My singing is terrible part 32

axisus

I'd love to be able to sing. My voice is all kinds of wrong but I still have a go (usually in the car when no one can hear me!). If I try to sing at the upper end of my limited range I seem to fry the vocal chords, something just 'goes' and I can't attempt anything again for quite some time.

Is this likely to relate to not doing that whole 'singing from the diaphragm' thing?

Grangousier

It's more likely to be a tension-in-the-neck thing. Look into relaxing/lowering the larynx and moving the higher notes into the head voice rather than trying to push the chest voice up. 

I'll leave it at that, as I actually only vaguely know what I'm talking about, I'm sure someone with a lot more knowledge will be along in a minute, but I know what you're talking about and it's to do with tension in the neck. 

Grangousier

By the way, I'm fairly sure there are a hell of a lot of singing teachers with access to Zoom or Skype who might be open to offers at the moment. 

scrumhalf

I've always said nthat there's good and bad about my singing voice.

The bad is that it's awful.

The good is that I know.

Snags

Start with breath control. If you're choking out when you go high it's because you're not supporting your voice properly.

You should do your "in" breaths by just relaxing your stomach muscles so your gut floops out and  your diaphragm naturally gets pulled down, filling the lungs. Then as you sing and use the breath, gradually tighten your abs/stomach muscles to push the breath out and support the voice. To hit the high notes you need to keep your shoulders down and relaxed, try to get the top of your head as high/tall as possible, and ever-so slightly look down/over so that your spine/neck/head line is as tall and long as possible. And crush those abs, man

There's a load of exercises you can do, but you probably need a grown-up to teach you those and observe what you're doing. if it hurts, you're doing it wrong.

Other tips are things like keeping your mouth small (you don't need to open wide for volume), and smiling whilst you sing in order to sweeten/richen the tone. Just try singing a scale with a frowny face and then a smiley face - the changes don't have to be huge and exaggerated, very subtle things make a huge difference. Similarly for some high notes as well as overall posture correction, lift your eyebrows etc.

If you're doing the rock/angry thing, do a snarly face, it'll help get the gravel on etc.

HAL9000

My singing voice isn’t great but is certainly a lot better than a few years back. It’s definitely something that has improved with doing it more often (jam nights etc), and with relaxing into it. I also take comfort in the fact that people like Shane Magowan, Nick Cave, Dylan, etc aren’t great singers but have somehow managed to get away with it.

Musicwolf

Practice, practice, practice.

I knew that my singing wasn’t good but I recently discovered that I have a problem pitching with in-ears.  As part of my efforts to resolve this I ran endless tests whereby I would sing exercises, record myself and check the pitching using Cubase VariAudio feature.  I haven’t completely resolved the IEM issue but my singing with one headphone on / one off has improved dramatically by doing the exercises every day for a month.

I followed some on line tutorials which help.