Dave Grohl?

Jockster

One of my musical heroes is Dave Grohl from Foo Fighters. He's one of the reasons (if not the only) i took up singing.

I am curious about his technique and read somewhere on your site that he has been taking lessons from Ron Anderson and that he uses the same stuff that is taught in KTVA. Somewhere on this forum i also read in one of your responses that he is using false vocal chords (which i don't know what it is). I have noticed he can sing vey gentle on some songs and scream like a demon on others (White Limo for example, .http://youtu.be/RP6iFgknLO8)
What is your opinion on his technique?

highmtn

Jockster,

Dave Grohl is a very exciting and dynamic vocalist.  Some of his work, like the tune you posted should only be attempted after you have fully mastered all levels of the Tamplin method, with emphasis on mastering Glottal Compression. 

In this tune he sounds like he is literally shredding his vocal cords.  "Sounds like" is the key.  It is an effect.  You don't want to actually do that to your cords, full-on, or you could damage them for life.  Be very careful with this stuff.  It's quite volatile. 

That said, this is the one and only place that is going to teach you how to protect your voice and still sound like you're screaming at 130 decibels.  Again "sound like"... The sound is what matters, and you can still keep your voice healthy. 

Kids, don't try this at home, until you've actually got it going on.  It can be learned, but you have to get it right to keep from blowing out your voice.  Dave must have learned to do it right, because he's still singing, last I heard.   Just make sure you learn the safe way to make these sounds before you get in front of a wall of amplifiers and try to out scream them!

Bob

sspatrick

Dave sounds great.  If he was doing this incorrectly, he would be done singing for about a week after this 1 song!  You do have to be very careful when distorting the voice, you are stressing the chord now matter how safely you are doing it.  distortion takes tonnes and tonnes of support, and massive regulation of air.  I wouldn't try it until you can get a strong clean tone.  Its not that it can't be done, you have to make sure your technique is excellent before you dive in.

david1552

I like Dave Grohl, but I am more into his acoustic songs. 

Times Like These Acoustic is one of my favorites!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=mVm8jPBhmMU

//David

ragnar

Isn't Grohl basically semi-growling after the octave-jump? That's what it sounds like to me and in any case I would personally rather have it sung cleanly or with some good ol' rasp or compression; not too fond of that sound personally, but Grohl is definitely a brilliant songwriter and an awesomely cool guy.

david1552

@johnjohn

John, that's cool, a great song. I've played it at a wedding many years ago. Good songs sounds even better acoustic

Regarding the distorted vocal section near the end, I could never do that (yet) so I would just sing it like @ragnar says cleanly - and I agree that he's a brilliant songwriter!

//David 

david1552

@johnjohn

I have seen Grohl several times and I always was a bit amazed that he could sing quite softly and then scream in songs like Breakout and then do a soft acoustic version of Times Like These or Everlong and his voice would just be like he never screamed in his life (Soft, bright)

I think it's tempting to scream sometimes when you feel that you can do it BUT after I started with KTVA I'm not that keen anymore. I want to build that proper support and technique before I rush into "screaming"

As of now some days it's just completely impossible to add that extra pressure to the voice for glottal compression and suddenly it's no problem at all... I come to realize that the more I know about singing the less I know if that makes sense.

I am really thankful that we have this excellent forum where many questions are answered and it's truly impressive to see the progress everybodys making here. I'm proud to be part of KTVA and that members are sharing their progress. Sorry if it's a bit off-topic I couldn't resist!

//David

 

 

bluesbird

I'd hate to be the devil's advocate, but if you've seen him sing live (lots of youtube videos) or have the foo fighters live CD, you'd see that he can't sing at all live. Meaning that he probably does all that "gro-hling" the wrong way and apparently, yes he probably couldn't speak for a week after that...!!

bluesbird

@johnjohn: I'm sure he uses technique to some point, otherwise yes he would have cancelled most shows!! But this is just to show that he's not mastered what he does. Take Mike Patton for example. He squeels and growls and screams and then he sings Delilah by Tom Jones, in the same key, and nails it, night after night after night!! Never seen a bad performance by him. Grohl has a dramatically higher percentage of bad performances than of good ones. What he tries to do in his singing is dangerous if not done right. I insist so much on this for one reason only: I used to sing like him, and paid the price!!! Hahahaha!!

bluesbird

@johnjohn Yup I did!! I ended up singing high chesty B4 (you can check out the live vocal demonstration I have posted), but this of course didn't make me the singer I can be yet. I still sounded kinda weird, and dark. The way to go is Einstein's way: You can't achieve new things if you keep going the old way!!

 Ken's system has already transformed me tremendously during the last month and hopefully this will continue. I realized it's not about range, elliminating breaks, support, making sounds, singing is about actually employing all that in a certain way. And Ken makes it so simple. The vowel mods are a life saver...!!

ragnar

@johnjohn

Well that's really a style thing wouldn't you say? If your favorite sound is say Chris Cornell in his prime then slam that chest up as high as you can. If you prefer a Myles Kennedy then that's all mix baby haha  

I personally find it impossible to discuss chest/mix sounds with words alone since everyone has such a different perception of where which starts/ends.
Take a listen to "Man In The Box" by Alice In Chains for example. The chorus is a buttload of B4s, do you consider those as chest or mix?

bluesbird

@johnjohn Well, the video I've posted in the vocal demonstrations is "The thrill is gone" and it's live. You can check out for yourself, but I have to clarify that all this is BEFORE I joined KTVA. Had no idea about vowel mods at the time!!! Hahahaha!!! I believe it is a mix with more chest and less head in it. 

I believe that the ultimate tone comes from using compression. As you go higher and the airflow is more controlled, the easier the mix becomes.And yes, the modifications (now that I'm actually doing my homework) are before B4. It's the correct finessing via the mods that allows the voice to go through the passagio, so I'm certain that they have to be done right on the notes that Ken says in the exercises. But as @ragnar very well put it, you can sing full chest, or go in the mix, if your voice allows you, depending on your singing personality!! And I'm pretty sure that you can go all the way in full chest up to B if you do the mods correctly and you're not impatient with the exercises. Doing so in open vowels with no mods is catastrophic!! The English language helps a lot in these things. When we had the 30' free lesson with Ken (the one Margarita won in the competition) Ken very wisely pointed out that the Greek language is full of dark vowels, thus for us Greeks fellas it's in our nature of speech to sing in a darker way.But your language really helps you in all the modifications and bright singing in the first place!!

The way I see it (from what I've distilled out of what Ken says) we must first have a strong chest voice and do the exercises very persistently in order to build the bridge. The mix will come when the bridge is solid, and our voice will settle at it's best sounding and more comfortable position in the mix, once the bridge is strong. I also believe that when this time comes, we'll be able to have the percentage of chest to head that we please in the mix. Time will tell, and I'm only tagging ragnar here in order to read this and correct any miscoceptions of my thinking!!