Pleaseeeeee help me before I get vocal lessons

[Desperate Singer]

Home 17.m4a

I apologize in advance for how much this will hurt your ears. I know I'm pitchy (advice on improving intonation quickly would be great, but trust me when I say you don't want to hear where I started 6 months ago. I missed notes so badly they couldn't even be considered flat or sharp. I guess I still do that now but I seriously couldn't even pretend to hold a melody then), but I'm most interested in how I can improve my general tone/sound/whatever. I can't seem to find what people call chest voice, and I can't really falsetto either. It's more like a very straight, hard sound (head voice I think?). 

I'm stupid poor right now and have only been using youtube. I'm hoping to get at least a few vocal lessons for Christmas and then start one of lunte's programs to build on those, but I would love to hear your guy's feedback on what I could improve on. I guess what I want to change most is my awful tone singing higher notes like at the end of the voice memo. 

I do enjoy pop and would like to sing pop, but I'd love to sing it as correctly as possible too. 

Thanks in advance, you guys rock.

[Draven Grey]

From what I can tell, you're not really singing, but rather speaking with pitch. But great job on developing an ear for pitch! That's very difficult to do. 

As opposed to speech vowels, that form more in the throat, singing vowels will resonate away from the throat and a lot more in the soft palate. If you must use YouTube, go to either Robert's videos or mine. It's not ideal, but you will get results. Start now by humming and buzzing the lips through songs. Also try to whimper, top-down into your singing. Your main goal in this is to get out of your throat and start controlling resonance in the soft palate instead. There's so much more you can do though! Robert's programs will do you wonders.

A very oversimplified summary, since you brought it up:

• Chest Voice = The pitch range that you naturally speak within. Not the resonance per se, but rather a pitch range. For a male, everything below E4 that has a defined pitch.
• Head Voice = From F4 up to Whistle Register (which varies by the person).
• Mixed Resonance = Head Voice range with chest voice musculature brought back in for a chesty resonance mix.
• Falsetto = A light, open and airy phonation usually within the Head Voice range.