Have you ever wanted to sing in a band or get into your church chorus but have been too afraid? Do people tell you that you have a great voice and should be singing professionally? Great singers have lots of things in common but the most important thing for a singer to do is to actually sing all the time. That sounds too basic but the truth is that most people who think they can sing but dont sing professionally only sing a little each day. Perhaps it is in the bathroom while taking a shower (great acoustics) or in the car while listening to their favorite tracks. This is all well and good, but real professional grade singing requires some vocal training. This does not mean that you necessarily need to pay a voice teacher or vocal coach, but some do it yourself vocal training techniques, if done on a regular basis will definitely help your game.
Breathing is the most important thing for vocalists. Most vocal teachers teach that in order to sing the sound must emanate from the diaphragm area of the singers torso. What they really mean is that the singer needs to learn to breathe very deeply before phrasing (we shall get to that later) and learn to control how the breath leaves the body while creating a sustained tone. If done properly, the singer will elicit greater depths and clarity to his tones and eventually, when he or she learns to master the creation of the tones, a much broader range than they ever thought was possible.
Many singers get pigeon-holed right away before they learn the necessary vocal training skills that will give them that big, booming, rangy voice that you hear from the best singers. Even singers with naturally low voices can learn to sing very high if they can learn to master their falsetto tones.
Take a real long listen to some of the great singers of our time like Bono from U2 or Freddie Mercury of Queen. These guys can absolutely hit any note and it is not because they take care of their voice so much. Even Paul McCartney of the Beatles smoked most of his adult life and that did not seem to affect his voice in the least. That is because he had a combination of incredible, God-given talent, hard work, and great vocal training, probably a classical training (piano).
Phrasing is very important and this skill really comes from doing one simple thing: learn the lyrics by heart. If you do not know the lyrics to a particular song, do not sing it, period, especially if it is a difficult song with a broad range of notes. Once you learn the lyrics by heart, you can then concentrate on the phrasing. Phrasing is the number of syllables in each group of lyrics within a given song. Just because you know the words does not mean that you know the phrasing, but it is a good start. Vocal training requires that you breathe deeply after each set of phrasing and not breathe in the wrong places. Improper phrasing leads directly to singers running out of breath and consequently going flat or off-key when they attempt notes outside of their normal range.