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When you can't sing.


rofleren

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What do you guys do, when there are days you can't sing or if you feel that you're getting zero improvement and maybe your skills is even going in the wrong direction?

I get sad - and then I try to sing songs that I can't sing, and get even sadder, haha.

Do you have any small self-help tools or thoughts, when you are unsure of your progress?

I try to do my exercises every day, and I make sirens all day long, but I feel no improvement and hasn't done that for many many months.

Singing is the thing I want to be good at. I want to be able to find a song and then sing it. I WANT to succeed! I want singing to be my future, my career. Next year after my current education, I'll have to find a new education, and I want it to be a singer education of some sort. I want to be able to get into singing academies, but I don't feel good enough yet. I have ONE song in my repertory, and that is "Bring him home" like 2 notes down or something. Singing is a thing that gives me lots of joy, and I am proud to call myself a singer, but often I get doubts of my own skills. I have one song that I can sing, god dammit. I have a very hard time finding songs, that I can sing that I want to sing. I want to impress myself and other when I perform. I want to make people feel that they just had a wonderful experience. Some of you might have seen it before, but this is my only song that I can sing, and people were very happy and so was I. It was wonderful.

I've been trying to sing other songs from musicals, "Stars" and "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables" and "Music of the Night" and the high note is holding me back in all of the songs. My singing range is only really useful from F2 to F4, and lots of musical songs require a high note from G4 to A4.

And when I'm not trying to sing musical songs, I try with a whole other sound, in the metal genre, and here I just make high notes that isn't very useful or cool sounding, like nearly everything that I hear from you guys!!

I've beginning to doubt what way I would like to go aswell. Classical or Rhythmic? To be honest, them both. I think my main goal is be able to sing Gethsemane like Steve Balsamo. Awesome high notes, very useful for metal and the delicious sound of a musical star. I think my biggest force is my natural baritone sound which is what I show off in my video.

Anyone has thoughts for motivation when you think you're stuck and/or anything else related to my post?

I would love to hear from YA'LL!:cool:

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As someone else eloquently put it, if you wanna sing higher than F4, the fifth octave high notes you need to do a lot of fancy junk (the most common singing issue btw). Fastest way to get there is to get a vocal teacher, I can personally recommend Tony from vocalpower. When you approach the bridge area etc you need to do vowel modification and vocal tract adjusments to sing higher, if you don't you will experience tension and hit a roof. You need to let the folds thin out for higher pitches (not falsetto), it is gonna take some work though.

I can't stress enough how important it is to have a teacher, and if you want to pursuit a career in singing it's almost laughable not to have one. It also helps with motivation because you are not driving blind anymore, someone is there to guide you in the right direction.

Personally I'm able to seriously push up to A4 (bad technique) but during the past two weeks I've been able to reach C#5 without straining so far (again with proper guidance from a teacher) although this newfound range is not usable/stable/reliable YET it is there for me to improve. And I can also sing an F2 so don't worry about voice type. Your singing was beautiful btw, I really liked it.

When it comes to motivation, I can sympathise with you since there probably isn't a single song I want to sing which I can sing yet. It makes me want to hurt someone, but then I listen to some of my favorite singers, get inspired to PRACTISE and do it. The most important thing is not that you are practising, it is that you are practising CORRECTLY. Again, get a vocal coach as soon as possible, thank me later.

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Thank you for your post, Sun! I agree with everything you wrote, and I especially like the last part. When you need motivation, look at your goal! :)

This is of course my mistake not to make it clear in my post: I've had skype lessons with Tony O Hora, Robert Lunte last weak and a weekly lessons with a CVT teacher for 3 months (the season is done now, though).

I'll record a few high notes I can do (Tony learned me how to do this like half a year ago, and I haven't evolved it a lot since)

www.rofleren.dk/music/the_best_scale.mp3

Listening to this, actually makes me happy. This I couldnt do one year ago. So that is improvement. But not as fast as I would like to!

But actually, I would like this thread might to turn into:

"What do you do, when you can't sing what you want and there for making you sad?"

