jonpall

How can one make an A5 any more difficult than it already is? By sustaining a slightly lower high note for two minutes (well, it sounded like it) just before. That's how this guy rolls ;)

You should write a move or a book about that incident and call it My Left Foot.

It sounds GREAT just the way you do it! Awesome work. Don't let anyone tell you you need to sing it any otherwise. Here are tips for the future so that you KEEP this skill of yours: 1. If you reduce your twang just a LITTLE bit you will probably suddenly feel that the song gets MUCH more weighty and difficult. Keep your current amount of twang and on some days you might even increase it 1%. Remember this tip if you feel you almost can't sing this type of song. 2. If you feel like you've kind of swallowed something and your throat hurts, it's often because you went in the OPPOSITE direction, i.e. you use TOO much twang and need to add some yawning. 3. Don't forget to breathe low in between every phrase. 4. There will be days where you can't give as much power as usual. When that happens, don't try to force but just sing the song with lower intensity and at least hit the right notes. This applies to live singing and at rehearsals - not so much in the studio where you can always attempt the song next day. Again, very cool man.

The attitude and potential is there but I suggest that you play closer attention to the melody. F.ex. just the first word has a much lower pitch in your version than in the original. The song starts with an E5 note on the word "back". Freaking high start for a song! Lol. But you're singing a much lower note. Then, later in the song, you prove that you can definitely hit notes as high as Brian Johnson and with a similar rasp, so .... just work more on doing the right melody and be very pitch concious. Cheers.

Ron, I actually liked it. Yes, I really did. Although I do think you should listen to the various critiques in this thread and also take a quick lesson from f.ex. Jens and also Robert Lunte or someone you dig (which will only improve your voice) - there is a certain quality in your voice that I just LIKE. I find it hard to pinpoint, but it's a sense of vulnerability not unlike Tom Waits or Nick Cave. Only, you also go higher in pitch, which makes for a very unique voice. Your vibrato has improved (could you do it in just a few more places in your next cover and see how that would sound - just for me? ) and you sing this song with quite a lot of feel to it. I've head many of your past songs and can hear a definite improvement. You should be proud of yourself and put your chin up. You are Ron and you have a very unique voice. Personally, I think that if you were to do exercises in which you sustain notes for perhaps 10 seconds and try to not let your voice waiver even an inch - and then do the same exercise WITH vibrato - and then do it on various pitches - you'd start to bring out an even richer sound to your voice that's even more YOU. Our voices may never become perfect and we can always improve, but I'll have you know that I ran through your version of this song another time just to listen to it, without critizising anything and just enjoying it. Great job Ron and have a good day :)

Loved it. Rep point just for the clip!

Good singing Felipe! That's a very tough song and you did a good job. You're obviously very musical. If you want any ideas for improvement from me, it would be to improve your english accent a bit and also to sing with ever so slightly more power. Not much, just a little. I could be incorrect, but that was my first impression. Cheers!

No I really meant NOT locking them. Contracting them, yes, locking them, no. There should be a slight, constant tension but if you really LOCK them, they won't move at all, and for support it's important that there is movement in the abs. Movement as if you're working against resistance. The abs should go slowly inwards while the lower rib cage stays mostly in the same place as you sing a phrase.

I just thought it was bloody good! Very tough song for most guys. Constant Ab4s and A4s throughout the song. I DON'T think you need more chest - otherwise it would just be pulling chest. You might want to improve your vowels even more than you already do and also sing "heaven" instead of "Evan" Who's this Evan, btw.? Friend of yours? Just kidding. You've got a tone to die for. That slight rasp - do you know how you do it? It sounds so great. Make sure you don't lock your abs when you sing. This will give you more stamina and protect your throat better. When you sing the word "like" in the chorus, try singing more of an Oh sound than an Ah sound, because it will sound bigger. You might want to have a bit of Uh in there as well, because you most likely want to stay on the curbing side rather than overdrive. But singing A4s with an Oh vowel in CURBING with almost no shade of Uh seems entirely possible to me - since you're not yet at C5. You kind of do this Oh vowel when you sing "heav-OH-n", so you already know how to do it. The word "heaven" sounds more full thatn "like", as a result, but both words could be equally full and magnificent. You've got great control of your voice even though you may feel that singing like this is sometimes borderline too tough for you. You get into your mixed voice very nicely and really get rid of excess weight in those high notes exactly how you should do. Cheers!

