Felipe Carvalho

Enough to deflect laser fire feeling like a jedi is not.

Sup Phillipe! The content of this video is the reason I made that thread the other day. Phillipe is a professional opera singer, so it's a guy that depends on technique to make a living. One very important aspect here that goes beyond the usual problems on youtube demos (overdubing and all), is that besides using the clipping/distortion to mask problems and sound *bigger*, that guy is comparing it to old school recordings that had a somewhat similar (but smaller) effect due to the recording equipment of the time, and pretending that it is a result of the technique being used.

I was basing it on the tongue root idea. On the passaggios I dont feel it changes much, but it kinda hides it better I would say. like: https://app.box.com/s/9kg2vf1psqslwwql26ibr5gbngsibvkd First one trying to keep a bit of it, second one more loose. I think it is more economic because it sounds closer to what I would use on a song so yeah. I agree the two middle examples are more consistent.

Dude at least try to make some sense. Some good quality trolling would be cool but this is just too boring...

Kinda cool that you think so actually :D, thank you!

Ah I like your attempt man, but I prefer that the designation is used in the proper form. It's Felipe, the great. I am sorry I don't understand what you want. You wanna hear what I am talking about here is that it? I will try to get the author of the video here to share it!

Alright, so here is my testing with the idea: https://app.box.com/s/hya3ds8wkjh4jckfe5be7n508q3tojfl Sorry for the delay, my voice was crappy this past week (sick) and I had to train the idea properly first, I did what I proposed before, using the Arabian consonants to get a hang of the coordination. To me it feels like the larynx is pushing up while the back of the tongue is pushing down, not in a uncomfortable manner, more like the feeling of articulating a K with the back of the tongue and the soft palate (it constricts but it can be done gently without forcing). The sample is supposed to be different levels of the constriction as far as I am able to control, say 100%, 70, 30, 0. I think you can hear the difference in... twangyness? I personally think the 2nd and 3rd samples are within what I would consider useful for my voice and my tastes, and the other two more of an effect. Also I did what I needed to do to avoid distortion, You can hear that the most constricted one is all open, I think its my best Labrie impersonation so far lol, and the less constricted one is super dopey and silly. Now, its not that the sounds are particularly new to me, I could do all of these well with the exception of the Labrie one, but most importantly I feel its a very useful position leading to sound situation. I dont think you are off track, its just that these two ways to look at the problem are not mutually exclusive. I think you can learn to control better one specific aspect of the coordination, and I think everything so far suggests that you dont get a given result due to just one adjustment. For example on my first sample here I am pretty sure the pharynx is constricted compared to the other ones because of the vowels I am producing, and I am also pretty sure the closure levels on the vocal folds are highest on the 1st and lowest on the 4th. The 2nd sample is probably the most dynamic in all these aspects (stuff changing more), because its my normal/best game. The samples are compensated for loudness so that its easier to compare the quality.

Yeah the statement is a bit silly when we take it at face value. No one is born a singer obviously, we can observe newborns and their vocal capabilities are rather restricted due to lack of coordination and simply not having a mature enough body. During growth slowly the skill for speech is acquired and perfected. Probably during this stage our experiences with music, singing and how our parents deal with us can have a huge influence. There are also personality aspects, certainly someone that is more creative, has more intelligence, or just downright loves to sing, will have an easier time to learn. How can we address all of this and know who is who before learning happenings? I don't think we can. And another way to look at it, is that people that have an easier time to learn, learn it *faster*. We could very well say that Talent = speed on getting results. And if you don't learn at the same speed, you have to put more time to it. I don't think there is a way to predict who is talented and it seems to me that effort can to a reasonable degree tilt this equation. Another aspect to this is that singing involves more than one skill. Sometimes people are not very talented with music in general due to lack of exposition early on, but once that barrier is overcome it flows nicely. Sometimes the person might have great musicianship and sensibility but lack the control to express what is in their minds. Due to all this I think that talent matters but you can only know how talented you are by actually trying. Often also, the fear of realizing this *potential* to whatever it may be, prevents a lot of people from giving a shot and truly commiting to learning.