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you have a nice voice.

it's terribly important for you to know that the voice is subject to so many internal and external variables that can leave you frustrated and bewildered to the 10th power. it's simply a fact of the life of a singer. we don't play an inanimate instrument. we play a living, breathing, ever changing, fickle as hell instrument.

some aspects of vocal production are in your control and some are not. there are going to be off-days. it happens to every singer...guaranteed.

so to help you.... assume it, embrace it, adjust as best you can for it....because it will never be 100% perfect...ever.

here's a list of a few elements that will definitely have an impact on your voice and affect what it can, or cannot do on any given day.

hydration

sleep

air quality and humidity

stress

depression

anxiety

confidence

fitness level

allegies

diet

reflux

phlegm and mucus

mood

failure to adaquately warmup

overuse or incorrect use of the speaking voice

the important thing to realize and i say this time and time again, development of the singing voice, incremental improvement to the signing voice takes patience and time.

the key is to resolve yourself to the simple fact that gains are inevitable...but you have to trust yourself to see your way to them.

also, (and a lot of folks won't agree with me on this and it's so hard to explain exactly what i mean) generally speaking, singing can be very physically demanding, perhaps more than people realize or want to realize. you will have setbacks and there will be days where you can do no wrong.

the key is stay with it and the rewards will come. you get out of it what you put into it.

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Thank you for your post, Sun! I agree with everything you wrote, and I especially like the last part. When you need motivation, look at your goal! :)

This is of course my mistake not to make it clear in my post: I've had skype lessons with Tony O Hora, Robert Lunte last weak and a weekly lessons with a CVT teacher for 3 months (the season is done now, though).

I'll record a few high notes I can do (Tony learned me how to do this like half a year ago, and I haven't evolved it a lot since)

www.rofleren.dk/music/the_best_scale.mp3

Listening to this, actually makes me happy. This I couldnt do one year ago. So that is improvement. But not as fast as I would like to!

But actually, I would like this thread might to turn into:

"What do you do, when you can't sing what you want and there for making you sad?"

Lol how is that not usable range?

It's also important to remember to appreciate your achievements. The problem and advantage of having high goals is that you are never satisfied. You'll have some major breakthrough with your voice, become thrilled and the next day you're back to being frustrated because ultimately you've not reached your end goal yet. For what it's worth I think you have great tone and sing with better pitch etc than many members on here. Not saying you should be content in anyway but you obviously sing well and are well on your way.

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I want to say, that I think the importance of a post like yours, Sun, is really great! That is exactly what I wanted to hear, when I was at that stage of my singing!

Edit: this was to your first post!

as your for your second post; thank you again! Yes, that is exactly the problem. I guess there's a lot of beginner singers that wants to be able to sing like me. But I want to be able to sing like my idols. And only when I can sing songs my idols can sing, I have achieved the goal I once sat me. And I will not be happy until I have finished the race!

It was amazing, when I suddenly after a lot of pushing finally found out how to "unlock" the heady notes.

The mp3 I linked, wasn't so much for useless range, but more, I can't put this into an actual song, and that is a problem that bothers me!

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I'll tell you what, man. Back when I was training religiously, the highest I ever hit was a comfortable A4, but it was hit and miss. Sometimes I'd push for it too much, other times it would come fine. A#4 I never hit in my life. I probably crashed and burned on this song 20-30 times (album version is a note higher):

*Insert SLS exercises and injury here.. Three years passed*

Now I can sing that A#4 in the shower pretty much any time my throat isn't spasming. It just hurts like hell, as does anything else I do with my voice. In fact the lower pitches often hurt worse.

My advice: Get lessons if you care that much, and if you do pursue this route, take it SLOW, reduce airflow to a minimum, watch out for vocal fry exercises, gug exercises, random things you find on the net, etc.

Honestly, if I could go back in time, and someone just told me 'try to use less air and use a lighter tone' I probably would have gotten there a lot safer without the injury.

High notes aren't 'that' important. I should know, I have stronger high notes now than I used to, and it sucks. I wish I could go back to missing the notes with a healthy voice!

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I'll tell you what, man. Back when I was training religiously, the highest I ever hit was a comfortable A4, but it was hit and miss. Sometimes I'd push for it too much, other times it would come fine. A#4 I never hit in my life. I probably crashed and burned on this song 20-30 times (album version is a note higher):

*Insert SLS exercises and injury here.. Three years passed*

Now I can sing that A#4 in the shower pretty much any time my throat isn't spasming. It just hurts like hell, as does anything else I do with my voice. In fact the lower pitches often hurt worse.

My advice: Get lessons if you care that much, and if you do pursue this route, take it SLOW, reduce airflow to a minimum, watch out for vocal fry exercises, gug exercises, random things you find on the net, etc.

