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I'm not made for Grid?

Hey guys,
I'm really much into Thrash, just as you can see at my name, and I really want to improve for singing this style of Metal. I think I'm an ok vocalist overall when it comes to clean singing but I struggle a lot when it comes to Grid or any kind of distortion. I just can't find the right technique to do this style without feeling a little pain in my throat. I saw several videos, Ken's and many others, but no one could actually help me with this. I heard in one video that some people are just not made for singing with Grid, so I wondered, if I'm using just the wrong technique or I'm actually not made for this. Did someone else had this trouble aswell and solved it somehow? Or is anyone just experienced in singing with Grid and could tell me a little bit about it?

Thank you for reading
Thrasher

Comments

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

    Nice to meet you! You might not like my answer very much, but here goes:

    I think anyone can sing with grit. Ken doesn't teach his own students how to create grit until they've been in his program for about four months or more. The reason is that, if you do it incorrectly, you can hurt your voice.

    So FIRST you have to learn all of the basics of how to sing safely and correctly. THEN you take what you've been trained on, and use those techniques along with a bit of additional information, and learn to sing with grit in a safe way. There is no need to kill your voice just for the sake of being able to quickly put that grindy sound on your vocal cords.

    It would be irresponsible for Ken to just tell everybody, "here's 5 minutes to Grit, have at it!" A good many of those who tried it wouldn't get it, and would hurt themselves. Without a basis in proper vocal training, they have no basis for knowing right from wrong vocally, and many don't care anyway.

    Ken teaches us a number of things that help us to prevent damage to our voices, and then he teaches us how to make a distorted sound that is not harmful. There are lots of videos out there on YouTube with people giving shortcuts to distortion. That's really not a good idea. You need to learn to take care of your voice so you can do this for a long, long time.

    Some of Ken's students are so eager to learn distortion that they rush to that part of the course and hurt their voices. That does nobody any good. You need to learn how the voice works, how to use it, and how to build it and use it safely. Then you have a good foundation to add a few more skillful techniques, and you have some skills to apply to help mitigate any problems from oversinging.

    If you want to take Ken's course, we're here to help build you up and get you there. But we don't hand the keys to the Mazerati to someone who hasn't read the driver's manual yet. That would be irresponsible. We're all about Safe methods. And those methods don't fit in a paragraph or two. They're built along the way during months of preparatory work and foundational training.

    I hope you understand what I'm saying. I think anyone can learn how to do it. But Not immediatley, in a safe manner. Only after building the voice, learning how to use it, and then applying safe techniques in a careful manner. Then it's fun and it's a breeze.

    All the Best!

    Bob
  • MayWeThrashMayWeThrash Member Posts: 2
    Ok, thank you, I totally understand what you want to say and what you have to say! I'll always keep that in mind.
  • highmtnhighmtn Administrator, Moderator, Enrolled, Pro, 3.0 Streaming Posts: 15,354
    We just don't want someone getting their voice hurt by not getting into shape first and then possibly misunderstanding part of the process. You can really tear your voice up with poor distortion methods. There are people out there with videos on "5 minutes to distortion." Crazy. Irresponsible.
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