When it comes to learning to sing, there are a plethora of options available to learning proper techniques and forming good habits in regards to vocalization. There are of course professional lessons at a music shop or learning center, which can give you the one on one training and live feedback on catching mistakes and correcting techniques, but there are a ton of digital options as well for those who don’t have the time or schedule to make it to lessons and appointments consistently.
One of the more robust digital options is Singorama, touted as the essential guide to singing. Let’s take a closer look at the Singorama learning package and see if it really will teach you everything you need to know as the essential guide, or if you’ll be better off spending your money elsewhere.
The Voice Behind The Lessons
When looking at any educational product, it’s important to see if the people behind it have any authority on the subject. Picking up teaching materials written by someone with no authority on the topic is like taking medical advice from your barber. Since Singorama is all about training your voice, there should at least be someone involved with a music background, even if they were hired as a consultant to help build a cohesive lesson plan.
Singorama was created and organized by Michelle Alexander. While she is also an experienced vocal coach, some may recognize her as the lead singer of the pop group Girlfriend, which had a number of popular albums throughout the late 80’s and 90’s, two of which went platinum. With a professional singing career behind her, along with her experience as a vocal coach, it’s safe to say the information you’ll find in Singorama is going to be sound, and based on fairly modern vocal training techniques that are proven to work.
Target Audience
According to Singorama’s official product page, it seems to be targeted mostly at either people new to singing or those who already have a bit of causal experience but are interested in pushing further and learning techniques to hone their skills as a singer. If you’re someone who already has had some form of professional voice training or sing at a semi-professional level, a lot of the content may be a bit redundant and you’ll likely be better of with something more advanced.
For those of you who are completely new to singing, or are even teased about having a terrible voice or being tone deaf, this sounds like it might be the perfect product for you. Michelle Alexander even goes into a bit of her history before hitting it big, giving some anecdotes about her being teased for her singing voice when she was younger until a friend who was seeing a vocal coach gave her a few pointers. While these tidbits of personal history help make the product more relatable, it’s not proof that it’ll work. To find out how well this works, it’s time to dive into the course material and what actually comes in Singorama itself.
What You Get
For starters, the Singorama 2.0 package is massive. The sheer volume of material you’ll get with this program is actually a bit overwhelming at first. You’ll get two pieces of software to help with your musical training along with a variety of lessons and supplemental reading material. Luckily, Singorama does a great job of breaking these materials down into manageable chunks through the use of its lesson plans. So what exactly are these materials?
-Perfect Pitch Pro
Perfect Pitch Pro is a very useful bit of software that helps train not only your voice, but your ear. Perfect Pitch Pro was designed to train your ear to learn all 36 notes on the chromatic scale, and over time help you learn how to adjust your pitch by ear as necessary. Using this software in conjunction with the other materials will help you learn proper pitch correction and help get you better at making quick adjustments on the fly as needed.
-Singorama Mini-Recording Studio
The Singorama Mini-Recording Studio is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a basic recording studio software that allows you to record your voice and provides some basic editing ability, along with a virtual keyboard. Throughout the course it is mostly used to record, track your progress, and help pinpoint your weaknesses through using the virtual keyboard. It’s a great way to chart your progress, and is exclusive to the Singorama package.
-The Ultimate Guide on How to Read Music
While learning vocal techniques and training your voice is the main objective of the course, being able to actually read music can come in handy, especially for those looking to join a choir or sing in a more professional setting where sheet music might be a bit more common. This guidebook will teach you the ins and outs of how to read sheet music and understand everything from time signatures to breaks and tempo shifts. While not essential to the fundamentals of the course material, it’s a great little extra for those who might be interested.
-Singorama 2.0
The true meat of the bundle, the Singorama 2.0 lesson pack gives you 28 audio lessons to follow teaching you all of the techniques and professional tips to perfect your singing voice. These lessons cover everything from basic music theory and techniques like octaves, pitch and tone to life skills like overcoming performance anxiety and how to sing in a band. Just looking at the course material over briefly shows it gives a lot more value than your basic course about proper vocalization and singing techniques.
But At What Cost?
Singorama used to have both a physical and digital option, the physical option retailing about $297. Luckily, they’ve recently ditched the physical version entirely, cutting out the cost of production for those bulky physical manuals and transitioned entirely to digital distribution only. What does this mean for you though? Savings, that’s what. The digital distribution package now goes for around $99 though they occasionally have promotional offers and mark downs for as low as $67. While these prices are amazing, the product page does mention that they will have to move the price up closer to retail and to act now while you still get the best savings, but whether or not that’s just their call to action or if there really is going to be an impending price hike is hard to say for sure.
