Probably the most important aspect of singing is to be able to sing a given pitch for a specific period of time. Many people have trouble with this at first, but it is really just a matter of listening, practice and patience.
All notes used in music can be written down and therefore have a specific pitch and time value. Through the course of this book you will learn the fundamentals of all of the common time values for notes, as well as a method of identifying pitches and how they relate to other pitches in a song.
The best way to improve your ability to sing "in time" and "in tune" is to copy the sounds made by someone else. The easiest way to do this is to sing along with a recording of one of your favorite songs and try to copy the singer.
Listen to the following vocal phrase on the accompanying recording and try to copy it. Memorize the phrase and then sing along with the recording. Don’t worry about the written music for now, just copy the sounds you hear on the recording. The more you do this with songs, the easier it will get.