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Iris: is it an example of high chest voice?

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Lexheltmil

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@Gneetapp:

Thank you for your words and for the fact you've listened. I perfectly agree with you about the "intimate approach": if I want to use that fluty sound, I must create a soft, less energetic, sweeter sound from the beginning. However, the progresses you have made are huge! As I said, I am following a singing program I've bought, and, if I feel bad, it's because of time: now I am a 30-year-old medical student, near the graduation, and I spend a lot of hours studying medicine, studying guitar as an autodidact, teaching guitar, studying singing and writing a book; I'm very ambitious and, even though I've reached good results in various fields of interest because of my discipline, musical growth is a neverending process and I'm worried that, when I'll have a wife and a pair of children, the only thing I will be able to spend my energies into will be medicine. That's my fear, Gneetapp: the fear of not having time for my musical growth.

​Hey Lex, with your full schedule, I think you are doing great man! I play the guitar too. I have wife and kids, who demand attention, a full time job as a researcher/teacher, and still find time to practice with my band. Of course, I don't practice singing, bass guitar, or guitar as often I should, but I try my best. Although sometimes a week goes by without me doing any of these things. By the way, I'm 43 years old, and I just discovered my head voice (even though I've been singing for over 10 years before), which increased my range tremendously. But it takes a lot of hard work and consistency to get the results and improve tone quality, and build up muscle memory. But I can assure you that it is well worth it! If you like, you can go to my soundcloud profile and check my progress with my vocal practice. Cheers

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Lex, you are singing it in the wrong key, really compounding the difficulty.

There can be a huge effort reduction when you drop as little as a lousy 1/2 note.

May I suggest to try singing it with one vowel sound...no lyrics...just sing the high part with a "yah" instead of with the words. 

so the lyrics "And I don't want the world to see me"..becomes "yah yah yah yah yah yah yah yah yah yah" etc....

Open your mouth as if you were go to yawn, (your soft palate will rise and jaw will drop creating space in the back of the throat) and make the "yahs" without closing down your mouth, keep the mouth open throughout, tongue behind the lower front teeth. 

Try it in a lower key at first...do not flip into anything...stay in your full voice. Sing on the loud side and make sure to resist the tendency to close up the back of the throat. If all this goes well, the sound will feel like it's shooting towards the back of your throat and will feel very tall and narrow.

Don't be afraid to sing loud even if you seem to think you're yelling.  Hope I've helped.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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@Felipe:

I've never said that dynamics depend on registers: you can have a light chest voice, a medium chest voice, an high volume chest voice; and you can have a  light head voice, a medium head voice and an high volume head voice. The reason why I used my falsetto in the example is that, with falsetto, I was able to reach notes impossible for me to produce with chest voice. And, finally, the reason why I told you I had the impression your chorus was in mix voice and not in chest voice is related to the quality of the sound produced, not related to voulme or intensity. But, again, I am a beginner, so my ears can be not enough trained to distinguish a mix from a different kind of chest voice.

@Gneetapp:

Your experience as a father and an husband is very important to me. I hope I'll continue my musical pathway without giving up for the scarcity of time. As I have told you, even now my life is full of things to do, so I can't have lessons with a teacher in the flesh. But I can have some hours during the week to study the singing course I've bought. This course is full of exercises and my question is: in your opinion, is the implementation in songs of the skills acquired with the exercises automatic, or does it require a rational effort?

@VideoHere:

Thanks for the suggestions! I'll try to follow them as soon as I can! I'll inform you about my progress. However, I already knew that the key of my example is not good for me: infact, I usually sing "Iris" 1 tone or 1,5 tones lower, and the result is good because I can afford the entire chorus in chest voice.

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@Gneetapp:

Your experience as a father and an husband is very important to me. I hope I'll continue my musical pathway without giving up for the scarcity of time. As I have told you, even now my life is full of things to do, so I can't have lessons with a teacher in the flesh. But I can have some hours during the week to study the singing course I've bought. This course is full of exercises and my question is: in your opinion, is the implementation in songs of the skills acquired with the exercises automatic, or does it require a rational effort?

