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This is another of my favorites. I started out trying to sing nice and soft but stronger support carried me through. You will hear what sounds like a tamborine. That is my dog, Shadow, pictured in the video, shaking loose fur and causing his tags (id tag and rabies vaccination tag) to jingle. For the guitar, I found chord charts but realized that it could be simplified to get that infamous Tony Iommi tri-tone and so I did that. I rehearsed against playback, before recording. And, I wrote timing notes to myself on the lyric sheet so that I wouldn't get lost. Especially in a song like this which has many repetitive phrases, musically. "Heaven and Hell" from Black Sabbath. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aals_BXDKwE

Thank you, Fahim. I consider you a friend and I think it would be great if we could meet, some day, even though we live on opposite sides of the world, literally. I am also working on another song.

I think it would be great to be in a band. Either one of my own making or part of another band. I haven't auditioned in quite some time. I was auditioning for bands in the 1990's but they wanted someone who sounded like Robert Plant or David Coverdale. I can sing what those guys sing I just don't sound like them. And this mic I use to doesn't reproduce accurately. Some overtones just don't make it. So, I sound like Billy Corgan (Smashing Pumpkins) in a can. One of our good friends, Randy, is a phenomenal guitar player but he is currently playing with a local country music artist but I would like to work with him, some day. I should mention that to our other friend who gets to see him more often than we get to see him.

myspace kept crashing my browser but I did get to hear quite a bit of "Whole Lotta Rosie." I liked you version and from what I could hear, you sounded good. Just one complaint. The vocal track was was undervolume. Let me guess, the guitar player mixed the final. I would like to hear it with the vocal track just a little more prominent, where it's on equal footing with the thundering guitar and bass. But the arrangement was great. Exciting, and I could feel the energy in your singing.

Today being June 23, Wednesday, I recorded again, watching my air pressure, resonance, and fold tension. I sang this quieter and was more relaxed doing it. I have deleted the previous version from youtube.

I honestly value and greatly appreciate the advice. I thought of curbing, too. I had an epiphany on the way to work this morning. What has been hampering me in this is that I am singing too high in chest. I took a cue from my own description of being tired and straining. I was singing it on the way to work this morning (a capella, I don't play guitar and drive at the same time, especially as I have a car with a standard transmission). And it seemed effortless. I looked at what I did different. Well, for one thing, I used more head than chest, by means of curbing and some twang on the upper end. So, I have re-recorded it, today and I will upload today's version. I still overload the mic even though I was able to reduce my singing volume by resonating better and having a better tension on the folds. It still blasts the mic but I was more comfortable doing it. I would love to have a coach. Believe it or not, I'm not one of those people who thinks you can learn everything from one or two books. One of my previous jobs was teaching electrical work to disadvantaged students and I noticed a discrepancy between the book series and "how we electricians really do it." I would love to have the 4 pillars material, as well. I am impressed with all that you guys do here and I like that Robert Lunte walks the walk, as well as talking the talk. From what I can see, he is the real deal, legitimate. And I work through a temp service for tradesmen. This economy stinks and this is the best I can get. And, sometimes, it's a week or two between assignments even though I look for jobs elsewhere. But, believe it or not, not all of these companies are actually about making money. I know, that shocked me, too. I am a moneymaker with a wide variety of experience. Fortunately, on the assignment I am on now, the job boss (electrical superintendent) is relying on me more and more as he can see, of all the people on the crew, I have a clue and I know what I am doing. That doesn't mean they will hire me or even keep me on after this assignment project ends on July 30. Suffice it to say that the money I saved up on the last assignment got spent just paying bills, no extras. Last year, I went completely flat broke, which hasn't happened to me in 25 years. Part of the problem is that I have so much experience and I have a master license. So, people don't want to hire me, just based on that. They want an experience, licensed guy at helper wages. Right now, I'm worried about paying the electric bill and the phone and internet bill is now overdue. And I have to, above all, make the car payment. Without a car, I can't get to work. I live in a rural town and consider myself lucky that work is only 27 miles away, right now. It would be tempting to see if Steven coaches voice. He only lives 40 miles from me. In Texas, that's almost next door. He is aware of the pedagogy here. But really, if I could afford it, I would also love to work with Robert Lunte but I can't afford to go to Seattle. And I would dearly love to get a decent microphone. Right now, I just have to settle for getting my bills paid. There's talk that we may be getting some overtime, which will help out some, as I expect to cast aside like a used piece of toilet paper when this project winds down. 25 years experience, the biggest license there is, and I am totally expendable and have to keep up with young'ns young enough to be my son.