I think it's a plausible explanation for twang and it gives a mechanical context for it that, in my opinion, was pretty much lacking up to now, and with it the possibility of breaking it down and controlling on much more detail. For example, we can ask: Well what does it sound like when we do it? One of the replies is of course, twang, but that would be not very different from what we had before. But when we think of the mechanics there are consonants on Arabian languages for example that are based on articulation with epiglottal stops/fricatives/plosives/trills. What if we can use those sounds as a tool to map what is going on in that area? A gesture that is really no different from saying a consonant like T or P (just a different constriction place). I think something like this could be pretty significant because it allows precision when working with high intensity sounds, and with it more protection from injury and so forth. I do not see it as a replacement for other techniques, but twang is core to almost everything we do, if we can control it better... Ill try to put some samples together this weekend on a same song. My hope is to reach a clear definition that allows something like what I did with the *middle voice vowels* video, a step by step guide to it that works for a large number of people and relies less on imitation and more on simple mechanical gestures. Then again... It's not the first time I find some promising ideas on this sense lol

To the point: There are some *smart* voice teachers displaying before and after of their students as a sign of improvement and that are deliberately faking results and exploiting recording conditions to create the illusion that their singing method produces *huge* voices. In this particular case I saw, the teacher compares a dry and very clean/honest recording of a students voice on a controlled volume level (meaning that it was properly gain staged for the best possible audio fidelity) and low to no reverb, which would be the before, with a badly distorted/digitally clipped sample of the same student singing where you can't even hear what the guy is doing anymore, which then would be the result of the training. Guys, when you hear a distorted AND louder audio, of course it will sound *huge* compared to a clean version of the same, but this is not a consequence of the singer technique being better, it's just poorly captured and louder. In the sample I received an audio engineer was able to restore a bit of the audio and you could hear the student having issues with the phrase and cracking on it, something that was completely hidden by the distortion. The fact that the distortion itself happens is being used as a sign of competence too, something like *it's so loud the recording equipment can't handle it*. This is non-sense. Certainly if you do not set the gear properly when you go loud, it clips, I did this mistake myself on a few of my videos, but it's all it is, a mistake when recording. Except that on this specific case the effect is being deliberately exploited so I would not call it a mistake either. Loud/Clipped recordings does not mean huge voices. Pay attention to what you are being shown!!

Alright that makes sense, we can think of modifying the vowel sound or the articulation, to keep one you change the other so it´s probably what we are arguing in circles about. Yeah on the Helloween track it´s the normal approach using covering for the high range. The other one is using the tongue thing which could or could not be the same as the thing of the video I took a look at the exercise you mentioned, what I could find about it at least. There is a part of it where it was suggested to monitor the sides of the tongue with a finger to get the coordination... That seems like a possible way to do it, gotta try it out more!

That´s still modified...

He is covering and modifying vowels... Ah to Uh.

I still am having a hard time following you man. I mean there are things in what you said I agree with. Others I believe are not quite correct. But I am having a real difficulty to understand what you make of the video. Your opinion about the tongue root is that if you do the Feutchinger approach you get that? I mean I don't agree but I can understand that. Can you elaborate the way you do that in such approach? What do you make of the other parts of the video? Like when she proposes that the ideas of CT and TA dominance are actually mis-descriptions of the application of these two type of twangs ? I see what she means but I don't agree with that for example, because what people call TA dominance or *chesty* is mostly related to weight/depth/clarity and you can have that without twang.

Nah, change teacher. G4 is the limit almost any male gets with... lets call it plain... chest voice. It´s not a surprise nor it means a hard restriction, there are things you will need to learn to do to go above that with control (technique). G4 was my limit too for a long while and I am pretty sure many others here had the exact same experience. Learning how to control chest voice well before learning other stuff is one thing, and I would agree that your focus should be at that first. But if your teacher solution in the long term is to just lower keys and not get you to do what you are looking for, then something is off. If the teacher does not know *how* to do it, which is ok, then that´s what he/she should say instead.