Singing lessons come in many forms and at different prices.
You can find tons of free lessons online or you can pay for private voice lessons from a vocal coach.
Or you can land somewhere between the two extremes.
Below, we’ll look at the different options and help you find the best singing lessons online for you.
Personally, I would save money and go with a complete online vocal course to begin with.
Then once you have the basics down, get an actual vocal coach to get you to an advanced level.
Many people don’t stick with it, so there’s generally no sense in paying for expensive one-on-one lessons to begin with.
Start with a low-priced online singing program, until you know you want to continue learning to sing.
With that in mind let’s take a look at the best online vocal courses currently available, before we move on to some of the other options.
Table of Contents
- 1 Best Online Singing Courses Compared
- 2 Free Singing Lessons Online
- 3 Best Singing Lessons Online
- 4 Online Voice Lessons From A Private Music Instructor
- 5 In-Person Vocal Coaches or Singing Classes
- 6 Best Singing Lessons Online: Final Thoughts
Best Online Singing Courses Compared
As long as you are able to keep yourself motivated, there’s no need for a personal singing coach in the beginning. You can get the basics down on your own with simple vocal exercises. At this stage, it is all about the basics, like breathing exercises to learn proper breath control.
Once you’ve worked your way through a course and you’ve passed on to the intermediate stage, I would hire a personal singing teacher for more advanced voice training.
At this point, you want someone who can analyze where you are at and give you specific instructions on how best to proceed to improve your vocal tone. Of course, you only want to do this if you’re serious about singing. Private lessons are not cheap.
Let’s take a closer look at each of the best singing course. But first, let’s see what free alternatives are out there.
Free Singing Lessons Online
You can find a ton of singing lessons online, including my own post on how to sing better. YouTube is also a goldmine of videos. But you will have to sift through a lot of bad ones to find the gems. And that’s one of the main drawbacks of free lessons.
You will definitely be spending some time tying to find the good articles and videos among all the bad ones. You also won’t have a set schedule that tells you what to work on and in which order. You won’t get any feedback on your progress either.
For these reasons, free videos and articles only work well for some people. For others, they don’t work at all. Here are a few good options to check out.
- 14-day free trial of 30 Day singer
- Free Singorama mini-course (audio only)
- Watch various videos on Youtube until you find an instructor you like (this guy is just one example)
If you’re the type of person who can motivate yourself and work without feedback, they might work for you. You also have to give up your time just finding the lessons. If you prefer to spend a little money to save a lot of time, the next option might be best for you.
And some of the paid courses below actually have free mini-courses or free trials available, that provide far more value than most other free lessons.
Best Singing Lessons Online
These options all give you a structured video or audio course by a professional singer, but not to actual one-on-one lessons. These singers create a course, then sell access to thousands of people.
Like free vocal lessons, you still have to learn on your own and motivate yourself, but you get all the high-quality lessons you need in one place and you don’t have to go looking for them.
You also get a structured course that will start with the basics and tell you exactly what to work on and when to work on it.
Most complete courses cost less than $300 and even many of the more expensive ones are sometimes on sale for under $100. Course like this are great for beginning singers. More advanced singers would be better off with a private tutor.
You’ll find a lot of these courses, but only a few of them are worth your time and money. The five listed here are the best online singing classes available.
All are excellent, but Roger Love’s Singing Academy is the best set of singing lessons for beginners. It gives you the most value for your money and Roger is one of the best teachers around, which is probably why so many professional actors and singers have turned to him.
Roger Love Singing Academy
- Roger Love is a great singer and teacher, trusted by hundreds of stars
- Unique and highly effective method focusing on "middle voice"
- Very personal teaching style, despite prerecorded videos
- Lessons for male and female singers
- Love Notes is a great tool for practicing singing
- All important aspects of singing are covered
- Daily 30 minute practice exercises that Roger sings with you on the video
- Great value for money considering everything included
- Price might be too high for some
- Videos are SD quality only and website is fairly basic
- Lecture and practice portions mixed together, making it difficult to just go in and do the practice part
- Complete self-study; no opportunity to get feedback from an instructor (apart from course 3)
- The free mini-course is not very useful, but does give you an idea of Roger's style
Roger Love has vocally produced more than 100 million CD sales worldwide, written 3 top selling books, created multiple successful online and video programs, and appeared as a regular in 4 major network TV shows. He was also the voice coach for the mega-hit TV show GLEE.
Not only that, he has taught tons of Hollywood actors and well known singers and groups like John Mayer, The Beach Boys, Maroon 5, Tool and so many more.
Seriously, the list of people he has taught is insane. He lists some of them on his site and you probably won’t believe some of them, but it’s all true.
