What should i do to practice my vocals?

[jerzeysk8board]

What techniques , or anything to make my vocals sound clear and better.
Please make any suggestions

 

[Rokket]

What techniques , or anything to make my vocals sound clear and better.
Please make any suggestions

Do a google search for "free vocal lessons". There are several sites that will give you advice on how to better your techniques. Most of them preach that you have to be in shape physically to improve and offer simple techniques for conditioning your body and your voice, tips on breathing and on practicing.

The best thing is a vocal coach.

But with them, as with anything else, research. You have to make sure that they are teaching you correctly, and not just bleeding you for money. If you are still with them after a few months and haven't improved, it's a good indicator right there.

Good luck with it!

 

[Dogman]

Practice, Practice Practice. The vocal lessons are very important if you want to improve. They can show you what you are doing wrong, and how to correct it. As Rokket stated, find a good, and trustworthy , vocal coach. Practice will help immmensly, as it does with any instument. You will need a teacher, at least to show you some technique. If you can find a local coach, especially one that knows the genre of music you wish to do, this would be best. I've been trying some lessons I bought online, and they are ok, but mainly just excercises to help me stay on key, and breath better. When I feel I have progressed somewhat, and if I choose to be our vocalist full time, I will need to find someone to go to that can really provide me with some help.

Good luck.
Ed

 

[Rokket]

Hey, good point, Dogman. I forgot to mention genre. An opera teacher won't help you sing emo... It's important to find one that will teach you to sing the style of music you want to sing (although if being well rounded is a concern, learning opera can't really hurt you).
Mariah Carey's mother was an opera singer, and that's where she learned to do that falcetto scream thing she does....








EDIT: oops, I said eno, not emo.....

 

[v0ltaire]

what should i do to practice my vocals?

listen to an enormous amount of jeff buckley seriously, believe in yourself. find your own voice. maybe hum along with a few chord progressions on piano or guitar. this will let your head and your voice shake hands =) good luck!

 

[Dogman]

The humming thing with chords or even a song playing is one of the excercises I have been told to do. Probably a good place to start, as v0ltaire has stated.

 

[Rokket]

The humming thing with chords or even a song playing is one of the excercises I have been told to do. Probably a good place to start, as v0ltaire has stated.

I do that too. And eventually start to sing along, quietly.

One other important thing: if it starts to hurt, STOP. You can do a lot of damage to your vocal chords if you are not careful.

 

[ez_willis]

Most of them preach that you have to be in shape physically to improve and offer simple techniques for conditioning your body and your voice, tips on breathing and on practicing.

You can skip over these sites entirely..... see Pavarotti for info on why.

The hardest part of singing for me is the confidence factor. You kinda have to just go for it, hell, Bob Dylan did and look where it got him!

 

[candela]

My first post

Find what your vocal range is. And sing within that range. Until you can experiment with lower or higher notes outside your range. Make a recording of yourself singing so you can hear what you sound like. We all have unique voices or timbre. Of course the more time you put into it the better you'll sound. Good luck.

 

[andyhix]

I bought a book a while back and it has helped. It was actually 'singing for dummies' as lame as that is. It came with a CD and had some decent exercises. Like most stuff I do though, I didn't really stick with it or get past the first few chapters, but i think it actually helped. Although I got berated by most people here by suggesting that you could improve your singing without a teacher. I found it to help some though - not as good as lessons, I'm sure, but definitely some. YMMV

 

[jfrog]

One other important thing: if it starts to hurt, STOP.

Do you mean hurting yourself....or those around you?


(sorry - I couldn't help it!)

 

[Rokket]

Do you mean hurting yourself....or those around you?


(sorry - I couldn't help it!)

That's funny.

But seriously, it's probably both!

