I got a question the other day on the best place to practice singing privately where no one could hear.
Funny thing is, just about everyone owns their own private vocal booth without even realizing it.
Your car! Think Solo Carpool Karaoke.
Cars/trucks/SUV’s are basically rolling sound proof studios…to a degree…with the rubber seals around the doors and windows. In addition, the bonus feature is you have the stereo speakers to practice singing along with other singers.
Now as long as you don’t care what you look like while you’re singing you can practice singing whenever you go to the store…gym…work…school…home etc. I actually highly recommend practicing while going to work. It will definitely help with your mood and the rest of your day through the daily grind. Then sing on the way home to repair your spirits after work. But that’s a different subject.
If you do care about what you look like, in the car in the garage is great! Double the protection. If you don’t have a garage, go to a parking garage. Take a drive in the country. Go to a park. You get the idea.
Now, I’ll probably get hate comments for this, but I do NOT recommend the shower when practicing.
Besides the fact that you can be heard when you want to practice privately, showers create reverberation. And that’s fine for performance and recording, but when you need to practice, you need the purest reference of your own voice as possible. Otherwise you are being deceived into thinking you sound better than you do. That’s one of the reasons reverb is used in performance and recording in the first place. To make the singer sound better.
The reverb creates resonance that enhances your voice. That’s great for fun. But for practice, we want dead sound. No reverb. That way you get the driest most honest reference of your own voice.
Earlier I mentioned speakers to sing along with. Do this in an on and off fashion. In other words. Sing with the stereo, then turn it off and sing the song without it. When you sing with the stereo you have a leading reference to the melody. Simply put you have someone to follow. That’s fine for learning the melody and to practice matching pitch, but to truly test your own pitch and resonance, you need to hear just yourself.
Now, hit the road, crank up the jams, and sing!!
