First timer attempts Rainbow - Catch the Rainbow

[Anthony]

Hi all, I'm approaching my journey here at TMVW with a complete positive mental attitude! Too long have I settled with my modest range. I intend to push myself to my full potential using the FPOS (should get it delivered in a couple of weeks) so I can sing songs like the one below properly! :-) I have never trained any other range other than my chest, so I have no idea if I'm doing any of it right!

 

I decided to choose a song that is out of my comfort zone (in terms of range) and, instead of transposing it to a lower key, attempted it in the original key. I feel like it's better to get it wrong in the original key than to get it better in a lower key. My performance is weak, I'm embarrassed about this video, I've sang better, but none of that really matters - I just want to improve!

 

[Anthony]

(Yes that IS an air grab at 0:47)  

[Elvis]

bro if i counted how many times i posted "embarassing" clips here i would probably get better at math!!

 

Also nothing embarassing here. It was a decent effort and that falssetoy head voice thingy works for this song. Also dont be afraid to push a lil bit, breaking is a natural thing for a student of singing.

And bro im in a same boat with you, i hate lowering key, feels like im settling for less then i could.

Decent effort bro, post a clip of you trying to add more mass to it and belt the "life's not a wheel" part, people will help you better if they see what are you doing wrong.

Truly you can only learn from your mistakes

 

p.s. spontaneous Air Grabs are a sign you feel the song, thats one of the more important things for me.

[Anthony]

Hi Elvis, thanks for your words of encouragement. I will definitely take your advice and upload a new version tomorrow with added force. I took it gently because I don't really know how to belt those higher notes with proper technique (yet). I'll just do what I think is right and hope for the best.

Stay tuned, I'll give it my best shot!

 

 

[Enander]

Elvis is right! If you don't acknowledge your shortcomings you might never correct them; nothing to feel embarrassed about! Everyone here knows how hard singing can be at times.

When you described the clip I expected havoc, but that was not the case at all! You have a very clean and beautiful voice, and if you want to add some power to it: don't let fear hold you back If you do something wrong your voice will recuperate, unless you keep on doing it on and on every day. From my experience, the harder you sing the more rest you need, and warm-up is a must to obtain longevity! Don't cheat on that! As a young hothead I skipped the warm-ups, and today I regret it badly!

In regards to your movement; it's not nearly enough! Haha! When I see your posts and some of your YouTube clips I see an emotional, smart and soulful guy stuck in his rigid shell. I obviously don't mean to be rude, but I know that kind of people well and once they shake off that rigidity they're awesome at whatever it is they want to do. That's why I decided to post this.

So, stop trying to not embarrass yourself (sorry for the double negative haha) and sing (with your whole body)!

Looking at your clip "Insane Shred Lick 1" I think I'm not far off with my assessment

 

[Anthony]

Hi Enander, thanks for taking the time to listen (And checking out my other YouTube videos!) I suppose I come across that way in my videos because that account is loosely linked to my self employed business, so I want to do the silly creative stuff, but not harm my business by being too OTT!

 

Thank you very much for your comments about my voice. I am currently trying to get the second half of my attempt to sound fuller. I feel like I have no idea how to access those notes properly though. I get frustrated sometimes and the old familiar "I'll never be able to do it" thought niggles the back of my mind but I'm going to record something right now and post it up here.

[Elvis]

I expanded my range from E4 to A4 in about 6 months and i still think i wont be able to phonate C5 and D5, but i keep going at it

[Anthony]

Do you mean E4 to A5 Elvis? :-P

 

OK, here goes. Not what I was expecting to do at the end, but it is what it is. One frustrated singer begging for help!

 

(Sorry the sound is slightly out of sync, but I rushed it!)

 

 

 

[Elvis]

Nono i mean A4 consistently

 

also the new take just has a greater break and you still go to falsetto. That can be a good thing cuz bridging will be easier to you than to those who really pull chest. 

 

Still nothing embarassing  keep up the work with Pillars and you will get better in no time

[Enander]

Anthony, I read your last comment, and I understand!

That clip was great from a learning-standpoint! I'd love to see more like this here!