 

[Guitar Jim]

The best advice I can give is NEVER, EVER try to *force* your voice to do anything..... that's something that'll lead you down a one way road to nowhere. You can't improve your voice by trying to twist, bend or manipulate it. If singing with ease and flexibility doesn't come naturally to you, and to probably 99% of people it doesn't, then it's vitally important to understand the differences between chest voice, mix voice ( which is a blend of chest voice and head voice ) and head voice..... actually when singing properly there is only *one* voice from the bottom to the top of your range and the different "voices" stated above merely represent the physical sensations the singer feels as he/she sings from low to high. A lot of people confuse "head" voice with "falsetto"; they are different; head voice is strong, loud and clear while falsetto is weak and breathy.
ALL the really good singers never strain or force their voices ( although some, especially in the rock field, may *appear* to strain their voices BUT the reality is they really don't.... they can only reach those notes or scream those screams because the parts of the vocal apparatus that need to be relaxed are relaxed).
Good, easy singing is all about relaxation and not straining, regardless of whether the singer screams or croons.

 

[goldtopchas]

I agree with the above post. There is a guy from Pittsburgh that I used to see once in a while(Donni Iris) This guy has the best controlled scream in the buisiness. He does it in nearly every song, and yet has a silky quality as well. No shit,he sounds like he's gonna drop a nut,but you can tell he knows exactly how to do it with out hurting himself. It's definitly something that was "learned" not just thrown out there on his own.

 

[jfrog]

I agree with the above post. There is a guy from Pittsburgh that I used to see once in a while(Donni Iris) This guy has the best controlled scream in the buisiness. He does it in nearly every song, and yet has a silky quality as well. No shit,he sounds like he's gonna drop a nut,but you can tell he knows exactly how to do it with out hurting himself. It's definitly something that was "learned" not just thrown out there on his own.

Ah, Leah!

Yeah, Donny can scream!

 

[Rokket]

The best advice I can give is NEVER, EVER try to *force* your voice to do anything..... that's something that'll lead you down a one way road to nowhere. You can't improve your voice by trying to twist, bend or manipulate it. If singing with ease and flexibility doesn't come naturally to you, and to probably 99% of people it doesn't, then it's vitally important to understand the differences between chest voice, mix voice ( which is a blend of chest voice and head voice ) and head voice..... actually when singing properly there is only *one* voice from the bottom to the top of your range and the different "voices" stated above merely represent the physical sensations the singer feels as he/she sings from low to high. A lot of people confuse "head" voice with "falsetto"; they are different; head voice is strong, loud and clear while falsetto is weak and breathy.
ALL the really good singers never strain or force their voices ( although some, especially in the rock field, may *appear* to strain their voices BUT the reality is they really don't.... they can only reach those notes or scream those screams because the parts of the vocal apparatus that need to be relaxed are relaxed).
Good, easy singing is all about relaxation and not straining, regardless of whether the singer screams or croons.

A couple examples though, of those that did hurt themselves and are feeling the effects of overdoing it: Axl Rose and Sebastian Bach. Both of them have lost the edge in their voices from overdoing the screaming thing improperly and for too long. Like you said, for some it comes natural, but even if it is "natural", you can still overdo it. Could you imaging having to sing Skid Row songs every night for 6 months straight? It can tear you down eventually...

 

[ez_willis]

Could you imaging having to sing Skid Row songs every night for 6 months straight? It can tear you down eventually...

Psychologically more so than physically!

 

[jeap]

i think the toughest part is having a good place to practice without feeling self-conscious. like if you have whiny neighbors or people you live with. a basement room can be good. the best practice i got was with vocal practice tapes in my car while i was delivering pizzas. i was singing for hours and getting good practice while getting paid

 

[Rokket]

Psychologically more so than physically!

LMAO!!! It's funny too, because they kicked him out of the band because of his ego. He's singing on broadway now.....

 

[Rokket]

i think the toughest part is having a good place to practice without feeling self-conscious. like if you have whiny neighbors or people you live with. a basement room can be good. the best practice i got was with vocal practice tapes in my car while i was delivering pizzas. i was singing for hours and getting good practice while getting paid

I get away with it because I grab my guitar and sit on the couch and just play and sing. My wife loves my voice (yeah, she's biased), and my daughter is a natural. She can sing in key at 3 years old. If I don't help her develop that I need to be shot. But I can sit there with her for hours and just sing anything that pops into my head. I play "Twinkle, twinkle, little star" for my daughter in different keys and she picks it up almost every time. Myself, I tend to stay with keys that I am comfortable with, since I started singing late in life. That's important too, learning your range and staying in it until you learn to grow. It's important to be able to sing in any key, but it's also important to know your limitations...