lol...never thought Id be saying this. but i have a dillemma here...

[WEBCYAN]

i really got interested in recording my own music a while ago. Since then I have been singing alot.

I have perfected my voice to the point where I scare my friends by sounding EXACTLY like kurt cobain. I mean, I sound just like him singing. However....

As much as i like Nirvana, Im begining to raise Orgy to my list of most favorite band. I think vocalist Jay Gordon is amazing.
Im working right now on trying to get my voice to sound like his, but I have a problem.

Because of my 3 years or so of emmulating kurt I have developed what seems to be a permanent sandpaper quality to my voice when i sing high notes. I can sing low notes smoothly, but the high end stuff starts to get gritty.

Jay Gordons vocals are totally clean all the way through. There isnt any grittyness to them at all.

So, my question is, have I permanently damaged my voice, or is there hope?

[Gidge]

one might hope that you find YOUR OWN voice.....

[WEBCYAN]

hehe... I know that.

I guess I was misleading. I dont want to Sound just like him. I just want to take away the grittyness of my voice. But the more I think about it the more Im realizing that its just not going to happen..

[Gidge]

"I think vocalist Jay Gordon is amazing.
Im working right now on trying to get my voice to sound like his"......ok......

[Gidge]

you may wanna seek out a vocal coach/teacher to help you get YOUR voice back......and when you find it, keep YOUR voice.....

[WEBCYAN]

youre a bit ruthless....

I just meant the tonal quality of his voice, ok?

[Nadelius]

He does have one point... you have to get you own stile... without it you'll often find yourself writing songs that seem to allready exist...

Try singing the soft stuff from harder bands... when you get to the high parts just sing quietly... you'll find that your voice is more controlable at lower volume.

The same thing happened to me a few years back... later I tried to sing to Don't Cry from Gun's Roses... at first I was really quiet. With a lot of practice you slowly get louder. Now I can sing most of the stuff from Led Zeppelin at the original tone.

[Brad]

Hey, isn't there a plug-in that comes with pirated versions of Cool Edit Pro that will remove grit from a vocal?

HA! Just kidding, that was mean - I'm sorry.

But seriously, I have never heard of this dilemma. It is usually "My voice isn't gritty enough" and my advice is to smoke and drink a lot - and when you drink, make sure it is cheap bourbon or 100 proof vodka, and when it is cheap bourbon or 100 proof vodka, make sure you are near the ocean and it is like 3 or 4 in the morning (patented S8-N vocal technique, his grit is a little more convincing than KC's).

So, I guess my advice would be not to smoke or drink a lot and since I am aware of your starving student status from another thread, I won't suggest a vocal coach, but maybe you can kill some elective credit by taking a voice class at school?

Brad

[Cyrokk]

How are you singing those high notes? Are you using falsetto or chest register?

I've developed a great (to my ears) grovel to my voice but it only comes after singing that way for a song or two to warm it up.. For awhile I noticed that I couldn't sing clean until a couple of hours after I stopped singing with the grovel.. So unless you are a chain-smoker, the smoothness will return..

I think the key is to back off a bit on the grovel and let it just become part of your style when you sing.. You should also know just how high you can sing and maintain that raspiness.. at a certain point, the notes will be so high that you won't be able to sing that way and you will need to back off on the volume and completely relax your vocal cords.. Anything higher and you should try to go with falsetto..

And if you have questions about falsetto, ask a vocal teacher, because no one here knows jack about falsetto.. or at least know how to reply to such a question about this particular technique without making silly, stupid-ass comments.

Cy