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Don't Let Others Define You!

I thought I would share a little on my story in hopes that it might help someone:

I started singing when I was very young. I had all the advantages for which I could ask. I was involved with great choirs all throughout my grade school, and highschool years. I also had a great love for rock n roll, particularly heavier stuff. I was fortunate to play guitar and sing in several bands in high school. I met with a lot of success and praise! And, like so many others, I would sing along with the radio.

At 19 I worked with a gentleman named Rick, doing carpentry work. He was older than I, and had a lot of experience in the world. Most notably, he had a 4 track recording studio in his home, which led me to believe that he was an expert on music. One day we were working in his shop and I was singing along with the radio. I believe the song was by RUSH, and I was really singing it with all my might. Rick turned to me and said, "Don't sing! You sound like a f$cking chick!" I was shocked! I really had not ever been criticised like that, and this was coming from someone that I thought was an expert.

Looking back, I realize that it was absurd to let him shut me up, but at the time his critique was profound. It actually caused be to take a completely different direction in my singing. I quit playing Rock and joined a Country band where I would sing the low classic country songs. I was very good at that, and things went very smoothly for me, except that I would never allow myself to sing Falsetto, or head voice, for fear that I would sound feminine.

This was both a blessing and a curse. It caused me to stretch my chest voice a great deal, but it also limited me from singing the music that I most loved. Years later and after recording myself many times, I realized how very wrong, Rick had been. I decided that I would work on making up the lost ground on my head voice. In researching how to develop a plan, I came across the concept of mixed voice, and realized that I had been appling much of this technique for a very long time. I just laughed when people would comment that I shouldn't be able to sing "that high" in full voice.

I decided that the most effective way for me to learn mixed voice mastery would be here at KTVA. So I am trudging through the lessons and learning as much as I can. So far I am quite inspired and looking forward to reaching my goals.

I hope that your take away from this is that no one is allowed to define you! Each of us struggle in different ways. Weather it is range, pitch, or timbre, we each have triumphs and shortcomings. Don't let someone shut you up! Find your voice and sing out!

bikerdaddy

5 ·

Re: Question about the recording room in Ken's YouTube channel

Ken likes live rooms. Rooms with a little bit of natural reverb. The room he's using now has a high ceiling and has wood flooring and ceiling, and no sound treatment on the walls. There is a small carpet on the floor, but the room is mostly reflective wood.

The room is actually bigger than it looks in the videos. I was surprised at how big it actually is when I saw it in person for the first time.

There are a lot of people who spend a lot of money making their recording rooms very dead, acoustically speaking. Ken likes a very LIVE sounding room.

One of the reasons people want to record in a dead sounding room is because they want to edit and slice and dice the vocals, recording maybe one word or note or syllable at a time. You don't have to do that if you can sing well enough to get full takes without splicing together a Frankenstein of overdubs. A dead room makes it easier to hide edits. Then you smear the cuts over with artificial reverb. Room resonance may make it more difficult to chop up bits and pieces of audio to collage them into a composited verse or chorus.

There is a lot of misinformation about how buying expensive acoustical treatments is what you need to get great recordings. Ken has a few, but not many, pieces of acoustical tiles in his control room, but only a few Persian carpet throw rugs in his vocal studio. If you are close enough to the mic, you get very little room sound in the mic, compared to the level of the vocal. It sounds so natural, you don't notice it.

If you do have acoustical issues, like standing waves or objectionable resonances, you may need to do a lot of treatment, or start over with a room that is better suited for recording.

Ken's studio in Hawaii (which was covered with lava about 3 years ago) had hard floors, ceilings, and walls, all wood. The room was very, very LIVE. His mixing room was like that, as well. He made hundreds of awesome recordings and mixes in that studio.

highmtn

5 ·

My distortion after nearly 3 years of KTVA. Heart shaped box by Nirvana.

Its almost 3 years now since I started Kens course. The past year I have still kept up my weekly practice, haven't been singing as much for some time but I have still felt my voice grow. I started to get a bit of a distorted tone after 12 - 18 months on the course and have been slowly leaning in more and practicing heavier songs when I do sing.

This is a cover of Heart shaped box by Nirvana, I listened to them alot when I was in high school and this was one of the first songs I learnt to play on the guitar. Ive only recently been able to hit those high "hey's" in the chorus in full voice, it was a few months ago I would default to head voice. I do a quick slider scale at the end, I left it in to show that I try to still have good cord closure and my voice isnt drying out.

@highmtn @doc_ramadani @Elara @bentk @Klaus_T @sjonrokz4u @Vocality @Rick_amateur @RandyB @DannyOc3an

Comments and critiques welcome. Hope you enjoy