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choir Singer Struggling with band....

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hsharrett

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I was raised in Choir. Sang with school, church and made honor choir a few years. I have recently joined a band as a bass player and am being asked to sing background and do a few songs...

I am really struggling with singing with the dynamics of the band. I can do all my parts accoustic without a problem and can sing with the albulm version just fine, as soon as I try to sing with the band sans albulm vocals I really struggle... I am not sure if as a choir singer I have learned to rely on other people to find my pitches for me and cannot sing alone or what the deal is. I took some vocal lessons and was reassured that my note quality is fine, I just need to figure out how to get it to work with the band....

Any pointers or anyone else had this problem...

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I was raised in Choir. Sang with school, church and made honor choir a few years. I have recently joined a band as a bass player and am being asked to sing background and do a few songs...

I am really struggling with singing with the dynamics of the band. I can do all my parts accoustic without a problem and can sing with the albulm version just fine, as soon as I try to sing with the band sans albulm vocals I really struggle... I am not sure if as a choir singer I have learned to rely on other people to find my pitches for me and cannot sing alone or what the deal is. I took some vocal lessons and was reassured that my note quality is fine, I just need to figure out how to get it to work with the band....

Any pointers or anyone else had this problem...

hsharrett: There could be multiple reasons, but I think the place to start is this question: Can you hear yourself and everyone else who is playing and singing?

Singing and playing in a band is a new multimedia experience for you, and you should be able to hear everything clearly. If not, then you need to get situated, or have the sound guy set you up a monitor and a mix so that you can hear everything at a reasonable volume.

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That was the first issue that we addressed was that I could not hear me except in the Chorus parts of songs (where I sing at a higher volume).

We now have me set up now so that I can hear me - I have the mix vocal heavy in my monitor. This is a more recent change to our practice space so am hoping that will help me in the long run. The only time I struggle to hear me is when I don't sing out as much as I should... but that is totally my fault not the mix....

It is a very different experience. I am a fairly decent singer without them.. but man you throw in the whole band and wow not the best effect... :/

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Did you ever do any solos in your choir singing? In my experience, singing in multiple-part vocal groups requires a really good mental image of pitch. You have to know or "feel" where you need to be. If you understand simple music theory and can play the guitar or piano (or any chordal instrument), it will make things a lot easier because, often, harmony parts are just notes of the chord. When you play these instruments you will usually "voice-lead" or play the notes in a way that they move quite smoothly between chords, without large interval jumps.

Of course, it all depends on the complexity of harmony that your band requires.

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Mr. Bounce: I did not do solos in choir - I have been reading around and I am starting to wonder if that is my problem is that I cannot sing alone... I have some harmonies that I totally kill with the band - but that is a time when someone is singing with me.... I typically butcher the heck out of parts that are just me singing....

Would it be just odd to be a good sing-along vocalist and not a good solo-vocalist...

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This is a post that is dear to my heart... First of all, I like Steve's point about monitoring. First and foremost, make sure you can hear yourself, get some good monitoring going... This comes in different forms; wedge speakers on the floor, personal monitors like the TC-Helicon VoiceSolo XT, specifically made for singers... (great system) or an IEM system (In Ear Monitors)... little ear buds that go in your ears that you can adjust to hear youself. Assuming you have monitoring handled... you need to take a soul searching look at your phonations, in other words, your vocal technique.

I get a LOT of female students that come to me to learn how to sing in their head voices without sounding "choral" or "classical" flutey... if you have had a lot of choral experience, you probably have had a lot of coaching that encouraged you to sing with a neutral laryngeal positioning... without going into vast technical detail here (but there are many posts in the TMV Forum community that discusses this...), your still phonating in a way that is appropriate for a choral group, for blending voices... but not for solo voices, particularly in a band.

You need to learn to sing in a new way. Cutting to the chase, learning to "twang". "Twang" is one of several vocal modes we discuss often in voice pedagogy, and here at this forum, that is used extensively in pop and rock music. It is characterized by, among other things, a thyroid cart. tilt, narrowing of the eppiglottic funnel and amplification of certain frequencies that all serve to:

1). amplify the sound - good if you want to be heard and sound "solo" and not "blended".

2). Induce vocal fold closure - this means removal of the "windy" sound in your head voice and replace it with a full, "connected" sound that is stronger and in the end... serves to make the audience think your phonating your head voice notes in your chest voice, when in fact you are not... you are phonating a "twang" configuration in the head voice register. A vastly different thing... As such, when you get into this kind of contemporary voice technique, you are essentially learning to do a trick, its a stunt... making the head voice sound like the chest voice is really dumbing it down, but thats kinda the laymen's point of all this.

3). Stabilize the larynx for bridging the Passagio - If your singing in a band, you are most likely going to need to sing high pitches. It just comes with the territory... THAT means that some pitches in the melodies your singing will be too high for you to belt in your chest voice... THAT means you are going to have to learn to "bridge" from your chest voice to your head voice to sing those pitches. NOT a very easy thing to do for anyone and arguably this skill is the primary focus of any great vocal training routine... Yet, you have to do it, there is no alternative. Often times, when people try to bridge the Passagio the voice will yodel/break or they dont bridge and begin to constrict and push. Both events that we are trying to train out of when learning to bridge the registers... long story short.... learning to twang will stabilize your larynx and make bridging the registers a LOT easier.

Summary:

You need good monitoring.

You need to train with a teacher that can teach you how to bridge your registers and connect your head voice tones into a sound that is full and "chest-like".

I hate to be shamelessly promoting myself, but you are here seeking help and I want to help you and believe I can, thats my job... I can help you learn how to do this. I have a book & DVD training system called "The Four Pillars of Singing" that has been very helpful for many singers and I can train with you in my studio in Seattle or over skype web cam.

www.thevocaliststudio.com/purchasetraining

www.thevocaliststudio.com/internetlessons

I should point out, there are other teachers that are my colleagues and friends that can also help you with this as well; Jaime Vendera, James Lugo, Dena Murray, CVT, Kevin Richards, Alessandro del Vecchio... to name a few.

Hope this helps...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sBLE3TKv-Y

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Thanks so much for the posts on this.

The band has added 3 additional songs for me to sing solo to try to find that one win song. I find that stepping back from the mic and singing louder seems to be helping... but I can tell is a long road ahead. I find that I am good on chorus's and not so much on the verses... We turned me up in my monitor some more...

Fingers crossed :)

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hsharrett,

As a former choir member myself, I hear you. Singing in choir where you're required to harmonize is a whole different animal than singing solo.

When you hav to sing alone for the band, do you feel nervous at all? The solo parts can be very exposed at times, and as a choir member, it does feel a bit scary not having the other voices sing with you. I ask this because singing is not only just a physical act, but it's also a highly psychological act.

what genre of music does the band play?

P.S. In regards to Robert's suggestion, I would place my tongue in the "ng" position, as in at the end of the word "sing", to encourage the folds to come together more fully/properly and release tongue tension. This may give you a clearer sound with twang.

Hope that helps. :)

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Just be confident... Singers are their own worst critics. It's crucial to recognise your flaws and deal with them through practise, but when you perform you need to believe that you are the greatest singer in the world :P

Don't forget that most people have no idea what you are doing because they are not musicians! They feel what you feel, and if you communicate the song like you believe it, then they will too because that is the important thing; telling a story.

Train your butt off when you vocalise, but when it comes time to perform, just forget all the other stuff and perform!

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