Lose raspy voice after 2 songs or so

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six

six

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Hi there

Lately I've been more and more able to produce a slightly raspy voice (in a hard rock style, no new metal/rock growl). I've even come to a point where it is easier for me to sing raspy than to sing "clean"... but for some strange reasons this voice only "lasts" for a song or two. Afterwards it's clean. It's like I change from Axl Rose to Vince Neil... and I don't like that too much.

Whenever I warm up before singing (i.e. sing scales and stuff) the rasp is gone too, so it might be connected to my "cold" voice. but what could I do to preserve the rasp?

if you need an audio example of my voice, go to my soundclick page. recording "all the reasons" I sang this way for the first time - kind of discovered it then. if you listen closely you will hear the loss of rasp during the song (besides the fact that the vocal performance isn't too good ;) ).
for a good example choose "today" - but there's no loss of rasp.

cheers
six
 
the raspy voice that you are making is not your natural voice, my guess is you have stuff in your throat that makes the rasp and after a bit of singing you clear it out.

try drinking honey or maples syrup before you record/sing and swallow army men on a daily basis.

lol, but seriously, theres nothing you can do about it if this is the case. if i need a rough voice, scream into a pillow at the top of my lungs (at the absolute highest pitch i can make, to the point of it sounding like a whispering scream), do that a few times and you have quite a rough voice.
 
To keep the rasp, smoke forty a day and start hitting the straight liquor. Your vocals will be like sandpaper on gravel.

Seriously, if you are dedicated to your music, and if it is practical, here's a solution. Paul McCartney, not a man known for his gravelly throat, needed a rough sound for Oh Darling, from the Abbey Road album. To get it, he slept under the piano in the studio in order to awaken early in the morning (like 5 or 6) and start singing before his voice was warmed up naturally for the day. Check out the song, it's a million miles away from When I'm 64 or Let it Be. Thank God.
 
This can be seriously bad for your vocal cords, and may even lead to the development of nodes. I know because this happened to a friend of mine and she had to go through a lot to restore her voice. So unless you want to sound like Tom Waits for the rest of your life, whether singing or talking, you need to rethink your approach.
 
MadAudio said:
This can be seriously bad for your vocal cords, and may even lead to the development of nodes. I know because this happened to a friend of mine and she had to go through a lot to restore her voice. So unless you want to sound like Tom Waits for the rest of your life, whether singing or talking, you need to rethink your approach.
Click to expand...

hes right, there's tricks of the trade that will get you quick doses of what your asking for as posted above, and for the longest time, i was the same way. I wanted a toneless scream (chino), and strong highs (incubus singer, etc), you get the point, but today im 10x the singer i was then because i stopped trying to sound like something i didnt and started building my writing around what i ACTUALLY sounded like.

it sounds boring to just sound like normal, but after enough work with it, your normal voice will fit something someday, you just have to find it:

if you build it they will come. build it dude... build it. ;)
 
I think it's called warming up. Most singers do it BEFORE they start on tunes.. :D
 
Want rasp in your voice? Try singing in a smoke filled bar 3 or 4 nights a week for 20 years or so. Don't forget to use a PA that has about half the power you need so you have to scream and yell a lot just to be heard over the rest of the band. Meanwhile raise 4 or 5 kids, you will have plenty of opportunities to yell and develope a gritty snarling voice which gets their attention. The drawback to this method is by the time you get that voice you want you are so old the only place where you can get a gig is in some dingy smoke filled bar and you find that gritty voice scares the hell out of your grandkids.
On a more realistic note, why not develope your natural voice? Don't worry so much about sounding like someone else (unless you want to spend your musical life in a tribute band.) All those people you are trying to emulate had to develope their own voice and style, so do you.
For a "quick fix" order a shot of brandy (or other sweet liquor) and down about half of it before the song, down the rest during a break in the song. Just don't use this method more than a couple of times a night or you might not only get a little added rasp but you will also get a lot of slur and loss of balance.
 
MadAudio said:
So unless you want to sound like Tom Waits for the rest of your life, whether singing or talking, you need to rethink your approach.
Click to expand...

I would pay to sound like that!
 
hey guys... did i say i wanted to sound like someone? furthermore - what is one's "natural" voice. the one we speak with?

dani, you say "All those people you are trying to emulate had to develope their own voice and style". do I try to emulate anyone or even a bunch of people? believe me, I want my own style. i'm not the kind of guy who wants to nail this or that player's guitar tone, because I see no point in it. and the same goes for vocals. that doesn't mean i'm not impressed by some things some singers do, and I'd be happy to be able to produce something similar (for example dave lee roth's high squeeks or whatever). the thing with "my personal" rasp is: i didn't try to sound like that or forced anything - it just turned up someday and the good thing is: i don't have to sing loud or apply any pressure. and now I just wonder how to preserve it for longer.
does that brandy-trick really work? i once saw nazareth live and I wondered if the singer really drank whiskey or just iced tea... must have been whiskey thus - man, that voice is rotten, it really hurt me!
 
It is always interesting how we as singers often don't like our voice or want to sound more like (whoever) or try to have our own "style" (which still means we want to sound like someone else).

I must suspect that if the rasp goes away after singing a little bit, it does indicate when your voice warms up your "natural tone" is cleaner than you wish. That's your style, learn to work with it.

I have a raspy singing voice (somewhere betwwen Joe Cocker and Springsteen) in large part by following the Dani Pace technique of screaming into crappy PA systems, for the first 20 years or my musical life, in smoke filled bars, while drinking mass amounts of booze and smoking a disturbingly large amount of mind altering substances. I've never have a problem with nodes although I expected to. However, I have lost a lot of grey matter :eek:

People think I have a good R & B voice - but I don't like my voice and would love to have a smoother sound. The grass is always greener.
 
<rant on>
see how emulating a musician you like is a problem. In fact, just about every good musician I know of developed their style by doing exactly that, and over time you develop your own style.

I know I have emulated just about ever musician I could and ended up incorporating their styles into mine. In fact, I believe that one's own persoanl stlye comes as a synthesis of those you idolized, studied, and emulated.

Developing a decent personal style takes time and work. It doesn't happen overnight, and it doesn't happen consciously.

If someone were to come to me and say "you sound like Freddie (Hubbard) or Clifford (Brown) or Tim (Hagens) (just to name a few), I would be honoured and pleased.

In general, my experience has been that people who say "I don't emulate anybody, I have my own style" are usually the ones who sound most like someone else.
</rant off>
 
fraserhutch: i do think in the same direction. you know, i'm still more of a guitar-player/songwriter than a singer, and with playing the guitar it's exactly the same. you listen to other players, play their chops, and if you're not too narrow-minded you hop to develop your own style.

mikeh: i think you're quite right about not liking one's own voice. nevertheless I started to like my voice... with the rasp in the high register :p .

some of you said the rasp might be the cold voice whereas the clean sound is the warmed-up voice. but then I wonder why i'm able to preserve that rasp longer than just half a year ago or so.
and here's another thing: it works best between around f# and maybe a below high C. above that it disappears too. ok, i don't really sing there but now and then...
 
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