Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down

[MDEW]

      I just thought I would give this a shot.  This proves that I am no Baritone even if I can croak a D#2.

     I tried once or twice to sing a little thicker like Johnny but it just came out dopey sounding so I did it the way I felt it.

     Any Comments welcome.

 

     

[KillerKu]

I like the lower range of your voice. Instead of going dopey (larynx low) have you tried going wider with resonance?

 

This is one of the hardest things I can explain, but if you imagine a balloon inflating slightly in the back of your throat you can open up that resonator a bit more. Instead of thinking 'down' you think 'round' and open back there. If you can hit a D#2 on a regular basis, you might be closer to a baritone than you think if you use all of your resonators. That is a morning note without fry for me and you're hitting it pretty solid here.

 

You usually have a more forward twangy, nasal placement. Which is cool. But it can thin out and lack mid range frequencies if you don't have this resonator open.

 

Anyway, this and Sister Golden Hair sound like strong performances to me. You'll get the upper range down in time, but don't hesitate to exploit this range here and the one around  Sister Golden Hair, but not super up there.

[ronws]

I liked it and true, you are not a baritone, certainly not basso. You have to go for low notes like I do, soft and quiet and use mic proximity to make up for it and then edit the snot out of it later to get some usable volume.

 

The nice thing about this part of the range is that it is more forgiving of vowels and accent, since it is at the approximate range of pitch where we normally speak. I think that is one of the reasons pitch control sounds better. I mean, there is tension to hold the correct note. Singing in this range is still singing, not speaking. Kris wrote it kind of as a talking piece, but Johnny and later Willie actually sang a line for it. And it sounds like you went back for some Willie.

 

But I liked it.

 

And yes, I remember when you posted Sister Goldenhair, which I think was just before Killer was re-assimilated into the Borg, so he had not yet appreciated it. But I still like that one from you because you sound like the original singer and you really own that song, like you wrote it.

[MDEW]

    Thanks for listening guys,

     Thanks Killer, I will give that a shot. I have always been aware that I lack mid range(EQ wise) and have tried to boost it by several means.

     When you say open and round are you suggesting at the root of the tongue and back wall of throat or wide at the cheeks and back of mouth.

     It is something to play with. I imitate several Cartoon characters that are in that low range "Bulwinkle,Yogi Bear, Yosemite Sam, Fat albert.... But even those chacters do not have a full mid range sound.....Fat Albert even though he is low and loud makes use of high larynx and low soft palate to amplify the mid range and Yosemite is more of a false fold distortion thing. Most of my sound references and voice work come from imitating characters. Singing voices always gave me trouble when trying to match them.

   Ronws, You always give me good advice even if you have to give me bad news like I sucked or something. So thank you for that.

   I have managed an A2 by frying an A3 and slowing the closed phase until they synchronize. At some point the voice will drop and A2 will become the fundamental. Pretty cool when it happens.

[ronws]

    Thanks for listening guys,

     Thanks Killer, I will give that a shot. I have always been aware that I lack mid range(EQ wise) and have tried to boost it by several means.

     When you say open and round are you suggesting at the root of the tongue and back wall of throat or wide at the cheeks and back of mouth.

     It is something to play with. I imitate several Cartoon characters that are in that low range "Bulwinkle,Yogi Bear, Yosemite Sam, Fat albert.... But even those chacters do not have a full mid range sound.....Fat Albert even though he is low and loud makes use of high larynx and low soft palate to amplify the mid range and Yosemite is more of a false fold distortion thing. Most of my sound references and voice work come from imitating characters. Singing voices always gave me trouble when trying to match them.

   Ronws, You always give me good advice even if you have to give me bad news like I sucked or something. So thank you for that.

   I have managed an A2 by frying an A3 and slowing the closed phase until they synchronize. At some point the voice will drop and A2 will become the fundamental. Pretty cool when it happens.

Come to think of it, that might be how I managed to croak an E2 in "Silent Lucidity," the most challenging song I have ever done. But I did not think of it that way. I just got right on the mic, just about brushing the pop filter with my moustache and slowed my air way down and let it go as lax as I could. At that function of the folds, there is more air than closure, which is slowed way down with a lot of open phase and what you are hearing is the actual pop of the folds. I was reading again my copy of "New Voice Pedagogy" and they explained this is quite similar to what is happening in falsetto, which made a lot of sense to me because that whole beginning part of SL felt like falsetto, to me. Which probably sounded counter-intuitive to everyone else.

 

Anyway, I think you did really good on this song and if I could help, I would say, do what you did here in every part of range, because it really is just one voice.

[Bono]

Really nice! I hear some low notes out of your range, so I think a half step higher, maybe a whole step, would make it sound better

[MDEW]

   Thanks Bono, This was a kind of test for me. I wanted to use the same Key as Johnny Cash just to see if I could. I started by playing and singing in the Key of G and the notes were kind of OK. Then I checked and found out that Johnny is playing in G# a semitone higher that what I thought to begin with.

   If I keep this in my gig bag I will start playing it in Bb or C.

[KillerKu]

    Thanks for listening guys,

     Thanks Killer, I will give that a shot. I have always been aware that I lack mid range(EQ wise) and have tried to boost it by several means.

     When you say open and round are you suggesting at the root of the tongue and back wall of throat or wide at the cheeks and back of mouth.

     It is something to play with. I imitate several Cartoon characters that are in that low range "Bulwinkle,Yogi Bear, Yosemite Sam, Fat albert.... But even those chacters do not have a full mid range sound.....Fat Albert even though he is low and loud makes use of high larynx and low soft palate to amplify the mid range and Yosemite is more of a false fold distortion thing. Most of my sound references and voice work come from imitating characters. Singing voices always gave me trouble when trying to match them.

