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Draven Grey

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Everything posted by Draven Grey

  1. Doesn't work on my devices. When I finally got to a desktop computer, I had a really difficult time navigating the website, and couldn't find prices anywhere. Will there be more info the site soon? Will there be an HTML 5 version of the site?
  2. I've been teaching full-time for about 3 years now, although I've taught sporadically for over 20. Most of the last 15+ years has been coaching bands across the world in building their business, from branding and band dynamics to gigs, merch, and touring. That said, my vocal students for the last two years have been all over the map when it comes to skill level and speed of learning (including amount of time put into practicing). I've had a few who've come to me before a major album and/or tour, but for the most part it's a solid mix of window shopping beginner who wants to sing better in the shower to intermediate approaching advanced who've been with me over a year (as they can afford it). Ages from 12 to 72. I've had one student who came for a few months in order to learn how to speak over music at concerts, so he didn't have to yell. He ended up learning to sing pretty damn well too. His car got stolen before a lesson one night, and he decided not to get a new one; so, he never came back. Another student came for a month, who is an executive coach who and wanted to improve her speaking voice for seminars and the like. I have the added benefit of being a long-time recording and mixing engineer (although I focus more on mastering these days). So, some of my more advanced students record demos and albums with me. My 72-year old student spent over a year with me and then recorded a full album of songs for his wife and their 50th anniversary. He brought her to my band, The Silent Still's test show for Rock Circus Masquerade for their 50th anniversary date. I had another who I taught to sing and scream from the ground up. I'm most proud of him because he went from nothing to pretty amazing in a year, and worked his ass off for it. He also has quite a bit of music business knowledge and experience behind him from other bands he's worked for. If you like Metal, the video was his band's first single, recorded before I even thought he was ready. I think the whole EP is one their Youtube channel. He killed it, thanks to the producer. My own band just brought on the producer as our guitarist too, so I'm pretty stoked all around.
  3. I've never had a beginner catch on to this type of screaming in one lesson. Those that were already screaming were able to adjust pretty quickly to this less destructive way, but beginner's usually take a few weeks of constant practice.
  4. Q&R I use it for both all the time with students that can't yet do MDV or C&R.
  5. Rather than assigned to specific notes on the keyboard/fretboard, they correspond with the notes of a scale. "Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Ti Do" is a major scale that can start with any note. Solfeggi represents intervals and relative pitch with the root note being whatever key you're in. In the key of C Major = Do(c) Re(d) Mi(e) Fa(f) Sol(g) La(a) Ti(b) Do(c). For C minor = Do(c) Re(d) Ri(d#) Fa(f) Sol(g) Si(g#) Li(a#) Do(c).
  6. I have all of my students, who are working on pitch, purchase a combo pitch wheel. It's the only pitch wheel I've found so far that you barely have to put any air pressure into to get it to ring out the note. It's also the method I've seen have the most effect on matching pitch. If you blow into it to hear the note, then hum into it, trying to match the pitch/note, it gives you immediate feedback for adjusting to the right pitch. Much like tuning a guitar using harmonics, when you're off pitch, the sound wobbles and buzzes horribly; but when you match the pitch, it locks in with you. I've found the pitch wheel helps people learn to not just listen and hear pitch, but also feel it. After they get comfortable hitting single pitches, then we move onto interval training. I start with more harmonic intervals (e.g. 3rd, 5th), then minor, then extended. After they do well with a 2-pitch interval, I move to 3 random ones. I've found that solfeggi and song association with intervals helps greatly with interval and relative pitch training. I'm not going to take credit for that method either. I took it from how many of my friends have trained in various colleges. I've come across the most curious thing with at least 80% of the students I've had that needed help with pitch training, at least at first. When asked to match a pitch, they usually sing a perfect 4th beneath what I play.
  7. I use solfeggi in interval and relative pitch training.
  8. I've also noticed that being able to control the embouchure openness can help adjust the ease and tension of some of the higher notes. For instance, If I'm belting a B4 or C5 and feel unnecessary tension building, especially when I keep singing around up there, I often open more wide to allow the TAs to relax a bit. Too much, and it does splat, but just enough keeps my voice from wearing out.
