It was the love of music that first inspired me to learn how to sing. I never had the alpha kind of voice neither was I a musician, just love and desire was how the journey started. I could sing anywhere and everywhere except in congregations, the ridicule I received the few times I tried hindered me from making more attempts. I just settled in my comfort place and sang as loud as I could, knowing no one was there to remind me how bad my voice sounds and how my voice didn't fit the instrumentals even when I felt I was killing the whole show with my Assumed-wonderful voice. I just had to give up, I hated being reminded how croaky my voice was and watching people feel bored and sitting when they should be inspired.
I almost did give up until I was elected as the youth leader and this means governing both the music aspect alongside affairs that concern the youth in the church. If this was it, then improving my musical skills became important and so far, I've applied a few ways to improve on this skill. The few training sessions I had didn't go well with me. Some tutors can be funny, because he had a big throat that allowed him to swallow some big chunks of banana during his training stage and made him believe everyone needs to swallow that too. To cut the story short, I didn't, and I didn't attempt the class again. The next tutor I found would watch me sing and at the end ask me how I felt. It kept ending with a question, another question, and more questions, and I gave up looking for a tutor- even though they were never professional tutors by career, just some dudes who we adore for their singing skills.
So it was left to me to find out ways to improve on my own. Thanks to this digital era, it's easy to surf the web and get whatever we want, that's what I did and still do. So one of the ways I improve my musical skill is ;
Watching lessons from YouTube and practicing them. This is the easiest, one just sits beside his computer or holds his mobile phone with his eyes locked to the screen listening to lessons from more than 50 professionals on how to improve with practical steps. No questions or funny rules, just straight to the point on what one needs.
Secondly, Working on maintaining my pitch by avoiding certain habits and food. There's always a scale of preference and opportunity cost in whatever we do. You sacrifice one thing for the other. In this case, I sacrifice certain foods I love to eat until I've mastered how to maintain pitch and how to sing high notes without seizing a breath. It felt like the world is ending in the beginning because with time I understood I can actually do it as long as I value that which I'm desiring.
So far, the spoiler alert- my voice is still croaky. And if there's anyone who believes in the long run effect, then it's me.