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Should I bother to learn singing high notes?


kurtvana

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Just had to throw it out there, regarding the discussion on style and feel.

Guess who sings by feel and emotion, not even thinking of what octave he is in or how much percentage of CT is engaged, versus TA?

Good ole Geoff Tate. Seriously, he dreaded his interview in the Martin's book because he knew people expected some kind of nuts and bolts technical explanation.

I actually very much agree with that, for Geoff it came intuitively and comfortably. But most people trying to get his tone would have to make a very calculated effort.

I would never, in my natural lifetime likely ever stumble across this configuration myself. I always gravitated more towards I think 'warmer' tones and didn't even know how to make this kind of sound that was very sharp and thick. To me it sounds squawkish, like the way parrots speak.

It's a good tone and he is a great artist, but I don't think everyone should use it or should aspire to it, even if it's more convenient for higher notes than singing more like David Bowie as came intuitively to me! My perspective, is the more different kinds of singers out there that can do it healthily and happily in their own way, the better it is for the arts. If the entire world was filled with his technique, there would be a lot more high notes, but I'd be pretty disappointed, as we already have one of him and I don't need an army of them.

I've actually seen him in concert. I have nothing but respect for the guy for singing what he believes and what comes comfortably for him to sing. He is a great artist, but he didn't get there just by sitting down and trying to calculate the 'ultimate range technique.' That was just kind of what happened naturally according to his experiences, his personality and his voice.

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killer, all the points you have made are both valid and as always, respected. however, i respectfully have to disagree.

i look at voice training as a requisite to a better, healthier voice. singing from within, deep connections with yourself, natural singing and all you speak of to me, and it's just my opinion, can not only be retained but strengthened and improved.

i don't see any connection, any detrimental connection, between techinique and losing what you have naturally.

in the 2 plus years i have been at this i have nothing but joy in the incremental, albeit slow, gains i have made. perhaps i should explain what i refer to as "gains" but i have limited time to write.

i believe any singer, any singer who really works at this, really commits to the practise and discipline, will gain, will grow, and improve their voice. will they lose their identity and their style, i really don't believe so.

again, like i said, it's just my opinion. bob

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Bob, training is not what causes the risk of altering identity, it's more the kind of training that can cause the risk.

I'll give an example, say at a young age, Neil Young's parents sent him to a classical conservatory to teach him the 'proper methods of singing.' The right airflow, the right way to support, the right way to sing with legato, throat posture, smooth control, phrasing in the classical tradition to sing operatically. Say he went to instructors for 10 years who informed him and had him practice with these methods.

Compare this to Neil Young now, who instead trained his voice in a unique way that was useful for him and serves as his identity as an artist. Would the two Neil Youngs be identical? Would they even be on the same planet? Both Neil Youngs could train equally hard and achieve drastically different results, because one would be singing with someone else's technique, while the other would be singing with a technique he developed largely himself.

I actually trained my voice really, really hard, some would say unhealthily hard. Sometimes five hours a day, relentlessly training, obsessively training, yet my voice never gained a huge head voice, like Geoff Tate. It wasn't because I wasn't 'working hard' that gave us different voices. It was because were were using different techniques! The technique I intuitively created had less range, but sounded absolutely uniquely like myself and was very comfortable for me. Almost all of my heroes did exactly this (including Freddie Mercury). They just practiced until they found enough comfortable good sounds to use. They didn't read a whole bunch of books or receive instruction in how to copy other singer's techniques.

That combination of hard work, ignorance, and passion resulted in a good majority of my favorite voices. It just doesn't combine all that well with the scientific knowledge that working hard and passionately is largely irrelevant to pitch range, as there are certain techniques that must be implemented in order to get a large head voice. It also didn't combine well when I tried to learn from books after spending a lifetime singing my own way.

I really wish I could go back to what I and presumably Neil Young feels when we sing. Just sing. You suck at first and that's ok. You practice your voice until you find the sounds that represent your music best, and you continue to learn new things as you go. It's not a calculation of trajectory: 10 percent airflow, 30 percent cry, 40 percent twang, U vowel, 70 percent adduction, is it head voice or falsetto, etc. It's literally like you just emotionally sing what you 'feel' enough, that you get better through practice, almost through willpower and a belief in yourself. People actually become incredible singers this way, but not often does it result in the same range as receiving instruction in how to copy someone else's already successful technique.

So for me, it's like you gain some and you lose some. I pretty much lost everything, and it probably has something to do with how I wasn't ready to give up the technique or identity I had built for another's and did not understand how incompatible these techniques were which may have played part in the injury. Apparently I could no longer sing as myself.

This is why I say if you want help in training or reaching a voice goal. Try to find someone that will get you where you want to go and will teach you something that is compatible with your voice. Be prepared to change. In order to achieve certain singing goals, you may very well have to change way more than you wish about how you emotionally and intuitively have sang passionately your entire life.