   Ronws, You always give me good advice even if you have to give me bad news like I sucked or something. So thank you for that.

   I have managed an A2 by frying an A3 and slowing the closed phase until they synchronize. At some point the voice will drop and A2 will become the fundamental. Pretty cool when it happens.

 

It's basically the pharynx (back wall of the throat above the larynx and behind the tongue). Ronws talks about a 'cavernous' feeling back there as a visualization. I've heard him get some richness and vibrato on some low notes in spite of him having a pretty light voice type. Some mention a swelling feeling like a balloon, SickXamedhi talked about feeling a cushy pillow shape there. I got a friend to find this sound by imagining almost like a 'hoo' shape in the back of the throat. Like a round open space in the pharynx.

 

You can feel some of motion with yawning but goes very dopey (larynx depresses big time) and engages too much muscle. The very beginning of a yawn (first 5-10 percent) might help some. When you get the sensation right you can isolate it, it will feel relaxed, and 'cushy' and it goes on auto pilot once you know how to control it. Like Ronws I don't think about anything physical when I sing, but I do think about sounds I"m trying to express and if I want a low mid swell (think like  Frank Sinatra, he is the one that taught me intuitively) or richness I can find some there.

[thisoldroad]

Very nice!

This is more closer to Kristofferson's version than Cash's.

You got the feeling of this song right from the start.

Apart from the low notes, you basically nailed the song.

Low notes thing is not an issue. Transposing the song half or whole step higher would probably do the trick without changing too much the feel.

 

I think your voice works very well with this kind of material.

[MDEW]

   Thanks,   It really helps when you do wake up Sunday morning with no way to hold your head that doesn't hurt.

   One of my biggest problems with singing is applying some technique and still making it sound natural. I could do things with my voice to make more of a Johnny Cash sound but it comes out sounding fake, but those are some of the things you are supposed to do. Like opening the throat more, applying more compression, Twang, Vowel mods and such........

   This is very close to my speaking sound and range. I did darken a little and add a little more pressure just to be a louder but that is about it.

[KillerKu]

Talk singing is a good style though and for country it's really relatable and has a lot of character. I think character voices are really valuable in music and maybe you should just develop your character voice by extending some of your speech.

 

If you're still interested in more mid ranged resonance how's that thing with the pharynx opening going? If you take kind of an owl sound in the back of your throat, a very big 'hoo' and make it really big and weighty, that's one way of describing it. If it helps you could make it dopey or yawny at first, but if you don't want the dopey sound you can let the larynx come up.

 

I think of singing in some ways like painting. Like you lay down shades of sound color on the canvas. You still want it to be you, but it can be you shading colors. That might help you extend things at least psychologically. 

[MDEW]

     Thanks Killer, With my speaking voice I can imitate all kinds of characters. Finding which elements to add to a singing voice is not as instinctive as you would expect.

I haven't really had time to explore your suggestions to any extent yet. I hope to have time today to record a little and maybe provide a few samples of "Voices" that I have available.

[ronws]

   Thanks,   It really helps when you do wake up Sunday morning with no way to hold your head that doesn't hurt.

   One of my biggest problems with singing is applying some technique and still making it sound natural. I could do things with my voice to make more of a Johnny Cash sound but it comes out sounding fake, but those are some of the things you are supposed to do. Like opening the throat more, applying more compression, Twang, Vowel mods and such........

   This is very close to my speaking sound and range. I did darken a little and add a little more pressure just to be a louder but that is about it.

Waking up Sunday, been there, done that.

 

And yes, it's okay to sound fake. It's what I did for "Diamonds and Rust." Including the totally "fake" echo at the last. Duping the last syllable and moving the track further and further. All "fake" and a number of people liked my "fakery." 

[MDEW]

    Good Points, but that is not the same "Fake" that I am meaning, That is part of the Magic of recording. Also as Jens has pointed out all "Singing Voices" are fake until they become infused into our own  natural expression.

   My attempts at the Johnny Cash sound were unbalanced and highly noticable that I was "Trying" for a Johnny Cash sound.

   "Fake it till you make it" is still a good point of view. With time I may have been able to improve that sound.

   The whole recording process and production is fake in a sense.....Cutting unwanted frequencies....Boosting others...... compressing, limiting, over dubbing.....whatever is needed to enhance the product...... And now they have that blasted autotune, the bane of a good singers exsistence......... .

   Not only that but you also have distortion and octave doubling effects for the voice now.....There are many people who are trying to copy the sounds of their favorite singer and not realising that the sound is from a box not from his/her voice.

[ronws]

Yeah, and doubling vocal tracks has been around for decades. That is a big chunk of Joe Eliott's sound on Def Leppard's first big album, mixed by Mutt Lange.

[KillerKu]

Yeah, and doubling vocal tracks has been around for decades. That is a big chunk of Joe Eliott's sound on Def Leppard's first big album, mixed by Mutt Lange.

 

I realized 90 percent of my favorite singers double track or stereo widened in 'some' way upon inspecting closely. I played around with some delay settings and I was convinced relatively quickly I like the sound of stereo widening in my voice too.

 

Whether that is 'fake or not' is tough to say. In real life you don't hear a mono voice from a microphone. You'll hear some 'width' of the room. Real live is definitely in stereo. 

 

Anyway, I'm sold on this now for my voice. But still not sold on how to best go about it.