Honestly, if I could go back in time, and someone just told me 'try to use less air' I probably would have gotten there a lot safer without the injury.

High notes aren't 'that' important. I should know, I have stronger high notes now than I used to, and it sucks. I wish I could go back to missing the note with a healthy voice!

Killer, I thought of you when I made this thread.

I heard a clip of you in the Perspective and criticism thread, and I really enjoyed it! I don't remember if I liked the actual song, but I liked your voice. It had a professional sound to it, I remember I thought. Not the music I usually listen to, but nice vocals! :)

I just tried to search for it fast, I would like to listen to it again (though I'm going to bed in a min). You can link it here, if you want me to hear it again! :D

Did you hit A#4s by pushing? I couldn't hit those notes before I found out what "twang" was and stuff like that.

Now I have a hard time pushing notes at all, in the shouty way, which is good, so I can't even tell if I can hit a note like that, with the pushy shouty "technique" now.

I don't want to say that I agree or disagree on the highnote part. I am impressed by good sounding high notes, because it just yells to me: "dedication". And it's often used in more complex music. And like it or not; a lot of people gets impressed by the high notes. Though I want it, because I want to be able to sing complicated songs, like Protest The Hero. I'm not so much into the sing&song writer genre, though there are so exceptions sometimes, when the vocals wins it for me. I think I had that thought, when I listened to your clip. That's why I want to hear it again and make sure, it might would go down on my ipod if that was the case :)

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http://soundcloud.com/killerku/driveinsaturdayfx

This was the one I had posted in the thread. I hit a comfortable G4 there just by slightly lightening my timbre.

This one was tonally less consistent (was screwing around with vocal posturing so there are some funny moments)

http://soundcloud.com/killerku/younevergivemeyourmoney

But I hit a comfortable A4b there. One 'sweet' dream.

Other times I would push chest too much and miss a note. I have some originals that I would be hit/miss. I might record an A#4 and show the difference in tonal quality based on how I would do it now.

Anyway, seriously though, it has a lot to do with your natural timbre and range. I'm a lyric baritone or 2nd tenor, so it's going to be easier for me than for you Rofleren since you are a deeper baritone. You'll have to pull more tricks for the same notes!

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I wouldn't downplay the importance of high notes. They're not awesome just because they are high but so much more intense, if you can't sing high notes how can you convey intensity or just raw power \,,/.

Also for the record I wasn't referring to beginners, tons of singers struggle with pitch even with years of experience it seems.

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I wouldn't downplay the importance of high notes. They're not awesome just because they are high but so much more intense, if you can't sing high notes how can you convey intensity or just raw power \,,/.

Also for the record I wasn't referring to beginners, tons of singers struggle with pitch even with years of experience it seems.

You convey power with musical context dude. Do symphonies just go for high notes constantly to get more powerful, or is it more like composition and musicality? Tension and release? Harmony, melody, rhythm, phrasing, like, or with singing lyrics, interpretation, so forth.

I still don't get this. You guys are pretty easy to please when it comes to power. A pitch shifter could pretty much solve all of your musical problems. :P

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I don't think you're getting what I mean by power. I'm not talking about the overall impact or message of the music, I'm talking about the raw power from the vocalist.

2:14 - 2:44 everything is pretty much sung in D4-C5

As pitch increases, intensity increases. A C4 sounds more intense than a C3 or a C2, and a C5 sounds even more intense. You just can't get the ultra raw, powerful, evil, intense OR heartbreakingly soft sound without the higher notes.

4:38-> end

Very beautiful singing but would sound incredibly dull one octave lower.

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I don't think you're getting what I mean by power. I'm not talking about the overall impact or message of the music, I'm talking about the raw power from the vocalist.

2:14 - 2:44 everything is pretty much sung in D4-C5

As pitch increases, intensity increases. A C4 sounds more intense than a C3 or a C2, and a C5 sounds even more intense.

Oh no, I do understand what you mean. I just find this personally to be more intense:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8tuTSi6Sck

I say that as someone that likes Symphony X. I find a lot more 'raw power' in what Simone did. Maybe I didn't measure power on a heavy metal scale to get to this assessment. It's more of a 'musical expression' scale. I think she expressed more raw power to me. As did a lot of singers.

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In my opinion the highest level of intensity in that clip is towards the end when she lets loose a bit and puts some energy into what she is doing. The overall performance is low energy.

