Do you practise singing?

[Lord hang man]

I find myself attempting to train my voice and singing my favorite songs, on a fairly regular basis. It's slow going, and it's degrading sometimes, but I wanna be able to freakin' sing.

So who here is a vocalist (not a whisperer for screamo music, GTFO), and can share some techniques for becoming a better singer with &Z? I'm sure there's more people here that would appreciate it too :)

[k8e]

I do all the time. Right now I'm singing "Watch It Crash" by Streetlight Manifesto.

[:MAD:ijuana]

^good song^^^^ ... i use to train my voice but i gave up on singing and started guitar:D

[k8e]

^good song^^^^ ... i use to train my voice but i gave up on singing and started guitar:D

I'm going to see them on the 22nd. :thumbsup:

[Lord hang man]

That is excellent I'm glad they can still tour after that bullshit with their equipment and van getting jacked..fans must be the best lol.

I just want to have a skill other than rapping, on the off chance that I don't make it as an illadephic MCee.

[k8e]

That is excellent I'm glad they can still tour after that bullshit with their equipment and van getting jacked..fans must be the best lol.

I just want to have a skill other than rapping, on the off chance that I don't make it as an illadephic MCee.

I wish I could rap, lol. I used to have this really nice keyboard, and I used to make beats and upload them onto my computer.

[Lord hang man]

You can, believe me. Any body can rap, go listen to some Ol Dirty Bastard, get the fuck down, and come back and tell me you don't have those skills. BAAABYY, BAAAAAAAABYYY, I CAN'T STOP

(ODB is the reason I started in the first place)

[:MAD:ijuana]

I'm going to see them on the 22nd. :thumbsup:

:mad: lucky... I saw them about 2 years ago, they were great:thumbsup:

[k8e]

:mad: lucky... I saw them about 2 years ago, they were great:thumbsup:

Awesome! i was hoping they'd have a good show. The tickets are only $16.00 too. :D

[Lord hang man]

So do you do any breathing exercises, or anything like that? What about trying to attain a better range, is that possible? am I just stuck with this bass-y ass voice forever?

[porqueno los dos?]

I'm pretty good with words, so can write lyrics and freestyle easy. I also wanna learn to sing because out of bass, guitar, drums and vocals, singers are easily the least abundant resource.

[Leonidas]

How experienced are you? Rookies will probably need to know about breathing and stuff, you know how to breathe correctly? That's a big part of singing, and actually singing with your mouth and not your nose and stuff like that....try find singing lessons in your area, surely they cant be that expensive

[Echidna]

I tried learning how to breathe right but I could never get it down. Sometimes it just sounds like I'm trying to hard. My current training regime is warm up in the shower and by the time I'm at the bar shit faced, I'll have an arm around a stranger belting out jumbled 80's rock.

[Leonidas]

Well basically the best advice I can give is this:

You need to breathe from the stomach, when you breathe normally, your ribcage moves up and out, you need to try and keep your shoulders steady and instead, let your stomach expand to cope with the breath. Then, to control volume you need to use your abdominal muscles, tightening them more and pulling them in will push more air out and increase your volume, without stressing your throat and ruining your voice.

Pitch is something you need to work on with an instrument, get a piano (preferably) or a guitar or something that isn't too cumbersome to hold. Then find your range. This is done by playing a note on the piano and singing that note, when you get to a note that is uncomfortable to sing or where you have to stretch to be able to sing it then this is outside your range. When you find your one or two octaves (if you are female usually it will be around middle C or a bit above that, or if male then it will be around C4 or around there), then start trying to get perfect pitch on them, do scales and such and sing the note when you play it. try to get each note perfect before you stretch your range. When you start singing, people will be more impressed if you can sing a few notes perfectly than alot of notes averagely.
Eventually after a few weeks once you get those first couple of octaves sweet then you can start to reach into lower and higher octaves, dont start on another two octaves, just one or a half of one, dont try falsetto if you are a male yet, its easier once you can sing with good pitch.

(sorry if this is getting a bit vague or whatever, its been a while since i did singing lessons)

Then just while you are going around the house or any alone time or anything when you are listening to your iPod, just start singing to normal songs (not Andrea Bocceli or anything just normal songs with easy range) and this will boost confidence and get you better with pitch.

There isn't much more I can recommend, its been almost a year since i took singing and you just spurred my mind about it, if there are any actual real singers here that can edit this please do.

[lolocaust]

on top of what El Tigre said, I'd recommend getting a hymnal or something for sight singing and learning solfege.

[Leonidas]

^^ Yes! i forgot that, i knew there was something :hrmph:

[hooloovoo]

Honestly, singing is such a physical thing that you're not really going to learn much by reading text instructions. Since you can't actually see your own technique in practice (the chords and key muscles, as well as areas of resonance, ect are all internal) a good instructor will often give you imaginary visual aids, in order to get you on the right track to produce a good tone.

e.g., to rid tone of airiness: "Imagine as you are singing that you are drawing in a single thread from across the room into your mouth."

To expand head resonance: "Imagine a cathedral-like space extending about two feet above your head- start on a hum and send the sound spinning in that space above your head before opening into an 'ah.'"

But instructions like these would be given by a skilled and insightful voice teacher, who knows how the instrument works- based on what they are seeing and hearing you do to produce tone, and how they can best help you to modify your approach.

Some basic tips for anyone and everyone though:

Singing should never engage your throat muscles. If you feel tension in that area, stop! You are damaging your voice. Drink some water, give yourself a breather, and start again focusing on your breath. A quick fix if you feel your throat starting to engage is to breath in deeply on an "ah" sound, which should open your throat back up- you should feel the air rushing down the sides.

Breathing should come from your diaphragm. Stand in front of a mirror and breath in deeply. If your shoulders move, that means you are taking shallow chest breaths and not using your lung capacity. Try to keep them still. Practice sucking in a long, slow breath as though you were taking in air through a straw.

You can also try putting your hands on the sides of your lower ribs. When you breath in, your ribcage expanding should push your hands outward. When you exhale, breath out on a "ssss" sound. Count how many seconds you can push out steady air for. Try and improve your count.

Everyone, regardless of style and type, has a core voice of their natural tone and placement that they need to develop before broadening their instrument. Start with songs that are the most comfortable for your type and register. Don't push or over stylize too much at first.

[beergoggles]

Geeze, I've been singing since I was a kid. It's just all about practice, and learning how to shape your voice.

I've never had formal training, so I can't really explain it. If I hear my voice through a P.A. or headphones I seem to be able to control it better.

[Nick]

As for improving range; it's my understanding that doing good warmups several times a day(lip rolls!) and just singing properly as much as possible will slowly but surely get you those elusive high notes!

Do you know your range?

[The Jitterskull]

I want to learn singing but I can't, my voice is sort of fucked from years of acid reflux. I can talk normally, but I can't hit high notes or anything-- so I just didn't attempt.

Sad too, now I want to learn it but I can't.

[hooloovoo]

I want to learn singing but I can't, my voice is sort of fucked from years of acid reflux. I can talk normally, but I can't hit high notes or anything-- so I just didn't attempt.

Sad too, now I want to learn it but I can't.

Is the acid reflux gone now? For how long? The body has remarkable healing powers- you might be good to try again after a year or so. I've known a couple girls that had serious issues with bulemia in their teens, but after recovering went on to have amazing voices- one just got into a reeeeeally prestigious graduate program for classical voice and premiers tons of new music- she's pretty much guaranteed a career.

So just saying- there might be hope.

[Lord hang man]

Thanks guys! You've all been infinitely helpful. (even if i didnt thank you, I'm still thanking you :hrmph:)