JonJon

5 hours ago, Noah Covey said:

Wow, thanks so much for the reply. Seems very in-depth, and I think you totally understand my problem. One follow-up question: do you have any tips or exercises for training the "correct" head voice? 

I used a lot of sirens on different vowels, but there r lots of different exercises out there. Play around and have fun

1 hour ago, Noah Covey said:

Hello all. I posted this as a Q&A on the TVS course, and Robert advised me to repost it here to see what answers the community might have. Thanks for any help you can offer:

I have gone through most of the course materials on Udemy and everything has been very helpful. However, there is one thing I am not understanding or getting: how do you sing in "head voice" with as much power as you do?

What I find is that I can sing in what I feel as my "chest voice" up to about an F4. However, above that, the only way I can sing with any decent quality is in falsetto, which is obviously not desirable. Falsetto is the only "head voice" that I can grasp and sing. So I am wondering: in order to sing high notes with power (make them sound "chesty") should I be slowly training my chest voice to go higher or do I need to somehow alter my technique to transform falsetto into something else that is more powerful?

Thanks again for your help,

Noah

ill give u a short answer. the falsetto means the vocal cords are mostly open. You have the level of strength and skill to close the vocal cords to make good notes up to f4 which is, as you said, chest voice. Thats basically the same voice you speak in so you are pretty well trained in configuring and using your voice that way

BUT, that type of setup will only go so high and then its starts getting really tight and strained, right?? I think most people, including me, start off that exact way. I was the same, I had chest voice which went to a certain note and then choked out and then i had falsetto

in essence, you need to learn how to sing in head voice. You can take that falsetto and work with it to make it brighter, tighter and more focused and eventually you end up with a legit head voice. You are going to feel most of the vibration etc ABOVE the lower throat. In other words you wont be feeling the same sensations as in a strong chest voice. You might feel it buzzing up in the nose some, or up on the hard or soft palates (roof of the mouth) or behind the eyes or on the upper back of the throat or who knows where, somewhere in the head area lol.

Good vowels to play around with are 'ee's and "oo"s. if you can take a nice "ee" or 'oo" and maybe add a bit more compression to it and get it nice and buzzy and bright, then you are probably getting into good headvoice.

Then its a matter of learning to connect ("bridge") the chest and headvoices together. I struggled like heck to bridge, mainly because I didnt have a headvoice yet. once I felt a good headvoice for the first time, I bridged down into chest voice like 3 seconds later lol

I was trying to sing this certain rock song. I was straining to get higher, but stuck at a certain point in chest voice. Then id sing that part in falsetto but it didnt sound right. So that was my thought process. 1) chest voice wont go that high and 2) falsetto doesnt sound right so the magic answer was: THERE MUST BE SOMETHING ELSE. That something else is correct headvoice

-------------------

As far as trying to keep pushing chest voice higher. Ok, in general as u continue to get better etc, yes, your chest voice can be developed higher. BUT, thats not a substitute for learning how to sing in a good headvoice. ESPECIALLY if you are already sort of straining and getting stuck and choked at a certain point in your chest voice.....straining even harder wont help.

instead of straining harder youll have to learn how to let the sound move up out of your lower throat only and move up higher more onto the roof off the mouth etc as I described above. The sound may also feel as if it moves "back" into the back of the head as you sing higher notes. Just squeezing chest harder and harder wont work

if you are yelling to try to go higher, then you need to do the opposite instead. Instead of spreading the sound out really big and wide (splatting) and losing control, you need to keep the sound tighter and more focused and let the feel of vibration move out of the throat and higher into the mouth/nose/roof of mouth etc

You mention F4. Generally an average male tenor type of voice will start feeling sort of tight etc as he starts getting into the sort of d4-d#4-e4 area. Sounds like thats about right for you and then you sort of lean into it and strain and squeeze it u to f4 but then that strategy runs out of steam. Instead, as you start to get into that d4e4 area, start letting the sound move out of your throat and up higher as I describe above