Imagine you're world just ended for whatever reason, you are going crazy inside and just need to SCREAM. High notes convey that sort of message, that is high intensity. While I like the song and singing in your clip it's a laid back song.

But I also understand what you mean, the emotional impact you feel from her singing. But LET'S NOT derail this thread to hell let's just end discussion.

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In my opinion the highest level of intensity in that clip is towards the end when she lets loose a bit and puts some energy into what she is doing. The overall performance is low energy.

Imagine you're world just ended for whatever reason, you are going crazy inside and just need to SCREAM. High notes convey that sort of message, that is high intensity. While I like the song and singing in your clip it's a laid back song.

I don't get low energy from that song at all. It's one of the most enormous climaxes I've ever heard in a song. I get more raw power out of this performance, than I would from someone screaming around like a douche or wheedling around for high notes like a girl. The musical context and emotional delivery in the singing maintains the intensity.

If you pitch shifted the song up, it would be no more intense, but might impress a few ears who are easily impressed by high notes.

As for higher notes = more intensity. I just have to disagree. It's more the relative movement of the song and phrasing of the singing. Musicality and emotional expression makes for intense music.

As for 'screaming = more intensity'

Seriously?

Screaming can be pretty lame and extremely limp. It can be tastefully done within musical/emotional context, or not.

For me this is an example of screaming that is intense to me:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6hEcDt8HZI

Key points, listen to the dissonance and despair on display in the composition. The alienation expressed by the foreign language. Loss of connection. Feeling of confinement. Screaming is what happens when you are in pain or what an animal might do when caged. I've screamed naturally from despair, and it sounds a lot like that David Bowie song and a lot less like Vanilla Ice or Symphony X to be honest. Real emotional screaming 'can' be intense, but screaming can be phoned in just like anything else.

The most raw power and intensity, is what feels authentic to people, rather than making high pitched noise or scream sounds to try to be intense. That's pretty irrelevant. When people feel a strong sense of authentic musical/emotion expression, that succeeds at getting a point across, that's where the real intensity comes from, at least for me, so it doesn't matter how they get there, it could be with a bass/baritone voice.

You trying to say that isn't more intense with more raw power than Vanilla Ice?

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This is a pretty pointless discussion since we obviously are NOT even talking about the same thing, f.ex. I said I'm NOT talking about the musical context at all, or the message of the music as a whole.

I never said screaming = more intensity, I used feeling like you want to scream as a metaphor to describe an emotion. That's putting words in my mouth.

I never said higher pitch is the sole variable in determining intensity of singing. David Bowie f.ex. there is screaming at G4 which is a moderatley high note.

The problem here is having your artistic abilities hindered by lack of range. Nobody here is talking about singing an F5 out of the blue just because higher pitch = higher intensity or some bs like that. It's quite simple. When I'm singing a song I hear a melody in my head, I don't have perfect pitch so I couldn't tell you which notes they were but the melodies tend can go very high sometimes. If I can't sing the melody in my head I can't express what I'm feeling. For me, the melodies go high, sometimes very high. It's about singing the note which fits in to the music and the melodies in my head go pretty high.

But please, if you wanna continue this conversation let's take it somewhere else such as the Eddie Vedder thread, we are totally ruining OP's thread...

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Man your tone is something really, really rare. And you are in a very good way already. Work slowly with your tech, take your time. I dont feel confident to take any shots to weather you are baritone or not, but tell me, at which note does your passaggio begins? F2 is VERY low, can you sing it lowdly and open? Like could you sing it without the mic and still be loud on the room?

I do hear some depressing of the larynx, specially on the final part, adding weight, the idea is not wrong at all, but may reveal an overall too low position which would surelly limit your range. Be you a baritone or not. Even if you are, F4 is not even where your tessitura should end, range ending there is simply not possible.

Given your goals, I say find a classical teacher, that IS willing to train you into pop repertoire and just work it out. I think you are in for some very nice surprises.

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What do you guys do, when there are days you can't sing or if you feel that you're getting zero improvement and maybe your skills is even going in the wrong direction?

It is about me.

I do nothing special. I practice and practice, hours by hours. I believe ..a change is gonna come, yes it will.... I will reach my goal which is very close to your.

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This is a pretty pointless discussion since we obviously are NOT even talking about the same thing, f.ex. I said I'm NOT talking about the musical context at all, or the message of the music as a whole.

