After 2 weeks Practice - Sound ok?

[MBacon3]

Hey guys,

I've uploaded links to some of my practice clips. I've been doing sirens, major triads, scales, and singing bits of songs in different keys over the past two weeks. I vary the vowels, however, on sirens I usually start on EE and go into EH as in "yeah" around G4. Here are the bits:

I do the first one slow and always stop around G - I don't want to force tension, then fall back to fry.

Coming down back to chest is hard, not sure how to do yet - these are mostly ascending. Small break in some, but not as bad as I thought for a first attempt.

After sirens I usually do a bit of a higher song down an octave, then up in head voice to get used to the different sensations. It can be a bit shreiky - right now I'm not concerning myself with tone of my voice, just letting everything happen. I'm focusing on making it feel easy and the overall coordination of register changes. I release to A a bit much on this - heard Perry do it like that on a live recording and felt like trying it. Open Arms

around with Break on Thru. I can do an Axlish grit higher up, the only problem is the lower 2nd attempt its really hard to bounce into without muscling around G4. Just for fun.

Does it sound like I'm on the right track?

[ronws]

It sounds to me, on the siren, if you are trying to descend after the peak, that it might be easier on one vowel, specifically ee. You did that on the last siren and went lower than the previous ones. For whatever reason, ee is letting you bring the head voice reach back down with you. Just remember, the transition does not have to be a flip. And, as you descend, you are backing off the gas well enough. But when you start at the bottom, you've got your foot down, so to speak. That is why a system like Frisell advocates starting with descending slides, first, in order to break you of the temptation to put on too much gas at first. So, if you are going to continue sirens from the bottom up, I would say, start out with less volume and "Adduction" at first. It's going to feel like you are starting in head voice from the bottom. Because, you will be. Just a tip. You don't have to be a Frisell student or try anything else but this one idea.

Journey head voice. You have a "heavier" sounding voice than Perry. By all means, sing the song if it means something to you. But if you allow your heavier tone, like you had in the sirens, to come through, you will get rid of the shrieky texture. You have the range and a strong voice. You just need to give yourself permission to use it.

Like you did with the Axl version of the Doors' song. Now that was cool. Refreshing.

I triple dog dare you to give the Axl treatment to "Open Arms."

(need a smiley here for throwing down a gauntlet. )

[MBacon3]

Thanks for the tips! I will start doing descending sirens today - from what I understand it's like a "controlled freefall" to get back into chest. What I've been doing is practicing chest softer - because with a mic who cares how loud you are, it's about the overall tone quality. I work on singing head voice notes louder and now can do a good head A4 that isn't belty and a decent G4 to blend from chest. Problem is those are about where my chest tops out so its hard to "flip" into depending on the tesitura of a line/song.

Yeah, my voice is way heavier than Perry. When I first heard Wheel in the Sky, I thought it was a girl singing! I'm going to mess around with an overall more forward placement and see how that goes.

I'll give the Axl Open Arms a shot next weekend! That distorition is hard to do because in my ear it sounds NOTHING like it projects - its more about finding that spot and I have A LOT to LEARN with it as the temptation is to pull chest up with it and I think that clip tops out around C,C#5ish. We'll see how it goes!

[ronws]

I think it will be cool to hear that.

[jonathangraham]

I think you sound on the right track for sure. seems like your well connected through the bridge.

The only thing that may help is for you not to put on a voice for singing. It sounds a bit like that to me and to be honest it only gets in the way of freeing up your voice. You seem to be concerned with trying to make your voice to sound a certain way to make it sound better, when the truth is that nothing sounds better and allows the listener in more than your natural voice.

That works for me anyways, good luck Mbacon3 :cool:

Good luck.