How to Choose the Perfect Song for Your Singing Lessons
Yes there IS a sweet spot when it comes to picking songs to work on in your lessons that will get you the most progress bang for your buck.
But before we dive into the 3 factors that’ll help you make a great choice, let me tell you a quick story…
I was an excited little 11 year old when I walked into my very first singing lesson, carrying one of my prized possessions under my arm.
It was the sheet music for Mariah Carey’s entire Musicbox album (which I’d unwrapped for my birthday).
I adored Mariah and she was really all I wanted to sing.
My singing teacher covered her grimace with a smile and said something along the lines of “Great, we can certainly get to that, but let’s start with something a little different.”
I ended up singing “Castle on a Cloud” and hating every minute of it. *grin*
But adult hindsight is a wonderful thing and I can now see that Mariah’s many long, arduous runs and stratospheric whistle tone may have been slightly above my pay grade as a pre-teen.
You might not aspire to sing like a 90s pop princess, but I’ll bet you have some grand dreams and mountainous songs you’d like to conquer…
So what is the song choice sweet spot?
How do do you choose which song to work on and when?
#1. You’ll want to make sure you LIKE IT
Remember, you’re going to be working on this song for weeks, going over and over the tricky bits with different tools and techniques - so you’re going to want to enjoy it.
Otherwise the likelihood that you practice it once and then avoid it (like that thing in back of the fridge that carries a sour smell) is pretty high.
Do you enjoy the style of music?
Do you connect to the story/lyrics (if that’s important to you)?
Do you find it fun and interesting to sing?
#2. What element of singing technique are you wanting to work on?
AKA What would you love to transform in your voice?
Are you wanting to develop more resonance in your upper range (head voice)?
Are you wanting to stretch your belt (without tension) range?
Are you wanting to work on your agility or vocal runs?
Are you wanting to iron out your vocal break?
Are you wanting to work on adding brightness to your tone or bring more ease into the very bottom of your range?
The answers to these questions will veer you in the direction of songs that have those characteristics or sit in that area of your voice.
#3. Find a balance between skill and challenge
This ties into Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s theory on how to achieve flow state too (being in the zone, fully immersed and focused, where you lose track of time).
The idea is to find the right balance between challenge and your level of skill.
That whatever you’re working on should be challenging enough that you don’t get distracted or bored easily, but not so challenging that you find it overwhelming or too frustrating.
When it comes to singing, this means…
Getting an idea of where your limitations are with range and with dynamics (power) in particular, but you might also need to consider factors like your breath capacity, stamina, tempo and agility too.
How can you find your limitations/boundaries when it comes to vocal range?
Discover your vocal range (lowest note to highest note) aiming to lighten off or sweeten the sound as you go up.
You can do this using a piano or a video like this one.
Stop when you begin to feel tension or the quality of the note begins to deteriorate.Then do the same thing but keep the sound strong/powerful this time. This will give you your “chest dominant mix” or belt ceiling.
When looking through song options, what is the highest note in a sweet/heady quality?
And what is the highest note in a strong/belt quality?
Ideally what you’re looking for when you choose a song to work on is one step above where your comfort zone is.
A semi tone (or a tone at the most) higher or lower than what you can sing with complete ease.
When it comes to increasing our range particularly, we want to do it in small steps.
This will allow you to problem solve what is creating tension on that particular note or what is interfering with the resonance much more easily than if it’s 4-5 notes above with is easy for you.
If you really want to work on a particular song but it’s a tad too high or low for you, you can change the key.
Websites like Musicnotes.com (for piano sheet music) and Karaoke-version.com (for backing tracks) can make this process easy.
Finding the sweet spot when it comes to song choice will make your practice sessions more enjoyable and speed up your progress.
If they’re too easy, you’ll likely get bored and your voice won’t develop very much.
If they’re too hard, you’ll likely find it difficult to troubleshoot the habits that are getting in the way and give up.
I hope this post made it easier for you to feel confident that you’ve chosen a great song to expand what your voice can do, stay motivated and have a blast doing it.