  9. Keep working on your voice. With good info (like in TFPOS) and a good coach, you'll be able to sing this in time. I'm a natural Baritone, and can sing up to a B5 in a full voice, and my head voice maxes out at C6. I remember when I used to struggle immensely to sing a G4. Also, the same concept of overlay distortion and grit applies to lower ranges.
  10. When the fry is happening, the tongue takes a very particular shape. Although it's still up or down for acoustic mode or vowel modification, the divot-like shape and resonance deep in the soft palate (similar to head voice) is still happening. When singing, the tongue is also in a very particular shape; where a divot, if any, is less pronounce, and the resonance moves more freely with the vowel modification. The pull from fry to singing is mostly a matter of relaxing the tongue into the correct shape for the vowel you want to sing. This also requires that you shift the fry through a more relaxed modification while headed towards singing a note. Once you get it, it can take a few days of practice to make the transition smooth.
  11. Melissa Cross has you start with pulse register, then has you move the vibration up to the center of the tongue (similar to an "e" vowel). After you're there, she has you work on making that sound as high pitch as possible (hence "creaky door"), before adding pressure behind it. At that point, it feels like the vibrations open up in the curbing acoustic mode area, which then allows you to mess with finding a relaxed balance in that area as you open into an "ah". The tongue creates a tunnel or divot or dip in this process, where the sound passes over it, as it seems to try and hold it in the back of the mouth. The note comes after you figure out the fry. I'm not even sure it's worth thinking about until then.
  12. This is very difficult to answer in text. Most of my answer will be about fry screaming, but it applies to fry in general too. Screaming just requires a finer balance of it all in order to sustain the fry for lengthy periods of time, rather than flavoring or starting a note with it. M0 is the beginning of fry. From there, you gain control over the position of the feeling of vibration in a similar way to TFPOS Q&R (what Melissa Cross calls "creeky door"). After adding pressure behind it, essentially tucking it into the soft palate (a curbing acoustic mode anchored to the fry in the middle of the tongue) with solid respiration and adduction, it becomes more like the TFPOS MdV when finally opening the fry scream into an "ah". There is actually a lot more going on than just that too. The larynx usually pulls downward, putting more closure in the false cords, and creating a type of "tunnel throat". It is similar to overlay distortion and grit, but the distortion is louder than the note, rather than the other way around. In fact, TFPOS talks about doing fry screaming with an inhale. I've often used such an inhale scream to help students feel the fry, and then reverse it to an exhale and gain more control over it. There are multiple ways to approach fry technique. I can think of 3, off the top of my head, that I walk students through, depending on what seems to be working best for them. There are also multiple placements for it that sound entirely different, but essentially just involve different acoustic modes and levels of larynx dampening. Melissa Cross has a very well defined way of approaching fry, much like an onset, that helped me develop a consistent fry scream in about 3 weeks. That said, I still tended to fatigue my voice as I still hadn't learned how to relax into it. Since I used 30 Seconds to Mars in my examples above, you can hear much the same issue going back to their album, Beautiful Lie, as compared to the more recent and much more relaxed examples I posted. While Melissa Cross helped me learn how to fry scream rather than yell, it took a lot more time to learn how to stay completely relaxed while doing it, so there was no fatigue. Unlike some believe, every fry scream has a note. In fact, it has three notes all at once - often an octave (chest and head together in undertone and overtone respectively), and the fifth, or more pure note of the fry. You can adjust which note you mentally focus on in order to help release tension. Speaking of tension, it's not about "slackening the cords" at all. It's about closure, dampening, respiration, and formant shaping. If anything, the cords are more tense since they are closed for M0 with more pressure behind them to pull the M0 into a fry sound that can be felt in M0, M1, and M2 all at the same time. A more relaxed fry, such as the 30STM examples above, are more about trying to relax it into a curbing acoustic mode. You don't need a deformity to morph between fry and notes. Once you can find the note you are creating with fry, then pulling it into a sung note becomes a matter of moving the formant and musculature slowly into a singing position. The same works in reverse, albeit a bit more difficult to do in a way that sounds good. As I said, it's very difficult to describe in text.
