To learn how to sing, you need to improve your vocal technique by using something that we all have: a voice. Singers use their vocal cords and breath control to produce pleasing sounds for a huge variety of different musical styles.
In this article, you’ll find a list of great songs you can use to exercise your voice, try new vocal techniques, and learn how to sing. We’ve also compiled the best tips for using songs to learn how to improve your singing.
Whether you're learning to sing in pitch, establishing your vocal range, or just need some singing tips, here's a great selection of songs you can use in your voice lessons or just to improve your singing when you're practising on your own!
Many aspiring singers take classes with a professional singing coach or vocal coach either face-to-face or online. This is the best way to ensure that you will improve your voice with proven techniques and avoid unintentionally injuring your vocal organs, but you can also practise a lot on your own.
What Makes a Song Good for Singing Practise?
Not every song is good for improving your singing technique: they can be too easy, too difficult, not in the style of singing you want to learn or are naturally suited for, or might be damaging to a novice’s vocal cords (like screaming and vocal fry).
A Good Song Length
Choose songs that are not too short and not too long. This metric is entirely subjective, but imagine yourself practising this song daily for weeks on end; do you really want to have to repeat it 100 times in each session because it’s a very short song? Or, oppositely, you might get lost or frustrated with a really long number.
Interesting Sound & Lyrics
Again, this subjective measure requires you to choose a song that you enjoy.
So, even though everyone in the world right now is practising Riptide by Vance Joy, if you don’t like the song or the sound, don’t bother with it! Why put in effort in this very personal practice to learn a song you don’t even like?
Coherent Sound Throughout
There are many songs out there which blend more than one vocal style or span across several octaves. For the average beginner or intermediate singer, this will simply be too difficult and can even prevent you from learning techniques properly.
A good example is Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen. It’s an amazing, interesting, fun, emotive song; but, it’s too difficult for a beginner to practise seriously because of the medley of challenging and wildly different styles.
Presents the Skills and Techniques You Want To Learn
Pick songs that actively make you learn the skills and techniques you are currently working on.
Want to improve your falsetto? Try singing Charlie Puth or Ellie Goulding songs. Working on your low notes? Try something from Sinatra or Lana Del Ray.
Since songs are just skilled compilations of basic singing skills (sometimes combined with advanced technique) you can find songs that help you practise any singing skill from scales and arpeggios to vibrato, mixed voice, stamina, and breath control.
Matches Your Voice Type
Make sure to choose songs that are either in your vocal range or you can easily adjust to be in your vocal range (if that’s a skill you know how to achieve). You don’t want to strain your voice or be perpetually disappointed by choosing music that isn’t in your current register or vocal style.
You can always work on expanding your singing capabilities later on, but first, you have to understand your voice in the present and build up your fundamental singing skills in your personal sweet spot.
How to Use Songs to Practise Singing Effectively
It’s not enough to just sing a song for fun and call it practice. While you might get a tiny bit better just through the virtue of putting in the time, without intentional practice, you won’t improve by any real metric.
Here are some techniques and tools to use when you perform your routine singing practice sessions.
Vocal Warm-Ups
Before getting into the meat of your practice session, ensure you perform vocal warm-ups to get your singing voice ready for use.
Practise your scales, breathing techniques, and lip warm-ups.
Practise Pitch Accuracy
The best way to ensure you are singing on pitch is to record yourself singing – acapella!
When you sing along with a song that has words, you can’t dedicate all your attention and effort to singing if you are also listening to the original artist for cues on where your voice should be.
Singing for fun along with songs is different from learning them. Ensure you are learning the song by first deeply listening to the track, practising with the track, paying attention to your pitch, and then testing your accuracy with an acapella recording.
You can also check your pitch in real-time with a tuning app that shows you your pitch so you can see where you’re off and adjust yourself in real-time.
Practising the song in sections with deep study and intention will help you build your vocal muscle memory and overall pitch accuracy for future songs.
Practise Tonal Quality
Once you understand how to achieve the pitch you want and can reach it easily, it’s time to add personality to your voice.
Experiment with different mouth shapes, breathing patterns, volume, and other qualities that affect tone to achieve the sound you want.
Again, you can practise by recording yourself acapella to analyse your singing quality.
Practise Your Timing and Rhythm
Now, it’s time to perfect your timing! Your goal is to be able to sing the song without any backup because you are so confident and practise with keeping time that you don’t need a beat!
You can check your rhythm and timing by playing the song quietly while you sing without relying on it, and seeing if you finish at the proper time. You can also overlay the song over your acapella version and see how you compare.
Once you master the intended timing, you can play with the rhythm (and tone and pitch) to really make the song your own!
Best Songs to Sing for Advancing Your Skills
While it’s impossible to give an exhaustive list of the best songs for singing practise, here are just some good choices for a variety of vocal types.
Explore the genres you enjoy most and find music that you love to practise, that sounds good to your ears, and that feels good on your voice.
Make sure to apply the vocal techniques to ensure that you actually improve your voice, instead of just singing along for fun.
Oceanic Feeling – Lorde
In her newest album, Lorde offers more of her unique, iconic sound (along with some that are newer to her). This track is slow and ethereal, which can challenge your pitch and timing very well! In her signature low voice, you can either stay true to the original track or shift the octave to suit your voice better.
Ain’t No Man – The Avett Brothers
A genuine feel-good song, you can practise quite a few vocal skills with this track.
Full of dynamic shifts, runs, and even a little bit of glissando, you can easily track your improvement with regular practise and evaluation of this song. It fits comfortably in lower vocal ranges but can easily be adjusted higher or lower to suit your specific voice range.
It also provides an easy outlet to infuse your own attitude and emotion into a song while at the same time experimenting with crescendo, belting, and other vocal techniques. This classic-sounding (but actually moderately recent) song will have you belting out loud!
Stumblin’ In – CYRIL
An amazing pop song sound, this duet is perfect for practising voice control and adding in your own embellishments later on.
You must sound confident and solid to sing this song without wavering. It will help you improve your rhythm and timing as well as your enunciation and breath control.
It’s a simple song that still offers a lot of opportunity for vocal improvement!
Still – Hillsong Worship
Religious songs and hymns are great singing practices because they are designed for anyone to be able to sing them, regardless of ability. This means you can easily learn them and then use them as a baseline to add your own improvisations and embellishments.
Still is a steady, simple melody that allows you to hone your pitch and practice belting. You can shift the scale up or down easily, and even add a shift during the song to work on your scale-changing abilities.
Ngā Mihi Meri Kirihimete – PERE
Christmas songs are also perfect for singing practice: they’re beautiful and often quite slow, allowing you to strengthen your stamina and sustaining ability.
This Māori version of the Christmas classic Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas sounds complicated, but you can always pare down the embellishments and learn the basic version before adding all the fancy stuff back in!
Weather With You – Crowded House
Sometimes suggested as an alternate national anthem, Crowded House has many great hits that you can practise singing with. Like many songs of this style, the vocals are not overly complex but rely on a strong delivery. You can practise your breathwork, chest voice, rhythm, and tone well with this classic song.
If you're singing off-key, straining your voice in your singing exercises, or just struggling to sing high, getting voice training from a professional singer is probably the way to go!
On Superprof, there are plenty of talented and experienced singing tutors who can help you. Your singing coach or voice coach can help you whether you’re in-person or having a virtual lesson!
If you want to practise singing on your own, try incorporating these tips while you sing popular songs so you can improve your singing techniques.
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