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Umbriago posted:God I'm so embarrassed posting this. I'm bad/uncomfortable at singing, I occasionally play the wrong chord, I get some words wrong. You don't sound bad at all actually, but could use some instruction to strengthen your voice. When you hit bum notes, the problem is usually a listening one, not a vocal one. Next time you try to sing along with a song, listen very closely to the way the singer sings and do your best to match the pitch. Try not to limit your range either, you have a falsetto that you can always go into if it gets too high. It may sound funny at first and you'll probably crack your voice, but as you practise you'll strengthen that gap and it will be harder to notice. Also try practicing on songs in which the singer is singing a clear melody that you can play on piano or guitar. Mark Knopfler, though he has a cool voice, often talks his way through songs. Also, practising scales is one of the best ways to strengthen your range, just sing along to a major or minor scale that you play on your piano or guitar. Lastly, confidence is the most important part. You can be a horrible singer, but if you sell it with confidence, it will almost always work to your advantage. In fact, many of the most successful singers don't have great singing technique, it's the uniqueness of their voices and their vocal confidence that made them stand out from the crowd. I've been singing a lot lately, and found that my once dreadful voice doesn't sound too bad anymore. I had songs that I wrote when I was 16 that I never finished because I couldn't reach the notes. But now, at 32, I can finally finish these songs. Here's one of them. Let me know what you think: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_Mx...BC398CF&index=2 Gianthogweed fucked around with this message at Oct 19, 2011 around 02:33 |
| # ¿ Oct 18, 2011 17:14 |
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| # ¿ May 18, 2013 12:11 |
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One thing I always had trouble with was vibratto. I can't seem to do it when I actually try to do it, but sometimes it just comes out naturally without me even trying. For example, I just recorded this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GefVCpWoKVQ And I noticed I was doing a little vibratto on the short notes, like "Everything" without even trying to, but on the long notes, like "white" I just can't seem to pull it off. I've tried some vibratto excersises but just can't seem to do it fast enough. Any good tips on mastering vibratto? Gianthogweed fucked around with this message at Oct 30, 2011 around 20:12 |
| # ¿ Oct 30, 2011 20:09 |
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NOT PAUL LAYTON posted:"vibrato exercises" are silly, vibrato is a product of air pressure on a relaxed muscle, not a deliberate laryngeal movement--it's a symptom of healthy singing. yours is missing because you have almost no breath support and your voice is placed really far back into your throat (as opposed to the "mask," which is what teachers are referring to when they tell you to sing through your nose/eyes/forehead/imaginary gold ball in front of your face or whatever stupid thing) which creates a shitload of tension in your throat I've had a head cold lately so I've been pretty congested which is why I wasn't singing through my nose at all, but I always thought singing through the nose was bad, unless you go into head voice. What do you mean by breath support? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_Mx...lf=results_main Here's a recording of me a few weeks ago. I don't much like how I sound in the early part, is it because of the lack of breath support? At the end, when I'm singing in my higher registers I think my voice is a little stronger, but I am straining a bit. Gianthogweed fucked around with this message at Nov 4, 2011 around 06:41 |
| # ¿ Nov 4, 2011 06:38 |
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I've heard a lot of different claims as to the difference between falsetto and head voice and a lot of vocal professionals disagree on the exact definitions. From what I gather, there are four to five different registers, or resonance areas, in your singing voice as you change pitch. There is a lot of overlap in these ranges, so you can sing a lot of the same notes in more than one register, but eventually, if you go high enough, your voice will have to move to the next register. The lowest is vocal fry, that's when your voice is so low you can actually hear the individual vibrations of your voice. Country singers often like to move from vocal fry to chest voice because it does add a bit of a rugged sound to their voice. The next register is your chest voice. Pretty much all singers of all styles use their chest voice as their primary singing voice. This is your natural, or "full voice" and the range that most people feel most comfortable singing in. I don't like to call this "full voice" though, because "full voice" could also mean your full range which includes all registers you can sing in. So, when David Lee Roth said he can sing four octaves in "full voice" he could have just meant, "in all his registers" which is perfectly believable. The higher you go in your chest voice, the more you have to shout to reach the note accurately. There's a large overlap between this higher chest region and the next register which is sometimes called the head register (sometimes called the falsetto register). This is where it gets confusing, because this head register is often called the "head voice" but many