The singing thread

Drew_TNBD

Are there any singers here then? Particularly trained ones, or perhaps vocal teachers? Think it would be good to have a thread to exchange tips and what not.

Cirrus

Thread Starred. I've always wanted to be a singer. Been contemplating lessons for the last few months.

IanSavage

Mainly self-taught and it shows in terms of technique (or lack thereof) so I'll be watching this with interest and sticking my oar in where necessary.

One thing I did find useful was singing harmonies along to pretty much anything in the car and at home; it's actually surprisingly difficult to pick out a harmony that works and stick to it in a live environment so the more you practise that the better (obviously applies more to backing than to lead singers).

Sambostar

What I have realised is to accept what you got and then practice to make it better tonally, but don't start trying to emulate. 

Realise it is just an instrument and it will go awry a bit if it's not warmed up, relax, as often you tense up in anticipation of reaching notes, whilst when you are relaxed, you can actually hit them and experiment with your chest, head, throat and nose voice and feel the resonance of each, if  you can't do that you can't play.  Also experiment with vowels and sounds and tones.  Also, don't expect instant results because it is an instrument and you have to learn how to play it.  Springsteen for example sings at the back of his throat.

You can mimic sounds and tones by artists by experimenting, like doing impressions really, it all helps you discover what you have.

I've got a reasonably average deep bass/baritone voice and can just hit an A1, E2 being the low E of a guitar.  Most easy tenor stuff, most everyone sings along to at Festivals is just out of my ballpark though, all that comes out is a squeak, or if I sing it in my range, the bass just gets lost. 

However the first step I took was getting shot of my horrible nasally singing voice which sounded like a constipated crow, look at what I had in terms of the natural range of my voice and then use and develop that before I did anything.  First up I looked at what range I speak in and went from there.  Most people dive in and try to strain to hit what they want straight away, instead of working and developing what they have.

Look at artists that have a similar range to what you have at present and sing their songs as a first step.  Some artists sound like they have a deep voice, but it's deceptive, they have a big voice or a rich voice, but they are a baritone.  It's fairly rare to see any bass singers about in any popular music.

I've developed a better chest and head voice, stopped trying to be a tenor (Mew is the sound that came out when I strained to sing most stuff, like Grandpa Simpson, most everybody else easily managed to nail, it really was quite unmanly and pathetic).  I accept that I just have a normal blokes voice, a huge Adam's Apple and now am reaching more notes all the time.

Another tip I invented is to use the computer, I record on Audacity, to playback my singing at a much higher pitch.  That way I can check for purity of tone if you know what I mean, as opposed to the Feargul Sharkey tremolo effect, which is great in it's own right, but horrible sometimes on some stuff and terrible if you can't get rid of it.  I do the same with the girls singing and it seems to work for my ears.  You do not want to be wavering all over the place, it's fucking terrible.

I sing with a female singer who is way high, but even she has a Feargal Sharkey moments.  It's subtle, but ideally you want to be able to hit that choir boy purity of tone in my mind.

Singing greatly improves your playing and rhythm as you have to learn to do stuff subconsciously as you concentrate on remembering the words and tunes and it gives you a better speaking voice too as I tend to slur my words a lot.

I'm reasonably happy with my voice at the moment but it still needs work.  The best thing is I can rumble the fuck out of the speakers and sub, and I know not everyone can do that, the worst is that my low register hearing is getting worse, although it's never been great.  But it has opened my eyes to frequencies, which is important if you want it to sound as a unit.  I was pretty naïve in terms of stuff like that before.

Another amateur tip is to experiment with a capo to sing tunes you like to find your key. You'll be surprised that one you find your comfort zone and practice your tone in your range, so the tone sounds similar to the artist or whatever but most importantly sounds passable, you'll often have more confidence and then be able to go back and sing in the same key as the original artist.

But everyone should be singing and definitely if you play guitar.

Once you find your range and your voice, you'll realise that pop and rock tenors are actually fairly boring, whilst their frequencies might fit the music and carry well, most often the singers that stand out as special have different ranges altogether than the mainstream and women do love a deep voice.  But if you have a high voice, that is great too as it will carry well, without having to project as much (Think bass at an open air festival) and will instantly grab people's attention (Think children's voices or accidentally leaving porn and girls faking climaxes on your phone in public)

The only thing I struggle with is recognising octaves and singing them, I mean I can tell one from another, but an E3 from an E4 fro example, not so sure at this stage.  But can /definitely hear that wavering of you turn the pitch up on playback.

