Vocal questions

Ok I've decided to try to teach myself to sing. I REALLY want to sing while playing my harp or piano. One of my first questions is How do you vibrato, it comes out quite naturally in the head voice but not the chest voice. Is there any tips to know how to vibrato at all please? Another question I have besides singing success is there another good vocal workout I could get. Thank you very much!!!! (I might have some other questions later)

Realistically, you should get instruction, preferably one on one with a good voice teacher. That said, a lot of singing is really in the breathing, so practicing breathing techniques is a good place to start. A quick search using "singing" in Amazon turns up loads of stuff. Not as straightforward without some guidance, but perhaps these may be of help:

http://tinyurl.com/63qush
http://tinyurl.com/57vvgk

You should really look around your area for a voice teacher. Well, hope this helps.

Almost forgot this book too:
http://tinyurl.com/5ufyl6

Good luck.

Vibrato for me was a bit difficult to learn at first, because it felt like I had to force it out, even though that is probably the worst thing you can do with vibrato... it can sound horrible! I never had an instructor--I taught myself with books, etc. and lots and lots of practice but what I did when it came to learning vibrato was this:
Hear it in your head as you practice and focus on bringing it out in your voice; Listen to accomplished singers and observe their tone and vibrato;
If you are teaching yourself, maybe try to find several good sources for singing/vibrato techniques and practice with them; and eventually, hopefully, vibrato will come more and more easily as you practice. Hopefully this helped!

As much as I would love to get a teacher....I just can't, I'm already doing harp, piano and violin and can't really afford another instrument to master at least. The thing I hate the most is I record myself singing a lot and it feels like I sing good but when I listen to it, I sound like a pathetic 5 yr old and I've been doing excercises like MA and AW in a scale and more for like a month. When do you start seeing improvments, do you ever like your singing???? Also is there a way to amplfiy your voice without a mic??? I recoreded my self playing my piano singing Walking in the Air and you could not hear my voice at all even when I play as quiet as possible to hear my voice and I see alot of people play piano without a mic. Does it just come with practice???? Are some people just not meant to sing???? Thats really how I'm starting to feel

That's exactly how I felt when I recorded my singing. I had to keep doing it over and over again because I was SURE I could make it sound better, but every time I listened to it it sounded terrible and I would get frustrated and think my voice wasn't meant for singing. I also couldn't get lessons because we live in the middle of nowhere. But when I sang it sounded fine, just not when I listened to the recording. Maybe it is the machine you are recording it on that is the problem? And for amplifying your voice, maybe you just need to sing from your chest more? Sort of concentrate on making the sound "bigger" without compromising your tone.

First off, do you understand proper recording techniques? If you're singing and it sounds right to you when you're singing, chances are it's pretty close to what you're hearing, with some variances.

Microphone technique needs to be understood when recording live audio. Basically you want to be as close to the mic as possible when recording your voice. If you're recording another instrument at the same time, it's best if each instrument has a microphone in close proximity to the sound source.

You also need to know how to set the settings in the recording setup for the hardware and software (assuming you're using your computer to record). Regardless of whether it's a computer or other recording hardware, you need to set the microphone input level in your audio recording setup.

Finally, sometimes we may be a bit too critical about something that isn't so bad. :-) Why not post a song so we can hear you?

Thanks for the tips and to be truthful the only thing I've been using to record was my own mp3 player, don't really have anything fancy like that a recording studio or software for that matter. I don't even own a mic to plug in to the computer. I only have cds that and books that teach me to sing and I'm just worry because I'm wondering when you can tell when you getting better but I got some helpful tips. Thanks!

Well, it helps to have a basic, decent recording setup. This way you can more accurately assess your singing progress. Fortunately this is not an expensive proposition these days. If you're strapped for cash you can get a basic recording setup you can use with your computer.

At the simplest level you can get a USB microphone that plugs right into a USB port on your computer. This one is readily affordable:
http://www.zzounds.com/item--CADU1

There is an excellent shareware multitrack recording program called Reaper that you can use to record your tracks with. You can find that here:
http://www.cockos.com/reaper/
Although it is shareware it is non-expiring and you can use it indefinitely, so you have plenty of time to decide if you'll like (it's hard to beat, actually). They're only asking for $50 so if you like it it won't break the bank to support them. :-)

You can find plenty of tutorial videos on how to use it here:
http://www.cockos.com/wiki/index.php/ReaperTutorials

With this setup you'll be able to make better recordings with nothing more than a USB microphone and your computer. Hope this helps, good luck.