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Hello from Florida! Contralto songwriter
Annie_Leigh
2.0 PRO Posts: 4
Hi, just got the course, glad to be here and wanted to say hello.
Guitar is my primary instrument and I performed in local rock bands for many years in my 20's and 30's when I lived in the Midwest. I took music theory and ear training at a university in Ohio when I was just out of high school, but it was more classically oriented in the program, and I had the urge to rock! Dropped out and attended a "school of rock" (haha) way back in the day called Music Tech aka Musician's Technical Training Institute in Minneapolis, if anybody went there or remembers it. Have also played the piano since I was a kid and love, love, love to sing, but have always been too timid to sing lead vocals. Never liked the sound of my voice even though I have pretty good pitch and a little bit of prior training. Singing backups was no problem - but zero confidence to sing lead and felt I had very anemic tone. Ken won me over with the statement (paraphrasing I think) " a singer is only a singer because they have the confidence to be one." It's true! I just needed to hear a really great vocalist say that.
Now that I'm a little older, the burning desire is to take the many songs I've written over the years and not feel "ashamed" to present them in my own voice. I have a psychology degree and I'm very interested in the psychology and spirituality of voice. It can be such a head game to get around negative feelings and thoughts that constellate around using one's voice.
Looking forward to the course and checking out more of the forum!
Guitar is my primary instrument and I performed in local rock bands for many years in my 20's and 30's when I lived in the Midwest. I took music theory and ear training at a university in Ohio when I was just out of high school, but it was more classically oriented in the program, and I had the urge to rock! Dropped out and attended a "school of rock" (haha) way back in the day called Music Tech aka Musician's Technical Training Institute in Minneapolis, if anybody went there or remembers it. Have also played the piano since I was a kid and love, love, love to sing, but have always been too timid to sing lead vocals. Never liked the sound of my voice even though I have pretty good pitch and a little bit of prior training. Singing backups was no problem - but zero confidence to sing lead and felt I had very anemic tone. Ken won me over with the statement (paraphrasing I think) " a singer is only a singer because they have the confidence to be one." It's true! I just needed to hear a really great vocalist say that.
Now that I'm a little older, the burning desire is to take the many songs I've written over the years and not feel "ashamed" to present them in my own voice. I have a psychology degree and I'm very interested in the psychology and spirituality of voice. It can be such a head game to get around negative feelings and thoughts that constellate around using one's voice.
Looking forward to the course and checking out more of the forum!
Comments
I just made my introductory post a little while ago, and this is my first reply to someone, so hello! I've been on several music forums over the years, but never any specializing in vocals.
Your comment on psychology is very interesting for me because I feel I've had a mental block for years about recording vocals. I've performed a lot live since 1987 and always enjoyed singing and how I sounded in recordings of some of those live performances. But I really didn't like recording vocals at home on headphones with my DAW. I got to a point where I dreaded it and stopped doing vocals because I didn't like how it sounded and it didn't have the same feeling as live singing. My intonation and tuning were way off.
Just recently I heard where lots of people have that same problem tracking with closed-back headphones, which I'd been doing. When I tried open-back headphones, it was so much better and I was so surprised. Anyway, I'm excited to record vocals now, LOL!
Donny
"...and I had the urge to rock!..."
I love it!!... lololl. Hi from a fellow guitarist that also loves to rock. This is the place to be to actually develop your voice for sure. Welcome aboard!
Regards,
Scotty