professionals don't agree that the "head voice" is a register. The "head voice" is a way of singing in the head register. Falsetto is another way of singing in the head register. When beginning singers sing in the head register, they often sing falsetto, which is a breathier, less powerful way of singing. In order to sing in head voice, you have to "zip up" your vocal chords to allow less air through. It's a more nasal, less breathy way of singing that is much louder and more powerful than falsetto. To make this even more confusing some people also call this the "mixed voice", because it's where you're actually combining some aspects of your chest voice with your head register. For example, if you're singing in the area where your chest voice overlaps with your head register, meaning you can sing the same notes in both registers, you should be able to train your voice to combine these registers and make the break between the two registers sound nonexistent. This takes a lot of training, and many people disagree that mixed voice is the same as head voice. Personally, I find little difference between the sound of head voice and mixed voice, and I somewhat doubt that the "mixed voice" actually exists. Most pop singers sing in this register, and they usually have this part of their vocal region strengthened to the point where it's hard to differentiate it between it and their chest voice. There is a fourth, often disregarded register, that many just consider part of the head voice. There is supposedly another break in the head voice when you get high enough. This break is a lot less noticeable than the one between the chest voice and head register, so many people just consider it to be part of the head register. Personally, I'm not sure if this register can really be defined as a separate register since you're still singing in your head, and I was never able to notice a break between the lower notes of my head register and my highest notes, but I'm not a professional singing teacher, so what do I know. However, I still like to draw a distinction between the higher head register and lower head register because I've noticed that as you get higher in your head register it becomes more natural to sing in head voice rather than in falsetto. A lot of heavy metal screams are done in this register, and it's almost always done in head voice rather than falsetto because your vocal chords naturally "zip up" when you sing this high and it's very hard to let a lot of air through. Think Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden when he's belting out those really high notes when you think of this register. The fifth, and highest register is whistle voice. This is the most difficult register to reach, and it usually takes a lot of training to sing in this register. It's especially difficult for men. You'll hear singers like Mariah Carey sing in this range a lot when they go really high. Because it's so high, it's very difficult to actually sing distinct words in this voice, and it sounds more like a whistle sound rather than an actual voice, hence the name. Anyway, I hope I didn't confuse you more. There's a lot of conflicting opinions on the difference between head voice, head register, mixed voice, falsetto and even the definition of a vocal register, so I'm sure there are people who disagree with this assessment. Nevertheless, this is how I make sense of it all. Gianthogweed fucked around with this message at Jan 17, 2012 around 21:44 |
| # ¿ Jan 17, 2012 03:34 |
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GreatKesh posted:I absolutely hate my voice. I recorded myself singing A Horse With No Name by America and it sounds like I'm talking roughly in tune with the song, aka complete poo poo. Besides what's already mentioned in the OP (record yourself constantly, do your best to emulate singers you like, etc.) One tip I found useful was to stress the vowels of words rather than the consonants. For example, when I first started singing, I noticed I would say words like "curtain" more like "cr'nnnn" With almost no time spent sainging the "ai" part. This made my voice sound more nasal and less appealing. Notes ring out much better on vowel sounds than on consonant sounds, so make a purposeful effort to diminish the amount of consonant sounds you make and focus more on the vowel sounds. Gianthogweed fucked around with this message at Jan 22, 2012 around 14:32 |
| # ¿ Jan 22, 2012 14:29 |
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I'm used to being a backup singer in my band, but recently started recording my own solo stuff. I'm still not completely happy with my voice and feel I could use improvements. Let me know what you think (these are original songs). http://jamesmurray1.bandcamp.com/ This song relies heavily on harmony tracks. In some places it works, and in others I think it would sound better with a solo voice. The problem is that main melody is at the very top of my chest voice range, and it sounds a little too much like I'm straining. I feel more comfortable singing the lower parts, but they don't blend as well with the guitars. I definitely like the 3 part harmony on the "when aquarius broke through the wall" part towards the end, but feel it should alternate between single voice, and 3 point harmony. Any suggestions? http://jamesmurray1.bandcamp.com/tr...o-without-drums This is an older one I recorded and better suits my range. I'm mostly happy with the vocals except that I feel it's a little weak at times, and would benefit from vibrato (something I can't seem to pull off). Any other suggestions would be of great help.
