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Old 03-03-2011, 06:45 PM   #41
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Default vocal training

I had several teachers, but the best training for me was putting on my favorite songs and singing to them for several hours a day.
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Old 03-09-2011, 10:02 AM   #42
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Is it not possible that unorthodox singers do what they do FOR effects, for impacts, that are not producible within the rules?

Consider guitars. What is "GOOD" guitar method? How many guitarists out there are able to create wonderful guitar parts - songs and solos - with non-good-guitar-methods?

A simple example is distortion. Distortion in guitar playing is - from the getgo - a violation of proper guitar method. But it can be used wonderfully.
The most important thing to remember regarding singing and voice is that we need the instrument in our normal lives, and its a health issue.

Using the guitar as an example, how would you see things if you were allowed to have only one guitar on your whole life, with just one set of strings? Learning how to properly use it would not be a trivial matter.

Our voice can resist stress and can heal small bruises over time, but it can not resist to daily abuse. Problems WILL appear and even after medical treatment there can be side-effects that will last your whole life.

Thus, when singing and voice is the subject, GOOD equals singing in a healthy way with the best possible quality.
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Old 03-09-2011, 10:23 AM   #43
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if you get a teacher that is good you'll learn everything you need to in about 6 months. then you just have to remember all the methods from then on out.

unless you want to do more advanced things like opera and really challenge yourself but even then, after 6 months of vocal lessons, you could just get a book and work out of it instead of continuing to pay someone to teach you.
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Old 03-09-2011, 11:39 AM   #44
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if you get a teacher that is good you'll learn everything you need to in about 6 months. then you just have to remember all the methods from then on out.

unless you want to do more advanced things like opera and really challenge yourself but even then, after 6 months of vocal lessons, you could just get a book and work out of it instead of continuing to pay someone to teach you.
Im sorry but that is not real.

6 months is not enough to even understand what is to be accomplished. Maybe in 6 months a solid breathing and support can be developed IF the student practices daily and has no fundamental problems to fix, like pressed down larynx, tongue tensions, weak tongue, etc... But that is it.

About learning from books, never saw/heard anyone who did it and got even half decent results. When I say results I mean technical results, not just singing on tune or high/low notes.
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Old 03-09-2011, 12:21 PM   #45
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Im sorry but that is not real.

6 months is not enough to even understand what is to be accomplished. Maybe in 6 months a solid breathing and support can be developed IF the student practices daily and has no fundamental problems to fix, like pressed down larynx, tongue tensions, weak tongue, etc... But that is it.

About learning from books, never saw/heard anyone who did it and got even half decent results. When I say results I mean technical results, not just singing on tune or high/low notes.
I'm speaking from experience. I had 1 year of voice lessons at a university, but feel I could've just pursued it on my own after about 6 months. you just need a mirror, a good memory, discipline, and a few books.

I also watch my favorite singers to see what they're doing and singing runs in my family (mom and sister both wedding singers).

if there are fundamental problems - they will be addressed in those 6 months and then all you need to do is remember the corrective exercises/techniques. bear in mind I'm speaking from the perspective that the goal is gong from being a ok singer to a decent singer. going from horrible singer to world class is a much different ballgame.

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Old 03-09-2011, 01:08 PM   #46
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I'm speaking from experience. I had 1 year of voice lessons at a university, but feel I could've just pursued it on my own after about 6 months. you just need a mirror, a good memory, discipline, and a few books.
Well, I speak from my experience too... And I guarantee that this is not the case with most people, myself included.

Still I would like very much to hear the results and know what books you used, I recently began teaching beginners and it could be very usefull info. Do you have any song you recorded recently or back then?

How did you adress things like focus and vowel modification without help? You had any more fundamental problems that required attention? Like jaw/tongue tensions? How did you solve it?

Edit: Yes, I give to that, provided that the goal is to just sound decent and not work too much into resonance, it MAY be possible for someone that has an already good, open and healthy speaking voice to develop enough under 6 months so that he/she can perform under his own limits. But thats very far from what most people want to learn and already do with their voice. And about developing further without guidance... I really doubt it, sorry...

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Old 03-25-2011, 07:54 AM   #47
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I will try to help on a better understanding of how the voice and the required trainning works.

First of, lets define what we need to do:

The objective is to change the way the voice is used in order to release uneeded tensions, improve quality and improve the overall perceived volume while maintainning freedom and control through all the singer range.

But how do you change the way your voice is working?
This is exactly where the problem lies. In order to achieve all the objectives just one simple thing needs to happen: when singing the work must be done by the vocal folds, they must work together with the breathing mechanism to achieve BALANCE through all the range and dynamic levels. Its not just "compression" or totally relaxing as I saw some people on youtube saying.

