Hi Guest with Quiet Voice,

My two cents. If you decide to study voice, be cautious. Some well-intended teachers can wreck voices. Best thing, find some singer who you admire and then inquire who they are studying with.

In singing, environment is everything. If you are in a noisy pub, don't waste your time. People who are drinking have poor attention spans.

Don't hurt yourself by trying to outsing the crowd. It makes matters worse. Sol Hurok used to say "If people don't want to come to a show, you can't stop them." Same is true for noisy inattentive places and audiences.

The best way to project is to totally relax and sing naturally with your own vocal instrument. If you try to change and push it with force, it will backfire on you. Work on relaxation, diction, shaping a lyric so that it communicates in the way an actor does. Remember that even though you are singing folk music, you are still a performer. Breath support (diaphragmatic breathing) pitch and diction can be learned from a good vocal teacher.

The worst thing that you can do is to try to be heard when the odds are against it happening. Pubs are not the best places to develop singing. You get the occasional singer who is loud and forceful but singing requires vocal quality, nuance, interpretation, musicality and above all, a sense of well-being and relaxation, or at least an appearance of that. In this, singing is psychological. Being at ease is fundamental.

A sound system can be a trap unless you know how to use it. Mic technique is not learned overnight. Most small systems are tinny, and do not represent your vocal quality well. For this you might need a good mic (a condensor or a very good dynamic). In most places where a sound system is needed, you are at the mercy of a sound person who probably has never heard you before and doesn't know how to make you sound better. The only way out is to haul in your own system, not practical for a singaround or informal gathering.

The most important is to save your voice. This is where vocal training comes in and that's the only real reason to have it. Sometimes you can learn musicianship from a vocal trainer but mostly it's about taking care of the "instrument" and bringing it out.

If you continue singing at various places, do not compromise your voice by yelling, outsinging, or straining. Even if people are talking while you are singing, don't try to shut them up. You will do more damage than good. When you have found the balance of your voice, then stay with that and try to find the environment that supports that.

Frank Hamilton