Mostly my singing is terrible though, in tune, but terrible.

Sambostar

@Drew_fx. ; What vocal coaching did you have to sing your part that you put up on here, or did you just practice, that was pretty tonally pure if you ask me.  Just wondered by what process you achieved it.

bigjon

I began a thread and then abandoned it at

http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/29428/bigjon-s-top-tips-for-singing

Number 5 would be my desert island top singing tip.

Copy& paste, with minor edits:

Seen a few discussions on singing happening on here, so I thought I'd put my twopenn'orth down on one thread. I'm an ex-choral scholar from college (though I was sacked from my school choir aged 11 because the choirmaster didn't like my voice!) and lead vocalist for two rock covers bands.

======================

Big Jon's Top Tips for Singing

======================

1 - Stance. Stand up straight with feet a shoulder width apart, imagine there's a piece of string pulling you up from the top of your head

2 - Breathe in. Take a breath like you've just stepped out of the door to savour the fresh air on a fine spring morning and you're filling up your lungs. [edit: this was controversial - I fill up my lungs in the fresh air by slowly raising my rib cage up from the diaphragm and letting the air fill up from the diaphragm up, but other people clearly don't]

3 - Breath out. Let your mouth hang loose like a 'slack-jawed goon' and imagine you are blowing up a very big balloon as slowly as possible. Direct the stream of air between your two front teeth.

4 - Sing a note. With your slack-jawed goon face, sing an 'AH' quietly for a long-ish time (10 secs, increasing to 60 secs) at your lowest comfortable pitch (mine's the A on the open 5th string). Try doing the same up and down a scale - five notes to start with. Try increasing the volume to max WITHOUT straining in the middle of the note, then reducing back to as quiet as possible by the end.

5 - Sing the vowels - there are only 7; 'ah' as in cart, 'a' as in cat, 'e' as in care, 'i' as in kiss, 'o' as in cot, 'u' as in cuddle, 'oo' as in coot. Still with slack-jawed goon face, sing each of these vowels in place of the 'AH' in the exercise above. Also use 'mm' and 'zz'. Take a line of lyric and sing it V-E-R-Y slowly with no consonants! Watch out for compound vowels like 'peace' - it's really p-ii-y-s, so make sure the vowel sound is ii and not yy. EVERY extended note you sing should be on one of these 7 vowel sounds.

hugbot

I sing sometimes

Bidley

I've had singing lessons from a couple of teachers. One a classically trained opera singer, one a really very talented rock singer.

The best tip I had was to try and make the bridge of your nose resonate as you sing. The same vibration you feel when you hum. Try not to make all your sound come from your throat. If you do it properly you'll get sweeter projection, and it's less fatiguing on your voice. To practice, hum as loud as you can, for as long as you can. Then say "nang" with lots of emphasis on the "ng", prolonging it. You should be able to translate that into your usual technique.

Another problem I has was too much breathing, too often, if you can believe that. Sooner or later you'll find your sweet spot for how much air to take in, and how often you need to breathe. If you breathe too deeply, too often you'll lose projection and you'll find you have less in the tank.

And practice every opportunity you get. I sing loads in the car, and in the shower, etc. Try and sing stuff that's slightly out of your range, you might surprise yourself.

Finally, smile when you sing. Seriously! Reaching higher notes is easier if you smile. Look at singers when they sing higher stuff - 90% of the time they're 'smiling' or near enough. This also helps with the first tip.

Danny1969

I had some lessons from a very good guy in exchange for him teaching out of my studio. We did all the exercises @bigjon mentions above and we also did a lot of interval training. For this we stood at a piano and the idea was to pick an interval and land straight on it rather than come up to pitch or slur down to pitch. Some intervals are easy, major thirds for example but some like minor sixths can be tricky. 

Whatever you do indoors though there's no substitute for singing live and all the problems that can bring. I'm well aware my voice is far from great but I give myself the best chance by using decent in ear monitoring and decent vocal treatment (compression, EQ, delay) on the desk. I only sing lead vox on about 5 songs but do a lot of backing

@IanSavage  Ian's idea of always picking a harmony when singing in the car is a good well tested exercise that  many other guys do to improve their ability to instantly put a harmony on a lead vox line. A good backing vocal is a great asset in any kind of music

randomhandclaps

Me.  Although when you live with a really great singer it can be confidence sapping and there are times when I feel like shutting up and getting on with guitar playing.  However the flipside is when she praises me it makes me feel amazing, precisely like when she says I did the washing up good.

