My progress

Alois

Hey guys, so instead of starting a new tread everytime i record something i will try and stick in this one
Im currently like 2.5 months in, ive recently started to try my way in level 2 but here is my level one demos at this point to compare to my earlier recordings!

Ive focused alot on stamina and breath controll i it feels alot more better to sing now

Im looking forward to hear your feedback! Ive started volume 2. If you think i will hurt my self there please say but i got bored so i had to make a change in practice so it felt like a natural move.

Here is my LAH after 2.5 months


And here is my "advanced" Lah scale from the end of the audio workouts. Please forgive me for the first scale

Alois

And heres a crappy recording of love hurts just so you can here the difference from my "before" voice

highmtn

Not too bad. You should try to increase your support, especially on the higher notes. In the higher notes of the scales, you aren't quite making it up to the high notes. In the long scale, for the first few scales you weren't making it to the top note, then after a while, you got all the way up to the top. Also, more support would help those lowest notes that are a little low for you. When approaching the high notes, remember to push down on your diaphragm.

You're coming along fine. You just need to keep doing your workouts, and your stamina and breath control will keep improving.

All the Best!

Bob

Alois

Thnx Bob! I realy feel that im om The right track now! I Will keep it up and Come back with an uppdate in a month or so !

streeter

In the first scale you posted, your first but especially your last note is more Luhh than Lah and it's making you a little flat. The notes in between are great because you are more AH . just make sure you are starting and finishing with that as well.

Good cord closure and tone.

Alois

Tank you @streeter ! I hade not noticed! I Will keep an ear om that!

Alois

Sorry for mycket spelling. Mycket swedish autocorrect is giving me a hard time

Alois

Mycket = my

Alois

OK @streeter and @highmtn ! This is the 3 months from purchase day, to celebrate here is a new Lah scale as a response to my recording of free falling!



And i've bet starting to practice bridging from the volume 2 exercises, am i doing this in a safe way or should i wait untill my support is better? I know i loose pitch and support alot of times but i just started this excercise



Also, i notices when monitoring my self in the mirror that ive ben focusing so hard on pressure on the diafragm that i totaly forget about ribcageexpansion when i do the exercises, so now when i focus on ribcage expansion my diaphragm is getting a totaly new kind of workload I hope i am on the right track!

streeter

Good job getting rid of the bridge. Good closure and tone. Sometimes it's a little windy and sounds like its coming from the throat. I think you could still open up the throat a tiny bit more just to get the sound a little rounder. Think wide and Vertical. Yawn into the exercise. That's the feeling you want to imbed in the throat. We have to really stretch out the throat like its being held open via scaffolding. Wide and tall. You have to really over do it until that feeling gets imbedded, then you can make it less dramatic. I still over do it and Ive been at it for about 18 months (which is not long at all in the grand scheme of things) to make sure that feeling is there. To me it sounds like the throat is real vertical which is awesome, Now we got to make it wide as well.

Good job on shedding the vocal weight via less sound pressure. Make sure you are doing it via vowel mods as well. I can't really hear the mods happening. To me it sounds like you are Holding onto Lah all the way through the arpeggios. Don't forget about Lah Aw OO ooo. It should feel as if the throat is becoming more vertical as you ascend and the come back down re-modifiying back into a wide and tall throat.

Pitch needs a little work but that's ok. If you listen carefully and do the exercises enough, it usually rectifies itself via Osmosis.

Take your belly breath, Hold it in and lean onto it as you ascend through the scale and don't release until you have finished the phrase. For me it feels like I am doing a sit up on an inner beach ball, trying not to let the air escape. It creates this vacuum effect which holds the air back. It really should be reducing the air flow as not to over blow. This is really important especially when you get into the call register.

Alois

Thank you alot for the good advice! I will keep training with a focus on support and more open throat!
I will try and make a recording of the modifications, i thin Aw and OO goes ok but im having a harder time doing ooo without straining.

cabakt

If possible please post your first song "love hurts" so we can see the improvement.