Thats where things get hard. If I ask you how do you control your vocal folds, what would be the answer? The answer is: by speaking or singing. Period. You can not increase the pressure they are doing by somehow pressing with muscles in your neck, nor can you do the opposite. The neck has lots of muscles, most will respond immediatly to your command and will move, but the vocal folds will not follow.

What really happens is that unnecessary tensions on the neck, tongue and jaw will disrupt the balance and WILL force the vocal folds to change the way they should work in order to keep your voice together. This is where the strain comes from.

Things get even harder because when you use more compression than you should you feel the voice comming from the throat, and that creates a sort of a control mechanism for you to use. But its the worse thing you can do.

Since directly trying to move things around will not work, and the only way the vocal folds respond is by actualy speaking or singing, the only way to correct an improper use of the mechanism is to alter the way you THINK about your own voice. Changing small details one at a time, and trainning them until they are "programmed" into your voice.

And those details MUST come naturally, you need to find emotional situations, feelings, positions, mental images, whatever you need that leads the person to produce the correct posture.

Thats why there is no way one can expect to learn from books or from videos. Every person will have his own issues to be corrected.

For example: I began trainning 4 different persons that never had any trainning and after talking to me about singing became interested on learning. All of them have lots of experience with music, either as a listenner or as a musician. All of them require totaly different approaches.

One is doing exercises to remove excessive air from the voice, the other is working on small scales to improve perception, the other is working on relaxing tongue and jaw. And finally there is this special case where the speaking voice is great but when singing everything falls appart because of attempts to mimic someone else.

Even breathing and support must be treated the same way. What works for someone will not work for everyone else. Maybe the same exercise will work but the directions that need to be given WILL change.

The freedom of the vocal folds relies on the balance of the whole mechanism.

Learning how to support the breath without fixing an improper emission could lead to damage since you will become able to provide much more pressure to the folds. The balance will happen but with an improper distribution of weights, where you are always pushing hard with your breath and pushing hard with the neck to keep things together.

The opposite can easily happen too. If you dont provide enough pressure, the neck will have to constrict the air flow and the vocal folds will have to push AGAINST it to let the air through. You see, they will be pressing against each other to produce the sound, but will at the same time try to open to let the weak air pass. Try to do the same with your hand, forcing it to open while trying to close it. This is the kind of tension that the folds are subjetc when improperly used.

So in opposition to what most say on the net: Correct vocal production does not equals to complete relaxing everything, nor it is equal to pushing things hard. It is a matter of balance, sometimes a great deal of strenght might be needed, but NEVER just pushing hard. When balanced, the voice production is EASY, and when I say easy I really mean it. Should be as easy to sing high as it is to sing low.

There are lots of benefits when the voice is used properly. Speaking for myself: singing became easy, I know exactly how to produce a certain result and unless I am VERY sick I know the voice will be fine through the gig/reharsal. And I know also that this is solely result of the trainning, no natural skills, gift from heavens or any other "intrinsic" talent. In fact, I feel that normal speaking is much more demmanding to my voice than singing is (nowdays).

Hope this helps to a better understanding.

I know some will say they "feel" that they are directly controlling their folds, I would recommend searching google for a detailed map of all the larynx muscles in order to grasp how complex our larynx is and how this perception is misleading (in fact this is exactly what i said before, feeling the voice in the throat and the false feeling of control). When singing properly, almost nothing is felt on the throat, except maybe for a very very subtle "openning" feeling.
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Old 03-25-2011, 05:20 PM   #48
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I want to keep this thread going, I think is a must have thread. "Why do my vocals sound like ass"..

Anyhow, In hopes to keep it going.. I layed down a scratch track today, sounded FINE in the phones with the bass turned low in the mix... then to my HORROR, I listened on the monitors and wow, WAAAY flat. I mean, its right in my key, its perfect singing "pocket" for me.. but yet, flat The thing is, it sounds RIGHT ON in my head...

http://www.robrokkenaudio.com/stuff/Uber-Flat.mp3

I noticed I have a bad habit of gradually lowering the pitch of the last note as i wind it down, lol listen you hear it on almost every ending, JUST noticed it after all these years..

~Rob.
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Old 03-25-2011, 05:59 PM   #49
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Default vocal training

Good thread indeed, but practice makes perfect bottom line.
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Old 03-25-2011, 08:30 PM   #50
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Rob/junioreq, are you singing along with the full mix? If so, you could try singing to a simpler harmonic backing (e.g. string pads or e-piano), even if that part is not heard in the final mix.

