is in your comfort zone? Well, believe me, you will know :). It’s like trying to jump and pluck a fruit from a tree but not being able to reach the fruit no matter how high you jump. You will need a ladder to elevate you so that you reach the fruit. Think of that ladder to be the music training that you don’t have yet.
There are great tutorials on vocal exercises that can help you get there. But for now, keep it simple.
For now, I will leave you with these 2 tips which I hope will help you as they helped me.