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for lou gramm you need diaphragm


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i'm not sure if any folks out there are as intent on being able to do lou gramm vocals as i am, but for those who may be or perhaps want to take your rock singing to a whole other level all i can say is...

for singers like gramm you need diaphragm

i am spending time just doing exercises to strenghen the diaphragm and i can feel the difference. i'm convinced that it's this dynamic opposition to a returning diaphragm and the appropriate pressurization and balanced suspension of the breath that catapults the voice to a whole other level of intensity.

does anyone share the same opinion or subscribe to a similar belief? it's okay to disagree....lol!!!

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I feel the same way Bob. What amazes me is it seems to be a never ending process finding ways to more efficiently use your opposing muscles to hold back the diaphragm. For example, learning to use a heck of a lot less effort balancing with the opposing muscles, to get the same results.. or really better results than using massive muscle engagement.

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You basically need great breath support (yes from diaphragm), combined with precision emission control, otherwise known as cord closure vs amount of breath in the voice and you need precision.

Felipe has got emission on my mind, but I never thought about summarizing the process with this word alone. Not sure it's in the common singer's vernacular. Cord closure, yes, breath support and breath delivery yes, but the entire process summarized as such, no.

But the key is getting there healthily. If you want to sing like Lou Gramm, chances are there is little margin for error in any of the links in the chain there. You'll need very precise, unstrained closure of the vocal folds, only involving the absolute necessity of muscles that need to be involved and deliver the precise amount of air to deliver the tone healthily.

If I could get my voice back, personally I'd rather sing like David bowie again cause there is more margin for error when I go off into some emotional aside with either more air or less closure!

In a sense, I think singing involves an element of wiggle room. The higher or lower and the more powerful in volume your notes are supposed to be, the less wiggle room you have to 'screw around.' It was always very important to me have 'character' voices to express emotions, I only wish I would have realized the danger prior to injury that my 'voice personalities,' I don't think they work with the highest notes or lowest notes, or with SLS or Lou Gramm or whatever.

The voice can only do so much and you can't sing the way I sang and have every note in the voice. You have to get pretty precise in the amount of air you expend versus cord closure. I think this is part of why I like a lot of 'less technical' singers, best, cause they have more wiggle room to express their respective notes healthily.

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You basically need great breath support (yes from diaphragm), combined with precision emission control, otherwise known as cord closure vs amount of breath in the voice and you need precision.

Felipe has got emission on my mind, but I never thought about summarizing the process with this word alone. Not sure it's in the common singer's vernacular. Cord closure, yes, breath support and breath delivery yes, but the entire process summarized as such, no.

But the key is getting there healthily. If you want to sing like Lou Gramm, chances are there is little margin for error in any of the links in the chain there. You'll need very precise, unstrained closure of the vocal folds, only involving the absolute necessity of muscles that need to be involved and deliver the precise amount of air to deliver the tone healthily.

If I could get my voice back, personally I'd rather sing like David bowie again cause there is more margin for error when I go off into some emotional aside with either more air or less closure!

In a sense, I think singing involves an element of wiggle room. The higher or lower and the more powerful in volume your notes are supposed to be, the less wiggle room you have to 'screw around.' It was always very important to me have 'character' voices to express emotions, I only wish I would have realized the danger prior to injury that my 'voice personalities,' I don't think they work with the highest notes or lowest notes, or with SLS or Lou Gramm or whatever.

The voice can only do so much and you can't sing the way I sang and have every note in the voice. You have to get pretty precise in the amount of air you expend versus cord closure. I think this is part of why I like a lot of 'less technical' singers, best, cause they have more wiggle room to express their respective notes healthily.

cool dev, keep me posted.

killer, here's where i again have to respectfully disagree. it's the correct diaphragmatic support that frees up the voice to have wiggle room. yes, the margin of error is less, but there's plenty of opportunity to do little runs or soulful riffs. by using correct support you have freed things up above which means the vocal folds are free unencumbered by tension.

it's physically tiring at first, (there's a video on youtube about this, but i can't find it) but the more you use it the easier or more automated it becomes. it's awesome this apoggio method of support.

quincy, it's balanced pressurization and it varies in the intensity depending on the note and how intense you care to make the note(S).

