Unfortunately, there is no method to change the overall sound of your voice. That is, if you have a raspy-sounding voice, your voice will always be raspy even if you take voice lessons. What you can do is to sing better with the voice that you do have. Here are some tips:

1. Know thy voice.

Spend quality alone time with your voice. Take your voice out on dates, so to speak, and really get to know it. You might even try recording your singing voice to hear it more objectively. Find out the answers to these questions:

Is my singing voice big or small? Thin or full?
What kind of vibrato do I have? Fast, slow, medium, heavy, thin, non-existent? Am I able to sing both with and without vibrato? When I sing without vibrato, does it feel different in my body than when I do sing with vibrato?

What is my full vocal range? What range am I most comfortable singing in?
Where is my passaggio (the pitch(es) where the voice changes registers)?
How long can I sing without taking a breath? (i.e. How well do I support my breath?) What do I notice in my body and what do I notice about my tone when I start to run out of breath?

How does it feel in my body when I am singing well and when I am not singing well?
What kinds of food and drink affect my voice negatively/positively?
How long does it take for my voice to "warm up"?

There are no right or wrong answers to these questions—everybody's voice is different. The more informed you are about your own voice, the better you will be able to care for it and improve it.

2. Take care of yourself.

Your body is your instrument and you only get one. So, stay hydrated. Get enough sleep. Don't smoke.

3. Support your breath.

You've probably heard this before by every choral director and voice teacher you've ever had—and there's a reason for that. Proper breath support is imperative if you want your tone to sound the best it can. Unfortunately, it seems like every pedagogue has a different way of explaining breath support, which leads to a lot of confusion. This is an area where a personal voice teacher will come in handy for you. He or she will work one-on-one with you to help you learn or improve your breath support so that your tone is always supported. [Read: "Choral Cliché: Support the Tone."]

4. Keep your jaw loose.

A tense jaw will cause your tone to sound constricted and may even cause you to sing out of tune. So, reduce your jaw movement to only what is necessary and don't chew on your vowels. For example, if you are singing a major scale on "ah," there is little need to move your jaw while ascending from pitch to pitch. Keep your jaw as stationary and as loose as possible, and think of making the shape of the vowel inside your mouth rather than with the muscles in your lips.

5. Read ahead of the beat.

When reading music, always have your eye at least one or two beats ahead—that way you can anticipate what's coming next and you'll be less likely to be caught off guard when you encounter a curveball interval jump. This can be especially helpful when doing a cold sightread through a new piece of music.

6. Listen louder than you sing.

Aural multi-tasking—the ability to listen to yourself while simultaneously listening to other singers and musicians in your ensemble—is a challenge that every choral singer faces. Please: Do not plug up one earlobe to be able to hear yourself better. Why? If you have to do that to hear yourself, then you aren't training yourself to listen holistically.

If you're having trouble hearing yourself in the group, one trick is to angle your music book or folder in front of you (but without completely burying yourself behind it, of course) so that some of your sound bounces back to you as you sing. Use acoustics to your advantage.

Take voice lessons. They offer choir classes in High School and College. Also, you can play games like SingStar or SingIt to get better at those songs, then record your voice once you master a song on a tape recorder and listen to it back. If you like it (or your honest friends do) Then good for you! But I like to do karaoke! Videotape yourself too. Make an interesting video, by adding dance moves or strong poses. The more you are into a song the better your voice will sound because it naturally wants to make the right note. Unless you ar tone deaf. Then you have to learn not to be during childhood. You can't learn as an adult.

Oh, and I went to the American Idol Experience show at Disney's Hollywood Studios Theme Park in Florida and here are some tips from an American Idol winner and one of the judges from the show. Each song tells a story, find that story and understand it, and follow it from beginning middle to end. Think about it while you sing the song so that you get some emotion out of it while you sing. Also, when you hold a note, hold out the vowel sounds instead of the consonants. That will give you a more open sound to your voice.

Very good for your first but Your flow is off beat, if I was there I would be able to help you with that….you need to write exactly on beat which takes saying it and re-writing the sentence until it flows perfectly on the beat, you can figure out how to do this by studying other rappers flows and continually freestyling, trying to figure out how to hit the beat and flow nicely…one person who has an incredible flow is this guy… Http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default…. …… When you rap you need to feel the beat on your voice and ride it like waves, theres not a second your voice shouldnt be hitting the beat…the more you record the more comfortable you will be, I can tell your not comfortable because you sound like your reading the lyrics and not saying them..a rapper like Nas sounds like he means what he says when he says it, because he does…rap is not just talking, its speaking from your heart enthusiastically with speeches, its learning how to ride the beat smooth, and within your riding of the beat figuring out a good delivery(sound of your voice with the beat) and flow…your a musician, but your also a speaker, whether it be humour or dead serious stuff, it helps to write stuff you would actually say, then mean it when you say it……practice also helps incredibly, you will just get more and more comfortable……post your audios on rap boards like www.rapmusic.com (theres forums on there where you can battle and all that) and seek critic….for better sound……depends on the money your willing to spend…me right now am using a portable studio with a condenser mic and preamp to power the condenser

heres something i recorded just recently with it
Http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default….

other people prefer to get a really good soundcard installed in their computer and get a program like acid pro(buying plug ins too, but its free if you download it with keygen, thousand dollars to buy) and a pre amp and condenser studio mic……condenser mics are like 150 to 3000 dollars…….mine was 300…you can buy m-audio fast track pro…..its a preamp you can probably find for 200 at the very cheapest, it allows you to plug in your studio mic into your computer into the usb port(much better than the mic input)….get a sound card installed as well…you should get really nice sound…..or you can buy a portable studio……they are about 400 – 5000 dollars……mine was 600 dollars…and a pre amp to plug in your condenser mic because it will need to be powered by it……but if your looking for a lot cheaper then if your only using a comp mic right now, I recommend you find a dynamic mic(its not the condenser studio mic but its the next best thing) i like the 100 dollar sony one you can find at best buy, or you can buy a cheaper one, it all depends on your budget…you can find dynamic mics cheap as 15 bucks……they are better than comp mics because they are meant to pick up the sound close to them and nothing else, your typical unidirectional mic(comp mic) will pick up every little sound, a good sound card if you want to add it will also help

for good prices on music equipment I would recommend musiciansfriend.com and ebay.com.