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Long-time fan, First-time Student

Hello, my name is Stephen and I'm a self-taught, working musician (vocals, guitar , bass, piano, drums) from Massachusetts. I've always wanted to be a great singer; ever since I began my musical journey at 11 years of age. But, in the early years, I definitely didn't have the best voice. I spent years singing songs over and over again (which really won't get you anywhere), scrutinizing every note and trying to imitate the tones of my favorite singers. Then one day, at 18, my voice changed. It had already deepened at this point, but it changed again. To my surprise and pleasure, I could sing! By that I mean I had this really full tone and my pitch was spot on. The change even got me noticed for my first real band (an AIC cover band). However, I soon discovered that I had quite a lot of limitations. Firstly, my voice kinda peaked at F#4 or G4 on a good day. I could use my falsetto out to an A5, but it wasn't the robust sound I knew I wanted. So after losing my voice many times and messing up important gigs, I used some Google fu to find some tips for better singing. I tried every free tip I could find (I was dead broke). I started doing excercises I saw on YouTube and eventually I came accross Ken. I was blown away by how easily he could do what I struggled for years to do. But I was a poor musician and frankly ( and stupidly) too cheap to invest in his lessons. You know what, it was more than that. I had this silly notion that if I wasn't a natural, or couldn't do it on my own, then I could never make it in the music industry. I've since worked as a promoter and gotten to see that an important factor I was missing was the right business sense and that many poor excuses for singers made it to the big time. Anyways, while I now can sing up to a G#4 with no strain, no amount of experimentation has unlocked that great classic rock head voice I've always wanted. And to this day, bad habits still creep up and take me out of the game (over singing, to much air, over-pronunciation, etc ) Plainly, I'm not satisfied with being a good singer. I wanna sing better than everyone else! Why wouldn't you? I wanna be as close to perfect as a human can be. So my current range is C2-G#4 (C4-A5). I'm sure that's probably irrelevant but I thought it worth mentioning. I have no formal training, only what I've picked up or figured out; and who knows if that's good or crap! I did do martial arts and trained to be a Zen teacher so I have professional meditation training and understand breath control to the extent that it was fundamental to my practice. I understand that singing, like any discipline, is it's own animal. So I humbly dismiss any previous experience and will be a patient student. I'm very glad that I've overcome my pride and saved up for these lessons. Thank you very much

Comments

  • highmtnhighmtn Administrator, Moderator, Enrolled, Pro, 3.0 Streaming Posts: 15,354

    Hello, @TheSageOnStage!

    Isn't it amazing how many excuses we can come up with to delay getting started on something like this that really is a major turning point in our musical/Vocal lives!?!

    I did the same thing, imagining that by delaying getting started, that somehow that would help.  Duh!  That just helped delay me from getting started!

    At last you've come to your senses, and can get on with the somewhat lengthy process of building and developing your voice into all that it can be!  

    Your drive and devotion to your goals will fuel the rocket that will grow your voice.

    Welcome to KTVA!  Glad you're here!

     

    Bob

     

  • Thanks so much Bob!
  • davetdavet Pro Posts: 8
    I've just started to cross the bridge smoothly, this always was a mystery to me before in my chest voice prison. I can get quite high with chest but with a lot of yelling/straining that puts me out of action at gigs (i'm the lead singer and guitarist) so I needed a way of getting the higher notes, like the ones from Foo Fighters 'Best of You' or 'The Pretender' that my chest voice would blow up on. Having just discovered my head voice I need to rehearse it, is there any tips you can give me to make it sound more 'Rock' and powerful. Is it a case of cutting air? I have a tendency to do the Hetfield false chord growl that dries me out badly and is impossible in head voice as far as I know.
  • sspatricksspatrick Enrolled Posts: 1,278
    @davet. You have to build that head voice slowly. Start with a lighter tone in chest voice and keep your volume the same as you ascend. I was a heavy chest singer as well and about 6 months ago I started my head voice journey. I started lightly releasing to head voice into a reinforced falsetto to get the feel of freedom. After that I worked on cutting back air getting
    that bright tone that ken demonstrates. The key is keeping g the volume that you can manage and also the placement of the notes in head voice. After you get the bright tone you can add a bit more bottom end to make it more robust. It does take time and days of sounding bad:). All the best!!
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