How do I sing with my original voice?

I have heard from many professional singers to NEVER change your singing voice and that it should have the originality and tone of your normal speaking voice. This is where the importance of originality comes in. You are right when you said you will never sound like Bruno Mars, but that doesn't mean you can't become as good as him. Does that make sense? There's a bunch of exceptionally helpful short singing lessons on youtube :)

Don't try to learn to sing by watching random videos on Youtube. You are so hopelessly confused about what singing that you couldn't even begin to guess which person is actually giving you useful advice, or spouting complete nonsense. And usually it's going to be the latter.

At any rate, it's best to find a real voice teacher--one that can work with you face to face. There are actually several things that you must do physically to get the sound you can hear in your head out of your mouth correctly. I could link you several great websites that have accurate information about singing but if you have never done something before, how can you be sure you are doing something correctly? Learning new skills takes time and effort. You may sound pretty bad at first and a teacher is there also encourage you even when you get discouraged. After all, you didn't learn to play whatever instruments you play overnight, right? Even if you never took allformal lessons, you may have had experienced musicians help you out now and then.

Some singers may sound "different" from their speaking voices for many reasons, right down to digital "help" used during recording (like 'auto-tune').

But really you don't sing in the exact way that you talk. For example, to be able to get notes out correctly, the vowels and consonants might be modified from the way they would normally be spoken. This explains why some singers seem to "lose" their native accents.

I think Channing might be getting the idea of "speech level singing" or SLS a bit muddled. I took traditional voice lessons myself (I'm classically trained), but there are some things good voice training have in common even though there may be different terminology involved.

Again, don't try to train yourself. A few voice lessons will at least save you a lot of wasted time--and perhaps save you wasted money on "do-it-yourself" dvds, books, etc that promise more than they usually deliver.

There are some people who can sing without any training at all--and even these "natural" singers can learn to make most of that natural talent if they take proper lessons. (I was in "audition only" choirs before I took ANY voice lessons). Maybe you won't be transformed to the world's greatest singer, but with a competent voice teacher and hard work you can expect to at least learn to sing in tune with a relatively pleasant tone.

Another option in the meantime is to hire (or find a singing friend) to sing your songs while you accompany them.

Here are some tips on how to find a teacher (I recommend only that you find a local teacher that can teach you face to face)

http://www.vocalsplendor.com/teacher.html