It is recommended that you take singing lessons at least once a week, but preferably twice a week, in order to continue developing your skills. For those who already have some training and confidence in singing, it usually takes less than that, approximately 3 to 6 lessons. Do you want to sing smoothly from the bottom to the top of your range? You might want to have the ability to sing loud high notes, or you might want to fix your pause first. The number of lessons you need depends on where you want to go.
It's important to set your own goals and communicate with your voice teacher. As you improve, your goals may change slightly, as you can do more with your voice as you develop it. The plan should not only focus on teacher outreach, but on a combined beneficial plan that also focuses on their goals. Having a couple of classes a week depending on your needs as a singer is good, but if you think it's not necessary, then we recommend you return to once a week.
What this means is that your voice teacher is there to correct and guide you, so you will develop a good singing technique that comes naturally. Therefore, a new student needs to be under proper guidance as often as possible; whereas a more advanced student who already has well-established good singing habits may be able to get away with taking classes less often. That said, where you'll often see the change first is in how your voice FEELS to you rather than how it sounds. That's why I recommend that a beginning student have a minimum of one class per week with a qualified instructor; classes twice a week are ideal if the schedule and budget allow.
Playing with your voice is fascinating, but it can also be dangerous if you don't know what you're doing. Group tutoring is great if you're on a tight budget, as you can share the cost of the teacher's time and experience with the other students in the lesson. Beginners have many options when it comes to improving their voice and anyone can learn to sing, at least in tune. If you can't find suitable or available tutors in your local area, you can always search for tutors who offer online singing lessons.
If you've been training for months (or God forbid YEARS) and you don't see much vocal progress (assuming you've been practicing regularly), it means that your teacher can't explain things to you in a way that you can understand or that your teacher doesn't understand how to apply vocal function to YOUR voice. With singing classes, you will also learn the ability to read at first sight, exercise your vocal cords and strengthen your memory, and you will acquire the vocal knowledge necessary to become a better integral singer. You should be able to know much more than when you started your first lesson, and this should also inspire you to keep learning more as you become the teacher of your own voice. Acquiring knowledge takes a lifetime, so if you only want to take classes for a few months, or you have a slower temper to learn and understand, this will obviously have a different outcome than the current singing lessons.
You should always measure the value of your lessons by how you improved and not by how long it took you to get there. In the 18th and 19th centuries, and probably before, it was customary for a singing student to have daily classes with the teacher. With these recordings, the student can practice the specialized lesson plan that the teacher has developed for them between classes. In short, you can learn a lot about your voice and how far you have to go in a single singing lesson.
