Music is one of the most widely beloved of all human inventions, with many people choosing to learn an instrument as a hobby or so that they can start a career in the music industry.
One popular instrument is the human voice! Some people are capable of projecting and manipulating their voices in a way that sounds pleasing. However, singing can be very hard!
Why Is Singing So Hard?
1. Singing Needs Lots Of Practice
Just like with any other musical instrument, singing requires plenty of practice. Most people are not simply born with the ability to perform vocal acrobatics like Freddie Mercury!
There is a common misconception that people are born good or bad singers. In reality, singing is more based on practice and technique than any ability you are born having.
While some people are naturally better singers than others, this comes down to the control over the vocal cords that they are born with- or how much they sing in the shower.
Vocal cords are muscles surrounded by other muscles, such as the ones in your throat that your body uses to swallow food and water.
As with any other muscle, vocal cords will increase in quality with regular exercise, as long as you perform these exercises with proper form and technique.
Unfortunately, this does not mean that going to the gym and doing deadlifts will make you a better singer- vocal exercises are notably different from bicep curls and pectoral flies.
This trait means that with significant practice and exercise- including singing in the shower- you can strengthen your vocals to become an excellent singer.
However, practice and exercise are difficult, especially if you are not one of the lucky few born with natural control over your vocal cords!
This amount of practice can be seen as particularly difficult, but it’s the same amount of work that would need to be put into learning any other instrument.
If you want to stop learning how to sing and pick up another instrument, don’t expect it to be much easier- unless you’re learning the recorder!
2. Singing Needs Good Stamina
Singing consists of a large amount of air being let out of your lungs over a certain period.
As such, most singing requires a good amount of stamina and lung capacity.
3. You Need Strong Voice Control
The key to a good singing voice is being able to control several aspects of your body at once, such as your breath, your vocal cords and surrounding muscles, and parts of your mouth.
This level of control can be difficult to achieve and is something like multitasking. It is known as voice control!
4. High Notes Are Hard
Regardless of what your vocal range is or how hard you practice, high notes can be challenging! Even with proper practice, you can have difficulty hitting higher notes.
This difficulty is because particular notes will be out of your vocal range. A vocal range is the number of musical notes and octaves an individual can naturally sing.
5. Using The Right Sounds
You could have the best vocal control in the world with a prodigal mastery over the inner workings of your vocal cords and throat muscles.
You could master falsetto and be able to belt out the most complex vocal melodies imaginable. However, none of this matters if you don’t use the right sounds!
On top of all the complicated vocal techniques that you will need to learn to be a singer, you also need to make the proper vowel and consonant noises!
This requirement may sound obvious, but even the slight misplacement of your lips or tongue can entirely change the sound your mouth produces.
When mixed with a powerful projection such as singing, this not only can make your mistakes more evident to your listeners but also amplify their severity.
Along with needing a great amount of control over your vocal cords, singing can be difficult because you must have great control over different parts of your mouth!
6. You Must Stay Healthy
As singing is a physical activity, it can be improved with good health and degraded with poor health.
Any activity that bolsters lung health will improve your singing, and anything that negatively affects lung health- such as obesity- can make you a worse singer.
7. Putting Yourself Out There
Unless you are belting out your favorite tunes in the shower or singing your favorite song while cooking dinner or cleaning the garage, most performances are made in front of other people.
Of course, if you are worried about how your voice sounds and why singing is so hard, the odds are high that you are planning on performing in public and not just while in the shower!
One of the most challenging aspects of singing in public is finding a venue for your performance.
First, you will have to decide whether you want to be a solo artist or part of a band, and then you will have to find a stage to play on.
If you aim to be a professional singer, this route can be very difficult!
8. You Are Very Nervous
While anybody may want to belt out their favorite songs in the shower, it can be far more nerve-wracking if you think anybody is listening.
Even while you sing in the shower, if you find out that somebody heard you, it can be very embarrassing!
Singing can be markedly more difficult if you are nervous, as your nerves can make it more difficult to control the muscles in your throat.
9. You Must Find Your Range
No matter how much practice you may have put into your singing, everybody has a different vocal range that their voice can handle.
While you can stretch this range with practice, the natural structure of your vocal cords and surrounding muscles dictates much of its width.
For example, Mike Patton of the popular 1990s band Faith No More is regarded as one of the best singers in popular music, with a voice ranging over six octaves.
You likely will not have a range as extensive as that of Mike Patton, and so you will have to search in a more narrow range for your limits.
With a more narrow vocal range, you may have more difficulty finding exactly where your range lies.
Thankfully, once you do find it, you can translate many popular songs into your range and you will be able to flawlessly sing many of your favorite songs!
10. Everybody Has Different Ranges
On top of needing to find your range, it’s important to note that everybody has a different one.
Your range may be a lower one, and if you try to emulate the high-pitched wailing of Robert Plant, you may encounter far more difficulty than you expected.
11. Your Voice Changes Over Time
Even if you have figured out your vocal range, it can change over time! Aside from the drastic change in your voice throughout puberty, your voice changes as you grow older.
For most people, these vocal changes manifest with their voices getting deeper and raspier. While many older people are still capable of singing, their vocal range has changed significantly!
This change means that once you get comfortable with your vocal range, it can start changing, and you will have to figure out your new vocal range.
This cycle will continue throughout most of your life, meaning you will constantly have to re-learn your vocal range.
It can make singing seem significantly more difficult, as doing the same type of work over and over can seem like a lot of menial effort!
To learn more, you can also read our posts on why guitar is so hard, why jazz music is so good, and why country music is so popular.
In Conclusion
Ultimately, there are plenty of reasons why singing is so difficult. Singing is a physical activity that requires mastery over several parts of your body that you usually do not think about!
However, there is a reason so many people love singing! While singing can be notoriously hard to get good at, it is a vastly rewarding activity that can make everybody happy.