The Lessons, Step by Step
While all of this sounds well and good, it may still be hard to tell if Singorama is for you without knowing EXACTLY what you’re getting. For those of you who need all of the details before making your decision, below is an outline of all 28 lessons included in Singorama.
Part 1: Getting Started
The first few lessons of Singorama focus on the basics of understanding your own voice and learning the proper techniques and posture for singing. It’s the essentials building blocks you’ll need to build off of in order to define your singing voice, style, and strengthen your voice properly. The lessons in part one include the following:
- Lesson 1 – Introduction and Understanding Your Own Voice
- Lesson 2 – Warm Ups & Voice Strengthening
- Lesson 3 – Loaded Sonancy Method
Part 2: Vocal Technique
The second part of the course goes over various vocal techniques like maintaining pitch and tone, keeping your voice in tune, and ways to increase your vocal range. Another important lesson is how to avoid many common bad habits when it comes to singing, habits which even many professional vocalists fall into. The lessons in part 2 include:
- Lesson 4 – Tone
- Lesson 5 – Pitch & Staying in Tune
- Lesson 6 – Bridged Vocalization
- Lesson 7 – Bad Habits to avoid
- Lesson 8 – Octave Power Generator Part 1
Part 3: Music Theory
This is the part of the course that starts getting a little dry, but as with any technical material that’s bound to happen. This section goes over the essentials of music theory, like time signatures, keys, intervals, and the necessary information on how to actually create music. This section is a must for anyone interested in writing their own music or becoming part of a band. The lessons in part 3 include:
- Lesson 9 – Time Signatures, Key Signatures & Rhythm
- Lesson 10 – Major and Minor Keys
- Lesson 11 – Intervals and Solfege
Part 4: Singing Styles
This section focuses mostly on how to sing various genres and styles of music. This is really where you’ll find your niche, and find what styles of music are most compatible with your voice, pitch and vocal ranges. The lessons in part 4 include:
- Lesson 12 – Different Styles of Singing
- Lesson 13 – Progressive Interval Training
- Lesson 14 – How to Sing Different Genres
Part 5: Song Dissection
This is where some of the less tangible elements of a song are broken down. These lessons explore lyrics and meaning, emotion and personality, and other elements of a song that can be a bit more subjective. This is also where you’ll be learning how to write your own songs, as well as where you’ll learn to put all of your previous lessons to use in learning a full song. Part 5 includes:
- Lesson 15 – Understanding the Meaning of a Song: Lyrics and Tone
- Lesson 16 – Understanding the Meaning of a Song: Emotion and Personality
- Lesson 17 – Making Your Own Song
- Lesson 18 – Learning a Full Song Part 1
- Lesson 19 – Learning a Full Song Part 2
Part 6: Moving Forward
This I find to be the most interesting part of the Singorama lesson package. While most other instructional suites teach you about the mechanics and techniques on how to improve your singing abilities, Singorama takes it a few steps further. This section breaks down the inevitable questions of where you can take your newfound singing talents if you so desire. While there are a few singing technique lessons sprinkled throughout, most of these lessons deal with skills and techniques that can even be applied outside of your singing career, and will help give you a clear path on where you can go from here. The final lessons in part 5 include:
- Lesson 20 – Solutions to Common Problems
- Lesson 21 – Your Future as a Singer
- Lesson 22 – Octave Power Generator Part 2
- Lesson 23 – Live Performance Tips
- Lesson 24 – How to Ace Auditions
- Lesson 25 – Writing Your First Song
- Lesson 26 – How to Sing With a Band
- Lesson 27 – Performance Anxiety
- Lesson 28 – Final Overview
Pros and Cons
Here is a quick breakdown of all the pros and cons of the Singorama 2.0 package.
Pros:
- A mountain of material included
- Supplemental software
- Affordable digital download
- Goes through all the necessary steps to improve your singing voice
- 60 day money back guarantee
- Free 5-day mini course to try before you buy
Cons:
- Time consuming due to the sheer volume of material
- Some of the extra material might not get fully utilized (extra software and guidebooks)
- Requires a good internet connection for digital downloads
- No way to get direct feedback or consultation
Final Conclusions
In the end, Singorama provides a mountain of useful and well-thought-out material that will provide a complete guide to improving your singing voice and how to apply your new skills in a more practical sense. I would be hesitant to recommend the product to those with only a passing interest back when they had the physical option for almost $250, but now that they’ve transitioned completely to the much more affordable digital option at $99, it’s well worth the money. The amount of detail the lessons go into is enough value for the cost, not to mention all the extra supplemental materials and software.
