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Little techniqual question

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babystar

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Hi people!

When I practice my Curbing, I realize a big challenge. I actually nowadays can find Curbing better and better. But there's a funny thing with when I practice Curbing with these two vowels "I" and "Uh".

"I" Works really good in the middle part of the voice.. well.. mostly around F4-A4. When I go higher, My voice starts to shake (it doesn't hurt) and I can't go higher in Curbing than Bb4 without changing to another mode or to the vowel "Uh" and go on in Curbing. "Uh" works really awesome fro Bb4 to F5 or even higher and now I realize the difference between Curbing And metal-like Neutral! MLN just sounds like a "quite Edge" :P But when I try to sing "Uh" from A4 and lower, I fall into Overdrive on "Oh" but a bit more to the direction of the vowel "Uh" ofcourse.

What could be the reason that it's like this for me? I mean, when I sing on "Uh" in Curbing on a B4, that's when I realize that I am singing Curbing. I can feel that hold. How can I take it more down?

Hope for help!

Thank you and I wish you all a merry Christmas! :)

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Let me give you the answer I expect Steve will give you. Essentially a passagio or shift in where the harmonic coincides with the fundamental happens at different pitches for different vowel sounds. This doesn't happen to just you, it happens to all of us. So, literally one vowel doesn't carry you all the way up. So, although you can find it by experiment, Steve can also tell what vowels to change to as one goes up in the range. This is known as covering, which basically means changing vowel pronunciation for part of or all of the note. In the song, "Man in the Box," you can hear this process. The lyric "Jesus Christ" becomes Jay-ee-ezus Chraa-ist. With the nodification of Christ, you don't even hear the starting vowel because the change happens midstream and all your ear and mind remembers is the last vowel sound and it's effect against the consonant. It's an auditory illusion.

I finally got over a hurdle last night, rehearsing "Holy Diver." A lyric in the final passage is "you're the one that's clean." It goes right across a passagio for me with the e sound. I get through it with better support and starting the word as clay. That word has a hump in the melody. As I descend in melody, I change to the e sound. All you can hear and remember is the word "clean." So,the actual chain is clay-ay-eh-ee-n.

So, that's something else to be aware of. You may modify the vowel sound more than one time in a word, with or without change in melody, as needed. By that, I mean, that you may onset the word (begin to phonate for the note) in one vowel sound and change to another vowel sound by the end of the word. It is how many a singer hits a high note dead on with what sounds like a difficult vowel. So, the word "please" at high pitch may start out as "pluh" like plug and change to the ee sound after phonation has begin. It happens so fast that the listener never hears the uh sound. But the uh sound is an easier vowel in the onset, where as the ee sound may cause a crack and to make that vowel sound may often cause tension in the throat at onset, where it normally wouldn't happen while in the process of being sung through a vowel change.

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Another thing, some vowels, by the way we form them, resonate best at different frequencies because of the mouth and/or throat shape we have when we say or sing them, especially notes sung in English. For example, some of the highest notes end up as "ah" because that sound coincides with the shape of the throat and sinus when we have dropped jaw and place in the soft palate. That is, the mechanics of singing really high and making the vowel sound 'ah' coincide as nearly the exact same structure.

So, it is also necessary to sometimes re-arrange a vocal melody to suit your voice. I have done so. In "Stairway to Heaven," I end on a higher note than the original. Not because I am trying to show off. In the recording, Robert Plant hits a semi-tone with a meaty rasp. Since I am not trying to sound like him, I hit the higher note because it's easier for me and I hit it with confidence. I make it mine.

And it is certainly within our poetic license as artists to change things a little. Even Plant never sung a song the same way twice. Jimmie Page certainly never played a song the same way twice. Whatever was recorded on an album is how they felt like playing that particular day that the tracks were annointed as "finished." Now, granted, even their "accidents" sound like gold. But there is nothing wrong with you rehearsing a song one way as long as it works for you.

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Let me give you the answer I expect Steve will give you. Essentially a passagio or shift in where the harmonic coincides with the fundamental happens at different pitches for different vowel sounds. This doesn't happen to just you, it happens to all of us. So, literally one vowel doesn't carry you all the way up.

Why then does the "uh" vowel sound work for her all the way? ;) I do agree with you on vowels having different harmonic sweet spots though, but that is IMO a detail which needs no focus unless you got everything else covered really good.

