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New singing learner guy concerns

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dantheman1983

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Hi all, apologies for the length of this.

I’m a male in my mid 30’s, nearly zero music / singing / performing experience as a youngster. I Decided to take up guitar lessons a couple of years ago, (did a few at 7, gave up) still going, managed to get to grade 3. I’ve never really accompanied my playing with singing (guitar teacher suggested it early on when playing acoustic , I was horrified of the thought of doing that in front of him, aside from the difficulty of multi tasking etc) probably a big reason why I changed to electric.

I downloaded a singing course last year and did that for a bit, though a couple of months ago I decided to take some singing lessons even though I’m shy so its a pretty big deal for me.

I thought it could help with my musical ear and understanding of theory etc which are novice level, I also have been messing around on a keyboard for that purpose.

I’ve always hated my speaking voice as its monotone and I think that shows through with my vocal tone.

I’ve had about 8 lessons and I have improved a bit with scales, stretched my range somewhat, improved vocal break etc and my teacher just said she thinks I have a tenor range which I was surprised by as I assumed I’d be a baritone.  I know that range doesn’t mean much if you don’t sound good, which is where my point is heading, ..my singing tone just sounds very boring, even if I’m hitting the correct notes, it just sounds dull, boring, uninteresting.

Is it my physical makeup the reason for my general sound and if so is there any point in proceeding with practice if this is something that cannot be changed??

I mean I could spend a few years practicing, maybe get good enough to be in a band guitar wise (bit of a pipe dream) and then people would be like jesus with the sound of your voice we wouldn’t even want you to do backing vocals! 

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4 hours ago, dantheman1983 said:

I’ve always hated my speaking voice as its monotone and I think that shows through with my vocal tone.

   Monotone is not just the same tone but the same volume/loudness also. What makes voices interesting is the dynamics.. changes in volume, rhythm patterns, accent notes and of course differences in pitches.

   Different emotions bring out different tones, pitch changes and rhythm patterns...For something like consoling a child you would use a soft and tender voice but some words would still be louder when making a point and the stresses could be on different words depending on the message you are trying to convey. a few examples: You, are my favorite. YOU ARE my favorite. You are my FAVORITE. All the same sentence but with slightly different message.

    Even when Mad or frustrated we May get louder but still we are conveying a message to someone. Let's use Mick Jagger for an example: "HEY, YOU, Get off of MY CLOUD. It is not any one in general but a specific person on a specific cloud. YOU are on MY personal cloud. You are on my property and YOU need to leave. The volume changes are PART of the melody.

     Some of us have learned to suppress our feelings by keeping a steady tone and volume even when in an emotional state but when singing putting stress on different words and adding a little more volume here and there is PART of the music and melody. The stresses and rhythmic nuances of emotions are an important part of "Singing".

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Seems to me that there is quite a bit to unpick, here. You wanted to sing to help with learning the guitar? Have you since moved on to wanting to sing in it's own right?

That's important, because singing only for technical reasons probably won't carry the necessary motivation for success in singing.

Singing is about expression. When you sing, you are communicating a vibe, an emotion or a feeling, and it varies from song to song, and passage to passage within a song. In fact, monotony is one of those vibes, and there are songs that swing between a downbeat monotone vibe and 'other vibes to great effect -- or sometimes the vocals remain downbeat as a foil to great instrumental passages. (Listen to how Paul Simon sings in Sound of Silence -- some people don't get it -- his relatively monotone counter vocals are producing that foreboding vibe that the song has.) But there are a host of other vibes you would need to develop for most songs.

My advice would be to stop thinking in terms of "good" or "nice sounding" voices. Personally, I think that is a load of BS -- often used to encourage people. A singer who sets out to sound "nice" or be "good sounding", without making expression his focus, is likely to end up sounding uninspiring. I say that that has nothing to do with physical makeup and everything to do with creativity (or lack of it).

You need to think of more vibes and more emotions, and add more sounds to your portfolio to capture those vibes. You have to learn dynamic -- the ability to switch between the various qualities of sound. Listen to your favourite singers and hear how they do it. They are employing contrast all the time to bring out the expression in their vocals. There is a lot to it, which is unfortunately missed when people repeat that it is a matter of having a "good" or "nice sounding" voice. One of the "worst sounding" voices I have heard was really good. The dude was a wino, probably lived on the streets, and his voice was cracking all over the place. It didn't seem to matter. He must have learned to sing at some point in his life. The fact that his cracking voice was hitting all the notes, and a certain emotion packed energy was oozing through, made his vocals sound almost gravity defying. I liken it to a suspected lard azz who is able to do back flips and cartwheels. They end up looking more spectacular than the typical looking gymnast. If you think that your voice is not typical for a singer, you can turn that right round to your advantage. But you need confidence in how you naturally sound, and patience in bringing it out and expanding it.

So, in summary, like your voice. Find what is good about it (you are simply not trying hard enough right now). Build on it. It's all about expression, not physical make-up.

 

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I’m sort of confused myself about my main motivation for learning, I think I wanted to broaden my own personal musical journey rather than someone who learns stuff on the guitar parrot fashion. 

