Living on a Prayer attempt
Fenderjedi
Pro Posts: 28
Hi guys, haven't posted anything on here for ages. I've been out on tour playing bass and guitar. Just getting back on main vocals now. I've been keeping to Ken's advice for over a year now and it's really paying off! The guy is great!! Just wanted to post me singing Living on a Prayer and get some comments as I'm always up for improving and I know there is always stuff to learn and bad habits to cut out so any advice would be great. 
https://youtu.be/r7dfAdxCOvY
Peace!!
https://youtu.be/r7dfAdxCOvYPeace!!
Comments
First of all, long time no see. Good to hear you're still rockin' out. This sounds really good. I can hear a few things that might help you with this song.
Your tone is pretty big for this song. I noticed that on the first note. The song is going to go up considerably higher, and if you start out with a big tone, it's going to be harder to shed the girth when you go up high.
I would suggest that you start out with a thinner tone at the bottom, so you won't get caught with too much girth when you have to go up top. Don't get me wrong, your tone sounds good, but high notes like the highs in this song, have to be done with most of the weight shed. It's difficult to keep adding and subtracting girth without getting caught.
When you're on the chorus, that part in particular is too thick, even on the G4 section, because when you go to the B4-C5, that should be thinner, with a lot of pushing down on your diaphragm, to help hold back the air, so as to not blow out your thinned cords. By the time the key has gone up, you are doing D5-Eb5 and that needs to be about as thin as you can get your chest voice to go, and even more pushdown on the air to hold the pressure down.
Then there are the vowel mods and substitutions. Particularly we have the word "Livin'"repeated over and over on emphasized notes. The "ih" vowel is the enemy of singing when the note is high. It's too pinched and narrow for open throat singing. So we morph it into more of an "eh" which is wider and a little more open in the throat. It will be a hybrid, somewhere between an "ih" and an "eh", but you will feel more ease with "leh-veh-nah-nah-preh-eh" than Livin on a prayer. The vowel transitions will be easier for you, too, because we want to take the path of least resistance. That means that once you get to eh, then you go to ah, then back to eh, and you're done with that phrases. Go light on the consonants, too, and let it kind of become a contiguous phrase.
You'll have to find the right blend of eh and ih, but you will find less resistance when you do it this way.
Make sure you are doing the Clean Sound version of glottal compression to hold back the air.
You might want to practice that last higher chorus on the ah vowel first, then introduce the eh-ah-eh transitions, as well as seeing how you might pare down the tone somewhat.
Good job!
Bob
I can't make any technical comments I leave those to Bob
You really rock man. Great voice and sound.
Bob has already given you great advice, and i think that advice will give you more control on the higher parts too.
All the best,
Ben
I doubt my battle-scarred voice will ever hit the likes of that again, but I will take it as far as I can :-)
My biggest problem has always been too much weight in the voice (too much singing Metallica over the years!)
Had a gig last night and for the most part I kept it light up until this song and then pushed to hard again. I got through it OK but it would it would have been a lot easier If I'd have brightened it up. I'll really take on what you have said.
Thanks to everyone for your really nice comments!!
Dave.
Do you also sing while playing bass or guitar ?