  13. Singing for over an hour straight can be taxing on the voice, especially if you're doing vocalises (exercises) for that long. Think of it like going to the gym and doing any sort of exercises, whether lifting weights, swimming, aerobics, etc... anything that causes the muscles to move and contract, especially when much more than resting, eventually causes muscle fatigue. You can build endurance and strength through resistance training, just as you can build fine-tuned control through coordination training. Since you're not hoarse, I would imagine it's simply fatigue. Endurance builds over time, as you strengthen the muscles and gain more control in order to relax more often while still getting the sound you want. Wait until you start to practice fry screaming and grit. The vibrations can cause parts of your throat to go numb until you get used to it, much like a trumpet player's lips when first starting to play.
  14. "and" not "is". Similar to, if not exactly the same as, the discussion going on about compression. He's playing off of a position where he gets pulse register very easily, but keeping enough respiration (basically air pressure) and closure to pull the fry into notes. It shows very advanced control of his voice, but very achievable too.
  15. The tension is there through respiration and closure.
  16. I hear it as overlay distortion, but he's extremely relaxed when he does it. When I do that, it feels like it's on the very back of my soft palate.
  17. I think Robert teaching overlay distortion in TFPOS far better than Brett Manning. It's extremely light in this examples, and playing more off the pulse register. I find Jared Leto's voice a great example for both power and being able to use distortion from an extremely relaxed position. He used to push more on 30 Seconds to Mars' older albums, but on their last two, he's extremely relaxed. Not my favorite voice, but definitely a great example of staying extremely relaxed while still being able to get power, grit, distortion, screams, as well as beauty and softness. 'Up in the Air' and 'End of All Days' are good examples:
  18. I've considered inventing something, but have been hoping that someone already did. I'll talk to some of my physicist friends about it.
  19. It's easy to look up what happens to the voice with age. No need to take my word for it.
  20. Medically speaking, the changes in the cords and supporting muscles cause the voice to raise in pitch in men, and lower in women. However, I can understand how the weaker mechanisms would cause slower vibrations, or "scratchy" voice, which could be perceived as a lower pitch.
  21. Vocal strength, agility, and endurance can all be maintained with age, as long as you maintain a healthy vocal exercise program for that. The cords will thin a bit with age, resulting in a higher speaking voice for men,but a bit weaker singing voice. With age, you lose muscle mass and coordination, mucus membranes dry up a bit, and hormonal changes cause the larynx to reshape (much like in puberty). Singing requires training (vocal therapy) to maintain as age slowly tears away at it. I had one student in his 70's, who helped develop a head voice where one didn't exist before. He also ran 30 miles a week regularly until his knees couldn't take it anymore around 70 (a credit to his determination when it came to fitness). His voice constantly improved, because he was doing the exercises I gave him. Age didn't stop him from developing his voice.
  22. I just hit my early 40's and finally learned how to properly open up my upper range, almost an octave over what I was singing before (about D2 up to A#5 in a full voice now). All that thanks to the coordination and isolation of muscle groups that I learned from TFPOS. I suppose you could call that "feeling the song", if you didn't want to go into specifics or really answer the question. Honestly, I thought most of Paul's advice was vague at best, from singing and warming up, to music business/career. He offered a bit more than the crappy advice usually offered in interviews, but he still oversimplified and washed over it quickly. Trent Reznor, Billy Corgan, and surprisingly, Courtney Love, are among the very few that I've ever heard give good advice concerning the music business. Most attribute it all to pure dumb luck. Sadly, most singers talk about singing in the same way - usually giving short motivational anecdotes rather than any real advice.
  23. I have a great Atlas rolled steel mic stand. It's the only one in the last 20 years that I haven't bent out of shape or broken (there have been a lot of stands). It's the only one that has been able to handle having a heavy Heil Fin mic on top while I drag it around the stage and swing it around like a performance cane. However, dragging it around it a sound guy's nightmare. The steel base dragging across wood is not a pleasant sound to have travel through the stand, through the mic, and out the PA. I tried a rubber base, but it was just as bad. I added a quick release on both ends of the stand, so I can remove the mic or mic stand base and run around to my heart's content. However, with the upcoming Rock Circus Masquerade touring show The Silent Still's been working on, leaving any part of the stand in the middle of the stage is quickly becoming a hazard. Sadly, I have to move to a headset mic for most of the show now, but there are still a few songs that are full on rock concert in performance. Any ideas on how to dampen the sound/friction so I can drag my stand around? I've even considered having my mic re-engineered to suspend the internal capsule. But I'm hoping I don't need to 're-invent the wheel.'
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