celebrate your gains!!

[D.Starr]

According to Jonpall (who I have the upmost respect for as well as others on here) I comfortably sang in curbing at F4.

May not seem a great range increase but it's pretty awesome in my eyes, it's showing that all this work is paying off. I've shed alot of vocal weight and gained a note in my range. I'm starting to work my way up as well.

Here's the clip. I sang it and very little strain and thought it to be around my problem area of progression in my singin, being above E4.

Now when I opened up a virtual keyboard on the internet and keyed in what notes i thought he hit and what I hit, the highest note at F4.

May not sound like a great accomplish meant but this area has given me trouble for awhile.

http://www.box.net/shared/fzr22ntmk0

"No" is the word I think to be at F4. Like I said not a great accomplishment but I've been struggling with the passaggio, mix, curbing, whatever you want to call it area for a while and I found this a great deal of progression.

[VideoHere]

nice job man, now keep it going...drink water, exercise, keep on keepin'

[jonpall]

D.Starr, listening to you clip again - it sounds like you've been singing with that sound all your life - that's how relaxed your voice sounds. So again, great job, man! :)

[D.Starr]

Haha I wish. I've just revisited a few songs I had trouble with and can sing them alot easier. I'm not forcing a hold anymore it's a lot more natural. I am however using my tongue a little too much and feel an ache in the back of it, which I'm trying to get rid of.

[eggplantbren]

I'm so happy for you D.Starr! Well done!

[SH]

You see open throat as what I term relaxed / lack of constriction, Bob. There are people who call classical singing and "open throat" style, and contemporary a "closed throat" style. While a closed throat seems to me like a pretty bad idea, it is just terminology from a different pedagogy. I think these terms probably refer more to placement than to what is actually done with the throat. But I'm interested in the perspective. Some very good contemporary vocalists were classically trained. Oh, and I love the surprised laugh / yawn set up too. Try this one - pretend you are about to blow up a big balloon. Fill your lungs with air to prepare. That one gets the same set up for me too. Voice training comes in handy at my kids birthday parties. I am the best balloon blower upperer that I know!

And well done D Starr.

[ronws]

A gain for me. Two weeks ago, I sliced my left thumb pretty bad at work, trying to remove a broken lamp from a light fixture. I went to Primacare and got 5 stitches. And I got the stitches out this last Monday. It's healing really well and I can play guitar again. I'm just careful not to rest on the clot. Which is fine, I can play mostly barre chords and A-form chords without a lot of pressure on the tip of the thumb (where the laceration was.)

[VideoHere]

d, glad i helped.

i'm just not too sure about the blowing up the balloon. during singing, it's tricky.... if you pressurize too much you'll possibly feel the need to constrict to assist holding back the air which may have you overgripping the folds. ya got to achieve a balance between breath management and fold closure. as your breath support gets better, you'll find yourself not inhaling that super deep way all the time, only for certain requirements. you may also begin to feel a "suspended" kind of breath, especially in loud high notes

[SH]

Hey Bob.

Agree agree agree. I was more thinking of the before breathing in posture / set up, rather than the actual in breath. I didn't make that very clear as I actually did say - take the breath in, which was really a poor explanation of what I was getting at. Yes, I am at that point where I am not taking as much air - don't need as much air, yet singing big loud and high notes with less air than I used for easier notes. Still do need more than a conversational breath of air to sing a challenging phrase though. But, I can sing generally three or four phrases on one breath, just as a breath management technique during practice times. Still to master the sneaky half breath in.

[ronws]

And here is something directly a quantifiable gain for me and directly related to what SH just said and totally attributable to Bob, who mentioned it so succinctly in a conversation (I called him up about two weeks ago. I have an AT&T cell phone with nation-wide coverage. It's the simple one, pretty much just a soup can with a string in it.)

Breath management. The suspended feeling that Bob speaks of is because you are slowing down the velocity of air escaping. By doing that, you can get more controlled glottal pressure or compression. In short, high notes need less air than low notes, and certainly less velocity, though you can also control your velocity down low.

Absolutely astounding insight. But, for me, easier said than done and I finally figured out why and it's not a matter of muscle development or training or any particular system. It is totally keyed in on my performance with the guitar in hand. And it's totally psychological.

When I get to the chorus of a song or even high parts, if they are a bridge or ending outro, I tend to play the guitar louder. When I do that, I am trying to sing volume over the guitar. Which unconsciously drove me to push more air, tire the folds, and lose breath and pitch, etc. So, I was doing my breath management version of "Don't Stop Believin' " (no, I don't sound like Steve Perry and I don't give a flying act of fornication if I do, though I think Perry is a fine singer.) And I was still having problems until, in a moment of glaring personal insight, I noticed I was strumming harder and playing louder during the choruses and the ending. So, I purposefully decreased the attack on the guitar which means I didn't have to push so hard. Which allowed me to back off the air pressure, hold the notes better, and find the resonating sweet spots. Which made my voice sound so loud that it overloaded the mic. (No, it's not ready for public consumption. Really, just a scratch track. In times past, I have seen critiques that could have been avoided if it had recorded on better eq. And besides, people will be unable to hear it without comparing to the original. Not because I sound close (I don't) but because they can't help comparing to the original.)

