Singing

How do u learn how to sing good? Should someone take lessons or just sing to cds alot. How can you learn to just let your voice be powerful and to it's fullest?

There are breathing techniques that you should learn that will help you achieve a full, powerfull singing voice.

Take Lessons. Learning how to sing isn't something you can pick up on your own, unless your naturally gifted. If your not that lucky, you'll need a vocal coach to give you a second person opinion and help you develop good vocal technique. A good place to start is to sing scales. Just play each note on the guitar and sing it. Easiest way to get started. You'll eventually need someone to help you though.

A good singing voice is said to come from what is known as "support". Support is a particular muscular state wherein the diaphragm and the ribs are pushing the air out of your lungs. Some people don't exhale 'properly', that is to say that as they exhale their belly goes outwards, the contraction of the rib cage does all the work. What should happen is a sort of rolling action where the diaphragm pushes upwards and your viscera roll in under the rib cage. This causes some reflex which closes the glottis bringing the vocal cords together. To get the glottis to close (which is what we do unconsciously to make a note) some people use the muscles which help them swallow. This is a mistake apparently, avoid this habit!
For good tone a vibrato is necessary. A vibrato (a waver in pitch) comes from being able to fine control the rate of expulsion of air, a vibrato's supposed to come from the diaphragm. That said, I've spent so long singing before I learned this that I do it by shaking my head! It looks slightly silly but I don't know for sure that it's a bad thing for tone or sustain. That said I want to learn to get a good vibrato using standard technique. Also people who can develop good vibrato are more agile at jumping pitches.
I have read that, with training, most people can cover a range of 3 octaves. This scares me, I can only manage 2 and a half and can't imagine how I might sing higher (a ridiculous falsetto) or lower than I do.

Shaking your head??? That's a new one for me, dewd. But if it works for you, kool. The vibrato effect is done by controlling the contractions of the diaphragm muscle. Which your supposed to tighten when you sing anyways. It takes a lot of practice to actually gain control, but what you do is release and contract the muscle repeatedly to get the effect. It's pretty hard to do at first. You can do it artificially by placing the palm of your hand just below your sternum and sing a pitch. Hold it and vibrate your hand on you chest. That's it. Doing it without using your hand is the hard part. Breathing exercises help develop the technique.

You can get higher and lower in pitch just with practice. Once you can sing the highest pitch easily, and your vocals get comfortable with that pitch. You should be able to move up. It's just like going up steps. Takes some amount of time though.