Should I Buy Singing Lessons?

You know that joke where you’re singing a song and some guy says, “Hey, who sings that?” and you’re all excited to show how smart you are and you say “Nickelback!” (because if you’re like me you’re always singing Nickelback) and then he says “Good, let’s keep it that way!” and then he starts laughing because he thinks he’s funny but then he stops laughing when you karate chop him in the throat and then he’s crying on the outside and you’re crying on the inside because you realize you’re not even as good a singer as Nickelback!? **Yay for run-on sentences!**

This is the tragedy of my life.

Okay, seriously, violence is not the answer, and I don’t listen to Nickelback all the time (although I’m not ashamed to admit I like some of their stuff). The point I’m trying to make is that despite my best efforts, I am a very average singer. I think I was probably above average about 8 years ago when I was in choir and singing every day with an instructor, but I was never great and have now gone many years without any professional training (I’m considering my high school choir teacher “professional training”).

I want to keep doing musical parodies like Haven’t Made a Budget and For When I Retire and I want them to be really good. There are three things that needs to happen for a musical parody to be good, listed in order of importance:

1. It’s funny
2. The singing is at least above average
3. There is some educational value

I think I have 1 and 3 going pretty well, but I need help on number 2. If I’m going to make this stuff really good, I believe I need to strongly consider taking voice lessons. I’d really like your advice on whether I should or shouldn’t do this, so be prepared to leave a comment at the end of this post.

First, here is the best example I have of me singing. This was a song I wrote for FB after she made sent a ton of her readers to my site.

So that’s where I am today. I want to be better. The only trouble is singing lessons cost a lot of money and take time. I don’t want to waste time or money with lessons from some sophomore college kid in music school; I want real instruction.

I have found one instructor in my area that is quite expensive ($150 for first lesson, $75 for subsequent lessons) but has a good record of teaching people who have become famous performers. I have found another instructor who was a professional opera singer and has pretty reasonable rates ($55 first lesson, $40-$70 for subsequent lessons), but I don’t know if I want to sound like an opera dude.

There are also different singing techniques, and I have no idea what the difference is or which one is best for me. It looks like three months of weekly singing lessons would cost somewhere between $500 and $1100. And who knows if three months is enough? I have no idea what the deuce is going on!!!

Help me out Thousandaires! If you are a singing expert:  which style do you like best and how much does a typical vocal instructor charge?

If you are clueless like me: would you be willing to spend $1000 on something that you’d definitely enjoy and could make you better at your hobby?

Kevin McKee

Kevin McKee is an entrepreneur, IT guru, and personal finance leader. In addition to his writing, Kevin is the head of IT at Buildingstars, Co-Founder of Padmission, and organizer of Laravel STL. He is also the creator of www.contributetoopensource.com. When he’s not working, Kevin enjoys podcasting about movies and spending time with his wife and four children.