JonJon

mask is one place but in general if we are talking headvoice it will be somewhere above the mouth lol. Like up on the soft/hard palates or up in the head somewhere, back of the head etc. Whereas chest voice tends to really be in the mouth. As u go into higher ranges etc the resonance is definitely going to be moving "up" out of the mouth. of course it is a gradual thing. A blend or a "mix". The resonance starts to move upwards but its also in the mouth etc. its not an "either/or" thing until u get way up high and it gets to be a little bitty thin note way up high or way back in the head Thats actually one way to find new sounds. for instance as u go higher, try to get the sound to spread out front to back so its in the back of your head AND somewhat up in the mask area. or start feeling a high note up high but also try to get a little mouth resonance in with it so its not super thin etc a lot depends on the vowels u sing also. U ever check out the IPA vowel chart? its worth its weight in gold if u can figure it out lol. Some vowels are high up in the back of the head ("oo"), some are high in the front ("ee), some are low in the front of the mouth ("ah" like in "cat") some are low in the back of the mouth ("aww") each of those positions gives a different feel. The real chesty belty stuff is found more in the "eh" or "ah" positions etc, whereas the lighter headvoice stuff is like 'oo' etc. forward vowels are brighter, back vowels darker etc do some googling on IPA vowel chart. there r many different versions with examples etc its actually a sideview of the mouth as if a person is facing the left 'close' vowels mean the tongue is high so the throat space is "closed". "open" means the tongue is low so the top of the throat is "open"

I feel u, I live in a quiet apt too lol. my poor neighbors. A couple of years ago i was trying to record some Gregorian chant. Im pretty sure they thought I was worshiping the devil or something

in general u just want to get a nice bright tone without a ton of air in it. "breathiness" is cool for an effect but not for all the time. a nice "ee" or "oo" vowel can be good for learning good headvoice...make it nice and bright, not airy u like Ray Charles but u are worried about singing too harsh?? uhmm, ok lol. He is about as heavy and chesty sounding as it gets

yeah but its so light in this vid its almost like whispering, not singing. I think you are worried too much about "harshening" lol Who do u want to sound like? (in general) yeah, its a skill to be able to sing higher etc without getting TOO loud and crazy etc, but u have to have at least some volume etc in order to be able to get vcal cord closure etc. you can sing headvoice all day without sounding chesty at all. But there is a difference between headvoice (which still has cord closure) and falsetto (which is just breathiness with no real cord closure). one thing to do is find all of your extremes. like sing as quiet as u can and then get louder and stronger and see how strong and loud u can get. THEN work on each little level in between those extremes

drunk tenor? lol tbh, I dont think anyone can tell much from that clip because you're not really singing lol. You are almost sort of half talking/half singing. Id be worried about hurting my voice by singing all light and scratchy like that. Probably could tell more from just your speaking voice...or go ahead and sing something where you are actually holding a note so we can hear your real voice etc In any case, "am I baritone or tenor" is like the most asked question on singing forums....buts its really like the least important thing in the world. Those terms come from classical singing and opera and they dont really have a lot to do with contemporary pop singing. Whether or not we are "baritones" or "tenors" we still want to develop a large range and all of our skills and tone etc etc I would think that the typical male with an average speaking voice etc is going to be something like a high baritone or a low tenor or something along those lines Peace, JJ

