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SilentMind

TMV World Legacy Member
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  1. Can I pick you up on this comment? Really strikes a chord for me as I've often noticed that an un-intended vibrato creeps into my singing when I feel at my most 'free' in terms of muscle tensions. Odd thing is that I've always been shy of vibrato when singing as I have an intense dislike of the sound of vibrato except in those occasions where it sounds 'natural'. I'm well aware of how daft that sounds and I have nothing to say in my defense other than 'I know it when I hear it'. Which is equally daft. Perception and taste - what riddle! Should I generally encourage mystery vibrato and let it do its dance all on its own? I'm happy to endure the sound if it encourages good practice, endurance and progression. Guess I'm better placed to subdue it for artistic reasons when my voice is properly controlled and developed.
  2. I can feel the necessity of opening the mouth as part of singing but I need to be wary as I suffer from a broken TMJ on the left side. I can comfortably open my mouth to a thumbs width but any more and I can see & feel my jaw slowly moving out (jutting) and swinging to the right ever so slightly. I often catch myself with a jaw position that is too forward simply because that is generally more comfortable when approaching my safe limit. As a result, tucking the jaw back toward the neck slightly really helps me open up the higher range as it counteracts the unconscious trend to move the jaw forward as it opens. I've also noticed that I often compensate for a lack of space in the embouchure by twanging harder than I need to. Is this based on any factual evidence ? Can you over-twang as compensation for sluggish support or lack of space in the embouchure ? I can hear it too as the tone tends to be overly bright with a slight witches cackle kind of sound. Gotta get a grip of this issue - it feels intuitively like a fundamental hurdle I need to leap over to progress further. Any thoughts are most welcome!
  3. Bah. You've made me all curious now. You tease. Thanks also for making me feel guilty about my nefarious habits. Its so obvious that drinking & smoking are dirty little voice goblins but from where I'm from they're a part of everyday family life. Was kinda shocked to head out with some clean livin folk and I was made to feel like Keith Richards on a bad night. Heh. Was a real eye opener to say the least. Socialized norms eh ? scary stuff. Time for a detox methinks. Imagine how dumb I'll feel if my voice gets better in a few weeks just cos of that. I'll laugh and cry simultaneously for at least a week. :rolleyes:
  4. Damn thats a good point. Havent considered that in many moon - building down as well as up. Just tried it, coo its tough. Does my memory lie when I say - isnt that a key part of some Italian school of singing ? Being able to swell to a near scream and then back to a whisper ? Always come outta this place inspired. So many ways of looking at the same thing!
  5. Hey Jay! Seems we're at the same stage in vocal training - I had to get my voice to thin out considerably to lift out of chest into the previously unknown realm of 'girly head voice' as you aptly put it and now I'm wondering how to add weight / boomy qualities without encouraging the old throat-clamp belt to come back. So far I'm just experimenting with resonance guided by a mix of Pillars and the Formants & Harmonics lecture released a little while back via TVS. All I can say at this stage is that when I find the right vowel / support level for a given pitch I get this strange head/mask bound resonant feeling where the note seems to sing itself. A kind of feedback sensation I suppose. If I add more pressure to support when I'm in this feedback mode then I can get a louder/brighter/raspier tone without the dreaded throat-clamp belt. I'm hoping that with more experience with vowel modification I'll be able to 'force' my voice without losing connection to the vitals that give a decent tone. I get stupidly excited by music at times and have always had a tendency to push too hard physically. What I could really do with is some details about how the voice responds to volume. I can access a fairly decent range at the moment but the only way I can achieve this is to sing fairly quiet (just above speech level I'd guess, but its hard to tell when you're resonating well as the internal sensations mix with the perception of volume). I'd love to know how loud / quiet some of my favourite rock singers - Cornell, Staley, Dickinson etc..
  6. At a local music charity workshop thing; Our lady singer moved on last year but the guys wanted to jam on some lady-jazz type of tunes so I figured I'd sing 'em in head voice for a laugh. For full effect I even adopted a lady-jazz type of posture and I'll be damned if I didnt nearly nail the tune in what sounded like a full voice (in parts at least). As Steven said - the biggest difference was in body sensations, when the notes rang out the best I felt the difference immediately, probably the closest I've come to feeling my way to notes rather than thinking about 'em (I overthink the overthought by habit, sigh). Last week I didnt think about posture, now I'm thinking about how I can ring out the high notes without standing like a lady ;)
  7. I concur, what a voice! Gotta be head voice up there but it sure doesnt sound like it. He pulls out some wondrous vowels at times, all ringy but full bodied (sounds like a wine description, heh). What's up with the high mic position ? To catch a ringin mask I'm guessing ? I'm a guitar monkey so I'm guilty of a low mic most the time. Should I reconsider ? Hmmm.
  8. Hey Baritone! Just wanna second Keith's advice by adding my own experience - even though my journey is the reverse of yours in some respects we're learning the same lesson but from different sides. I used to think I was a low voiced singer and my early investigations into singing technique backed up this impression as many of the older schools seem to use the classical terms to describe the different ranges (fach's is it ?). I honestly believe that for my style of music (alt rock/metal/folk kinda thing) it held me back from discovering the science behind the teaching. As soon as I started to think of my low pitched voice as one that was naturally aligned / tuned to singing lower notes with the appropriate vowel colours rather than being rooted or stuck there I found my practice started to progress not only faster but also with greater understanding of what I was doing. EDIT: For clarity - find out why you find the lower notes sound better / easier to sing. The answer will be somewhat unique to you rather than being something you can just read about. Listen out for the harmonic richness of sound and how it changes with pitch and vowel - this handily brings us right back to the point of it all, the words of the songs we sing. It's an elaborate puzzle at first but stick with it!
  9. My new favorite pass-time is to slap on some old albums with wide-ranged singing (think Soundgarden, Maiden, AiC, Zep etc.) and make it a game of 'sing a crazy harmony over this!'. Keep it loose, in the moment, spontaneous and playful. Great fun, trains your ear>voice creative spark and leads to moments of wonderful surprise as you find yourself singing new melodies and notes that are waaaay out there. Queue running over to the guitar/piano and realizing you've just sung a minor sixth above an already tricky note line. Mind is blown and reminded of all the good stuff that happens when you let go. As an aside, finally coerced one of my recovery group clients to have a go at this and the look of shock and delight on his face was priceless. We took his improvised riff and jammed on it. I swear, encouraging others to make gains is even more rewarding than doin it for yourself. Probably old news for many of you but a new one for me.
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