That's fine, Fahim. I think it sounds off, too, and I can't figure out why, and that's why I didn't want to upload it. But you guys asked for it because I could be wrong. I was thinking some songs are best with certain voices. But I could be wrong. Any and every voice should be able to sing any and every song, regardless.

Here it is. I mentioned it in another thread. I can play this song live and it sounds fine. But I'm having challenge trying to record it well. Parts of this song are a passagio for me. But I think I'm going to keep experimenting with it. The guitar part is a little messed up but I was experimenting with the song. It's not in my normal set of songs that I practice. I recorded it again, today, after getting home and having a shower. As I mentioned in the other thread, my job as an electrician is very physical. Climbing up and down ladders, lots of walking, wearing about 20 lbs of tools, carrying pipe, supplies. And, oh yeah, it's almost 100 degrees in the building that we are remodelling. We literally sweat for 8 hours. So, as usual, I come home, worn out. Imagine the exertion you might do on a stage under hot lights in the summer. And do that for 8 hours. When I make a wmv, I have to have picture in order for moviemaker to make it a movie. So, I choose different pics I have collected. This one is one of the couple I have used elsewhere. A friend in North Carolina does many things including caretaking of wild animals in medical rehab. She has cared for a white bengal tiger. In this pic, it is one of the gray wolves she was caring for. The scale of the pic is misleading. That wolf, a male, is nearly 30 inches to the shoulder and weighs 120 lbs. Anyway, "I Remember You" from Skid Row. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QowIqm-eNWk

I had not thought of it that way but, yes, you could probably go a little darker or fatter in the note and achieve Brian-ness with it.

Back to my irish heritage, amongst my mongrel lineage (german, english, irish, scottish.) Mongrel is a breeding term. Any two purebreeds is a mutt. Anything more than two pure breeds is a mongrel. Anyway, I like this sing lyrically, melodically, and it shows off range, too. "With or Without You" by U2, covered by me.

One of my favorite bluegrass bands is the tribute band Hayseed Dixie, doing bluegrass bass version of AC/DC songs. To me, curbing includes the crying timbre. And I think that is what Eddie Vedder specifically uses. What makes it sound like chest voice is that he puts support into it, applied constant air pressure. High notes, he goes into head voice with twang and some leaky air that makes it sound raspy. And yes, you can do it.

You still have more of a Brian Johnson sound. I couldn't hear any Axl in your voice. Good for you on adding your own vocalizations to make the song yours. I would say that you already have enough distortion and keep the twang going. The twang, more than distortion, will keep you on pitch. That is, if one were to express a ratio, make it about 70 % twang and 30 % distortion. Which might just be a preference of mine. Any day we get some AC/DC is a good day.

I would also suggest checking Robert Lunte's youtube channel. He sings and uses the techniques he teaches. I think you will find that he has the pedagogy to get you where you want to go. My first memory of Chris Cornell is of course with the break-out hit "Loud Love" from his days with Sonic Garden. That opening piercing wail, nearly guaranteed to shatter glass. But I think he modernly uses curbing and some crying resonance. As well as does Eddie Vedder. When I hear the late Layne Staley and the current singer, William Duvall, I hear twanging, even though the band was marketed as grunge, I still think of them as a hard rock group, with maybe some grunge song stylings. But I also think of Pearl Jam (with Eddie Vedder) as hard rock that happened to be labeled grunge. And that is also Vedder's viewpoint. Especially from his own perspective as seen in the episode of "Iconoclasts" when talking with his friend, surfer Laird Hamilton. I think a number of hard rock bands that didn't immediately slap on the glam or "hair metal" fashions were unfairly labelled grunge and record companies were directing record producers to give the songs a "grunge" feel, trying to capitalize on the Nirvana momentum.

I, too, have a 4 track analog with no way to convert it to digital. So, these days, I'm using a standard desk mic for computer and I use Audacity software, which is freeware. If I can ever afford it, I think I could make leaps and bounds simply by having a decent mic.

Thanks, guys. Everything is a work in progress. Sorry about the guitar part not being absolutely perfect. And I've been too tired from work to re-record it but I will, when I get the chance. And then, we can truly judge my voice, against a better played guitar track.