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| # ¿ Oct 13, 2012 00:07 |
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Hammer Floyd posted:Cheers. I've got a reasonable falsetto but I dont really want to go there. BeeGees weren't really my thing :P (Yes I know that there's a lot of awesome uses of Falsetto in Rock\Metal, I'm just using the most extreme example). Hetfield is a baritone (like most men). In the early days he could hit some really pretty high notes in the tenor range, but he screamed them all and pretty much destroyed that part of his range. Nowadays he's pretty much limited to his baritone range. Gianthogweed fucked around with this message at Oct 23, 2012 around 23:11 |
| # ¿ Oct 23, 2012 23:08 |
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Boz0r posted:What's that nifty David Lee Roth-like squeak at around 1:14 in this song, and how do I do it? That's the whistle register. It takes a lot of training to be able to do it correctly, and some people simply can't do it (usually due damage of their vocal chords). If you have a fresh untrained voice, though, you should be able to train yourself to do it. There are many youtube videos with vocal instructors showing techniques on how to reach it, but it's best to get a vocal trainer.
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| # ¿ Nov 29, 2012 21:33 |
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I know some will disagree with me on this, but I like to think of the Head voice as the higher range of falsetto. For example, you know it's falsetto if you can sing those same notes in chest voice (though it usually sounds quite strained in chest voice at the top of your range). But once you reach the very top of your chest voice and are forced to go into falsetto, you're actually going into head voice register. Head voice has a different tone than falsetto because you're zipping up your vocal chords and it can actually be sung much louder than falsetto. Falsetto is very breathy and it's very difficult to sing loudly. But head voice is more piercing and more nasal. You know it's head voice if your nose vibrates. It's similar to chest voice in that as you reach the higher notes near the top of your range, you're kind of forced to belt them out and it's very difficult to sing quietly. What people often confuse with head voice, is actually the mixed voice. The mixed voice is a combination of falsetto and chest voice. When you can train your voice to combine these two registers where they overlap, you get a much better tone. It doesn't sound as strained as when you try to belt out those high notes in pure chest voice, and there is more of a smooth transition between registers rather than the sudden break between chest and head voice. You're kind of using the same technique of zipping up your vocal chords and you feel the vibration in your nose as you do with head voice, so a lot of people call mixed voice head voice. I like to differentiate the two though, because it makes it easier for me to understand. Gianthogweed fucked around with this message at Dec 19, 2012 around 17:49 |
| # ¿ Dec 19, 2012 17:44 |
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gandlethorpe posted:I think I kinda get what you're saying, and agree mostly. I think your definition of head voice is like a male trying to sing like a female opera singer (which I can sorta do sometimes), i.e. notes that have no chance of getting any chest resonance. That tricky area where chest starts to get uncomfortable is where (your definition of) falsetto starts to dominate, but mixed voice can minimize the apparent gap. He's doing mostly falsetto, except for the really high notes, then he's going into head voice. Generally speaking, if you're singing softly, you'll probably go into falsetto rather than a mixed voice. Chris Martin from Coldplay does this a lot. It's a bit easier than training a mixed voice, but it still takes a lot of training to make it sound good. When I think mixed voice, I think of singers like Bono, or Sting, or Gotye (those really high parts that sound like pure chest voice but are actually a mixed voice). When I think head voice, I think of Heavy Metal singers like Rob Halfred or Bruce Dickenson (those very high pitched operatic tones).
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| # ¿ Dec 20, 2012 23:33 |
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gandlethorpe posted:Okay, I think I see where you're getting at. Sounds kind of like a book I bought a while ago, which I generally agree with, by Roger Love, and actually where I was introduced to the concept of mixed voice. I'm still trying to get the mixed voice as well. A great way to find it is to do scales ever day saying the word "nay". You kind of need to force a very nasal tone, because the more nasal you sing, the easier it is to find the mixed voice. It's going to sound awful at first, you'll sound kind of like Jerry Lewis (Hoigin flaigin!), but as you practice it you'll be able to improve your tone and it will sound more like your chest voice (a lot less nasal). You'll know your doing it if your nose is vibrating and you're coming up from above the note rather than from beneath it. There's a great CD series called "Brett Manning's Singing Success" that teaches you all the exercises you need to get to find the mixed voice. It isn't easy though. You need to practice every day and it will take at least a few months before it sounds any good.