Anyway, I'm no vocal coach, but it sounds like you're using what's usually called head voice on the higher notes, and just like chest voice it has its limits; both lower and upper. It sounds to me that you're on the lower limit of your head voice, and that's like trying to sing very low with your chest voice; the notes are very hard to get a hold of. At this point you can either work on the lower end of your head voice or work on the upper end of your chest voice. It's a matter of preference, but for this particular song I'd suggest working with your chest voice as I'm almost certain it would be easier for you to work with your chest voice than your head voice at this point (but Elvis is correct here too; if you manage to use a nice-sounding head voice "down there", you've gained a lot!).

Now, we distinguishes screaming/shouting from singing, with every right, but when you're working on the upper limits of your chest voice I've found that's it's nice to have the thought of screaming/shouting in your mind. Not so much as you start screaming like a madman and destroying your throat, but sort of in the way you'd shout if you see a friend at a distance (but he hasn't noticed you) haha!

1:04 is the crucial point: "but life's not a wheel", where "but life's" is mostly chest voice (it's positioned quite far back in mouth though and gives it a heady touch), "not a" is in no man's land and you squeak, and "wheel" is pure head voice. Try to bring the phrase forward in your mouth instead of back and up, if you know what I mean, and you do that by shouting just a little bit.

Don't focus too much on "just a little bit" though. I'm just afraid that you start screaming and hurting yourself, but I don't want you to be afraid either. You want to sing so people, 20 yards away, could here you well.

So, take the phrase "but life's not a wheel", but instead of placing the resonance in the back of your palate and going up into head voice/falsetto, try to shout it a bit. You might squeak and crack, but keep at it. If it hurts and you get hoarse, stop doing it, but (and this is where a vocal coach probably would tell me to shut up) wait a few days and get back up on the horse and shout some again. It will take some time getting used to and grasping, but you wont learn a thing unless you keep on trying.

I'd very much like it if you uploaded a clip where you take a more shouty approach!

[Anthony]

Hi Elvis, thanks again for your comments! Just a quick note, I have ordered 4Pillars, but have not yet received it. Anything I'm doing here is pre-4Pillars. (I'm too excited/impatient to get started) Also I suppose I'm hoping to get a bit of feedback from people familiar with the program who can tell me which are my problem areas in the context of Robert's terminology so I know which parts of 4Pillars to particularly concentrate on at first.

Enander, I have read and re-read your post and taken a lot in. Especially the line "instead of placing the resonance in the back of your palate and going up into head voice/falsetto". That is what I feel when I sing higher notes. The sound feels like it travels from my chest up into a "yawn" and I lose any boomy resonance.  I will upload a third attempt trying to keep the sound forwards in my mouth while "shouting" the notes.

 

[Anthony]

Here it is - The very definition of crash and burn!

 

 

 

[Enander]

Great! You might not believe it, but I think you're on the right track! You're just not used to it yet, which makes you crack and feel like you're straining, but singing doesn't just happen. You're working your muscles differently and you need some proper support (which I believe is your biggest problem at this point) to pull it off well. If you keep practicing this it will start to feel better, easier and more natural.

Compare "life's not a wheel" in your last try and the same phrase in this try; it sounds way better this time! You used chest voice this time, whereas you used falsetto the last time. Falsetto is not bad, but since you wanted to make it a bit more "meaty" chest voice did the job, as we can see/hear here

Now, you did enter into falsetto above the notes in "life's not a wheel", but one step at a time!   You went from doing "life's not a wheel" with falsetto to doing it in chest, and it sounded nice! I do think you can pull off "with chains made of steel" in chest nicely later on, but at the same time I don't think you need to. It sounds to be in a nice spot for you to sing it with head voice.

[Elvis]

Ant be sure to msg me about pillars if u need any question. Im a begginer also but i watched lectures and read the book more then once

[Anthony]

Elvis, I will no doubt be taking you up on that offer when I receive my 4PoS!

 

Enander, I agree it does sound better (to begin with - until I fell into the falsetto trap!) As for the "Come the dawn", I prefer to end the clip before I reach those! ;-)

 

If you say I'll be ready to reach the other notes in chest at a later time, would you recommend me practising those yell type notes a lot? I am scared of straining my voice, especially when a lot of coaches talk about "effortless" belting.

 

Since I'm still getting lots of kind help from the people in this thread, I have uploaded another video more specific to my problem. I am aware that this runs the risk of becoming less of a "review my voice" thread and more of a vocal lesson, so will happily move the thread elsewhere If need be.