I couldn't see any problem with your singing and I love the layered guitar in "Eden." I noticed that you sing with a little more rasp in "Eden." Just remember that the guys who thought you sounded better on the "relaxed" (read that as quieter) timbre are about singing harmony, where as your natural voice and how you "usually" sing as more lead vocal quality to it. You might be a square peg they are expecting to fit into a round hole. I do the best I can to take suggestions or criticism with as much as I can glean from the person's preferences offering the suggestions. Example, I have long been a fan of Guns and Roses. A friend of mine is a monster Queensryche fan (I like them, too.) And he hates Axl Rose's voice. So, should his opinon of my taste in music as for having a favored band be taken at face value, or should I also realize that he has a different set of criteria? What would a Bel Canto coach think of Joe Walsh? I hope you can remember that most people talk from their particular viewpoint, which is not always the be all and end all of truth, much to their chagrin. Keep doing what you are doing.

You sounded pitchy here and there but not too much and I don't think it's a deficit in your singing. "Set you Free" was a good song and the guitar was drowning you and nearly everyone else out. At least the drummer had an organic Steven Adler vibe going. This sounded like an early Guns and Roses song. The other thing I think was muddying the waters is that it sounded like you had too much reverb on the mic. You have a good voice, we just need to be able to hear it. Could you submit some stuff of you on a backing track or even an acoustical arrangement of something. I think you were having problems hearing yourself at times, plus whoever recorded this for you could not stop talking and it caused the mic to pick up those other stray sounds.

It sounds like something is wrong on the eq when you playback for yourself. Because it sounds fine from what I can hear. Or, you just have this mental thing that you decide that you cannot like your voice, maybe because someone told you it's not worth it, you sound like crap, etcetera. Ignore them, even if it's a family member. That might be easy for me, an american, raised by people who were as stubborn as the day is long and I can still struggle with their negative messages, that turn out to be totally unfounded, from time to time. You must do the same. That's going to be harder for you than actually singing. So stop beating yourself up, because I said so.

And I may end up doing this song over again, if the guitar part is that distracting. I was more interested in the melody and lyric. It's been some time since I played this song in regular rotation.

You are right, the guitar part is messed up, one of my fingernails needed clipping and it kept hanging on me. On the other hand, if I wanted the exact original sound, I would have tried to find backing tracks.

Usually, as with all the other songs I do, I am used to playing and singing this at the same time. However, I record the guitar and vocals as separate tracks, which makes it easier to amp one thing or the other. Again, here and there, I max out the mic but such is my lot in life, for right now. When I was in high school and played this song a lot (I graduated in 1982) I had a friend who played violin and he knew the solo for this song and it was one my best memories of school, playing in duet with him. I ran into another violinist last fall. She didn't know the solo so well but she faked it pretty well. And I've also thought of recording this "live," i.e., guitar and vocal in one track, though volume may suffer. "Dust in the Wind" by Kansas, covered by me.

In the very upper end of my range, I have had to use consistent air pressure but lately, I've been learning, you can accomplish more by backing off the air pressure a little bit. The rest of my volume in that part of the range comes from resonance. It sounds like I am screaming but I am not. As for what you think is noise, is it noise you hear in your own voice or something you hear in playback or monitoring through playback? Also, it is truly hard to hear yourself, even by singing against an object such as a wall or your own hands because you are still partially hearing yourself through bone conduction in your own body. What you may call noise might be a natural rasp that others would give their right arm to have. Anyway, don't give up. And remember each person sounds unique. And I think that's a good thing.

I wonder if your breath support problems are when you are too relaxed. In a higher pitched song like "Still youu turn me on" you under some tension to produce the higher notes and you end up supporting yourself better. As opposed to "Lucky Man", which you sing lower.

Ah then, perhaps you will end up having to change not too long from now. Here, in America, there are plenty of factories that use PLC. But, when they can afford it, they change over to networked controls. I did change out job in a paint factory that had PLC. An engineer had made new wiring harnesses to fit with a new system that uses removal cards that look like your sound card and that base is connected to the net and the entire operation can be controlled from one computer, anywhere in the company's network or through company internet portal. The base is connect by harness to the machine then, later, it's just a matter of changing cards. Much simpler and less expensive, after the initial change-over.

"Still you turn me on." - I liked your performance of this. Of the two, this was the stronger recording. And not because this song has some higher notes in it. I was trying to analyze and I think part of it is that this song involves a louder singing volume for you, which required more support, which doesn't necessarily mean more breath just better controlled breath. You also phonated differently just a little and you were forming vowels a little more back. I'm not so sure that you have breath support issues. I think you sounded just fine and I'm not sure what issues you think there are with your voice. I prefer this recording just a little over the "Lucky Man", though that may due to this performance being closer to the original than the other, which was more interpretive and expressive of you. Your last link is invalid. I think you just have to link the actual page address instead of trying to use a custom link name.