3 things: 1. Relax a little bit more, have fun and care a bit less about singing it perfect. You might even want to improvise in places. 2. Make sure you take a relaxed breath between phrases. 3. Practise better english pronounciation. It's not bad but it could be better. On the positive side ... well, you kind of surprised me. I really like Aerosmith and you sang a very tough song pretty well, dude! Hell yeah! The notes I'm giving above are just my opinions on how to take your voice to the next level if we want to be nitpicky. I don't think the chorus was bad. It had just a liiiiiiiitle bit of strain - not as much as you seem to think. Your tone is great man. Very good for Aerosmith songs. You also nailed the highest part well, which very few people can do. Cheers.

Hi Marcus, the distortion sounded very cool to me. Cheers! :)

Man, it was AWESOME!! I absolutely loved it! I'm dancing along with the track now, lol. You're were born with the blues, Tommy! Cheers.

Thanks Marcus! :)

Thanks man!

Thanks again GAB Do you ever feel that, after training your CLEAN high notes for some time and then want to start to train distortion, that you've accidentally been using a type of setup in your throat that makes distortion very tough? For example, let's say that you've been singing a lot of high notes for 15-30 minutes but your vowels were perhaps slightly TOO open and you were slightly breathy without realizing it. Now you want to do distortion on those high notes but find that for some inexplainable reason it's much more difficult than, say, yesterday, because now you've been using a type of throat setup that's not good for adding distortion on top of. OR - does that never happen to you? Perhaps you feel that if you've spent many many minutes on CLEAN high notes and are very, very warmed up with them, then all of a sudden adding distortion onto them isn't that tough?

GAB, ok, so that's how you warm up. But how do you spend the majority of your training time? Do you sing songs, do exercises, if so, which ones, how many exercises include rasp and high notes, etc.?

Where is this "Wind and release onsets"?

Thanks a lot, GAB

Any comments on this, GAB?

Great posts, GAB. I have a question for you: My problem with singing high pitched phrases with distortion isn't really HOW to create such sounds, but more how can I best spend my vocal training time so that I can very consistant sing songs like this? As in, what exercises should I mostly do? How many of those exercises should be raspy, if any? Should I focus on sirens, or just hitting high notes dead on pitch without sliding up to them? Or should I spend more time on singing songs than exercises? Or should I spend more time on improvising songs? Etc. Sometimes when I want to bring out some distortion, I only increase my volume (although this is getting to be less frequent), so my wish is to be a bit more consistant with these types of vocals.

World ... class ... rock vocals! Can you get this guy to participate on the TMV forum?

Hi man, I liked your cover. I want to comment on one thing that I think would make you sound better. In the very first line in that song, you sound like you are using a "cry" or a "hold" on the voice and are a bit "dopy" sounding. I think such a thing works well on a bit more higher notes (although one shouldn't overdo the cry or the dopyness, ever). I suggest that, for such a low pitched phrase, you get rid of the hold/cry, twang EVER so slightly more (and get less dopy) and increase the volume slightly. If you dislike that tone, try INCREASING the hold/cry but make it slightly less dopy. It will cut through more and you'll sound like a more interesting singer to people. The sound that you have going there, although it's not bad, sounds a bit like the way many beginners do speech level singing exercises, i.e. they are very dopy and have little projection from lack of twang. You also lack thickness and conviction in your sound because of this. With these simple changes in your approach you will be able to fix this in no time. Just try it out and see if you agree with me or not.

In all seriousness - I think that contained some very, very good singing! Some parts will get better with more training since I know you haven't been doing these type of techniques for a long time, but you have a great sense of melody and feel and your sound is very good on the low notes and quite often on the high notes as well. Golf clap!

I don't know about you guys, but I smell a hit.

:)