Sambostar

I'm really confused, could I see some octave notes, post it and someone identify what octave it is?

A1 is 55KHz. that is ridiculous.  So I think my lowest is A2, the A belong an open E (E2), however my normal talking voice is around C#2 and I mostly grunt and grumble.  I know I have to drop some of Zevon's stuff by an octave in order to be able to sing it.  But I think I can easily hit an E2, E3 and just about an E4.  So I suppose I am a shit baritone after all.

I need to up my understanding of my own voice and octave references.

Could a post something quick and have someone who has been in a choir or what not listen to it to identify the struggling octaves?  Like this:

https://soundcloud.com/user360616451/b-scale-voice

Also, I'd really like to hear other people's ranges if you can put them up to compare.

Sambostar

Bollocks @hugbot. ; That is really good.  People like you make people like me sound like incontinent twats.  I hate you.  What sort of range is your voice in?

hugbot

Baritone but a thin baritone I think. I don't take much stock in range because I think most pop/rock singing is people singing outside of what would be considered their "proper" range anyway. 

At the moment I'm trying to go lower, more body/weight, less pinched and in the nose. I want it less "sing-ey" and closer to my speaking voice.

Sambostar

I thought it was really good and full sounding, but yeah I get yer on the pinchiness, listening to it back a few times.  But my limited vocal ability would be struggling to easily sing in that pitch, it would be verging on a wavering thin falsetto without loads of practice.   But your voice is more than passable.

Yeah how I talk in that clip is how I naturally sing unfortunately.  Nasally and grim.  I am not a singer, I am awful, but improving that depth and richness has improved my speaking voice a fair bit too.  That nasal tone is also the reason when I go back to Oz I adopt the Strain and fit in straight away and everybody can instantly understand my mumblings, where as in the UK, people never understand a single word I am on about.  But it makes for a grim fluid singing tone.  Everyone is better than me, but I'm demonstrating the tone deaf amateur perspective.

hugbot

Something that stands out to me in that clip you posted, you hit the top of your very chest voice and start wavering, but most practise routines I've done would start blending into head voice at that point. Thats probably the way forward.

Although I'm not really doing that in that song, its belted most of the way through. Learning to blend efficently takes weight off all your register though.

EricTheWeary

I have a terrible singing voice and singing accapella is a tuneless drone. If I can get my ear in against something it's not too bad, it also helps if I know the words really well so you are focussed on singing and not on remembering at the same time ( one of my reasons when I see singers with crib sheets for the same 20 songs each gig I groan as it means they probably won't be singing to their potential). I found @bigjon 's hints helpful when he posted them before. If I'm doing bv's in the band ( singalong rather than harmony I guess) then if I get a better stance and breath then I don't get shouty or knotted up and can sustain a performance across a gig.

Sambostar

So...practice!

Sambostar

hugbot said:

Something that stands out to me in that clip you posted, you hit the top of your very chest voice and start wavering, but most practise routines I've done would start blending into head voice at that point. Thats probably the way forward.

When I start wavering, it's because it's out of my range.  Sad innit, not very high either eh.  Although that said, I've just practiced with head voice...hmmm...you know you might be on to something thanks man.

Bidley

hugbot said:

I don't take much stock in range because I think most pop/rock singing is people singing outside of what would be considered their "proper" range anyway.

Very true! Freddie Mercury was a baritone, think about that.

hugbot

Sambostar said:

hugbot said:

Something that stands out to me in that clip you posted, you hit the top of your very chest voice and start wavering, but most practise routines I've done would start blending into head voice at that point. Thats probably the way forward.

When I start wavering, it's because it's out of my range.  Sad innit, not very high either eh.  Although that said, I've just practiced with head voice...hmmm...you know you might be on to something thanks man.

Thats a typical place to start wavering is my point. Its the point where to get any higher you've either got to be blending into mixed voice or be belting (which has somewhat different "rules").

thomasross20

Look forward to reading this thread.

I sing a little but wouldn't do it to an audience. 

Got lessons for a while. Bought that Ken Tamplin course.