Point being, I figured out what I was doing wrong and changed something for the better. I have the breath management thing figured out. I just had to quit competing with myself.

[ronws]

And here's some additional irony. A moment ago, I was outside, feeding my dog. (He prefers to eat outside, regardless of weather. He is a mix of Siberian Husky and Labrador Retriever, mostly Siberian, in spite of his dark coloration.) Anyway, I realized that another of mis-informed ideas was that even though high notes require shorter vibrating length or, in the case of voice, thinner vibrating material vibrating faster, I had also thought that high notes required slightly increased pressure or attack. I realized that I was wrong. The same pick attack on a guitar produces whatever you want, regardless of string and fret. What is different is how each note is resonated and that, I did know. So, I then surmised that my learning of holding back the breath pressure was a way of metering or maintaining a constant pressure, even slightly less air escape velocity.

Here's the ironic part. I downloaded to my Kindle for 0 (zero) dollars, a public domain book entitled "Head voice and other problems." In it, they pointed out how erroneously so many people, including some instructors, but mostly students, think the head voice and higher notes require greater effort, "support," what-have-you. In reality, it should be like a piano. The pianist plays the lowest key strike the same way he/she plays the highest key strike. The amount of force was the same, but the notes were different in pitch and some tonality, due to string length and resonating space. It's also why classical pianists prefer a grand or baby grand to an upright. The grand piano is built with a varying resonating space that matches the register being played.

But it all starts with the breath management thingy. Which resonates, if you will pardon the pun, with my earlier breath support epiphany thingy, that the action of the abdonimals is to counterbalance the natural tendency of the diaphragm to push out huge amounts of air. In normal action, you exhale because the diaphragm relaxs to it's normal upside down curve shape. It takes effort to inhale and the diaphragm is an inhalation muscle. And you don't control the diaphragm directly (you can't, it's an autonomic muscle and action.) You "control" the diaphragm by either closing the folds to hold your breath or maintaining some tension in the abodominals which are slowing down the reflexive action of the diaphragm.

So, when I read or hear that some says that such and such song requires a large amount of breath support, I fear they may be approaching it from the wrong perspective. The only huge part should be in the control of not allowing a high escape velocity, which is actually decreasing the pressure on the folds from below, allowing them to close more fully, generating a fuller tone than can be resonated where it needs to be resonated, often quite loudly, now, since the air velocity is not pushing it out of it's natural resonating space(s).

[ronws]

In the above mentioned Kindle book I am reading, I am seeing a similarity in aesthetic and approach to Lunte's program. That head voice must be mastered and that passaggio and even tonal problems can be mediated by extending head voice technique downward. And this has validity in my opinion because the necessities of head voice require more control of breath management and with that control, it saves the entire voice, producing an endurance of decades, ala Geoff Tate. And it could certainly boil down to semantics, which is producing a psychological viewpoint through imagery. What some may call going up to middle voice may be, indeed, simply "bridging low" or bringing head voice down. And sometimes, the new perspective brings in the alignment. As the book points out, quite correctly, singing is a mental thing. The body can already do what it does. Anyone here is already capable of tenor C. All you have to do is let go of the mental image that tenor C requires this or that effort because that's what it sounded like on the album or in concert, or whatever. Totally to the point, one expects distortion, "meaty" sounds in heavy metal singing. And any one not producing those sounds is "not doing it right." That is just as stifling as classical opera singing. The singing becomes one of process, where every voice must produce the same sound. Especially when music becomes corporate. "This is what the people want to buy so this is the way everyone must sound."

And that just happens. When Ronnie James Dio got his sound, no one was sounding like him. It was outside the "norm." Now, it is the norm or standard, so to speak. And if you are not producing that sound, "you're not doing it right." Just as in opera singing, if you are not producing a dark, somber, low larynx sound, "you're not doing it right."

I was accused, at one time, here, of "going into head voice too early." Well, technically, there is nothing wrong with that and even our benefactor, Lunte, teaches to "bridge" early, essentially, getting into a head voice config sooner, rather than later. Though there are times I'm carrying chest kind of high. Which means that going into head voice to early speaks to the aesthetics of the person saying that, which is wholly psychological. And that could come from a person thinking that singer X is singing what they are singing with a high chest voice, rather than a low head voice with dramatic effect added.

Another good point in the book is that one should be able to sing a note softly as well as loudly but this can be detrimental if one starts out doing messa di voce. The point being that if it starts out in full head voice, the straining efforts at the beginning become habit. But that first line brings me back to the first book I read about singing in 1988. Graham Hewitt's "How to Sing" (oddly enough, the same book that Bruce Dickinson read on his journey of self instruction.) Hewitt said, if you can sing a note softly or in falsetto, you can sing it in full voice. And so, again, my perspective shifts back to my roots. That if you can develope falsetto, you have the right coordination for the note. That leaves learning to close the folds and not let the air escape too fast.

These are gains of mine in perspective and understanding. Indeed, singing is a mental thing.

