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Estef

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  1. I know, it's a great book! I never did sirens before, but since I got it, I started doing them and they seem to be helping a lot, especially with constriction. I had never thought of using Zs either, but they make it much easier for me to warm up my voice and it seems to take less time to get my voice "prepared" for harder things. I'm glad you find it useful too!
  2. I think what Bob is talking about is CVT's open throat or Singing and the Actor's False vocal folds Retraction. Different names for the very same thing. I also think that's one of the most important things in singing. It really works great for people like me, who tend to constrict the hell out of me I will read that interview now I just wanted to give this little comment...
  3. Thanks Bob, I could open the link at home; for some reason I couldn't open it at work...
  4. Sounds like an interesting book! I see why it would be controversial though... I always thought that the tongue, jaw and neck should be relaxed... Has it helped you, strengthening those muscles? And what is a tongue download?
  5. Thanks Bob, I think I will get Jaime Vendera's book, it seems a lot of people find it useful, but when I looked it up, it says that the download's only for the US and I live in Argentina, so I don't know... I guess I'll have to wait until I go to the US in may and buy the paperback version... What's a tongue download??? I can't access that page, it seems to not exist anymore... And why is that other book controversial?
  6. Hey guys, sorry to bring this old post back, but it seems very interesting what was discussed about working out extrinsic laryngeal muscles. I don't own Jaime Vendera's book, so could someone (maybe Bob since he talked about this) explain how to train those muscles? Thanks!!!
  7. Hi cvineyard, don't despair! You just haven't found the right coach/technique. I too have struggled for years with my classical voice, even though I am working on singing metal now, but I started working with CVT and Singing and the actor and even though I haven't had a good teacher yet (can't afford one for now) I can tell you I've progressed A LOT by working by myself, recording my voice and working on my voice with proven techniques. There are great books and materials that teach great technique, and you just need to find the right teacher. I am sorry to say that I've gone through at least 6 different classical singers and none of them have actually made me improve, but I won't give up! I'm saving to get some Skype lessons, but until then, I'll keep working with the books I have and all the great advice on the forum!
  8. I will give it a try Steve, thanks! And like you said, I think it's a great way of practicing singing with muscle memory because very often we don't sing live with perfect monitoring conditions, and at least in my case, I change my technique and get hoarse very easily But I can't really isolate the feeling from the sound, maybe this will help me ;)
  9. Steve, do you think that would still work? Great advice by the way, as usual coming from you Steve!:D
  10. Hi eggplantbren, I do have an encouraging anecdote! I also live in a very small apartment with a lot of neighbors and one day I said to hell with my shyness and started singing and after 10 minutes I heard someone knocking on my door and I was like ooooooh my God how embarassing, and it was actually one of my neighbors who is a songwriter and came to me and said that he loves my voice and was just what he was looking for for one of his songs so I ended up recording a demo for him to try to sell to artists! That is something nice, let me tell you! Now he moved and I have other neighbors but I guess they either don't care what I do or they are deaf =) I do get embarrassed when I hear they are on the hall so I cut down my volume when I hear that but once they're gone either to the elevator or inside, I keep on singing... No one else has complained! Actually one of the neighbors from the floor below said she loves when I sing and she's in the bathtub because that relaxes her... I didn't know if it was a joke or what, but that's as bad as it can go right??? Good luck!!!
  11. To me, the best singer both technically and regarding charisma is Floor Jansen, check her out: (Singing starts at 1:20) I just can't think someone could be more versatile than she is! She has so much power in her voice, sooooo amazing, OK I love her hehe... And she's my biggest inspiration so sorry if I'm being too biased... :cool: And I'll have to disagree with some people here about Tarja Turunen... Ok so she remains one of the pioneers of modern female metal vocalists, but there are THOUSANDS of classical singers that are better than her... Still I like her a lot because of Nightwish Classically, my favorite is the great Monserrat Caballé... I also don't think that Sharon den Adel is that great, I think Simone Simons has much better technique: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ig4iUHSEPOI I believe in a singer only when they can sing live, so forgive me if the audio quality is not the best... Metal doesn't have the coverage pop or other music genres do so it's hard to have good live recordings... Still, I think you can get the gist...
  12. Hi guys thank you for your replies! So pretty much yes, I do think I might be overblowing my lip bubbles and tongue trills as well because if I don't send a lot of air, I simply can't make any sound! I just recorded a very short sample of me doing lip bubbles first and then a tongue trill. You can clearly hear how I struggle with the tongue trill specially. I did try to make my voice as light as possible first but it's hardly audible, so I recorded it again. Just by recording this, I feel the lump now. It doesn't happen to me with singing, unless I really strain to get some high notes or something. Should I just give up doing them or is it worth trying to get them right? Because anyways, you are NEVER going to actually USE them in a song or something, just as a warmup... This is the first try, like I told you, hardly audible, so you'll have to turn up your volume http://www.box.net/shared/tloiev07zi This is the second one http://www.box.net/shared/fm69o9dddv Both were uncomfortable to sing... Any thoughts?
  13. Hello guys! Well, the title pretty much says it all... I know that a lot of people use lip and tongue trills to warm-up but whenever I try them, I feel a lot of discomfort, kind of a lumpy feeling in the larynx. What could be I doing wrong? I do have to work very hard on my support to not strain my voice, I am what some people call an "overblower" because I do tend to strain a lot and overblow my voice... I am working on that and have been quite successful by applying the support techniques from CVT and the great suggestions I've read on this forum and the CVT forum as well. However, when I try to do lip or tongue trills, I keep feeling this tension, even though I do try to keep them light and support. Any ideas?
  14. Hi Nathan, let me tell you what I've found helpful for me... At first, I started reading very simple melodies in C or A with simple rhythmic figures and then increasing the difficulty. This is a good approach and I'm sure the school you're trying to enter will have a library with books on sight reading. Try Concone. However, what I found that really helped me improve was to internalize tonal functions (tonic, subdominant, dominant). Sorry if my technical words are not accurate in English but it's not my native language. For instance, you could try playing a 4 bar accompaniment of I-ii-V7-I with the piano or guitar and then improvise simple melodies with 1,3,5 degrees (so for instance if you're doing it in C, the first bar can have C-E-G) etc. Do this with different keys, major and minor. For minor, remember to sharpen the 6th and 7th degrees if they are in the dominant region. That way you start internalizing how each degree sounds in a scale. Then it doesn't matter if you're in C or E or whichever key, you know how the 4th degree would sound, as opposed to thinking of F or A. Before doing this, you could try singing the scale up and down just to make sure you have the notes right. Then, work on the melodies and if possible, try to accompany yourself with the chords, but don't play the notes themselves, only the chords. I find this approach much better than thinking about intervals, but you might find it works differently for you. Also, I recommend that you go to that school and ask them if you could see the book they use on their first year or the material they expect you to be good at in order to enter, that way you could know in advance the difficulty of the readings you'll be doing. I also think it's a good idea to do rhythmic sight reading, such as Hindemith (you can find his books pretty much everywhere) and really get to automize the harder structures, so that the rhythmic part won't be an issue for you. Usually at schools, the rhythmic-only readings have much more complex rhythmic figures than melodic readings, so you should totally aim at that. Hope this helps, at least it helped me!
  15. Hi Ron, it's actually a bar:D Sorry my native language is not English! Anyways, it was obviously hard to pronounce things well and enunciate while it was healing but I never got to really sing with it because my teacher had me take it out and I listened to her :rolleyes:
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