Preparing for performing

tylerbtn

Hey, guys. Just joined. I'm performing a cover of Man In The Box by Alice In Chains this coming Monday. Sometimes the high belted notes in the chorus give me a little trouble though. Any tips on preparing your voice for live shows? I know everyones voice is different, but I'm open to any ideas!

highmtn

That's a pretty broad question, @tylerbtn. Be sure you are going to performs songs that are well-within your current capabilities and range, and that you have rehearsed the material well. Don't wear out your voice the day before or the day of your performance.

All the Best!

Bob

Furious_Phil

Tyler,

That is a tough song to perform! I think there is a YouTube video of Ken teaching the nuances of it to one of our crew (Gabrielle?).

I can speak to this as a little I am currently working on this piece for my band. You need to learn (hyper) glottal compression to do this without hurting yourself... the distortion Layne used sounds closer to a sustained vocal "fry". This is a chore to sustain for the main verse, but when you modulate up into the "Feed my eyes, can you sew them shut?" chorus, it becomes allot more difficult to bring the fry up there, as it is entering the head voice zone... so for now, I have to do it relatively clean, as compared tot he vocal fry of the verse.

Basically it is a challenging piece to do right and safely, and a great piece to damage your voice on if you try to mimic his distortion full voice.

As Bob said, keep within your current capabilities and range.
Drink lots of water when practicing, and especially before/during the show
Only do a moderate warm-up the day before, and right before the show...
Don't go onstage cold (without warming your vocals up)

That's all I can think of right now,

Break a leg

Phillip

tylerbtn

Thanks, Bob and Phillip. I forgot to mention it's for a karaoke contest. I really wanna win the thing because the top prize is $500! I actually decided to record a full instrumental a whole step down and I'm nailing the chorus when I practice it. The chorus in the original tuning is pretty much my high note threshold of range currently, so this whole step down version will work perfectly.