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I'm not talking about diaphragm support when I discuss wiggle room, Bob. I'm talking about cord closure, and voice posturing (vowels, timbre, vocal tract positioning, etc).

Offering the best diaphragm support you can is pretty much always a good idea unless it's a low note in speaking range where it becomes more optional. But you need a lot more than good support to be in perfect balance for maintaining those high powerful notes healthily, and there are many things voice can do within the standard modal range, that cannot be done up there like Lou Gramm (for example, breathy tone, or pure speech vowels).

So essentially, in the middle of the voice (furthest way from extremes) there is a lot more wiggle room and as a singer I loved this cause it could give me so many different inflections that were more native to myself or to the 'character' I was trying to express. So my philosophy would be to favor the part of my voice with the least 'rules' so I could express the characters with more authenticity, whether it's a snarl, a whisper, a shout, twang/don't twang, cry/don't cry, or use any vowel shadings physically possible for the voice/character without modification.

If you try that stuff on those high powerful notes, you are likely to get injured. You have to do specific things to maintain that kind of power and range healthily and the tight rope gets narrower and narrower as you go up with power, or down with power.

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killer, i agree but things like fold closure, voice posturing, vocal tract positioning all become more doable when the vocal tract is relieved of tension.

when you are skilled enough to avoid throat muscle and jaw tension, undesirable tension in general you have made singing a lot easier.

if you are singing high with power and you have the support, the chance of injury is much less.

don't you agree?

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killer, i agree but things like fold closure, voice posturing, vocal tract positioning all become more doable when the vocal tract is relieved of tension.

when you are skilled enough to avoid throat muscle and jaw tension, undesirable tension in general you have made singing a lot easier.

if you are singing high with power and you have the support, the chance of injury is much less.

don't you agree?

Yes, if you can avoid the tensions this is good, I agree. And singing high absolutely requires the support spot on, no question.

But there are lots of hmmm... "Improper' ways of singing that sound good, so it's more of a balance for me, and this balance would likely be most safely achieved in the mid range.

I'm an emotional singer, and I didn't always do everything right. I'd feel a snarl, or a hiss, or a growl, or a weird vowel I've never heard sung before, dunno. Sometimes something just 'feels' right for the song. It's all happened before, and these things just don't work up there in that way, cause things need to be spot on for you to get safely up there. If I was to ever go up there, I would have be much more careful than I was before, and I couldn't emotionally spaz out as much with as much relative safety as I had in my comfortable modal range.

I think we agree more than we disagree. :D

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Yes, if you can avoid the tensions this is good, I agree. And singing high absolutely requires the support spot on, no question.

But there are lots of hmmm... "Improper' ways of singing that sound good, so it's more of a balance for me, and this balance would likely be most safely achieved in the mid range.

I'm an emotional singer, and I didn't always do everything right. I'd feel a snarl, or a hiss, or a growl, or a weird vowel I've never heard sung before, dunno. Sometimes something just 'feels' right for the song. It's all happened before, and these things just don't work up there in that way, cause things need to be spot on for you to get safely up there. If I was to ever go up there, I would have be much more careful than I was before, and I couldn't emotionally spaz out as much with as much relative safety as I had in my comfortable modal range.

I think we agree more than we disagree. :D

we agree. where we disagree is when you feel that things get more serious and more dangerous up high. i think there's risk of injury on any place in one's range.

what's drives me is the intensity without the dangerous pressing or pushing of the voice. support is the key. and it ranges from a nice steady control to an all out lockdown depending on the notes and the song.

when i went for my voice therapy to shrink the polyp, the therapist really dwelled heavily on support for singing more safely and speaking more safely.

maybe if you sent me a time spot on a song that you consider dangerous (we like the same music, that's for sure).

to me the only way a high note can get "dangerous" is when you over reach and strain for a high note without any support. you basically strangle your throat and pulverize the vocal folds causing trauma. then if you happen to have reflux (the kind with no apparent symptoms) the folds are that more vulnerable to injury.

very grammish..you can almost hear the support

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Lennon went hoarse for a few days after this performance.

I had been there myself, that's true fold voice distortion, which is already dangerous, but pushing it up further and further into extreme range with the kind of vocal cord closure required to hit those notes is worse.

