Online singing lessons?

thecolourbox

Hi all,

It was my birthday in April, but I'm still being offered a couple of gifts because nobody could buy anything back then. One idea I'd had was maybe getting some singing lessons online, but it's a bit of minefield. I've tried finding "in person" lessons in the past and found it quite hard to locate somebody I could be confident to either teach me what I want to be taught, or at least tell me honestly why I can't do that and what I might do instead. Most around my local area (South Birmingham) seem to be classical or musical theatre based, which I don't want to do though who knows, it might actually be appropriate to learn it that way to use in what I want to do.

So wondered if anybody here could recommend singing teacher who might be open to online lessons as this widens the field to not just in my local area. Or any other tips about it maybe would be great. I'm not necessarily looking to do this long term, but get in a series of lessons to try and learn a few things to improve my voice.

What I'd like to learn about, or learn how to use or do:
- head voice, chest voice, maybe even falsetto
- how to add a bit more "excitement" into my voice, when I sing it's quite dull and monotonous (is it distortion?)
- reduce headaches I get when I sing for a longer period
- ultimately to find the best keys to sing along to on guitar/piano as accompaniments are either too high or low at present and don't help the dirge effect
- "End Game" is to be able to perform, singing and accompanying myself on guitar or piano, style-wise in the direction of Jeff Buckley but also influence from Chris Cornell, Laura Marling

What I've got so far:
- I think I've about a two octave range currently, between the C below middle C and the C Above it. Sometimes can reach the C# if I approach it with an out-breath.
- Fairly dull monotonous voice, quite quiet
- I've a lot of musical training behind me from when I used to do classical piano so my pitching usually is decent, and my ear in general is probably quite good.

There are a few songs I earmarked as possibles to use to learn to show what I want to achieve last time I considered this:
Mojo Pin or Grace, Jeff Buckley
Black Hole Sun, Soundgarden
Bridge over Troubled Water, Simon & Garfunkel

Here's a couple of quick samples from a week or so ago, one take so please excuse the fact that I forgot the words a couple of times including the famous first line haha


(please excuse the clipping, my levels were too low so had to up the gain)

thecolourbox · Bridge - singing sample

thecolourbox · Friend - singing sample

EricTheWeary

I was bought a couple of singing lessons ( without long lasting effect I think it's fair to say) by MrsTheWeary once upon a time. I think she contacted the conservatoire and asked them for a recommendation. I gave him some well known examples of the kind of thing I had in mind, he didn't try to make me sing opera or something. 

Actually the long lasting effect is when I, very occasionally, hear things like X Factor I have a deeper understanding of why they are a bit shit. 

paul_xt

@thecolourbox, drop me a pm - I know a few guys that don’t just do musical theatre or classical who can help - all midlands based

thecolourbox

Thank you both, sounds useful on both counts Will drop you a message Paul, cheers

billzabozo

https://www.randolphmatthews.co.uk/singandperform-one-2-one

Randolph Matthews is an absolute don who I'd highly recommend.