I never said screaming = more intensity, I used feeling like you want to scream as a metaphor to describe an emotion.

The problem here is having your artistic abilities hindered by lack of range. Nobody here is talking about singing an F5 out of the blue just because higher pitch = higher intensity or some bs like that. It's quite simple. When I'm singing a song I hear a melody in my head, I don't have perfect pitch so I couldn't tell you which notes they were but the melodies tend can go very high sometimes. If I can't sing the melody in my head I can't express what I'm feeling. For me, the melodies go high, sometimes very high. It's about singing the note which fits in to the music and the melodies in my head go pretty high.

That's better, I can agree with that. At the same time, if a melody goes high enough, and there isn't a tone available in that range, to convey the meaning of the song or reflect the artist in a cohesive way? That's kind of where I'm at. So you'd have to think of the tonal colors available. As an example, if my choice for my songs was either falsetto, or Russel Allen tone, I'd pick falsetto. I like him in Symphony X, but he would sound awful in my songs, like a screaming muppet came out from left field.

Obviously there are more choices than that, and something like Stevie Wonder is a bit closer, but if I were to do the same techniques as he did, I could easily sound like crap cause we have different voices. I've heard a lot of singers use curbing and sound kind of iffy or downright bad or whiny. I was personally aiming for something more John Lennon or David Bowie but could have used polish at bridge.

But these same rules apply for basically all artists. A lot of artists use falsetto or something similar (neutral without air, or Metal like neutral), because it gels best with their natural singing voice. If someone were to sound like Johnny Cash below bridge, and Geoff Tate above bridge, it would sound bizarre and disconnected. It's not a coherent voice that people can relate to. So what I mean by it's not that important, is it's often more important to use techniques that maintain a coherent identity throughout the voice than it is to use techniques to hit every note possible with maximum power.

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Rofleren, I've been thinking more and more, and:

People will eventually hit limitations, at some point, and if you want to keep going you have got to do this head voice/countertenor thing.

You need to get a really good teacher, man. I'm willing to bet you can take this head voice sound and come up with something workable that sounds a bit less flute like.

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When I'm singing a song I hear a melody in my head, I don't have perfect pitch so I couldn't tell you which notes they were but the melodies tend can go very high sometimes. If I can't sing the melody in my head I can't express what I'm feeling. For me, the melodies go high, sometimes very high. It's about singing the note which fits in to the music and the melodies in my head go pretty high.

I can relate to this very much. I love to improvise with my friends and I'm good at it, so when I can't hit the high notes that I want to express, it's simply an artistic failure for me.

you might be surprised to learn that the guy in symphony x may not be singing as powerfully as you perceive him to be. a lot of those types of growling singers are actually not that loud.

I'm not sure that was Sun's point. I think I share the same understanding on this, as Sun; if you sing a loud G4 in the climax of a song, there wouldn't be the same- and it would be physically harder, to get the same power behind the same note an octave lower, at least for me.

High notes can help with bringing out the emotion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJnjcX8skXk listen to this G4. I think it's a very powerful G4 at (listen to) 1:10-1:20. I don't think an G5 would have fit there. But G4 is still for some a high note.

A G3 just wouldn't have done it there. I think that is the point that I want to see when we're at this subject. High notes CAN bring out emotions.

A lot of the power metal you see though, are through almost the entire song, sung in a very high range, and that is maybe what you mean, Killer? When you say that high notes is not emotions? Or am I just putting words in your mouth now.

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Rofleren, I've been thinking more and more, that the reason you couldn't sing past this point in the range, is the same reason I couldn't.

That ain't chest voice! You need to get a really good teacher, man.

Wait, I'm not quite sure how to understand this post :D

This is a Countertenor, it sounds like.

I don't use this technique. I don't sing in anything that feels like my falsetto. The very last note in my bring him home clip, is falsetto though.

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Well girls can sing higher than guys, and it's not anymore emotional, Rofleren. That's the point I was making. It's got more to do with relative movements than how high or low it is. If you craft a really good song around a 2 octave range, it doesn't really matter if it's a soprano or a baritone, what matters is it's a good song, emotionally sung, musically sung. Admittedly high notes have been trendy lately.

Keep in mind, both Frank Sinatra and latter day David Bowie are two of my favorite singers, who are very much in lower baritone ranges. Early Bowie, was like myself, we modified our voices a bit for upper range with a thinner tonality.

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