​Hey Lex, in my experience of "self-taught" developing singer, the fact that you can vocalize A4, B4, C5, D5 in some exercises doesn't translate directly into singing. You see, during exercises you are singing vowels only, and when you sing a song there are many consonants to screw you up. It happened to me (and still does) that I could sing a B4 in song, but not in another. It depends on which consonants are in the words (in the lyrics), and also the passage you are singing. Not to mention that you also need a lot of stamina to sing some songs. So, in summary, you still have to practice the songs, and muscle memory will help you with that. Cheers

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@Gneetapp:

Your experience as a father and an husband is very important to me. I hope I'll continue my musical pathway without giving up for the scarcity of time. As I have told you, even now my life is full of things to do, so I can't have lessons with a teacher in the flesh. But I can have some hours during the week to study the singing course I've bought. This course is full of exercises and my question is: in your opinion, is the implementation in songs of the skills acquired with the exercises automatic, or does it require a rational effort?

​Hey Lex, in my experience of "self-taught" developing singer, the fact that you can vocalize A4, B4, C5, D5 in some exercises doesn't translate directly into singing. You see, during exercises you are singing vowels only, and when you sing a song there are many consonants to screw you up. It happened to me (and still does) that I could sing a B4 in song, but not in another. It depends on which consonants are in the words (in the lyrics), and also the passage you are singing. Not to mention that you also need a lot of stamina to sing some songs. So, in summary, you still have to practice the songs, and muscle memory will help you with that. Cheers

​The important thing is that, when I practice the songs after months and months of exercises done correctly, my muscles instinctively try to do the right things. In summary: I accept the necessity to practice the songs, but I also hope that my voice will know "what movements" it will be necessary to implement in the performance.

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@Lex Thats the catch, the quality you produce depends totally on how intense you are, "mix" on that area of pitch will be mostly using the voice you speak with without allowing it to become too loud.

If you switch registers, it wont work well in this particular song. On that area of pitch, G4/G#4/A4/A#4, the intensity you use is really important, and the "head voice" you mentioned can not do much for you until you are higher in pitch.

 

Notice also that I am not talking about emulating Rzeznek singing, which just going high keeping the same quality of your low voice wont do either (it would become too aggressive for the mood of the song), I am simply considering options that, in my opinion, are possible of doing in a healthy and comfortable manner, and will work on the song.

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Listening to your recording, don't be afraid to sing louder and with some more umph in that song.

High notes like those in that song have to have requisite energy.

 

 

 

​The fact is that I can't reach those high notes. Probably I should try the suggestions you have given me. However, as I said, if I sing 1,5 tones lower, the result is good.

In practice sounds something like this:

http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=12334556

The ending chorus is a bit stronger, and in my opinion consistent in tonal quality, its still different of the original of course.

​Great performance, Felipe. If I've understood correctly, you are telling me that trying to reduce the volume of that chest voice could take me to the famous mix voice or close to it. Right? Interesting.

How do you reach those high notes? Of course you have a lot of experience, but is there a suggestion you can give me in order for me to try?

 

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Two possible uses of the "high chest voice", I took it up a semitone to make the difference more evident:

 

https://app.box.com/s/9v5ih3lkmmgibljrkv9qkz1jwqx6wzec

 

The first is the "default" way most people work this area of the voice, its also what I suggested. The second is how I believe it would work best for this particular song. Neither is exactly how the original was done... he used a bit of air, sounds kinda wild to me, not sure there is a safe way to replicate that exactly...

Yeah, to me he sounds like he is both breathy and possibly using a creaky voice kind of rasp at the same time. The closest I could come to his timbre was not by pushing chest voice and shouting, but by pushing middle voice/curbing/whatever while adding probably a little more air than might be healthy. It felt like it would be fatiguing if I kept doing it. First chorus was done more relaxed  in that area, second was trying to imitate him.

 

https://app.box.com/s/yc6aq3enexoijz6qit5z97gg2q55o6b5

 

I wouldn't really recommend imitating this guy for long term health. I know he has had nodules and we really don't know much about how he is doing this. If people find a raspy/breathy thing that doesn't appear to fatiguing (I think Rob was saying he found something that could imitate Brian Adams), I'd go for what works for your voice, not what makes you sound like this guy. Even if you were to imitate this guy technique wise, you might not 'sound' like him. People might be able to sound more like him by doing something more unhealthy than he is doing.

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