How to not sing like doo doo?

[up-fiddler]

All the things people apply to improve their guitarskills can be used to improve and strenthen your voice as well:

Warm-up exercises

Just making sounds with your voice

Some basic breathing excercises

Sing scales [just play along with some of your guitarplaying]

Try to stand up as much as you can when you work on your singing, you will be naturally inclined to do so anyway, as your voice will project-and sound so much better.

Now most of the above is "work" and most of us dislike work eh? Yes that includes me as well...........

To have fun you could do this:

Play chordsequences on your keys or guitar, or on the bass [eh not chords here, just arpeggiating those thriads...............] and then, start singing melodies over them, just have fun with it, forget about technique and just enjoy.

After a while when you think you only sing rootnotes, then start to play around with the notes, timing and.....................

Before you know if you are 10 years later in your life.................

But seriously try it, it is not hard and just fun, but yep, it takes time and discipline.

Have fun man!!!

Great post.

 

[dgatwood]

I have found I have much better tone and timbre when i am singing at speaking volume. To hit certain notes at higher volumes, i almost have to yell like Mike Ness from Social Distortion. Is there any practicality or reason behind this?

You're probably not supporting the sound. Either that or you're singing outside your natural range and need to spend time building your range (and should probably rest your voice, as this could indicate significant vocal fatigue).

A good exercise is to put a heavy book on your stomach and push it up with your diaphragm muscles. As you breathe in, that book should rise. If it doesn't, you aren't breathing correctly.

Another good exercise is to put a piece of paper against the wall at arm's length. Pucker your lips and blow. You should be able to hold the paper against the wall with only your breath. If not, you aren't moving enough air. If necessary, move closer to the wall, but keep practicing until you can do this at three feet or so. Try to keep it up for at least a couple of seconds.

Another exercise: breathe in, taking a deep chest breath (moving your stomach out as you breathe in). Hiss. Try to keep this up as long as you can.

Another exercise is to breathe in, taking a deep chest breath. Once you have breathed in as far as you can, hold your breath for a couple of seconds, then start sipping air. Keep sipping for as long as you can stand it, then breathe out. This will help build long capacity.

Final exercise: breathe in deeply, then sing a single note for as long as you can hold it. Repeat. Try to increase the amount of time you hold the note each time you do this. Try to squeeze that last little bit of breath out.

Do these exercises regularly, and when you sing, be sure you have that same tension in your stomach muscles that you did when you were pushing the book up with your stomach. Basically, you should be pushing your stomach out while you are pulling it in.

 

[djhead]

You are a masochist All that shit hurts really bad 3 weeks of being smoke free.....

 

[FALKEN]

1. just project your voice clear across the room

2. find "your" voice. I can't cover ozzy. I can't cover sepultura. I can't cover 50 cent, or james brown. I can do a pretty good jim morrison and possibly some mick jagger. on a good day. I can sort of do fugazi. so I focus on what those guys do that sound good. that's the best advice I can give. don't try to sound like something you're not. find who you CAN do, and do what they do. then; change it to make it yours.

 

[cephus]

Good stuff here.

I was a terrible singer and I've gotten better. I practiced every day and sang into a tape recorder and forced myself to listen to it. If you want to sing as bad as I did, then you figure it out. I could have given up. I was that bad.

The thing that helped me most was not really about projection or scales or whatever. The way you shape your face affects the sound. I know that sounds retarded. But sometimes I stick my jaw out or try to flare my nostrils a bit to chance the tone OR pitch. If you look at witney houston when she sings, you can see how she is using her whole head as the resonator.

I have to admit, though. My natural singing voice sucks. I sound much better when I am doing an imitation of elvis or something. Like singing under an assumed voice. It's not that I sound like elvis. It's just that when I deliberately sing, it seems to work much better.