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I'd like to add that many people simply have the wrong vocal coach (or no one at all) and never get happy with their voice.

Killer, have you heard Jessie J? She's an example of a girl who can both sing very technically "correct" AND "incorrect" - meaning she sometimes simply makes all sort of strange sounds and screams just out of sheer emotion. It's like she has little limit to her voice. She can sing like an angel or a rock chick or do rough, unpolished vocals like Tom Waits. I think she has enough skills do do the "incorrect" sounds in a healthy manner, though.

Another thing: I think that for every singer who learns how to sing in the high part of voice well, WANTS to sing there at least part of the time. It's like when you learn how to "shred" on your guitar. If/when you suddenly develop a skill like that, you WANT to use it sometimes. :)

Cheers.

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I hadn't heard her yet, Jonpall. That's interesting, not to knock her, but thus far I don't really like her voice or songwriting much. She seems talented, but she's outside my tone and style preferences. I tend to prefer warmer or rawer sounds on average. I read she's a songwriter for Miley Cyrus, and it sounds that way to me as her attitude and songwriting style seems to fit pretty well there. Her singing tone often seems squeezed and tense, and lacks the kinds of 'artifacts or warmth' that I usually enjoy in singing voices. It sounds borderline metallic but that is probably largely the autotune!

I honestly don't know what singers need, be it better training, better educations, ignorance, or just more appreciation for themselves. I think it depends on the singer. In my case I'm pretty sure what I needed was pretty much everything my voice could offer me healthily without getting overly technical or 'proper.' Just what I could intuitively feel out comfortably like the majority of my heroes. I was relatively happy with it by the time I lost it, though I realized I could always improve. I had just started successfully writing songs after having enormous difficulty with this aspect and figured I could only get better at singing and songwriting through further practice.

But other singers? You all here? I guess people need whatever will help them reach their goals safely. If willpower and intuition aren't getting you there, then training seems like a no brainer, but you have to be willing to change what may be meaningful expression in the process. I suppose what I'd advise being especially cautious of, is technique for the sake of technique. If what you're doing is working for your purposes, and you just don't sound like the beefiest singer of all time in your 3rd octave? I sounded more like Justin Hawkins! Looking back, I don't care.

It's just somehow, I read that I sang wrong from SLS oriented websites, and that when I got louder on higher notes, that was extremely damaging and I needed to learn how to sing every single note at the same volume and fullness to be healthy. I don't know if it was a weak moment, or some underlying insecurity, but whatever, I believed it. I don't believe it now. I sang wrong to use their method, but not to use mine! It did me fine for years! That's a valuable lesson right there.

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That's an improvement without the autotune, but it still sounds almost whiney and grating to me. Not in a pleasant way, when Stevie Wonder does a similar kind of thing, I like his tone, and his musicality but when she does it it sounds... Disorganized and histrionic without a compelling composition to make sense of the histrionics.

For me, her choice of melisma doesn't mesh that well with the simple and conventional musical structure, it's like they almost contradict each other rather than work together. It sounds almost like it's there because that's what a technically skilled singer is supposed to do, rather than like the way Stevie Wonder uses his to kind of play an emotional counterpoint with his unique compositions or to write a more compelling melody.

I can't say it's bad, and I'm sure she's a nice person and good musician for her style of music, but this style of music is absolutely something I never wanted to achieve.

Now Stevie Wonder's mix voice like say on Superstition or You and I? If I could get a cry sound and harmonically aware melisma more controlled in a larger range that sounded appealing to me intuitively, that would be neat, as that's one of his unique strengths and something I admire about him. But if I sounded like Jessie J when I did achieve a strong mixed voice, I would probably pursue a different sound and or technique as a 'baseline' kind of voice production and use that pretty sparingly if at all. As is, it's giving me some of the same reactions I get from a really loud, whining child because of the frequencies and tonalities and eagerness. It doesn't really reflect the emotions I want to express anymore than Cookie Monster metal vocals do.

I guess there is no accounting for tastes. Two people can do a very similar thing and wind up with a different sound and different appeal. She's very good at what she does and I'm glad she has fans who appreciate her art. Not every singer is for everyone, and that's why it's so important to have diversity in singing.

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I'm no big fan of her, but I wanted to show an example of a singer that's sometimes singing very relaxed, sometimes whiney and sometimes raspy, all within the context of one song and live. Notice that she does NOT sound whiney on all the notes, so that she can sound "warm" when she wants to. Anyone can. But you obviously need to practise the sounds you want to use in your music.

