The**OFFICIAL**Voice/Singing Help Thread

You cant ask us if it was an off day or if you need to practice more. Time will tell. If you get sore throats, youre pushing too much for your current level....ala the reason why you couldnt "find" your scream. ..... read the next reply:

This is why I stress clean voice singing. If youre not a "natural" at whatever youre trying to do then overpushing to scream will make whatever tone/note youre trying to aim for become more and more difficult, naturally. Because it all boils down to being able to hold a note at a specific pitch. If you can't sing that pitch, you sure as hell can't sing it hard enough to blow twice as hard to get a "proper" scream sound.
 
Hi there folks!

Long time lurker, i finally could record something with my new band, and here i come to ask you guys to take a listen and tell me what you think, in an overall view, and technically:

1) About the song;
2) About my singing.

If you think the singing is too bad, remember i recorded the guitars also, so maybe i should shut up...:p

I play guitar for almost 10 years, and started singing with POOR ability maybe 7 years ago (i'm 23 now), but not so often. Last may i bought Melissa's Zen of Screaming, and that's basically my approach (although i have some more dvRAB and stuff). These vocals were recorded this year.

It's most clean singing, and i wasn't 100% that day, but that's pretty much me. In the "heavier" choruses (before and after the solo) i wanted to get a bit more agressive. What lacks for me now?

Feel free to tell your opinions, and thanx a lot in advance! (Voice recorded through a Behringer xm8500 into protools).

Here's the song:
http://trig.com/samsara-maya

Alexandre
Macapa-Brazil
 
on vocal demos I have up at

http://www.bandmix.com/tom211/

Trying to get into a local band, covers mostly, not that experienced with rock vocals....

Any and all feedback on these samples would be greatly appreciated. I've gotten to where I can make these recordings pretty quickly so what I need is to know specific areas to improve. I'm still experimenting, trying to 'find a voice' that sells itself, even if just in the glamorous city of Dayton OH.

So Randy, Paula, and Simon (especially Simon).... please have your say....

Thanks in advance!


THANKS ANYWAY, but I already got some feedback on problems I hadn't noticed, from another source, and decided to redo the demos before I ask the experts here to listen. So they may have been taken off by this time.
OK I
 
Practicing with the mic isn't really going to help anything, unless you are using it to record yourself and listen back? If your just using it to amplify your voice to practice though its not going to help you progress.

Mics need PA's/powered monitors. You can also use a keyboard amp, but never a guitar amp. It will more than likely damage the computer speakers so don't use them.
 
Hey guys,

I have a question about adding rasp to my vocals. I have been trained in singing and am comfortable singing clean vocals but I would like to be able to add some slight rasp to my vocals now and then as my band plays alt rock Soundgarden kind of stuff. The main problem I have is that when I try to rasp a note i get way to much rasp when I just want a little bit.

The sound I would like is what Flynn from Cog gets at 3:30 into this performance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eRIN-2C2iQ

Any help would be awesome and as a side note, I've looked into getting zen of screaming however I was a bit put off because it seems to deal with metal core/hardcore screaming when i'm not really into that stuff.:confused:
 
I disagree. I think you need to shut it up unless you really need to talk. Thats what I learned. Plus, we dont know what you did. You could have residual pain from swelling affecting one of your vocal nerves, or a damaged or partially paralyzed a nerve, which is quite common as far as vocal injuries go. With a nerve injury or partial block, the cord cant get the proper signals it neeRAB to attempt to vibrate properly. However, if its not very painful or excrutiating then youre probably in the clear. I'm just not a fan of any drinks. Someone tell me what it is in a tea or concoction that when swallowed and digested enRAB up being circulated to the corRAB for a benefit...?? I say eat lots of raw vegetables and fruits as they pack the most nutritional punch, and take a multi. If you heal in two or three days then I'm willing to bet that it was a minor injury and your body needed that time to deal with it and repair it with its resources, not because you drank any over the counter anything. Otherwise it would probably have active ingredients listed. I dont know of any vocal help concoction or tea that has active ingredients....
"These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA"

And dont forget about mid to medium low E's....
Nutrition and water. You violated....The body heals itself when its ready.
 
okay... so i tried to scream today... i thought i was doing good... didn't sound good but i kind of asumed that would come with more practice... a couple after after trying my throat started to hurt... so i guess i'm doing something wrong... i'm not sure what though... i think i'm using my thoat and i'm not supposed to or something... can i get some helps?

thanks
 
Hey if any one could give me some tips i would be very thankful.

I want to be able to sing in a soft manor similiar to elliott smith. He sings usually fairly soft and sometimes hits beatiful high notes. My problem is that i can contstantly never get high enough for want i want to achieve. It sounRAB to bland. If anyone could give me tips on making my voice higher while still sounding good that would be awesome.
 
my friend said that her voice teacher said any kinda of screaming is bad becasue its makes your chorRAB slap together and not vibrate
i told her that i learnt the proper way to scream and like it never hurts and stuff
but is it really wrecking my voice by making them slap together?
 
No I never had pain, the 'lightness' of my throat went away this morning and now it seems that my throat has gotten heavier. Weird...it's like theres a ping pong ball shoved down my throat (this has happened to me before randomly - not related to singing). I can still sing everything right and I just did a range check (which made my throat feel even heavier) but it's still bugging me.
Other than that, I've been short of breath (I can't really understand why).

Has this ever happened to any of you guys when you tried screaming for the first time? I don't mind it happening this one time, but I sure hope this doesn't happen everytime I try this thing.

I'm hoping a good night sleep will fix this.

P.S: I only practiced for like 15 minutes.
 
www.thevoiceconnection.com has a review on Throat Coat Tea. It has tons of herbs in it that are meant to help the voice in many ways. Totally shutting down will make it worse. Unless he has done major damage which he isn't considering he can still talk, do exercises, etc. This happens to artists all the time on the road. If you keep on pushing like it, yea it will do damage but its going to take a lot to do something major and you'll know right away if you did something bad like rupturing a cord or something of that nature.

Was he to just sit around and go silent it would take longer for his voice to recover because the inactivity is going to cause extra swelling and mucus because the lack of blood being circulated to the area. If he was to keep on just singing like he was when he messed up this time it would be even worse because it would just add to the injury. However, vocalizing the lip trills, humming, EE's, everything will help to thin everything back out and get back to normal. The tea is just really an alternative to water if you get sick of drinking nothing but water; it isn't needed but it does help.
 
I've seen some neutral comments about inhaled screaming and some that say its just abuse. But havent seen alot and when asking a pro teacher most of them probably would look at you like youre silly, sillier than when asking about normal screaming.

I think the mechanism isn't set up for it. Its kinda like bending your finger back. You can do it, and get farther and farther over time, but its obvious not made to go that way. Be careful.
 
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