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| # ¿ Dec 21, 2012 01:53 |
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I know my definitions are controversial. But I think what you're referring to is head register (as in resonating in the head) as opposed to head voice, which has several definitions that aren't agreed upon. So i just picked the definition that helps me understand what I'm doing to differentiate the breathier falsetto with the more nasal and powerful falsetto at the higher end (head voice). I just started the brett manning series. A friend reccomended them because they improved his singing significantly. Brett Manning may very well be a hack, and I'm still suspicious that there is such a thing as a mixed voice. But my friend can sing inthe mix quite proficiently now, and he credits those cds. He insists that its an actual mix of falsetto and chest voice, but I'm not yet convinced. I think the tone of that region of notes just improves naturally with regular exercises, and Manning's exercises are pretty traditional for the most part. Right now my mixed voice sounds like most annoying sound in the world (a la jim carrey from dumb and dumber). But when you actually hear Jim Carrey do that it actually does sound like two voices at the same time, so maybe there's something to it. Nevertheless I'd like to know what other singers think of Brett Manning's technique, and the whole idea of the mixed voice. Is he a hack? Does the mixed voice exist?
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| # ¿ Dec 24, 2012 03:58 |
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| # ¿ May 18, 2013 12:11 |
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cpach posted:For what it's worth a ton of classical instructors also are bad about terminology, and major historical schools of singing that predate a scientific understanding of vocal production are still a big deal. When dealing with anything historical it's a total cluster: in the earliest usage of the term (like in the 14th century etc) head voice probably did mean falsetto, for example. I've had choral directors tell the tenor section to not strain for high notes by telling us to sing "pure head voice" or "pure head tone" when they very clearly meant for us to sing a passage falsetto. My old vocal coach used the same terminology (and was remarkably unhelpful about any specific training in my falsetto or in transitioning between my modal and falsetto voices). I maintain that poo poo is such a clusterfuck that terminology about registration is almost useless without a known context or some careful definition. This is pretty much my thoughts on it. The emphasis on the mixed voice part of his cds is working on a clean transition between the registers. This is something I was able to do pretty well before I even started the cds though, but I admit my higher modal voice above middle C was always pretty strained and has only recently improved in tone. I'm a pretty deep baritone, almost a bass, so perhaps this is only natural. I don't think I'll ever sound like Sting, Bono, Gotye or Steve Perry but I can fake them on Karaoke night with liberal use of head voice. I can sing 3 full octaves if I go into head voice, and my range has improved significantly since I started singing regularly. I used to be only able to sing 2 octaves. I'm not sure if Ari's definition was much different than mine, and I don't think it contradicts anything. I always associated falsetto with the breathier, quieter singing above the chest (or modal) voice. This can actually sound quite good if sung right (Coldplay comes to mind). Head voice is also above chest voice, but resonates in the head and can be louder and more nasal. It can also sound great if sung right (a la Judas Priest). It's just two different ways of singing the high notes as far as I'm concerned. They are both above the chest (or modal) voice, it's just that the breathier falsetto resonates more in the throat, while the more nasal head voice resonates more in the head (your nose will vibrate with head voice). Some may disagree, but this is how I learned the distinction, and it's the easiest way for me to understand what's going on when I try to sing these high notes. As for the mixed voice, again I'm not sure I believe it's an actual mix between chest and falsetto, but I agree with you that it is probably more of a means of mastering the transition between your modal voice and falsetto/head register. For a baritone, knowing how to do this is essential. We can't sing above middle C in the modal voice as effortlessly as tenors can, like Sting, Gotye, Bono, etc., so perhaps singing like them is beyond our physical capabilities. Most men are baritones, and higher tenors like Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder are even rarer still. That's why they earned the big bucks. Sometimes I wish I was a tenor. Gianthogweed fucked around with this message at Dec 26, 2012 around 19:54 |
| # ¿ Dec 26, 2012 18:13 |
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