Working on metal singing! Feeling brave and testing the waters !

mistic_imp

Hi everyone, so i have been practicing my ktva now for almost 2 yrs?? i think?? prior to that i had alot of classical sining background and mostly studied that style along with jazz and some pop.

Anyway i have also been working with various vocal coaches on and off when i can afford to, with various singing styles ( pop classical rock etc) during this time. I ventured back into singing now after a long hiatus and have been on this journey now a few years. I REALLLY wish i could afford lessons one on one with ken, but there is no way I can right now. I am an artist/illustrator for day job so my pay is really up and down, i live and breath my art and music and feel blessed i can at least do something creative every day. So the course, this forum is all i can do right now.

Anyway this year has been the year i have been focusing more and more on my rock metal vocals. I love this genera best. I am just now starting to explore vocal distortion, so right now my vocals fairly clean, but having the ability to add in distortion when i want and other sounds is defiantly a place i am trying to get to.

In an effort to put myself out there and start seriously learning all i can learn, i finally got nerve up to share some videos here for feedback. I also started a youtube channel for karaoke covers, just for fun and practice, ( why not? no better time than corona time to do it!)


So here are a couple of recent practice sessions of some metal songs i like.

Any tips, constructive c&c would be helpful to me. performance is def something i need to work on, its all still a WIP!
I purposefully left these videos mixed with my voice up front and low backing track so my voice can stand out and be easily heard. If i decide to record for an actual cover or video, i will mix them better.

sleeping in the fire

https://youtu.be/4uql7gITjVQ

evil that men do

https://youtu.be/helaWzdhm-o


Thanks so much and Sing on!

Wigs

I get the genre of metal you are aiming for, melodic/operatic power vocals. I think you can get there but it's going to take alot of time and practice. I would concentrate on maximising your support and bringing your chest voice up as high as you safely can, then work on your resonance to really get it to powerfully project. Your pitch is good but since your support is not that strong for the notes you are singing, it does suffer a little.

Keep it up, I haven't yet dared venture to full metal my self, I'm coming up to 2 years on the course as well.

mistic_imp

cool ty for the feedback! Metal is new for me to sing, it is what i like to listen to and what i want to sing. IDK if i wil ever get rasp vocals down, i just started trying to learn and experiment with that. I may have to stick with prog metal where less grit is used LOL

Anyway, I am working with a coach for this style,who is a professional metal singer, so hopefully she can help me more. I do wish i could afford ken LOL but well not made of $$ so doing the best i can? with what i can. I wish i wasn't starving artist. I also wish that ken went a bit more indepth with the ladies about vocal distortion in the program, like it has really helped me to have exercises done with gabby, so it would be a cool addition if he had a vid snippet working on distortion with her too.

I have managed to take full chest up to about c#-d some days i can do e 5 not sure if i should be trying to push it higher? i mean i can belt an f5 i am a soprano but at that point it not FULL on chest anymore. It's belt.

Also My voice coach did advice me to sing these songs higher key than a dude would, so i transposed them even though i CAN sing them in original key no problem. she said it would have more punch that way, not sure if its better or not? she says always transpose stuff to key that is best for you.

I feel like everyone is always trying to make me sing higher?? lol but higher you sing more head voice tends to creep into the belt.

I think i have a pretty good understanding of breathing and support and compression ( even though i think we always continue to work on that) i have sung classically for years, but maybe it is just still too much head voice/ classical sound creeping in??

Maybe it is more HOW i am approaching this style? do i need even more Forward "ping" in the sound?? I worry about sounding tooo nasal. But when I sing i do feel " mask" resonance in my face a nose area anyway.

Maybe i am still singing it too "nice" so to speak, or maybe it is just my voice type idk. I will ask my teacher more about this.

Anyway it is a new venture for me. Will continue to work on support and keep with the ktva program & i do practice just about everyday, usually for a few hours!

mistic_imp

also, would it be helpful to post sample exercises for critique?? when i tried posting before forum was a bit dead?? idk!! ty!

Wigs

For sure post your scales, it's actually the best way for us to give feed back. I had a quick look and couldn't find any of your earlier scales? As much as we all try to help out there are lulls when everyone just happens to not have as much time on the forums, if something if left unanswered for over a week, just retag in the discussion for example @wigs and it should show in the notifications as a reminder 🙂

mistic_imp

cool ty so much , i'll post some when i get a chance.

NicolasGralewicz

Try and use more air (but don't be breathy) or in other words, project and get a nice and powerful metal belt. Also, it sounds REALLY low for you, transpose it up a bit. Also, not sure if those vowels are intentional, but they MIGHT be holding you back a bit, they're really wide. Try to get a very pingy forward tone and add some grit. Since you're new to metal, I definitely wouldn't say this is "bad", I myself would stay away from this song (I'd much rather sing something like 18 & Life). But yeah, as a recap, forward resonance, better support and more air, relax those vowels a bit. With a bit of practice you'll be nailing it every time!