While Claudia I'm a male and rarely sing as high curbing as you do, I can do all the curbing vowels up to C5-D5~ consistently.

But for me up to C5 I also have the easiest time with "uh", and "o" as in "woman", but I can do the /i/ vowel in "sit" quite easily by trying to keep the same formation as I have on "uh" and fade into /i/ instead.

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Ronws,

THank you so much for your help! I read through your whole text and I must say it's very interesting!

It sounds like, since I feel good with the vocal tract position with "Uh", I just simply have to keep that vocal tract position and change to "I"? that actually sounds like a logic solution :)

Thanks really a lot!

/ Claudia

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If you can post a sound clip that would be helpful - especially for the thing you're calling a voice shake - an unwanted wobble sound is usually a sign of pretty high amounts of inappropriate muscular work (perhaps because you're trying really hard to hold on to the feeling of curbing).

It may be worth remembering that the 'mode' doesn't have to feel the same all the way through your voice - the resonance may feel like it moves, it may feel lighter at some parts rather than others etc - trying to keep the exact same feeling all throughout your voice is next to impossible.

But, without hearing the problem, it's hard to suggest a concrete solution!

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If you can post a sound clip that would be helpful - especially for the thing you're calling a voice shake - an unwanted wobble sound is usually a sign of pretty high amounts of inappropriate muscular work (perhaps because you're trying really hard to hold on to the feeling of curbing).

It may be worth remembering that the 'mode' doesn't have to feel the same all the way through your voice - the resonance may feel like it moves, it may feel lighter at some parts rather than others etc - trying to keep the exact same feeling all throughout your voice is next to impossible.

But, without hearing the problem, it's hard to suggest a concrete solution!

Chanteurmoderne: Amen to that. Glad to see you posting.

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Hi everybody,

Snorth,

Sorry I didn't see your post when I responded last time! And I also have many times easier too, with vowel "Uh", and when I wanna sing vowel "O" I just have to think "Uh" and then I turn into "O". I guess practising turning from "Uh" to "I" on one single note will be my practice for the high part I guess. :) and btw, what means formation? :o

Chanteurmoderne and Steven Fraser,

especially for the thing you're calling a voice shake - an unwanted wobble sound is usually a sign of pretty high amounts of inappropriate muscular work (perhaps because you're trying really hard to hold on to the feeling of curbing).

I'd love to record that note now and show it, but I'm still pretty hoarse and I just got my voice back after 5 days of illness and the first two days of those 5 days I lost my voice completely :( I'll try to record it in a week or so.

But what I wanted to say is that here you explain pretty similar to what one another CVT-forum member also told me about overdoin the 'Hold' for Curbing. In the high part, I can really feel the 'Hold', but when I go lower into the middle part, I wanna feel the same feeling, but I guess I'm instead adding so much Hold that I feel like "choking". Could overdoin' the hold be somekind of constriction too?

Since I get my Overdrive and Neutral down perfectly centered, I guess the support and twang and all the basics are just ok? However, I'm workin' on it!

Thank you so much for all your help!

Happy New Year,

Claudia

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I will write this in Claudias own language to make the explanation easier.

Att behålla samma formation betyder att du ska försöka behålla samma inställning och känsla. Tänk på ordet "form", jag menar att du ska försöka behålla samma form på saker som du gör med "uh" och försöka föra över det till "i" vokalen i "sit"

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Snort,

Tack för förklaringen!

Då är det precis så som jag uppfattade det i början. Var bara lite osäker och ville fråga igen. :) Kan det inte också bero på att det är lättare att "raise the palate" på vokalen "Uh" än på vokalen "I". Har länge funderat över det!

Now in english: Could it be that it's also easier to raise the palate on the vowel "Uh" than on the vowel "I"?

Tack så mycket för hjälpen!! Thanks everybody for all the help!

/ Claudia

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Is that 'I' as in pronouncing phonetically "eye? For me, they seem in the same place. But, each person is different. And it may have to do with language, even local dialect or accent. I have lived in Texas since 1974 and may, indeed, have some natural "twang" due to the way people speak, here.

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Is that 'I' as in pronouncing phonetically "eye? For me, they seem in the same place. But, each person is different. And it may have to do with language, even local dialect or accent. I have lived in Texas since 1974 and may, indeed, have some natural "twang" due to the way people speak, here.

http://www.box.net/shared/tp52q9faep

Here is me showing the vowel "i" and "uh" in curbing, with "eh" in overdrive at the end for fun.

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