Attn. Dragon-How about a singer's forum?

  • Thread starter Thread starter chessparov
  • Start date Start date
smellyfuzz, one place to check out is www.spebsqsa.org
Their phone number is (800) 876-SING. (male singing only)
It's the official barbershop singing organization in the United States. As far as I know, each chapter is very supportive of both
experienced and new singers. IMHO, other than getting your feet wet, barbershop (& other) choruses are a springboard into meeting other singers to do 4 part acapella singing that most all
chapters promote in addition. 4 part type singing will be the
fastest learning curve, rather than leaning on the other singers
in a choral section.

P.S. Also, IMHO, one of the biggest mistakes bands make is to
try to make the lead singer build his or hers sound around
the band. Instead, if we look around at the vast majority
of commercially successful bands, the band is built around
the SINGER!! (that's what most of the listening audience
listen to anyway)
 
This is where getting away from covers and moving towards original stuff will help you considerably. Write songs in your "comfort range". The band can play in any key... If you must, you can inject some style from your favorites, but it is also so much more fun when you aren't trying to be _____insert vocalist's name here_____ and can just be yourself.

Queue
 
I was a voice major in college for a while until I decided to major in zoology. I know alot about singing "nicely". Is there any way you can sing like bands such as System of A Down and Tool (scream and sing etc.) without developing nodes and damaging your voice? Does any book have info on this?
 
Jamie, even though those are two well known groups, I have to confess ignorance on
hearing their material. Having said that, however, the safe answer is that abusing your
voice by screaming is extremely risky-there's a good chance you'll damage it permanently. Of course it's understandable that a group or solo artist making millions
of dollars may tempted to keep doing it! I once asked a famous european voice coach/
former opera singer about this topic. He said he was already approached by a major
league hard rock group, and they were trying to integrate "proper" technique with
hard rock singing. He was very open-minded about this, however, he admitted that
so far they had not worked it out and he doubted they would ever. (He never told me
the group name, it could have been The Scorpians as he was teaching in Germany)

Some singers like Bob Seger, Robert Plant, etc. have natural ("ballsy") voices that are
made for rock and roll. It's a mistake for more melodic singers (like me!) to try to
imitate them, if you'll forgive the analogy-kind of like the difference in tone of an electric guitar vs. an acoustic. One way to go for melodic singers to go would be to have "rock and roll" instrumentation as background to lay their vocals on top of ala
Steve Perry. Another aid can be to study R & B music (like Mick Jagger did) to develop
a more authentic rock and roll "accent" (Mick's a lyric baritone by the way), rather than
pushing the voice.
 
trying to integrate "proper" technique with hard rock singing
Click to expand...

I'm guessing Pat Benatar's one of the few who ever pulled this off. Although some might say her music wasn't "hard rock". Compared to Tool and SOAD, I'd have to call Ms. Benatar pop-Rock, but she certainly had some proper technique.

Jamie,
Don't bother being the next Tool or SOAD, make your own sound. That sound is on its way out, the market is flooded at this point. Be unique, be something new.

Queue
 
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