Peace, JJ

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

well the whole site is about The Four Pillars. it just gets confusing because you have "the Four Pillars" which is a singing program, but then you have 'the Modern Vocalist" which is the forum, then you have "TVS" which is The Vocalist Studio, which is Robs studio i assume. But essentially its all the same thing lol

in general, people arent going to see posts you make in your journal. Usually a journal is more like a diary where you keep track of your own progress etc. Most actual discussions take place under       SINGING & TRAINING TECHNIQUES-->General Discussions

if you think that video was argumentative, you aint seen nothing yet and you might ought to fasten your seatbelt. You will find that its almost IMPOSSIBLE to actually discuss singing using text words lol. no one agrees on what the terms mean and people use different terms for the same thing sometimes and vice versa. Then some people want to force the rest of the world to use whatever brand of terminology that person has learned. Its very frustrating to all involved. My advice...just try to understand what people actually mean as opposed to how they go about saying it

I felt bad because some of my threads ended up in arguments. I didnt feel so bad when I searched back on the forum and saw these same exact arguments over the same exact terms going on 6-8 years before I joined the forum lol. And its the same on all singing forums and music forums in general

If you feel brave, search for these terms: belting, support, head voice. hehe, good luck

yeah thats interesting, Imma check it out

21 minutes ago, Robert Lunte said:

Cool Jon, I like your story. Jon, is a wikiloops a place where singers can get good sounding backing tracks? Are they available to browse and download, or do you have to build one with a virtual team first?

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.

17 hours ago, Jeremy Mohler said:

Beastly song, nice work man.  Can't say much more than that. Think the melody and guitars syncopated really nice together.

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

On 11/23/2016 at 3:40 PM, Robert Lunte said:

 I wonder if you chose to double the vocals on here to hide something?

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

8 hours ago, Jeremy Mohler said:

Thanks for being polite about the really off pitch parts about this guys, I know I messed up a lot in hindsight but I'm glad you picked something good out of it.  Thank you very much guys and much love.

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.

15 minutes ago, Javastorm said:

I love this track, don't have much to add except in the rebalanced mix#1 I felt like the lead could be more present in the mix. The layers sound like they were placed perfectly, around 2:20 the panned vocals had a similar tone to the guitar lick around the same part. Dunno if it was intentional, (probably was since this mix already sounds super huge and a lot of thought was put into it) but it was great. The ad libs towards the end sounded just right musically. Post the final mix when it's ready!

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

1 hour ago, Collin571 said:

 whoever you're trying to emulate. 

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

oh yeah, no way I was not going to push hard and see what happened lol. That being said I already had sang high falsetto stuff for years too. I just needed to learn actual headvoice and I was off to the races

1 minute ago, muffinhead said:

There should be a break at the first passaggio. I'm speaking from my own experience; when I started out, I struggled greatly with anything above D4. By F4 I was straining. By G#4 I was screaming. I don't hear that in the recording, so good on you 2 cats. As for the "compressed falsetto," you're right. What I meant to say was I heard a more compressed falsetto, one that doesn't sound airy, Point is, I'm rather impressed hearing this from a person just starting out.

I dont remember exactly where I "broke" at. But it wasnt at D4....more up around where he is I think, or maybe f4ish. Of course I wasnt stopping when it got tight lol, I just kept pushing hard until I choked out. Thats the nature of the beast

I dont think he is going thru a passagio there. Sounds like he is onsetting sort of lightly around G3 and going up about an octave. The fact that it is so light might be affecting the break though. if he onsetted a bit heavier it might make the break point more noticable

well yeah, its not really heavy at all. I dont think there is a break because he isnt getting into the break. He is stopping at like g#4. Hitting a brick wall at G#4ish

"compressed falsetto" is an oxymoron I think lol. If its compressed (vocal fold closure) then its not really falsetto.

Sounds like he does have some closure going on as the note ascends.