Still Hoarse After Gig
b.vivino
Pro Posts: 42
Hey Guys,
I have been doing better recently with Ken's warm ups, achieving B4's and C5's consistently but I still have hoarseness after my gigs. Clearly I am overdoing it but I am wondering what would be a good strategy to rid my body of the bad habits I am accumulating?
I have only been doing the warmups once through for a half hour. I am not sure what we are supposed to do for the other half hour when Ken says to practice for an hour 5-6 days per week. Any suggestions?
Comments
Most students do a half-hour of chest voice stretching, and a half-hour of light singing with normal bridging. Some also add a half-hour of song singing.
At your gigs, do your best to be observant of tension and stress, especially in the throat.
Take whatever measures you can to counterbalance those tensions. Relaxation, downwards support in the abdominals, holding back the breath...
Monitor yourself and make sure you avoid blasting out the notes. Sing on a cushion of air...
Very Little Air...
Shed the weight and use little boy voice.
These are things to keep in mind when your body or your brain wants to blast.
Bob
Half hour of light singing with normal bridging... That means warm up scales, right?
It seemed like I was okay for about an hour at the gig, then in the second set lost my upper mids. At that point in the gig should I just sing lower material? I tried using more support at that point but it didn't seem to help any. It seems once I'm blown I can't get it back at least for that day. I get that breakup sound you've heard in earlier recordings of mine.
Bill
Often, I find the saving grace to be in using more support on the easier notes from the beginning. Once you overstress the cords, they are overstressed and need to recover. By reducing the amount of air and pressure from the beginning, even on the easier notes, it's easier to maintain a margin of safety for those notes in the upper mids. That's where you are most susceptible to note loss.
It's like shedding weight. It's better to pre-shed weight when you know you're about to go up. If you take too much weight up, you can blow out easily. It's hard to keep track of, so, since you know you're going to go up there in this song, don't risk getting distracted when you're in your lows and then dragging too much of that tone up with you.
When you go up, don't push more volume to get yourself into the note.
Generally, accessing little boy voice happens when your voice is limbered up from a good workout, but it can't be one that is a wearout. A good part of that is from getting your voice into shape in the first place. Another part is removing that low component that wants to go up high where it doesn't belong. Your chest voice really needs to thin out to go up. There is only so much room in the part of your vocal tract that resonates and handles these notes. Your voice must become smaller or it will splat.
You should be pacing yourself at your gigs, working your way up to the higher, harder songs, and spacing them over the set in such a way as to allow your voice to get fully warmed-up and so as not to wear it out without recovery songs in-between.
Yes, light singing with normal bridging would be on warmup scales.
Bob
Lately I have had more limitations than before. However, I don't find myself in head voice at all at gigs unless I am singing background harmonies. I guess to some extent I still don't understand the full application of head voice in a lead singing capacity, except, say, on a super high rock scream... I actually don't know how to accomplish that at all (say a Ken Tamplin or Rob Halford scream). I also don't understand how to accomplish high mix notes, say D5-F5.
When to use head voice in a song is dependent on the song and also your voice.
There are some songs that clearly go into head voice for effect. Even though you might be able to sing those notes in head voice, in order to replicate the feeling and texture of that line, you may still want to sing it in head voice, as the audience will expect that sound. They don't know it's "Head Voice" per se, but they know the texture in their expectations.
For example, a Led Zeppelin song might have a lot of head voice in it. You have a choice, if your voice has the range, to sing it in either a head voice or a high chest voice.
While in Volume One, you should be actively working on two (2) separate goals.
1. Learning to smooth the passagio and connect head and chest voices.
2. Learning to stretch the chest voice as high as possible.
To accomplish goal #1 you may need to go ahead and allow the transition a little earlier than "as high as possible" in order to be able to work on the smoothing process, and to be able to access your head voice.
To accomplish goal #2 you DO need to try to go as high as possible without transitioning into head voice.
These are two separate goals, and they require separate attention. That is the whole idea behind practicing lightly to work on transitioning into and out of head voice. Similarly but separately, that is the idea behind workouts that have more power, because to stretch chest voice takes a little different pressure than connecting to head does.
So you have TWO main tasks in Volume One. Each of these tasks takes separate concentration and cannot be done simultaneously. The two tasks are closely related, yet the antithesis of one another.
Don't neglect either task at the accomplishment of the other.
Work on both, by alternating light and heavy workouts.
Bob
That is actually the goal... to have your head voice or your mixed voice make people think you have an incredibly high-ranging chest voice.
Other examples would be 70's disco BeeGees, where they sound like chipmunks. That is clearly not chest voice.
The more you can make your head voice sound like it has the timbre of chest voice, the more seamlessly it will match up at the passagio.
One of the goals of stretching of chest voice is to help facilitate mixed voice. The higher you can extend chest voice, the higher you will be able to take a chesty mix at times when you don't want to belt everything in chest. It will sound just like full chest to the average listener. They won't know the difference.
On the other hand, in some cases, the yodel, or "break" is done deliberately, as in a country song with the cry in the voice. That is a deliberate use of adding a speed bump while going into head voice that is intended to be noticed, for effect.
Bill, have you watched the KTVA Webinar recording "Ultimate Head Voice Workout"?
If not, I recommend you watch it for reference. You will find it in the "VIDEOS - For All KTVA STUDENTS" section of the forums. Open that category, and choose "Webinars".
Bob
You also might want to watch this one: "HEAD VOICE 090112"
And do you have any hints on going straight into the B4? That's where I seem to crack in that song. It seems like the more strength I try to give it the worse I crack. I am able to hit that note in a scale but can't hit it outright.
@b.vivino,
Most of the strength you apply to the note when you are hitting a B4 should be pushing down to reduce the amount of air coming through your cords. Singing from the throat doesn't cut it when you're up high. Your power needs to be concentrated in controlling and balancing your breath through hoding the diaphragm down.
Bob