As I see it, the entire hearing population hears you sing in one way – through air vibrations – minus one person. You.
You hear yourself through a combination of air vibrations and bone vibrations. It seems many of the vocal production errors young singers make stem from this disconnect.
Assessing your singing voice, acoustically, is vital, then. You need to be able to hear yourself the way others hear you!
Here are three ways to achieve it.
- A good voice teacher + trust. Let them be your ears, and learn to sing by trusting their suggestions.
- Recording and listening back. This is just as hard as you imagine, and the difficulty of listening back can be prohibitive. But so beneficial!
- Microphone and speaker. Singing on-mic – and listening live – can be a boon, particularly for quieter voices or when tackling subtler music. A simple sound system for this purpose is inexpensive and worthwhile.
Probably the best solution is a combination of all three; however, unless a singer digs in deep to at least one of them, they’ll be struggling to make headway. At least, headway that can be heard by the rest of the world.