Roger Love’s method is revolutionary. He teaches with an emphasis on the “middle voice” in what is not just a new way to sing, but a completely new way of learning how to sing. It is incredibly effective.
He offers three different courses, but also gives you 4 free videos when you enter your email address on his site. This is a great way for you to get a taste of his teaching, to see if it is right for you, without having to pay anything yet. That said, the free videos are primarily a sales pitch for his full course.
Check out our Singing Academy review for much more.
The Vocalist Studio (AKA Four Pillars Of Singing)
- Free vocal mini course available to try it out
- Most comprehensive course
- Multiple types of material, from lectures to quizzes to exercises
- Robert personally teaches lectures and performs exercises with you
- Many exercises have separate instructors for male and female singers
- Active forum where you can get help and support
- Robert is very accessible via chat
- Very well-organized platform is easy to use and navigate
- Great value for money considering everything included
- 14-day money-back guarantee
- Price might be too high for some
- Robert Lunte's style is not for everyone
- The vast amount of content could be overwhelming for beginners
- Self-study; no opportunity to get feedback from an instructor, apart from the forum (unless you buy the private lesson add-ons)
- Does not follow a set schedule (some prefer this type of freedom)
The Vocalist Studio was created by Robert Lunte. It consists of 175 videos across 13 modules that cover absolutely everything. unlike other courses, Robert even uses several teaching philosophies, instead of sticking to just one.
This course sells for a similar price to Roger Love’s. Lunte is also a great instructor and all of the materials in this program are of equally great quality. Why did we rank it just below Roger Love’s program, then?
Because of Robert Lunte. He is an excellent coach, but his style rubs some people the wrong way. For that reason, we suggest checking out both of these programs and choosing the one whose teaching style is a better fit for you.
Check out our review of the Vocalist Studio for more details.
Singorama
- Course materials presented in a simple way and very easy to use
- High-quality recordings
- Very extensive and detailed instructions
- All important aspects of singing are covered
- Practice songs with separate tracks for vocals only and instrumental only
- Includes several valuable bonus materials for free
- Very low price considering everything included
- 60-day money back guarantee
- Free mini-course available for test drive
- Audio files only (mp3 format)
- Web design of the course pages is very basic
- Vocal exercises are in a separate bonus module, so it is a bit confusing which exercise goes with which lesson
- Instructors are all female, which is not ideal for male students
- Complete self-study; no way to get feedback from an instructor
- Vocal range covered by the exercises is a bit limited for advanced students
- Course is meant for beginning to low-intermediate students only
The Singorama course is taught by experienced vocal coach Melanie Alexander. It costs $97, but is occasionally marked down as low as $67. It comes with a bunch of bonus courses as well as a 60-day money back guarantee.
The core system consists of 28 audio modules that are combined with e-books, worksheets and tools designed to condition your voice quickly. This is an extremely comprehensive course, but it is audio and worksheets only; there are no videos.
Melanie has also made a mini-course available for free. It actually provides a ton of useful material and also gives you a great idea what to expect from the full course.
Check out our Singorama review for more.
30 Day Singer
- Multiple instructors to choose from
- Experienced vocal coaches with higher education in music
- Perfect for beginners of any age
- Works with wide variety of singing styles and genres
- Covers music theory and relates it to singing (very helpful and something few courses do)
- 14-day free trial
- 30-day money-back guarantee
- Subscription based (monthly fee, instead of one-time payment)
- No downloadable materials, like workbooks, pdf guides, etc.
- No one becomes a great singer in 30 days, so the name could be a little misleading
30 Day Singer takes a different approach. It actually gives you 3 beginner’s courses that cover all the fundamentals of singing. They cover basically the same material, but are taught by 3 different instructors.
This allows you to choose whichever vocal coach is a better fit for you. One is female and two are male. One of the males focuses his course specifically on singing while playing the guitar, making it great for anyone who also plays an instrument, especially if that instrument in the guitar.
In addition to the beginner’s courses, there are also advanced lessons that are much shorter and focus on a single aspect each, plus warm up exercises and brief singing tips and techniques lessons.
All of the videos and the instruction are high quality. The main reason we ranked this course lower is the subscription payment model. Instead of paying one time and getting access for life, you have to pay a monthly fee.
The fee is low, so you could theoretically complete all of the lessons and then stop paying. But that means you lose access and will not benefit from future additions and improvements. The off a free 14 day trial, which lets you check everything out before paying.
Read our full review of 30 Day Singer for more.
