Daughtry's Tennessee Line and Call Your Name

Docsexy

My highs aren't as pretty as I'd like but hopefully I'll get there soon enough...  I can't seem to open up my throat enough to make them clear.. http://youtu.be/aYpVrnYlasw

Docsexy

http://youtu.be/SveDOqhVhNw

highmtn

Doc,

Good work, as usual.  You have a nice tone and range.  Your pitch is always right on the money.   As you said, you could stand to open up the throat, but that's a hard habit to break.  I do the same thing.  I pinch a lot on the high notes when I know I need to open that baby up.

Ken says to get used to the feeling of an open tube of air going through the throat, in order to open the airway up.  That's hard to do if you're like me and tend to pinch down in order to get enough pressure for the high notes.  The thing is that we're not using Open Throat technique when we do that pinch-pressure thing.  It works for the note, but it's limited mostly to the "eh" vowel, which isn't of much use lyrically. 

I think both you and I will find a new world of tone opens up to us when we learn to open that throat for those highs.  It's like overcoming the gag reflex.  I'm so used to thinking that closing down is the way to go up, when actually it's the opposite.  We have to reprogram ourselves in order to make that the new "natural" feeling.

Besides the Open Throat, the main thing so many of us need to face up to is SUPPORT!  There is no substitute for ROCK SOLID SUPPORT.  Do you want to power your voice with a Ferrari or a moped?  If you are having any issues at all with high notes, there's nothing like doubling or tripling your support.  I know it makes a world of difference in my voice.  So many vocal issues can be traced back to a need to further reinforce support.

You sound really good, Doc.  Please don't think I'm saying anything different.  I just know there's even richer tone that can come out of you once you learn to relax into that sound and allow it to come out.  You've already got so much talent going for you.  Listen to what Ken is telling us about opening up the throat.  Go back to your "It's the lah!" basics and bring more of that wide open sound into what you've already worked on for years and years.  It will affect every note you sing as you bring that more and more into your everyday singing, as opposed to just doing it in exercises.

Open it up and beef up the support.  All of us can benefit from making this our goal.

Keep up the good work!

Bob

Docsexy

Thanks Bob...  I appreciate the vote of confidence!!   Sometimes I get discouraged and wonder why I even bother with it, but from what I hear one day it just clicks...  I can tell that my voice is getting a lot better on Volume 2 as far as the scales go, but I'm not really noticing it so much on actual singing.. My chest to head transition is much smoother.. I usually spend 45 minutes to an hour and a half a night exercising my voice to Volume 2...  Anything else I should be doing?

sspatrick

Keeping that throat open takes time.  The exercises build that into the voice, so that we can keep it open as much as possible through a song.  Your tone is on the money.  Try using more of an EH sound whenever you sing the I vowel as in the word IS.  Also, soften up on the consonants.  Put a little bit of an H in front of words "I" as well. This can open you up a lot more through that chorus.  Don't get discouraged.  I've been singing for years, and everytime I have a lesson with Ken I learn something new, and have to work on it.  Nothing good comes easy....

sspatrick

Also, If you want to "clean up" your voice, you will have to add more support.  I like the slight creak, vocal fry you have in your tone, but if you do want to get it clean, you will have to add more support to get past it.

Docsexy

Thanks man...  I'd just like to have a cleaner sound on on the higher notes...  I listen to Daughtry and I think, "I'd kill to be able to sing with that clarity and timbre.."   I guess I don't have the whole support thing figured out yet