obviously I am not a doctor...and I have never had allergies. You say you saw a doctor....was it an E.N.T. doc? the singing itself is VERY light. If you always sing that lightly, it will be sort of hard to relate to a lot of singing advice you may come across. I dont hear anything in there resembling any type of "belt" at all and I dont really hear anything that sounds 'supported'. This is the kind of singing someone can do almost without breathing at all. As a long term goal, id advise you to learn to support and simply start singing "stronger" for lack of a better term. I dont see how you can develop any muscular strength and coordination singing as light as that example. Even styles such as Bruno Mars have to have a certain amount of strength to hit some of the notes with clarity. Of course for Aretha or Whitney or Chaka or BoyzIIMen, you will have to be very strong etc of course if you are having vocal health/allergy issues then obviously the singing will be affected. I try to do a lot of light humming as a type of therapy to relax my vocal cords and obviously there is a limit to how much one can sing or do singing training. There has to be a balance of stress (singing, training, talking) versus relaxation, therapy, hydration etc etc. Talking on the phone or talking at work (loud warehouse) hurts my voice more than singing That being said, you show good control and skills so thats a good start. Im gonna guess you are probably 25 Y.O. or younger? Why do I guess that? That is sort of the modern age group that places WAY too much emphasis on doing "runs". They do a few runs and think they are some kind of outstanding singer. If you take a Chaka or Prince or Stevie Wonder, there is much more there than a bunch of "runs". She is pretty light thru this song, but listen to the end where she uses a bit of power. And this is nothing for her. if you always sing light and sort of airy you will never develop the strength to get that kind of bright edge Im wondering if singing lightly all the time can actually irritate your vocal cords? Dunno

yeah thats interesting, Imma check it out

wikiloops is music collaboration. Its not "backing tracks" per se....in other words its not karaoke stuff. its all original stuff. people go and upload tracks of all sorts and then anyone can add whatever they want to any track. I think there are like 90000 tracks currently. All genres and members from like 150 countries. I went there originally to find drum tracks to start my songs with, before I ended up getting EZ Drummer software. Whats the catch? the only catch is that there are musicians there of ALL levels...so therefore the tracks are of all levels lol. Its a VERY friendly and positive place....too friendly in a sense because one can post up anything and people gush all over it....but thats good for people just getting started etc here is one of the tracks from today I clicked on at random with solid girl singer https://www.wikiloops.com/backingtrack-jam-91137.php If you look at it you see how it was built step by step with people adding to this original track https://www.wikiloops.com/backingtrack-jam-51485.php Great place for people to practice vocals Great site ran by a German guy named Dick.

Like I said, I only did the vox. The drums and guitar were done by a buddy over at wikiloops.com I joined over there like 2 years ago when i was trying to find drum tracks and trying to learn to work a modern DAW. At that time I had no intention of singing. So, as one might expect, there are 9 million guitar players for every 1 singer over there. So I started bitching about the singers not adding vox to my tracks etc etc. lol. So its funny that I am now singing and I havent even added vox to the dozens of gtr tracks I have over there. This song was mainly done out of a feeling of guilt because wikiloops really helped get me going again...as I hadnt recorded any music for like a decade b4 getting fired back up 2 years ago. So every once in a while I add vox to someones good gtr track since I know what it meant to me when someone added vox to some of my tracks peace, JJ

Anyone with any sort of pride in their abilities would rightly be a little offended at a comment like that lol. It would be like saying "why did you use reverb and compression, cant u sing?" lol Generally the word "hide" has a negative connotation

Im going to be honest here. Thats a BS comment to make. I happen to like the sound of doubled vocals, whether they be mine or the Beatles, Beach Boys, Queens, Pink Floyds, Steely Dans, SuperTramps, ELOs, Cheap Tricks, Did they use doubled vox to hide something? I also like to dbl the vox because its a challenge. Instead of using chorus/harmonizer etc, I do it the old fashioned way This was just a quicky original that I wrote and sung (over another guys bed track) with about 3 hours total time invested. There are people on this site and other sites who have been "training" for years and still cant sing a lick. If all I have to suffer are small nitpicks then id say im doing quite well lol. Peace, JJ

IMO, yes, its connected. Obviously the whole thing can be a lot stronger but it is connected

just some quick vocals I threw onto a Latvian buddys music track (from wikiloops) I wrote the lyrics around 9pm and I couldnt keep my eyes open and I was going to just do the vox later but I decided to "just lay down a scratch vox track"...but you know how that goes. I was dead tired so this may not be my best but I still dig it even though I was struggling a bit The vibe is a little different than my songs because essentially he never changes chords lol....gives a bit more of a stoner rock feel, which I dig Anyone figure out the story I am paraphrasing in the song? enjoy https://clyp.it/gf5nc5if okay, actually I am lying, this is just some computer generated vocals based off of a sample of my voice on an answering machine. its all fake. Even the vibrato is a vst. and i was wearing a wig

