cross post because I’m betting nobody /c/music isn’t as popular, but gonna cover my bases
You could probably find an inexpensive guitar online or from a friend. Electric might be easier in your wrists at first. And then just find some tabs for songs you like and go wild. People will say “oh I’m above tabs” “I haven’t looked at tabs since middle school”. FUCK THEM. The only wrong way to go about learning is to be too good to try something.
Or you could go to sacred harp singings. They’ll take anyone. No skill required, you learn by doing, it’s all really nice people, there aren’t any actual performances, it’s just a nice community. Pretty much completely free.
Or you could learn clarinet and play in a community orchestra. I’m sure there’s a teacher local to you who you could take lessons from. Adult students are great.
Whatever path you go down, just try and commit to spending 10 mins a day on it.
Singing can be self taught, but you really need a teacher for real skill since there’s so much you can do badly and have to unlearn if you progress. No remote lessons don’t work, especially at the start.
They are expensive though. Get one that focuses on breathing and support, plays piano, and lets you sing a mixture of exercises and repertoire. Shop around until you find one that works, not every system works for every voice.
A lot depends on your genre. And your voice.
I’m going to talk from a Classical perspective, but a lot of this applies to Musical Theatre, Jazz, Folk, and other gen, especially for lighter voices and below semi-pro levels where Classical singers generally have to make a choice to develop a more dramatic sound and cut themselves off from pop a bit.
If you must self teach and you can note bash a melody out on a cheap casio keyboard I’d recommend doing what most classical singers do and picking up a copy of Vaccai. It’s a series of poems set to music with instructions on how to sing, originally designed for talented amateurs. (by 1830s middle and above class standards where music education was mandatory from birth.)
Because they’re based on a theme of intervals or ornaments, they’re a great way to pick up sight singing. There’s also a lot of videos on managing these exercises which can take you from the basics to very advanced level as you come back to them.
The 24 Songs and Arias is a Baroque/Classical song series that every singer knows and dreads, but learning them will give you considerable classical singing rep.
Together these are the “Yellow Book” and the “Red Book”. There’s also the “Blue, yellow, and red Handel” which are books of Arias. Find them in your vocal range. If you don’t know your vocal range, well a teacher can guess at a first lesson and tell you what to buy, but it usually takes years to nail down your voice to a specific “fach”.
For classical specific training anything by Richard Miller is good, and gives a good if opinionated description of the different schools if you want to specialise in, say, German rep.
For places to sing…
If you’re in a city there are definitely choirs that will take anyone and work in any genre, especially if you’re a masculine voice with a very high or very low range or a feminine voice with a very low voice or a clear-sounding above the stave soprano. You will need to be able to hold a harmony though, unless you’re a high soprano.
Also shanty and folk clubs are a great way to get into collective and solo singing where people wont judge your voice quality as long as you are vaguely on pitch. (in fact bad singing is sometimes considered an advantage). They also tend to lean left where choirs are one of the few places in music where there are a lot of chuds.
Amateur theatre companies will often take anyone, even those who are musically…irregular. If you want to sing classical start with G&S Operettas rather than full operas, or you’ll damage your voice. Otherwise musical theatre represents most musical genres these days.
Pinning
I’m trying to start learning piano soon. I’ll let you know my progress in like six months.
