4 ways to get better at karaoke 🗣️ 🎶

Do you love singing? Do you find joy singing with friends? Do you want to improve your singing skills? Then you're in the right place!

It can be difficult to sing in front of people. You may love to sing but when your friends want you to do karaoke with them, you hesitate to say, "yes."

Will I choke up? What if I can't hit the high notes? What if I make a fool out of myself?

You're not alone in feeling this way! It's natural to find doing karaoke as an anxiety-ridden experience.

But don't worry, with the right approach and mindset, you can overcome any karaoke challenges and enjoy the experience!

It can be hard to remember to have a good time singing when it feels like a "million eyes" are watching your every move.

Remember, you're doing karaoke for fun!

Yet you might still think: What if I can't sing the song right?

It's easy to set expectations on ourselves and want to be an incredible singer on stage for our friends but wouldn't that make doing karaoke stressful?

If you have stage fright, it can help to record yourself practicing a few songs beforehand. You'll feel more comfortable on stage.

Don't aim for perfection on stage — aim for having fun and getting loose!

Pro tip!

Practice singing to your plushies or frying pans. It feels silly, right? Well, that's the point of the exercise! When it doesn't feel too silly to sing to your frying pans, then you are ready to have fun with karaoke. Get rid of any beliefs that feel stressful to you.

Some songs won't work well with your voice while others will.

It might be disappointing that you can't sing "Let it Go" from Frozen with everything you've got, but you need to protect your vocal cords. Don't strain your voice!

To protect your vocal cords, warm up your voice before singing. One technique is to hum "mum" multiple times. Another technique is to say "nah!" multiple times.

You'll sing better and you can extend your vocal range this way.

To figure out what songs match your voice, make a list of songs you want to sing and find the karaoke versions of the songs on YouTube so you can record yourself singing along.

Hearing your voice during recording might be difficult at first, but after a while, you'll get used to it!

Once you feel more confident with yourself and discover songs in your vocal range, you might want to train your voice to take on harder songs.

This is where breathing comes in. Breathing can lessen your anxiety before going on stage and while performing.

If you feel nervous, you could sing faster so that's why it's important to breathe.

If you're practicing before the "big" karaoke day and you're running out of time, pick a song that speaks to you — if you can understand the meaning behind a song and understand the emotions in the song, then it'll feel effortless to sing that song. You'll make a connection with the audience!

With these emotions speaking to you, you'll be pleasantly surprised to hit those high notes. Remember, you're here to have fun! Your main goal should be to have fun singing karaoke, and singing with feeling will make it more fun.

• Truth be told, you won't sound like your favorite artist. Let go of that expectation and don't be hard on yourself! Learn to love your voice and work with it.

• For the songs where you want to hit the high notes, pull the mic away from you during those high notes so your singing voice doesn't sound too loud.

• Practice makes perfect! Hopefully singing karaoke will become less intimidating for you and more of a challenge you want to try again and again.

Go practice, be open to being silly, and most importantly, have fun!

You're most likely singing with friends. In the end:

Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.

Who knows? After a first night of karaoke, will you discover a desire to sing more often? If so, be open to improving.😊