you saved me the trouble by reviewing it yourself lol. The good parts are good and the other parts still need work. (the Marlon Brando line is the coolest part of the song but also the trickiest). Overall, a guy like Bowie can be hard to cover because he is going thru several different sounds etc and he can have some odd phrasing. Its funny because at one point I hadnt heard the song in years and I was sort of singing it from memory and I sang the Brando line totally different than Bowie and then when I did hear the song again I was like "oops". But I like my way better anyway lol. That being said its cool to hear you double some parts and continue to work on the production process as well as the singing. Doubling is a pro skill as much as singing on pitch is etc.

thanks. there was thought put into it TO A DEGREE...but it was also pretty much a free for all as u can tell. I learned a lot trying to mix it. one thing I learned is that it'll be a while before I do something with that many tracks again lol Dunno if i'll mess with it anymore unless im ready to put an album together or start marketing my songs etc.

take my comments with a grain of salt, as you know im an old dude so this isnt my style etc. I dunno if I have ever heard the original...is it Beiber? Besides, im not a singer nor the son of a singer....I tend sycamore trees etc To my ear it sounds like there isnt much breath being used...so parts of it sound almost "spoken" instead of "sung". It may just be a stylistic thing though because it sounds like a quasi GreenDay approach. Since im old etc I think Green Day sux lol. Seriously though thats how it sounds to me, like you never bothered to inhale and let things vibrate and resonate. maybe try training sirens with vibrato etc? in other words work on some training where you actually hold the notes longer. The other end of the spectrum from the quasi-spoken approach Also, just curious. Do you have a developed headvoice yet? Sounded like this was mostly chest with the high note(s) going to falsetto. again I dont know the original so im not sure how its supposed to sound. Can you siren up thru the passagio into head voice? if not I can relate because my first songs on this forum (stuff like "Happy Birthday Sugarboo") where mainly chest with falsetto thrown in. Actually the last high note sounded like headvoice to me maybe The mic thing, yeah that can be a drag. I hate to sing a line and then I look down and notice I peaked the DAW. Then I bring the gain down, sing it again and look down and it peaked again and im freaking out and screaming, hehe. especially when u FINALLY nailed a take. In the end I think you have to play with how close or far you stand from the mic. if you set the gain a certain way and you want to stand close to the mic for a nice close sound, you of course are going to blow the meter of you really blast out something...unless you step back some or aim off to the side a bit. Mic proximity etc is probably a whole world to be explored. If u watch good live singers you often see they will hold the mic off to the side for certain fx

trust me...there isnt a lot of thought going into it once I step to the mic. In the end im just trying to let whatever is inside of me come out at my age its simply impossible to tell where some of the stuff comes from...since I have been hearing music for almost 50 years

Thanks brother, tbh, it would be moreso the BeeGees than Queen or ELO. Not because I dont like Q or ELO, but simply because I sang falsetto stuff for years so I used to amuse myself singing BeeGees stuff and some of the Elton John high notes Its that and a general Motown vibe There is also a general thing with my songs so far along these lines. Write a decent song etc, but then when u get to the bridge cut loose and throw in a monkey wrench or go hard psychedelic or have a breakdown or something. My songs almost always have a new chord or total change in tonality in the bridge if you listen to this one track with its isolated vocals, you'll understand about 20% of my musical inspiration and about 60% for this one song of mine. These guys were HUGE when I was in like the 4th grade so there was no escaping it Basically this song demonstrates a certain spot in the evolution of my singing where I had been doing sirens for a few months and hadnt recorded any songs in the meantime. So I experienced some added range blah blah. So basically when I did this song I sort of went crazy just throwing in a million vocal adlibs. There was nothing really systematic about it lol Just like the "TMV" song (Sing my Song or whatever it might end up being called) was partially to show off my nice F#5 note lol So now I feel like I need to work on 2 things. 1) naturally I am nowhere near satisfied sitting under a brick wall at F#5 so that needs to be improved. I think C6, Mark Boals style, is a good target to aim for lol 2) start working more on mid range strength so I can get a more ballsy, chesty sound for instance like David Lee Roth/DIO etc. Im assuming that will largely be a TA strength thing. But I also need to start working on different compressed/gritty tones. I can probably do some decent distortion but I havent really focused on it yet. When i was doubling some of the vox for the "sing my song" song, I got into some nice gritty distortion but its not really showing there because it would be doubled on the other track with a cleaner voice. you can hear that small bit of grit on the word "yeah" https://clyp.it/2uzom2h3 Sort of to those ends I am going to lean more towards a harder rock/metal edge in my songs right now to help work my way into more of the rock sound I want. So far I dont really LOVE anything ive done..except maybe "Happy Birthday Sugarboo" which I personally think is a great song and had a lot of intense personal meaning. That being said, it was done before I even really had a headvoice and it was a few weeks before I had ever bridged lol. so I rocked some nice falsetto in it. Whether or not it sounds cocky, when my stuff is on par with Halen and Zep, ill be mildly satisfied lol. right now my voice is a little too "clean" and my phrasing is a bit laid back. But I want to just extend the range some more and get that settled before I try to go all gritty and shouty and what I REALLY need to do is start working hard IN the bridge areas, specifically the higher one, wherever it may specifically be up around c-d5ish. I can bridge from low notes on up to my current highest note around F#5...but SINGING in and around those bridge areas is something totally different lol