I also love singing in the car and it feels satisfying when I can hit the notes correctly. I also like writing poems and ‘songs’ and these would never be ‘music’ unless I can sing them. Of course I also need to understand how to be creative with music. The more I thought about it, the good guitar players out there are generally more just people who have managed to get good plucking and strumming strings. Most can probably sing at least a little, also play another instrument to some level.

I definitely have motivation to get better I’m just trying to be realistic.

 

Thanks for your advice, very informative and interesting. I will

try to love my voice!  

I guess being a non performer there is a lot I have to learn about expression emotion and confidence.  And not everyone would like my sound whatever the case. Just thought of an obvious example of this, Liam Gallagher, I was a fan of Oasis growing up but really he has a really whinny nasally tone (especially nowadays) that a lot of people don’t but you get ‘used to it’ and it’s part of him.

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That was for kicking tone, sorry don’t how to quote post.

———-

MDEW thanks that is useful advice, I am definitely ‘suppresser’ by nature and need to break out of that, it’ll take time to build my confidence to get the best out of my voice. I’m glad I started this journey anyway, I’ve already pushed myself way out of comfort zone so I may as well keep pushing.

 

 

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1 hour ago, dantheman1983 said:

That was for kicking tone, sorry don’t how to quote post.

———-

MDEW thanks that is useful advice, I am definitely ‘suppresser’ by nature and need to break out of that, it’ll take time to build my confidence to get the best out of my voice. I’m glad I started this journey anyway, I’ve already pushed myself way out of comfort zone so I may as well keep pushing.

 

 

When you are the type who likes to present him/herself as calm cool and collected it is kind of hard to be expressive when singing. But, that is the point of singing. To express yourself or to deliver a message and to get others out of their own comfort zone, so you need to express things a little more than life sometimes.

    If you have not looked at the post about Jay Buchanan yet, go ahead and read that post...listen to the song posted at the end. It may even help to get a handle on expressing yourself a little better.

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13 hours ago, dantheman1983 said:

And not everyone would like my sound whatever the case.

That is such an important point. There will always be those people who will tell you, even before you have sung two words, "don't give up the day job". Some of it is simply cultural banter...an automatic reaction to anyone singing, who is not "officially a singer". Then there is the obvious fact that people are different and like different types of music and singing.

Some cultures are great when it comes to singing. People are more likely to join in than complain if you sing. Such "singing cultures" allow people to relax, practise easily, and improve. I noticed this when I was at uni. Someone will be singing a song to themselves for whatever reason, and other folk would pick it up and join in. But that tended to be students from particular countries. For the UK students, hell nawww!! With all that stiff upper lip reserved stuff going on, you'd berra have a certificate and license tattooed to your forehead to start singing in public. It was the same with parties. There were cultures that could throw great spontaneous parties with no alcohol in sight -- often kicked off by one of those singalongs, then people would rustle up some snacks, put on some music, start dancing... Not the British though, lol. Alcohol would have had to be flowing for an hour before a certain..*cough*... "party atmosphere" would take over...  ....and THEN they would start "singing".

Fortunately for me, the overseas students at my UK university were usually very interested in improving their English, which involved joining in debates and songs. People like picking up culture. So, my naive tendency to be an oblivious "singer" was well tolerated. I was basically singalong master in chief, and I could get whole groups of people singing (and I am not exaggerating when I say that singing gets you the pick of the girls, whooop!).

So, if you surround yourself with the right people, you will realize that negative reactions to singing are not the norm, whatever your level. The right company will set you free to sing.

And if you are using any kind of social media, you are going to have to get past trolls, anyway -- people who instinctively want to obstruct your progress for whatever reason (usually their own sense of failure). What has really surprised me is the incredible amount of effort trolls are prepared to put in -- crazy amounts of energy that they are not using to improve themselves. And the penny never seems to drop that it's like water off a duck's back, to me. I ignore them but I never complain, because I think it demonstrates how easy it is to brush them aside. I recall a couple of posts where people have said that they are not bothered by negativity and trolls any more. I like to think I played a little part in that, with the tremendous help of the trolls. ;)

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That's really interesting about the cultural issues you mention, sounds liberating to have grown up or experienced that environment. 

Agreed that it is not the norm in the UK, I grew up with a loser of a step father whose main purpose in life was ridiculing others, I guess that went someway to forming my personality!

I have a great tight group of friends but no one (apart from more distance friend who gave me the idea to start guitar) who is really into music in the same way as me.

Yeah If I was someone who had a following on twitter for example I'd be clicking away at the mute button and blanking all those sad trolls.

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17 hours ago, kickingtone said:

Fortunately for me, the overseas students at my UK university were usually very interested in improving their English,

And which university is this now?

 

17 hours ago, kickingtone said:

And if you are using any kind of social media, you are going to have to get past trolls, anyway -- people who instinctively want to obstruct your progress for whatever reason (usually their own sense of failure). 

And dose this include the jimmyshitforbrains bullyboy club as well?

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