Alois

@cabakt Here is a link to my "before" voice
http://forum.kentamplinvocalacademy.com/discussion/5294/my-before-voice#latest

Alois

@streeter and @highmtn, Listen to this,
I can realy feel the modifications here, but i dont her them very much exept on the highest scales? i know pitch is a bit off still but i think support is getting better!
I watched the videos for volume 3 about glottal compresion and i try to apply it as good as i can in booth that Lah scale and in this short Demo, Sorry for the lyrics i just sing it from memory to test compressoin on long notes.

highmtn

Sounds good after the first low notes that are a little pitchy. You are correct that the mods happen only on the higher notes. The first few scales won't modify at all, and we have to keep it really AH until it is time to let it become Aw, etc. Good scale demo.

Your song demo is amazingly improved over your first demos that you posted. Good work! Keep it up!

Bob

Alois

Thank you Bob! I can realy feel things starting to happen now! I had to struggle to understand and get support to work for me but now that i does i feel that i can start focusing more on mods and pitch!

Soon it will be 6 monts into the program and i hope to post a less pitchy demo and a new song by then

cabakt

Great improvement

Alois

Hey! I just passed 6 months into the program!
Here is where we are at. I moved the "high note" to first chorus just to show you what i mean.
This is the first verse and chorus from "Bridge over troubled water". I think the verse is going pretty good, i need more practice ofcourse but im getting there! The Chorus feels ok but the part with the higher pich kills me

Anny suggestions? More compression? or am i even oversinging in the beginning? On the recording he sings this part very weak. But i dont want to be weak

Anny sugestions on vowel mods?

Or should i even wait with this part untill i trained my headvoice more?

Im currently just started on Volume 3 and i feel that i can do it without hurting my throat! I can bridge pretty good on A (Law) Vowel but i didnt start training the headvoice parts yet.

highmtn

@Alois,

You've picked a difficult song to demo on. It's done mostly in gentle head voice on the original recording, and that's what most people you would sing it for would be expecting from this song. The more timbral head voice that you train on after Volume 3 is not the sound you will want for a song like this. Instead, you want the default head voice that you normally go into when you do your lip rolls or tongue exercises, and that is a more airy, lighter sound.

This is a song that when we KTVA students want to sing, we need to "hold our horses" a bit and sing in our softer registers. The temptation is to lean into it like we do so many of our rock songs. Here on a song like this, we get to remain very relaxed and let the softer side of our voice come in.

It's OK that it may sound "weak" at first. It's better, for the sake of the song, to let it start out small and fill-out just enough to remain subtle and soft. That means we're going to have to support the notes, even though we don't really want to compress them. If we compress very much, it will start to sound like a rock song. Maybe in the last verse/chorus, you can let the wild horse out of the stable and sing the last "Trou-bled Wa-ter" in a more full chest sound. Otherwise, you'll overpower the song, and lose the dynamics of it.

So I recommend you sing it in your "gentle" natural head voice, and just practice it more. Work on those notes that are not stable yet.

You really sound good on this. Yes, you started to lose it a bit on the chorus. I think that's because you don't yet know how to approach it. You were flat on the last note, and again, it's because you're not sure what to do. Sing it in head voice, and just let it not be a strong chest note. Let it be a head note and work on getting comfortable with a G4 in head voice. Go ahead and sing the whole thing in head voice, and see if you can do that more comfortably. Art Garfunkle sang it in head voice.

You just need to work through it and be OK with that sound. It will fill out a bit when you become more confident with it. The secret to this song is to not overpower it, but to let it be gentle and stand on its own, rather than muscle through it.

You're sounding good. Work on letting that chorus be gentle, but have just enough of the right support to stand on its own two feet.

All the Best!

Bob

Alois

Thank you alot Bob! I will try to hold my horses. I tried singing this much "softer" and thats easier. Now that i know im not supposed to belt this one i can practise more on the tone rather than the force of it

I will give it some time and then make a new recording!