lotta character in your voice. You aint gonna get a lot of constructive feedback lol. Just take what u have and keep strengthening it and trying new things

nice, I dig it. Nice F#5 come sing on my song, I got a nice F#5 high harmony waiting for u lol

rockstar, I dont know brother. You start off in one resonance and you gradually hand it off to the higher resonance. You start off with the sound in your throat and as you go higher you gradually let the sound start moving up into your sinus cavities and up into your head etc One thing I was doing, by accident, was pushing my chest voice way up. That was before I knew how to go into the head voice. I would just push the chest voice up higher and higher until I choked out. You can also do that with your head voice coming down. You can bring your headvoice down, without going into chest voice, until your headvoice wont go any lower and it just falls apart. So lets say I can take my chest voice up to B4 and I can bring my headvoice down to E4. Well then obviously I should be able to smoothly blend them together when I bridge. I am just making those numbers up but you see what I am saying If you are making good notes in chest voice and good notes in headvoice, then you should be able to smoothly connect them. its hard to put into words, its just a "feel" thing. As you go up you "feel" the chest voice becoming harder to do but at the same time you can "feel" the note being taken by the headvoice. In that bridge area you are feeling both chest and head voices

that lets you know that eventually you can bring those two endpoints together. The one coming up from the bottom has to gradually become more like the one up on top etc

Well those sirens were actually the first time id ever bridged lol. Thats "sort of" a c5, not that great though. of course I was 48 at the time and had sang high notes using falsettofalset falsetto or reinforced falsetto for years. So there was already some foundation laid for higher notes etc and for the last several months ive done lots of high sirens and can now actually siren up closer to like f#5. Been working on that some lately, there is another bridge up there. That doesnt mean I can smoothly articulate lyrics up there though! Now im starting to work on belting some belting because ive never really trained it yet. My belting belting sux ---------------------------------------------- stuck at A#4? yeah, somehow have to learn to use more resonance up in the soft palate etc....or even feel the note" in the back of the head" lol Surely you can make some squeaks or hoots or SOMETHING above A#4 though cant you? sometimes u can play with those noises and bring them down to lessen the gap etc Sometimes I use pictures to sing with. Like, sometimes u cant just "push" a note higher. I picture a crane or a suction cup reaching down and "pulling" the note up. You are trying to go from one resonance to a higher one and maybe different mechanisms are involved etc. They need to meet and link up. Sometimes the higher one has to reach down to get the note etc. At least thats the mental imagery I use

yeah, im having to do the old school "select all" and copy, before I post my magnum opus length posts lol. I lost a good one earlier

something MDEW said in my old siren thread. Makes good sense now for this thread Yes. I have been referencing "shedding weight" as you ascend. But if you are already really light to start with then you dont have anything TO shed and you might have to work more to maintain air pressure and cord closure etc