Sure it's possible to injure yourself at any point in range, but the higher the notes, the more the vocal folds vibrate, it adds an increasing amount of both wear and tear and tension on the voice apparatus. So if he was screaming even higher, it would have likely been more dangerous.

I somehow managed to learn how to do something similar without going hoarse, but it was always a fine line.

But also, breathy parts of songs in general. Like the verses here, sung through clenched teeth:

Or basically the entirety of this song:

And you try to sing a powerful full voiced sounding C5, it's a recipe for injury.

But keep in mind, you can have significantly less amounts of required twang/cry in this lower mid range. It's basically a lot less rules where as I've read belting singers who lose twang in mid sentence actually physically feel pain.

If you pick a note, right in the lower middle of your range, basically, you can achieve this note in a lot of ways with less risk or strain. Low larynx, high larynx, any vowel, a bit breathy, not breathy, there's just a lot less risk than on the extreme ends if you either get something wrong or put some artistic touch on it.

There is still danger on that low/mid range note, but a lot less than trying to make a D5 as powerful as can be or making an F2 as powerful as can be. I call it wiggle room. I spoke and sang my whole life without problems even if neither was a calculated perfection, until I messed with the apparatus. I was using my voice within it's 'wiggle room,' but how much room you have to be in the safe zone changes depending on what you're doing.

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Dunno... I find it much harder to support higher notes with less dynamics than the more powerfull ones. Basicly you must create a huge compression with the intercostal muscles and control it through this feeling of suspension you said.

I was just working on it, I am having a hard time getting it properly done, sometimes they dont open quickly enough and I lose the power to sustain the notes:

http://www.4shared.com/mp3/VNBPjiqY/forever.html

After I get it more connected I think I will be able to do a better job on the interpretation line on the chorus, its still kinda artificial to my ears...

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Nice Job, Felipe. Again, support is good, but the specific components required to say, achieve say centered Curbing, Overdrive, or a twanged belt configuration just aren't needed on mid range notes and can sound less... Natural or rob you of what listeners might view as either an interesting or natural tonal variation as might be present in a speaking voice.

The lower/mid range is where the majority of the tonal options are, so if you keep a configuration there intended for powerful high or low notes, it can be less interesting than a configuration that is intended for 'character.' That's just my take.

Most of my favorite singers didn't have 'centered' voices per say on this level and their range sometimes suffered for it, but they often had little quirks within their comfortable ranges that make them stand out. Sometimes those quirks are what holds back range! But that doesn't mean they are automatically unhealthy.

An example, as Rob described Eddie Vedder: Sloppy twang. But sloppy twang works for the guy within his range, it may not work for another octave, but that's part of what makes Vedder who he is.

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But support isnt just about those configurations....

If you dont support on the lower range, things simply get more difficult... You dont need all this compression that this song requires, it would sound weird for instance, but a little is always needed. Just to make life easier so to say. On this song for example, if I dont support on the first verses, those lower notes becomes a bunch of junk, simply no way to get them to work otherwise. On the midrange... well you can do whatever you want on the midrange really, gets easy to think on a sound and just do it.

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But support isnt just about those configurations....

If you dont support on the lower range, things simply get more difficult... You dont need all this compression that this song requires, it would sound weird for instance, but a little is always needed. Just to make life easier so to say. On this song for example, if I dont support on the first verses, those lower notes becomes a bunch of junk, simply no way to get them to work otherwise. On the midrange... well you can do whatever you want on the midrange really, gets easy to think on a sound and just do it.

I agree then. I'm just saying that the lack of a required configuration in mid range, is it's biggest strength and why so many mid range singers have such unique sounds, as there are less rules, etc. They can get away with doing it 'more' off center but the further you go to towards the extremes, the more you need to find something centered.

There are still rules, just more wiggle room. ... It could be Johnny Rotten or Elvis, or Pavarotti, or Geoff Tate. All use different configurations there which sound different and seem healthy enough to get the job done. But if those singers all wanted to sing with Geoff Tate's upper range, they'd have less choices in how to achieve this.

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Yes,

But you can still have a great deal of freedom if you dont go too high and get the basics going (the basics in this case get considerably harder, but if they are right, it works).

After a point more compromises must be made. I will never have freedom on those notes of "your lies" on the chorus. But even this can be desirable on certain situations.

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Just so you understand better.

