Singing well and sounding good are like a venn diagram, there’s overlap and there’s also separation.
Sounding good is, in order:
- Being on pitch, this is like the base requirement, no other optimization matters if you’re singing off key. Learning to sing on key is three journeys: developing your ear’s ability to hear pitch, your inner ears ability to internalize pitch, and developing the precision and control of your vocal folds to produce a target pitch. All three systems work together to sing on key. The basic measure of this is being able to hear a note and sing it back precisely.
- After this, sounding good is all about getting rid of tension so you’re singing without straining yourself, and also to manipulate where the air flows through your head to alter the sound of your voice. This sounds wild but is totally doable, one example is simply pinching your nose to sound like Squidward. Once you have control over this, called the timbre or tonal quality of your voice, you’re able to sound good by crafting a pleasant mix of qualities. Some words people use here to describe dimensions of timbre are bright vs. dark, airy vs. compressed, resonance.
Singing well is, in order:
- Learning to utilize your breath. The breath and the flow of air is the basis of all healthy singing. Breathing into your diaphragm, then supporting your voice with the release of air… it’s an iceberg, most people don’t even have the kinesthetic sense to be aware of these internal mechanics.
- Having ZERO tension. Tension can happen in the throat, the jaw, the chest, the shoulders, your face, etc. it should not happen anywhere.
- Developing the muscles of your voice. This is just reps. Things will get better, you spend all your life talking which uses only a narrow portion of your voice muscle range. Just need to do the reps healthily, like in the gym