The singing thread

Cabicular

Sambostar said:

Have you tried singing and yawning though, it kind of worked for me...ish.  there are two bits of tension, the pee wee herman artificial bits, which you can easily reach but may have the wrong technique for to make the grunt/growl and the generally nasal sound which is tense or constricted larynx apparently which is more evident when you sing lower, in which singing whilst yawning helps open it up...apparently.  BTW, I have no idea what I am talking about, obviously.

I was searching for male singers who have a massive oversize lujmpy Adams apple like I do and I found one, the bloke out of Nickleback and strangely, I can sing all their songs, which isn't hard, when I am pissed (I don't own any though).  Nickleback eh, how more depressing can you get. Nickleback..Jeez.

If you could sing like Chad Kroeger we wouldn't be having this conversation . He has a great voice .. Especially live

Hootsmon

the singing fred

Sambostar

Cabicular said:

If you could sing like Chad Kroeger we wouldn't be having this conversation . He has a great voice .. Especially live

Good point.  It may well have been the Cookie Monster, I was quite drunk at the time.

Sambostar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiJx1Hbn_KM

Sambostar

Having a deep voice and or a shyte range really sucks.  Just trying to sing Black by Pearl Jam, as, funnily enough Eddie Vedder's voice sounds quite deep.  It's not though, as per usual with all these people, again it's just the style he sings in.

So he starts out on an E3, already towards the top part of my range, then the chorus goes to a C4, which is only reachable if I belt it out and certainly don't have any control over it because it is right at the max.

This is the thing people don't really get about people who have deep voices, you are singing at the very limit of your range all the time, so having any control over the frequency is so fucking difficult and no one wants to listen to a deep voice,  because, usually their ears don't hear the intonation changes unless you bellow like a fucking opera singer.

Drew_TNBD

Sambostar said:

Having a deep voice and or a shyte range really sucks.  Just trying to sing Black by Pearl Jam, as, funnily enough Eddie Vedder's voice sounds quite deep.  It's not though, as per usual with all these people, again it's just the style he sings in.

So he starts out on an E3, already towards the top part of my range, then the chorus goes to a C4, which is only reachable if I belt it out and certainly don't have any control over it because it is right at the max.

This is the thing people don't really get about people who have deep voices, you are singing at the very limit of your range all the time, so having any control over the frequency is so fucking difficult and no one wants to listen to a deep voice,  because, usually their ears don't hear the intonation changes unless you bellow like a fucking opera singer.

Dude... in the nicest way possible.... none of this is true. At all. I have a deep voice, and I'm classified as a baritone. I can hit a G4 fairly easily.

You just don't know what you're doing - get some lessons. It's the only way.

MtB

@Sambostar - for what it's worth you're the only person that I've ever listened to that I think would be able to have a fair crack at a cover of Lee Marvins Wandering Star... 

Drew_TNBD

Another lesson with my new teacher. Getting everything I thought I knew blown out of the water

Sambostar

He/She told you, you can't sing?  I tried Wandering Star and just about managed it in B1, although better in C1.  That is the thing, I think the range I can force air through my voice box is more like an octave and a half and falsetto only goes to B4.  Think I'm more worried about lung cancer/Emphysema/COPD to be honest.

So what's new about singing?

Drew_TNBD

Well I hit an A4 with very little effort. Seriously, it wasn't hard at all, and it wasn't just in an exercise - it was in a song too.

Things that are blowing my mind right now - posture is incredibly important, and low breaths (from the bottom of the lungs using the diaphragm)  are not as important as I thought. What is important as far as breathing goes is that the clavicle muscle structure is not strained. Breathing deep into the lungs (high breath) is not necessarily as bad or poor form as I've learnt or been told.

Sambostar

What?  Whaaaat? 

So what is his approach?  I've been practicing tones and then shoving through as much air as I can muster with a decent posture, just to test that a lot of it isn't psychosematic.  A lot of it isn't unfortunately.

Drew_TNBD

Honestly what you're thinking of a decent posture probably isn't. I was kinda ... I guess part flummoxed and part excited when we went through some of this stuff.

Sambostar

2:48 Relate to that for sure.  If you do have a deep voice, the irony is that often when you try and sing higher in your register, which is about everything pop or rock, it does come out as a bunch of wavering, uncontrolled frequencies and sound like your voice is breaking all over again, which at worst is out of tune or at best sounds thin and strained.  So, bizarrely, because you have more ease of control over the frequencies and can change your tone nor voicing to what suites, you actually sound more manly with a higher register.

I'II have to try that.

Sambostar

Whilst I am a sad bastard and have to get up early tomorrow, I thought I'd show the difficulty for I suppose, the average bloke, when it comes to singing a track that is smack bang out of your limited comfort zone, either slightly too low or slightly too high, kind of like that video and show the sounds that come out as a result...... 

I think this is in F2 and F3 I think. I tried the yawning thing lots just to be able to even make the F3 version sound anything like a tune.  They both still....er.....don't eh.  But the higher version certainly has better frequencies, I mean as a production, as opposed to good singing.  Obviously, if this is well within your range making it sound deep and chesty shouldn't be difficult at all and it will sound a hell of a lot more manly than someone who has a much deeper voice but is struggling to reach any notes  What is sad is that Zevon was a baritone and he sings the F3 version....

It changes over form the low version to the high one at 3.12 and by far the best bit of vocal work / animals at the zoo impersonations are at 6:10.

So yeah, if I got lessons, it would be to help make the second half sound like singing, I'm not bothered about the nasal deep stuff.

https://soundcloud.com/user360616451/desperadiculous

Sambostar

Ohh, the only girl who liked my Crap on Me cover has now disowned it.  Ahhh Fuck sakes.  I'm suck a twat.  But then again yee who trys hardest despite ye's abilities succeeds.  At least that worked for art anyway, I was born being able to draw and paint perspective, whilst other were still doing stick men or shonky faces and buildings, but the ones who stuck it out, they got taught, they listening and practiced and they ended up OK yer know.. Obviously I wasn't born with the singing gene.  Damn it don't you hate when the tables change.

Anyone else got any amateur, lo fi singing?

keithf

Online Singing Courses Such as the Robert lunte and ken tamplin, Has anyone done them and what results did you get?

Seriously thinking of getting the four pillars of singing for  xmas off the mrs, it would be good to hear

from anyone that's used it.

Sambostar

The best thing I've picked up on is yawning to be honest.  You will be amazed by the notes you can reach when you yawn.  Tone is another thing, but much is psycho sematic muscular spasmoid, I am sure.

Drew_TNBD

Sambostar said:

The best thing I've picked up on is yawning to be honest.  You will be amazed by the notes you can reach when you yawn.  Tone is another thing, but much is psycho sematic muscular spasmoid, I am sure.

Technically it's called a laryngeal tilt.

Feel your larynx. There is a lower bump, and an upper bump. It dips in the middle. Put your fingers there lightly. Do the 'yawn' mechanism. You should feel the upper bump move downwards quite a bit.

It helps with pitch and resonance, and helps prevent straining.

Drew_TNBD

@Sambostar

randomhandclaps

OK, so that dude's paid attention to a lot of shit except the main thing that Liam doesn't sing Half The World Away... Oh that and any home décor advice he was ever given.