 

Again, thanks a lot!

 

 

 

[Enander]

Chest voice
I'd like to distinguish practicing and testing out. You should test notes out in different ways, sure, but not actually practicing it (i.e doing it over and over again).
At this moment you should only practice tones in the line of "life's not a wheel", but not too often. Do it often but shortly, with warm-up of course. I'd say you should warm-up, sing something you're comfortable with and end with a short session of "life's not a wheel". Since you're unaccustomed to this kind of singing you should keep it short, but still do it rather often to keep it up. Again, keep it at "life's not a wheel" level. It sounds bad in the wrong way when you try to pull chest above that. At 2.36 I can hear that scary creaking sound, which you should avoid! That sound is very different from when a voice breaks (like 1:33). You need to learn to recognise that creaking sound, which means you should stop immediately.

Also, I think there are times when you need to let go of the idea of effortless singing. Especially in a hard rock/heavy metal context. Sure, it shouldn't be straining on your vocal cords, but keeping the proper amount of support and achieve a nice compression is tedious if you're not used to it. It's very counterintutive that any metal vocalist is utterly relaxed when singing a really heavy song. My point is, I don't think you should be afraid to put some power into your singing. The problem with applying power is the increased necessity of control, which I why I recommend you to keep your practicing to "life's not a wheel" because you obviously can handle that pretty well. But, when that's easy you can start approaching "chains made of steel" with chest if you like.

I'd like to point out that I might be biased about this though. I'm an advocate of singing with power; and lots of it, because that's how I sing and love to sing. I'm well aware that many people disagree with my way of singing, and you should know that, but I believe I'm quite good at it so I think there is merit to my words. You should probably view my advice as a bit of a counterweight to other advices you might get The dialectic approach is always nice if you can handle some cognitive dissonance (sorry for blurting out nerdish haha).

Head voice/Mixed voice
I think you can sing "chains made of steel" in chest and head voice, but both needs work. The chesty approach is kind of evident from above, and when it comes to head voice I guess you're already doing it kind of (these terms are bit blurry to me), but if you want to "meat it up" you need to use a mixed voice. It is what it sounds like: a mix between head and chest, and to me it's as vague as it sounds like For me, chest voice is pretty straight forward, whereas mixed voice is more complex. Mixed voice can be sung with different ratios (at least that's how I do it). Depending on the song I can have like 30 % chest and 70 % head or 70 % chest and 30 % etc, so there are loads of ways to doing it and I don't know where to begin. However, the way I see it, if you can't handle one of the two "ingredients" (chest and head voice), you probably can't make something out of it.

My best bet is to take it with a vocal coach, but as far as I'm concerned the mixed voice is an advanced skill which probably shouldn't be on your agenda just yet
 

[Felipe Carvalho]

Nice!

You´re getting the phrasing and melody quite well, the higher sections of the song need something different than what you are doing, that´s why its not comming along yet, in my opinion, you should work it out with what you are doing currently, by making sure you make the middle/higher notes on low intensity/quiet, dont try to make them aggressive. Then nail down the whole song and it will be an awesome study. It will sound different than the original, but still can sound good.

Careful with the first phrase also, you are changing the melody on "when evening falls". On "soft and warm" you seem to get it right, so it should be the same thing!

 

For the more aggressive thing, there is no way, you will need to train the whole package, support, emission, resonance, everything will need to get attention. There are some aspects that you still don´t use, like forward placement, so really don´t worry about it until you begin training and just try to sing it in the best way you can.

 

GL!

[ronws]

Lovely accent. Reminds me of a friend who was here in the states for a while and moved back to Manchester. (And I assume he is still a fan of Manchester United.)

Anyway, you are singing out of your throat. A few times, you did approach a mix, which is what you need. And yes, it can be built, through resonance. Try different mouth shapes, mostly through the pure vowels, until you feel pockets that make your head ring.

Also, you are singing the lyrics as if you were speaking them. Change that. For example, on "wheel," you have too much motion of the lips. Make the w almost imperceptible and less power on the l. Like w EEE l. Something I have noticed in northern England and even scottish accents is an oo sound for the what would be oh in american english. Nothing wrong with that. oo is a pure vowel but you will want to do it without pursed lips.