Christina Aguilera Teaches Singing Masterclass
- Learn the secrets of a world-class singer with decades of music industry experience
- Touches upon studio work for vocalists
- Adaptable to different genres
- Extremely high lesson quality
- Intimate teaching style
- Reasonable price
- 30-day money-back guarantee
- Not a good option for beginners
- Not very focused and goes into too many different directions in only a few hours of material
Christina Aguilera needs no introduction and it is pretty amazing that you can get vocal instruction from a world class singer. And she doesn’t hold back. It turns out she is a great teacher with a very intimate style and she shares all of her secrets.
Given who the instructor is and the high quality of her lessons, the price is an absolute steal. But you need to be aware what you are getting.
While Christina covers all the basics, she only does so briefly. Therefore, this is not a good course for a beginner looking to learn the fundamentals. She simply doesn’t go into enough detail on anything.
But it is an excellent supplement to a more comprehensive program and it is also excellent for a more advanced singer who already knows the fundamentals. Then you can fully take advantage of Christina’s decades of experience int he music industry.
She will teach you things other courses don’t, like self expression, artistry, and how to sing correctly using a microphone.
Our Christina Aguilera Singing Masterclass review has much more.
Factors to Consider When Choosing an Online Singing Course
I recommend the programs above, because I am familiar with them and know they are excellent. That does not mean there aren’t other good courses out there.
There are hundreds of courses overall and while most won’t be very good, some are probably great. So how do you know if a given course is right for you? Here are the main factors to consider.
Cost
Let’s just get this one out of the way immediately. Cost is important and you want to make sure you get your money’s worth. The two courses above are sometimes on sale for under $100, but generally, you should expect to pay between $100 and $500 for a quality singing course.
Instructor Credentials
You want to make sure the instructor has a lot of experience both singing and teaching. If you find a course with an anonymous instructor or one who does not list any credentials or have any testimonials from previous students, stay far away. Any good voice coaches are very open about their experience singing and teaching and about sharing the success of past and current students.
Instructor’s Voice and Teaching Style
Any good singing teacher will also have videos that demonstrate their own voice and their teaching style. If you don’t like the way they sing or the way they teach, look for a different course. The instructor might be a wonderful singer and teacher, but if their style does not appeal to you, you’d be better off learning from someone else.
Course Content
Any good course will provide a breakdown of the modules on their sales page. It should tell you exactly what the course will teach. Make sure the course actually teaches what you need. If you can not find this information, stay away from the course.
You also want to check the format of the course. Some are available on CDs only, some are downloadable and some are available in multiple formats. Some courses contain only audio files, while others use videos. Verify the formats available and make sure the course comes in a format with which you are comfortable.
Course Structure
This goes hand-in-hand with the previous point. The sales page should tell you how the course is structured.
Does it include daily exercise routines to reinforce what you have learned? Sure, you can do this on your own, but it is much easier if the course tells you exactly what to work on each day and how long to spend working on it. I would never choose a course that does not provide a structured practice routine.
Money-Back Guarantee
This is important for two reasons. One, it shows that the instructor is confident in the quality of his or her course. They know few people will ask for a refund once they see how good the course is.
Two, even the best courses are not for everyone. A money-back guarantee allows you to give the course a try without risking your hard-earned money.
Online Voice Lessons From A Private Music Instructor
The following are some of the better known vocal coaches who offer online lessons (most also offer in-person lessons). Personally, I would try to find a local singing instructor first. If you’re going to spend the money on private lessons, you might as well be in the same room as your coach.
That said, many people live in areas that lack great instructors. In that case, online vocal lessons via Skype make sense. Here are a few of the best coaches.
Ken Tamplin
Ken Tamplin is one of the most respected voice coaches in the country. He offers both private lessons in his singing studio and Skype lessons. He is especially good at helping you improve your vocal range.
The in-person lessons are naturally very expensive, but the Skype lessons are much more affordable. They still cost $360 per hour, but when you consider how much he charges for in-person lessons, you realize you’re getting a great deal.
Ken also sells online singing lessons like the ones mentioned above, but his are much more expensive and they do not have a money-back guarantee. Luckily, he has a ton of articles and videos on his site and his Youtube channel.
If you’re thinking about his course, I’d spend some time browsing his free material to make sure his teaching style matches with your learning style. In the absence of a money-back guarantee, you want to be certain before spending your money.
Jaime Vendera
Jamie is another well-respected singing coach, although he is definitely a few steps beneath Ken Tamplin in the name-recognition category. That’s actually a good thing, though.
His lessons in singing voice training are much more affordable, with a 45-minute Skype lesson costing $100 (or 6 for $500) and a 45-minute in person lesson going for $125.
