An astute question was asked by a singer this week. They noticed something in their own practice that prompted them to ask “do singers get bored of singing the same songs?”.
Here’s the usual process
The process they experienced is possibly something you’ve noticed yourself
1) You decide to learn a favourite song. It’s an exciting song you’ve always loved.
2) The melody has to be learned first, so you have to spend time learning the song. Slow going but enjoyable.
3) You then sing it a few times badly. This is a bit painful, but you persevere with the promise of a better sound just around the corner.
4) You sing it many more times less badly, and it becomes smoother, but not perfect. Getting there.
5) You now broadly consider that you can sing the song, but you need to keep polishing it
And in the polishing process you discover… you’re getting bored?! What? But you LOVE this song, you’ve spent HOURS trying to learn and refine this song… why are you getting bored of it?
Answer: It’s likely not a song with a lot of depth
Just because a song is incredibly popular, this does NOT make it a great song. It just makes it catchy product.
When most people first start singing, they have to go through a process of both
– self-invention; and
– self-discovery.
You have to both learn to build your instrument, and at the same time, discover what it likes/doesn’t like to do.
The beginner’s voice, as an instrument, isn’t built yet. With proper training they will acquires HEAPS more range, power, tone, etc… so they can’t decide a song is “beyond them” too early.
As a result, most singers with limited training actually have not cultivated any taste or discernment in what it FEELS like to sing songs – how could they? If their instrument is not built more fully, they’ve never been able to sit in the driver’s seat of a more capable voice and note what feels good, what doesn’t feel good, what feels rewarding, what feels punishing to try and deliver. And this is truly a never-ending experience.
To borrow an analogy
It’s a bit like only ever having watched Formula One racing, then thinking you can understand what an easy vs difficult course must be to drive. Even driving fast road cars doesn’t prepare you for it.
It’s only by starting training, and incrementally increasing both your vocal capability AND sensory experience of that capability, that you can start to understand songs more fully.
Hence at the beginning, people often tend to pick very cool sounding songs, but that are not terribly enjoyable or manageable, even for trained voices.
Psssst
If you’d like a list of songs I regularly recommend that have good depth but are approachable by many fledgling singers, here are the top three songs I recommend the most.
How does it FEEL
As people progress through their vocal training, their ear and sense of feel about singing improves. They start to recognise that certain songs FEEL more enjoyable to sing, something about the melody and the way it lies across their voice is incredibly favourable. Those songs become a self-reinforcing loop.
Songs that FEEL good to song, invite the singer to sing them more and more. The act of training becomes almost becomes self-fulfilling: we stop training merely to sound good (or even cool), we train to make it FEEL as good as possible, and that in turn engenders the best quality sound.
I’ve had singers start off wanting to sing hard rock, then they discover just how unpleasant a lot of hard rock is too sing. Even great technique doesn’t make typical rock melodies *feel* any more enjoyable to sing.
Many of these singers slowly metamorphose into lovers of other genres and other singers, whose music is sufficiently challenging but also feel far more enjoyable to sing. Singers like George Michael, for example.
When such singers voices become capable enough, singing such songs created a dramatic sensation of “Woah, this feels amazing”. That’s not to say they sounded perfect immediately, but that sensory feedback loop become noticeable.
They have locked into this sense that the best songs have a depth of feel they can tap into. These typically maps beautifully onto how voices LIKE to function, and it becomes a pleasure to stay locked into songs with such depth.
Brief example
I recently learned “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” by Sting and the Police. Fab song to listen to, and I sing it well if I do say so myself. And yet, so much of the catchiness of that song is in Stewart Copeland’s drum parts, and the variety of backing textures.
Sung solo with piano/guitar, it lacks somewhat… and I got bored quite quickly. I still sing it, but I’m not going to flog a dead horse. Maybe I’ll reinvent an arrangement that works and elevates it, but for now, I’ve put a pin it.
Conclusion: Some songs have more depth than others
You get bored on some songs, because some songs are genuinely boring once you get to know them.
Sometimes the melody is pretty repetitive. Maybe the song’s anthemic feel is more down to the soaring symphonic strings in the background. Or perhaps it’s a beautiful but subtle harmony is lifting the lead vocals to make it pop more than it does when you’re singing it solo. If you’d like a list of features that make songs REALLY difficult to song, I’ve got a ten item list for you right here.
But there’s more songs out there that you just have to get out and explore. I often make recommendations, but it’s highly dependent on whether you like the songs I suggest. Think of it like clothing and fashion. You can browse all you like, but you have to get the piece and try it on for size for a bit to get a feel for what works and what doesn’t.