[SH]

Wow! Wooo hoo. To my surprise, I read all of that ronws. Well done, and I agree. There seem to be a few of us, at much the same place. Where the penny is really starting to drop about breath management and all that it means. I don't really know where I bridge now, mostly it feels like a really smooth transition. But I think I have got it smoother and I am carrying chest higher because I've allowed more head into my mix. I'm approaching the second bridge and wondering what to do with it, but my music rarely takes me that high (we are talking E5). There is another one line imagery type thing that helped me immensely: support feels like singing while holding your breath. That may have come from here too, can't remember.

We have Anzac Day in Australia today, to commemerate soldiers lost at war. It is probably Australia's most spiritual holiday now that Christmas and Easter have become so gaudy and commercial. I sang the hymn, Amazing Grace as a harmony with a good friend, at the ceremony in front of the town. It was beautiful. One day I might record some of our harmony and post it up for you all.

[eggplantbren]

I'm pretty pleased with my progress recently. This may not sound particularly amazing, but it is to me - last night at karaoke I successfully sang a song with an A4 in it (Starman) and another with a sustained F#4 (Penny Lane), and I did both successfully and in curbing too. Yay!

[VideoHere]

I'm pretty pleased with my progress recently. This may not sound particularly amazing, but it is to me - last night at karaoke I successfully sang a song with an A4 in it (Starman) and another with a sustained F#4 (Penny Lane), and I did both successfully and in curbing too. Yay!

damn straight that's an accomplishment. congrats man....yes, don't be afraid to reward yourself. a lot of your gains gives you the impetus for more and more!!!

[eggplantbren]

Hi guys. Just wanted to let you know I've recently decided to give up singing. It was fun trying to figure it out over a few years but I'm kinda over it now. I tried various different approaches and teachers but I was never able to make the real breakthroughs that I wanted. Perhaps because of shyness about practicing too much/loudly in a small apartment. Anyway it's been fun hanging out here, this is a great forum. Peace

[Validar]

Well, that's unfortunate. You even acknowledged your own progress you had made, so I'm not sure why you're suddenly discouraged. It seems like you had set goals and achieved them. What makes you feel like you can't continue to raise the bar?

Keep in mind that this singing journey is a never ending roller coaster ride. You're going to have highs and lows, and there's no set times for when you're going to see the breakthroughs you're looking for. It's something you have to keep pressing at.

I don't mean to sound harsh, but if you really want something you can't make excuses for yourself to pull out because you've hit a road block. Once you become good at making excuses, it becomes the only thing you're good at.

As for worrying about neighbors hearing you, what about practicing in your car?? A friend's house? Surely, there has to be other options.

Anyway, I hope you change your mind. You could be underestimating just how glorious it is to reach a level you're satisfied with.

[VideoHere]

Well, that's unfortunate. You even acknowledged your own progress you had made, so I'm not sure why you're suddenly discouraged. It seems like you had set goals and achieved them. What makes you feel like you can't continue to raise the bar?

Keep in mind that this singing journey is a never ending roller coaster ride. You're going to have highs and lows, and there's no set times for when you're going to see the breakthroughs you're looking for. It's something you have to keep pressing at.

I don't mean to sound harsh, but if you really want something you can't make excuses for yourself to pull out because you've hit a road block. Once you become good at making excuses, it becomes the only thing you're good at.

As for worrying about neighbors hearing you, what about practicing in your car?? A friend's house? Surely, there has to be other options.

Anyway, I hope you change your mind. You could be underestimating just how glorious it is to reach a level you're satisfied with.

i second everything validar said (i like a lot of what validar says whenever she says something) don't give up...i'll bet cha we (all) can help you...what's the stumbling block specifically?

[Validar]

hahaha....I'm a HE.

:D

[ronws]

^ oops ...

Well, then, you are a pretty he. Why is it I've got to be a gristly looking old fart that simply looks like an Hell's Angel that struck up a friendship with a barber? Oh well, at least my voice doesn't match my face. There would be no hope for me, then.

[Validar]

So, wait a minute, everyone thought I was female all this time?? That's some funny shit.

Thank God it doesn't happen in the real world (most women aren't 6'0, 210 pounds, luckily), or I'd develop a complex. :)

[ronws]

Actually, I thought you were male because of the spelling of your login id. It has a "masculine" feel to it. Especially if you are from a foreign country, where the spelling can sometimes denote gender. Even pronouns. In Mexico, abuela is grandma and abuelo is grandpa. In German, name spellings can often denote gender but more often than not, the article (Der, Das, Die) denotes gender. Then, you have language like russian, where Sasha is a boy's name.

But I was just having fun with you because you are a pretty boy and I am not.

[Validar]

Aaaah, ok. Whew!

Anyway, I hope eggplantbren makes it back to this thread, and has a change of heart. I really do hate seeing people give up out of discouragement.

[jonpall]

So, wait a minute, everyone thought I was female all this time?? That's some funny shit.

...anyone else thought Validar was a girl?

*Raises his hand*

[jonpall]

Lesson to be learned: Next time you guys join a forum, pick a very masculine name. Like Max Thunderström.