You could also outline the vocal melody with a scratch track of a mellow e-piano or horn, then sing along to that. You'll hear your voice "beating" against the scratch track.

Also, the level of your voice in that mix is too low. I always reckon if you have something to say in your lyrics, folks should hear it.

All these things may be because you're using headphones, perhaps?
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Old 03-25-2011, 09:23 PM   #51
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They are low, cause they suck
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Old 03-26-2011, 03:52 AM   #52
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When I started singing looking back I had the totally wrong approach. I had too many different teachers and too many techniques. Most of them want you to belt it out so that’s what I did, the part they left out was relax and singing with feeling or from your heart. Listen to Sinatra’s style, Bowie, Bono (a little too contrived but he’s doing it) Marvin Gaye, even Chris Cornell has it and the list goes on. Add as much tone (color) as you can, through your body into it, make it you and sound like you mean it.
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Old 03-27-2011, 07:45 PM   #53
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Add as much tone (color) as you can, through your body into it, make it you and sound like you mean it.
Easy there, Ralph. That's bad advice for a beginner. In order to learn to sing like a great singer, you don't just start singing. You have to build the instrument, which means singing very careful excercises, and WITHOUT any variation in color. The variations come much later, otherwise you'll just start reinforcing bad (old) muscle memory) and tensions.

Also, the reason a good teacher (and they are rarer than a good amp-sim plugin) Starts you out singing loud (not belting, just comfortably-full volume) is because it's much easier to sing loud than to sing softer. Virtually every untrained singer uses throat tension to lower the volume, and you don't want to be constantly reinforcing that problem.

You learn the easy stuff first, then you move on. - Unless your teacher sucks. (and sadly that accounts for probably 95% of all the voice teachers out there. Literally.)
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Old 03-28-2011, 08:58 AM   #54
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That is the method used by educators to keep children from learning what might be learned outside the curriculum. Also the method used by science to make sure no grad students get into trouble thinking outside the box. Also the method corporations use to turn employees into brainless sources of mechanical energy instead of figuring out how to do things better.

There are some reasons for respecting what your elders have learned about this or that, including singing. And there are some reasons for NOT training yourself to stay inside that highly disciplined box.
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Old 03-28-2011, 08:20 PM   #55
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They are low, cause they suck
lol

Even though there are lots of spots to improve, it is really annoying to who is listenning to make an effort to hear your voice back on the mix. And the problems will still be there, so there is no point.

About the other aspects:

Singing on phones requires some special care. The proximity of the sound source tends to make every thing appear to be on tune. After getting used to it, it should not be a problem anymore.

You are right, those ascending and descending starts and ends of the tones are not nice. Maybe you can add it as a detail but I recomend stripping every part of the song of it first.
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Old 03-28-2011, 08:33 PM   #56
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That is the method used by educators to keep children from learning what might be learned outside the curriculum. Also the method used by science to make sure no grad students get into trouble thinking outside the box. Also the method corporations use to turn employees into brainless sources of mechanical energy instead of figuring out how to do things better.

There are some reasons for respecting what your elders have learned about this or that, including singing. And there are some reasons for NOT training yourself to stay inside that highly disciplined box.
I did not understand what you mean.

What part of the trainment are you talking about when you say that it makes you "stay inside that highly disciplined box" and what is the "highly disciplined box" anyways?
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Old 03-29-2011, 12:51 AM   #57
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speaking for myself, after a couple of months of vocal coaching with a teacher, I think it's absolutely mandatory to have someone telling you what's correct and what's not.
basics are to be learnt period.

Expecially because, at least for me, there are much more "dont"s than "do"s.
The hardest thing being to change completely the process of voice emission.

I couldn't say I've greatly improved my singing so far, since I don't actually "sing" during my lessons, just breath and vocal emission on simple notes progressions.

But my speaking is far better for sure now and - you may smile - it's different the quality of "what" I say also.

What I am sure of, you can't learn it without a "real" good teacher

I used to be a machine gun when I speak and the simple fact I've to focus on vocal emission etc now it's just a great help to better make my speech clearer.

Not sure if it's the correct english word for it, but my teacher tells me all the time to be "assertive" when speaking or singing...
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Old 03-29-2011, 12:54 AM   #58
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double shot...
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Old 03-30-2011, 08:41 AM   #59
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shoyoninja, those who live totally inside a box usually do not see it.

