How to learn how to sing

I've been recently trying to learn how to sing (for about a year now actually), and I'm still not happy with my results. I mostly do acoustic stuff like Alice in Chains- Nutshell, Mad Season- River of Deceit, Caedmon's Call, or Derek Webb.

Any...

suggestion on how to practice or anything that helped ya'll improve?

if you breathe through your abdomen it works a lot better. record your voice also. now, it does hurt to breathe through your abdomen until you get used to it. what you do is, put stand up straight or lay down flat and put your hands right under your ribs and breathe. if your hands raise a lot, you're breathing right, if it raises a little, you're not. so, it's kinda hard to do at first, but you can get it. you can also look on youtube on how to breathe through your abdomen. it's actually like a workout and all singers do it. that's why they sound so good it worked for me in only the same day ^_^ it should for you too!!