Jamie’s classes are especially well-suited for rock and metal singers, although anyone can benefit from his singing and music theory knowledge and experience.
In addition to private coaching, he also sells a number for books and courses through his website, but none of them are the kind of comprehensive course like the three listed above in the section on online singing courses.
Kevin Richards
Kevin Richards is another pop, rock and metal specialist. He was awarded the coveted “Subject Matter Expert” by “The Modern Vocalist”, which is the #1 community for singers.
He has been performing and teaching since the 1980s, but despite his extensive experience, his vocal training lessons are still relatively affordable.
He charges $72 for an hour-long basic lesson at his New York Studio or via Skype and $100 for an intensive lesson. The one negative thing I can say about Kevin’s courses is that his website is terrible.
It looks bad and is confusing to navigate. I guess he spends his time on music, not web development, but he could still hire someone to bring his site into the 21st century.
Eric Bruner
Eric Bruner offers in-studio and in-home lessons in the Houston area, but he also teaches online classes via webcam. He has been teaching for over 25 years and specializes in vocal technique with a lot of great vocal exercises. His method of teaching works for any style of music.
In addition to private vocal instruction, Eric also offers online group classes and he has a number of singing courses you can work through on your own. He offers a 30-day free trial period on those, so you can try them out before you have to spend any money.
Cari Cole
Cari Cole is a celebrity voice trainer and is one of the most in-demand music instructors in the profession. Her past clients include legends legends like singer Courtney Love, the band Journey, Grammy winners Donald Fagen/Steely Dan and Chrisette Michele, as well as finalists from The Voice and American Idol.
Cari not only teaches vocal classes, but also artist development and new business mentoring. As such an accomplished coach, her expertise does not come cheap. An hour-long class costs $325 and her 3-month vocal mastery program goes for $2700. She also has several e-learning courses.
Factors to Consider When Choosing an Instructor
There are basically three factors you want to consider when choosing a vocal coach.
- Credentials — Who is the instructor and what qualifies them to be teaching others how to sing? Do your research and make sure to read testimonials from previous and current students.
- Style — What are the instructor’s singing and teaching style? Make sure they match with your needs and your learning style.
- Cost — How much are the classes? Of course you expect to pay more for famous teachers, but is it worth it? There is no easy answer here. It just depends what you are looking for.
- Availability — Is the instructor available at the same times as you? This is less of an issue with online classes, but is still something you need to consider.
In-Person Vocal Coaches or Singing Classes
If you can afford them and if you live in an area that has good vocal coaches, this is the best and fastest way to improve. One-on-one instruction gives you instant feedback so that you can address any problems immediately and really get the perfect voice technique down.
A good teacher is also able to create a lesson plan tailored to your individual level and learning style and they usually end up becoming close friends, i.e. someone for whom you buy a gift every Chrstmas.
If you need exercises to improve your vocal range, they can tailor some exercises specifically for that. If you need practice, tips or training specifically for a performance, they can help with that.
You get exactly the training and techniques you need to develop and master your vocal instrument, whether you are a complete beginner or a more advanced student who wants to work on improving a specific area.
For factors to consider in selecting a teacher, see the previous section. They are the same.
Since in-person courses are expensive, I usually recommend an online course for most beginners.
At this point, you do not yet know if you are going to stick with it, so why spend a lot of money. Besides, any good course will do a good job of teaching the basics. Obviously a real-life instructor will do a better job, but for most people, the cost difference is not worth it.
Once you are past the beginning stages and you know for sure that you want to continue your studies, it makes sense to spend the money and get an actual teacher.
Local classes make the most sense, if good teachers are available in your area. If not, go with Skype lessons from one of the instructors listed above or from another quality instructor. There are many.
Best Singing Lessons Online: Final Thoughts
Whether you are looking to become a professional singer or you just want to improve your voice so you can nail your favorite karaoke songs, there is a course for you. As always, the more you pay, the more hands-on the instruction. Hopefully this article has helped you find the best online singing lessons for you.
Elite Music says
No doubt! It is a very helpful step for people seeking to learn things with ease. Thank You!
Charlin Edwards Santos says
is thing singing lessons vocal free?
Natalie Eastman says
This is very thorough and thoughtful, Camila! Thank you! You’ve presented many ideas for both hobby, amateur, and professional singers to consider when looking to take their voice to the next level, whatever that level might be. I’ve been on both sides of that coin as singer seeking lessons and as instructor.
Camila says
That definitely gives you a unique perspective.
zzday says
A growing number of vocalists, voice teachers, and music schools offer paid online voice lessons, done through video chat services like Skype, but you can also find many free voice lessons online, which can be great for supplementing your lessons.