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killer, i'm sorry man...i don't typically write a lot when i write to explain things half as much, or as well as you do.

but just speaking for myself working on my voice (all of it) the dvd watching, the book reading, the few lessons i could afford, the polyp, the voice therapy, the embarrasment of sucking in front of people singing with the polyp, posting on and reading posts on the forum, all of this, in one way or another has benefited me tremendously.

i am singing foreigner songs, which was a goal of mine and what led me to training to hopefully accomplish. those songs were near impossible for me before i started to study voice. i lacked the range, the power, the stamina all of the requisites to pull those songs off.

i am very happy now because i can do what i set out to do. but voice training has a residual benefit. you suddenly find your songs choices expanding to include those you couldn't touch with a ten foot pole before.

great power ballads i skipped over when i was younger, are now a reality for me.

did i lose my individuality, my style, my passionate side, my natural voice...absolutely not. in fact, i'm able to add to my own style...my core vocal foundation.

am i getting my point across?

like you, i screwed up and got the polyp, but i'm back on track now and singing better than i ever was. this week i had two back to back lessons with anthony frisell. not only did he help me take my voice to a place i had never been to before, he confirmed for me (which i needed so badly) that a lot of what i am doing with my voice and my exercises are correct.

you seem like a great person. i'd be pleased to know that you search relentlessly till you find the key that unlocks you from your vocal damage and restores your vocal mechanism to the place it needs to be.

search till you find what works for you. that's all i can say. voice training was the best thing that ever happened to me.

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Bob, your desire to sing Foreigner songs was your goal. That's part of who you are, and you did everything you could to get there. No, you are not losing your identity when you chose to seek out instruction, and use this instruction to work hard towards this goal. I'm proud of you and really happy for you, what you're doing is a very good thing so long as you can do it healthily and can accept limitations.

All I'm saying is being able to sing Lou Gramm's songs, first it's not everyone's artistic goals, second, some people might actually be physically incapable of doing this healthily, or third might naturally be in a style of singing that is incompatible with this and would need to change the entire way of approaching singing to get there. The choice, the path you choose, and your reasons why, that's part of your identity too.

With me, to tell you the truth, I thought some higher, stronger notes might have been convenient, but it was actually when I read that the way I sang was damaging or bad that actually convinced me to change my approach. In retrospect, I should have held my ground and kept singing what was comfortable in the way I related to and enjoyed rather than someone else's idea of healthy.

People need to find what is valuable for them, that is identity. I think my mindset was more like Neil Young than Lou Gramm. I just wanted to be an artist and create really raw, valuable unique things with my unique approach to music and voice. I absolutely wanted more than anything to sing just wrong enough that when people heard it, they wouldn't mindlessly accept it as a similar sound to what they've heard before. I wanted people to pause, and it would either emotionally resonate with them or offend, but it wouldn't be mindless acceptance. A voice that pissed a lot of people off or made them uncomfortable, but excited select people so much, with it's flaws and strengths that they cherished it above technical perfection. A flawed piece of art. It's a different goal, and it's the same goal that Neil Young has, and Billie Holiday had, that John Lennon had. We all had the same goals and that's why we didn't pursue perfection.

I never wanted to be a technical wizard, or aspired towards a huge range. I just wanted to be an artist that some people loved, and other people hated, and I wanted to enjoy both parts equally. I had a dream of reminding people of their flaws, of raw emotion, of their strengths and weaknesses, and maybe to encourage some kind of love, appreciation, and respect for all things that are not perfect. I wanted to give encouragement and hope to people with disabilities, or who feel isolated, or who feel alone, or feel like they don't fit in or don't belong. I wanted for when some people heard me, they would realize this person was not perfect either, but there is a place for people like us and it can actually be a beautiful place that we can still belong. That was my artistic goal and vision, it had nothing to do with singing like someone else or having phenomenal technique. In a way, it was kind of the opposite goal.

There is nothing wrong with your or my goal, and I believe they are both important. If your goal inspires you to achieve something safely, you have a very good goal. My problem was my goal was precarious, and I did not comprehend how dangerous it was when combining my well intentioned ignorance with someone else's 'voice technique ideal.' It was like a car accident, me driving one direction my whole life, suddenly being told if I don't turn around I'm going to crash, when it was actually the turning around at the last minute that was the accident, not the direction I was originally going. A lot of other singers, including most of my heroes made it to the same destination I did by following their dream in a similar way. I honestly think I could have made it too if I kept doing what was natural and comfortable for me rather than trying to change everything at the last minute.

Each artist has different drives I suppose. I'm actually really open minded and respect a lot of goals, but I try to accept everyone will have different motivations and destinations in art. When people insinuate Neil Young or Billie Holiday have inferior voices, because they have less notes or unconventional technique, I honestly just don't believe this, because I believe these people found their artistic destinations and were communicating things very important to them and very important to listeners. I think this is what they wanted and I don't think they could achieve the same goals if they became obsessed with gaining range or technique at all costs. I think people like this they probably feel really similar to how I felt and I really admire their tenacity to continue to pursue their dreams even with half the world claiming they 'sing wrong.'

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