Notice the vowel (eh) on "howEver".

See how it sounds more round than the others?

Thats a problem right there. I should not have to tamper so much with this particular vowel, it brakes the legatto line and sounds kinda weird against the rest of the phrase.

The position is almost correct, but I needed more pressure so that the focal point would be kept forward, on classical terms, it would have lost "edge".

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First, my smart-aleck, nudge-nudge, wink-wink quip:

Bob, I had no idea that you liked Lou Gramm and Foreigner. When did that happen? Love ya, bro.

Something I might disagree with Killer on. I don't think C5 is necessarily dangerous, as long as you not always trying to blast it in the same chest voice as what you speak with.

Felipe, "Forever and One" is becoming one of my favorite Helloween songs. A nice, romantic ballad guaranteed to please the ladies. In fact, any one that wants sell more cd's than a few copies to some OCD singers should have this in their set list. And you did a good job with it.

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C5 isn't that dangerous, depending on how you do it. But it's easier to screw up in a damaging way than C4 is and it also involves a lot more vibrations per second and firmer cord closure which straining could be pretty easy for people. .

Unless you use falsetto, and then it doesn't really matter. I can hit a C5 with some kind of 'mix head voice power falsetto flageolet whatever thing' now, that I couldn't hit when my voice was healthy. I personally find a valuable lesson in that.

Don't rush for it. Use a healthy voice, whatever the range. I don't think everyone needs to hit a C5, all they really need is a healthy, happy voice that gets the job done.

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Bob - you're right about using the diaphram to coordinate the exact amount of air pressure needed. It also help to have the low abs involved for deep support strength while the diaphram gives us "fine" control.

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Bob - you're right about using the diaphram to coordinate the exact amount of air pressure needed. It also help to have the low abs involved for deep support strength while the diaphram gives us "fine" control.

thanks for the "rescue" gino.

all i'm saying or trying to say folks is the risk of injury is significantly reduced when you sing with a supported voice. you can do things more safely with a well supported voice.

franco tenelli speaks of a one register voice. this is the stage i'm at now. i am learning to sing with one register. but the component that allows for this natural placement, one register approach, is a well supported voice.

supporting the voice is initially a physically tiring movement. dynamically opposing the return of the diaphragm, singing with back and ribs expanded is initially physically tiring.

gramm has the skills he does and the range he does primarily because of a well supported voice.

killer, you have your opinions about singing and i respect those opinions, but perhaps i aspire to a whole different level of singing. nothing wrong with either way or approach.

i'm a belting, power ballad kind of guy. to do songs i want to do takes a lot more energy. when i sang in front of frisell, he was actually calling for even more energy and really helped catapult me to a place i've never been before.

it all depends on your goals.

you might want to check out franco tenelli's videos. they're excellent.

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Bob, just curious - when you're doing mid-range, mid-volume stuff... nothing too demanding... do you deliberately keep your back and ribs totally expanded? Or do you kind of chill then and save the effort for the more demanding parts?

yes, it all depends on how you want to sound. a lot of times i love those explosive, punchy, intense sounds the voice can make, bleeding with emotion. yet i still like a melodic warm core to the sound. that's why i like gramm so much. i happen to be the type of singer who needs to generate a certain level of pressure to phonate. i got a lot confirmed for me when i saw frisell. he said i would have made a good opera singer.

i am big voiced tenor. steve perry vocals are very difficult for me not because of the range, but because of the lighter texture. gramm is a heavier texture.

but getting back to your question, i use a lot of glottal compression when i sing. for some less demanding passages i support less, but some soft notes that have to be held, i support a lot.

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That would be the opposite of my intention - I'm a less-is-more kinda guy when it comes to glottal compression. If I've even got the right term here? I like the slightly windy higher notes you hear from guys like james morrison, rod stewart, etc.

That James Morrison guy is a new name for me. I agree, he sounds cool up there. A little more pop in songwriting than I would prefer, but I've also wondered how people achieve this kind of less, hmmm 'pressed' sound with a slight leak in air healthily without going too far into sounding pure falsetto.

I know people would say curbing and I agree I like this sound when done right, but singers who do that are hit and miss for me. I've heard a lot of singers come across as really whiny and you're still not supposed to add air to it, it's just supposed to sound 'less' metallic.

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