If Miles Davis had - for his whole life - been willing to toe the line of all his music teachers, all of us would have been robbed of five decades of innovation, supreme expressiveness, melody married to smart nonsense, and all that unexpected collaborative joy.

Same with singers. Yes, okay, learn the basics. Then decide if you want to stay in the box or not.
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Old 04-01-2011, 07:30 PM   #60
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shoyoninja, those who live totally inside a box usually do not see it.

If Miles Davis had - for his whole life - been willing to toe the line of all his music teachers, all of us would have been robbed of five decades of innovation, supreme expressiveness, melody married to smart nonsense, and all that unexpected collaborative joy.

Same with singers. Yes, okay, learn the basics. Then decide if you want to stay in the box or not.
You still did not define what is this evil "box", although I´m pretty sure it isnt supposed to be literal. And now we lack the definition of what you consider to be "the basics".

The Miles Davis thing, can be resumed to what you like and what you dont. Which is pointless to discuss.

If you apply the same line of though to a singer like Pavarotti or any other who I dare to say are "highly disciplined", what a loss to the world would it be if they didnt follow that path...
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Old 04-02-2011, 10:17 AM   #61
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I didn't define the box, because YOU have been doing that.

You display behavior that is very typical these days. When someone says something you don't like, you portray it as THEIR OPINION, and thus dismiss it. But when YOU SAY what YOU LIKE, you pretend it is more than opinion, more than "liking", even indisputable fact.

This is how the world is constructed by the insane: MY opinions are true, and what others say can be waved away. There is, ipso facto, no real reality outside of my box.
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Old 04-03-2011, 08:26 AM   #62
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I didn't define the box, because YOU have been doing that.

You display behavior that is very typical these days. When someone says something you don't like, you portray it as THEIR OPINION, and thus dismiss it. But when YOU SAY what YOU LIKE, you pretend it is more than opinion, more than "liking", even indisputable fact.

This is how the world is constructed by the insane: MY opinions are true, and what others say can be waved away. There is, ipso facto, no real reality outside of my box.
This is endless... I will not get into a singer vs singer debate.

Really if you wanna train, or not, its your personal problem. But you stated here that there are reasons for other people to not train, I would like to know them, simple as that.

But based on what you wrote so far, I dont expect a real answer anymore.
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Old 04-04-2011, 10:14 AM   #63
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More modern forum talk. 'My statements are real. Others' are not.'

Which is parallel to saying MY ideas about singing are factual,
but views deviating from mine are not real.

The world stays small that way.
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Old 04-12-2011, 06:04 AM   #64
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I think its nice to remember that what is being said here is about how the voice works and how it is possible to train it. Thats all.

By no means I state that EVERY singer MUST train in order to people listen and like to them. They should, to maintan health, but I do not pretend that I can tell people how to live their lives.

What I state, from my own experience recording other people on the studio, studying and teaching how to sing, and from the experience of others who work and make a living with their voices, is that the ONLY way to change how your voice performs is by having a professional to guide you. The reasons I stated before and I think they are quite clear.

And I state this because I know there are lots of videos on youtube promising to teach you how to free 15 octaves of voice. Many of them with a great potential to damage whoever follow the instructions. Many also selling "special books/dvds with secret/magical techiniques".

If there is still any doubt about it, try this analogy: lets say that you had a son/daughter, and he/she had problems on her speaking voice, not being able to produce a certain consonant, misplacing Rs and Ls, for example.

What do you think that would be the best solution for it: look for some books or videos promising to fix the problem in 1 week OR taking your children to a doctor, which would probably be followed by some sessions with a phonoaudiologist?
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Old 04-12-2011, 07:16 AM   #65
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Some great advice in this thread, many thanks to the experts who added to the pile. Years of smoking and a 25 year lapse in proper practice turned me from an acceptable beginner to a guy who "can't sing at all" but I've been trying to slowly work my way back beginner.
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Old 04-14-2011, 09:56 PM   #66
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I agree with you but now I'm working on a website , and am contemplating offering lessons via "CU - C Me" (I already teach some students by phone) but I bump into one massive problem: How do I convince potential students that I know what I'm doing, and most other teachers don't? This really is the case, but I have no idea how to instantly make a student understand the principals involved.
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Old 04-15-2011, 03:21 AM   #67
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That’s something that you can overcome just like a Salesman does, you need a confident sales pitch. I would suggest keep it upbeat and honest and don’t bash other Teachers just know what sets you apart and elaborate on that. Seems like you already have a somewhat unique concept already (on-line training) people all over are looking for a quick way to learn things on-line, I would make sure you charge upfront for the training or they’ll snag it all from you for free.
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