Also, I noticed, when you go to higher notes (without the guitar in place,) you place your hand on your abs. It may be distracting you. Yes, any major action should be in the abs not the chest or ribcage, but only subtly so.

Anyway, a slight smile aids in brightening the sound, which is what you need. Lips barely meet. In fact, you should form vowels at the back of the tongue. And you can use a vowel shape as a "formant." The articulation of the lyrics will give the context. So, even if you were using ee as a shape and the word was love, it would still be interpreted as love, though you were shaping ee for a bright spot, as an example.

Awesome dogged determination.

 

[Anthony]

The amount of information in this thread alone is mind boggling!

 

Thank you so much yet again. I am going to need to take some time to take all this in. I won't get a chance to record anything over the weekend, but I think that's good due to all the things I need to consider!

[Elvis]

Anthony this only tip of the iceberg. Im on these boards for like 7months or more and with pillars and forum i still havent absorbed even the half of it. But i have improved tremebdously. Dont hesitate to ask. When i joined i was creating threads almost daily. Needless to say i was boring myself but the guys here answered everything

[Gneetapp]

Hi Anthony, welcome to the forum! I'm glad you are not the shy type of person, for posting all your attempts to find out how you can improve. This quality is mostly appreciated, together with perseverance, if you are really set to become the best vocalist you can be. I got a slightly off-topic question for you: how did you produce your videos? I mean, I see you singing on a microphone in the first videos with the backing track, but I just couldn't figure it out how you were doing it. Are you using monitoring on your DAW? Cheers, and Keep on Rocking man! 

[Jugulator]

Hey, man, very nice try! Don't worry. The lower parts sound good to me. The higher parts are sung in falsetto. You should aim yourself at a well-supported mixed voice if you want to get rid of this falsetto. And surely you'll be able to sing the song very good.

[Anthony]

I've had a bit more time to read through these amazing responses.

Enander, I will give your suggestion a go. Warming up and singing songs that are well within my range before closing my session with some chesty versions of this song as far as I'm able. I won't push it too much. The part you mentioned about differing percentages of head and chest voice is what excites me the most! I can't wait until I have that level of control.

 

Felipe, the impression I get from your post is that I should work to my strengths and change the arrangement of the song to suit the voice I have. Regarding the areas that you say I need to work on, is this something that 4 pillars and hard work from me will improve?

Forward placement is something else I hear about that somehow eludes me. I feel it's an important idea I need to develop to stop my sound falling back into weak falsetto, but don't really know what to be listening for as I sing.

 

 

Ronws, that's a good ear for accents - I'm from a place a few miles away from Manchester! :-) Vowel sounds are something I've known needs work. From what I gather, this is included in 4 pillars so hopefully will become clear to me as I work through it.

I put my hand on my stomach for high notes because I'm scared of hurting my throat so I just think "diaphragm diaphragm diaphragm!" But evidently it doesn't help the sound any! ;-)

Gneetapp, thanks for the encouragement. I don't think singers can afford to be too self conscious with all the strange noises and crazy faces we need to pull during practice! :-) As for recording I record the video and audio separately and sync it up in Windows movie maker. The camera audio alone isn't very good.

 

Juggulator, as soon as I understand mixed voice I intend to practise the hell out of it!! :-)

 

[ronws]

I understand. Well, certainly continue the hand on the abs, as it reminds you of where motion should be. I don't to say that it was a bad thing, just something I noticed but if it is helping you do the right thing with breath management, by all means, keep doing that. It's a good place to start from ,little things that keep your alignment where it should be.

As for accents, they are like music to me. I can tell if a guy is from Mexico, Central America, like El Savador or Honduras, or south America, something a lot of gringos can't do. To them, all speakers of spanish sound the same. But I hear accents like others hear notes.

 

[Gneetapp]

As for accents, they are like music to me. I can tell if a guy is from Mexico, Central America, like El Savador or Honduras, or south America, something a lot of gringos can't do. To them, all speakers of spanish sound the same. But I hear accents like others hear notes.

 

​Hi Ronws, just curious, how about Brazilians? Can you differentiate our accent from the other spanish speaking people from S. America? If you can, it is even rarer than you have thought it was. Cheers