Metal Reviews

These are mostly for myself to reference when I have difficulty, but if anyone else gets anything out of it, so be it:

Tip #1 - Don't sing when your voice is tired. You will end up trying to compensate because you won't be able to hit the notes the right way and eventually bad technique will take root and become bad habit.

Tip #2 - The voice should have an intense, rich amplified effect. This is easy to do right. Say "ahhh" from your throat as easily with as little effort as possible. Then fill your lungs completely until your gut sticks out, repeat, but this time relax your throat and push the air in from your stomach. You should find you do not have to exert any force from your throat the second time, but instead, you are trying to hold the voicebox steady to maintain the airflow from pushing the vocals higher. The voicebox should be resisting the massive airflow to allow the air to vibrate the vocal folds

Tip #3 - This is impossible to explain correctly, but the airflow going down vibrating the diaphragm and the airflow coming up to vibrate the vocal cords should match in "intensity" and make the voice much louder, clearly defined and forces cancellation of shrill higher frequencies and lower chesty undertones. Record the waveforms and check the cycles, if they are uneven then one or the other is getting too much vibration. this is usually caused by there not being enough diaphragm excursion OR airflow vibrating the nasal passages in falsetto. If done right the lowest notes should sound about the same as the highest notes in tone.

Tip #4 - You can easily adjust the timbre of your voice by moving the voicebox up or down slightly. This is the super easy way to change key if you can master your voice in more than one "voicing" for the same set of notes. A great singer can change keys, not by hitting different notes but by simply shifting every note accordingly. But you will essentially have to relearn how to sing for every new timbre you want to use since this method essentially is like bending the notes and changing their frequency. An "A" might very well be a "B" if sung in the exact same way, but with a "higher" timbre.

Tip #5 - If your voice does not sound right, add more weight, and by that I mean sing in a lower, more bass heavy tone. Essentially, If you want to have a great voice sing as bass-heavy as possible. If you want your voice to sound annoying, sing in the wrong register. I tried for years to get around having a very bass-heavy baritone speaking voice and absolutely nothing you will do will ever make you sound like a tenor with a thin sparkly voice. If you have a deep voice, you are most definitely going to have to go to the Geoff Tate/Bruce Dickinson school.

The issue here is the length of the vocal chords. If you have shallow vocal chords like Michele Luppi or Andre Matos, only then will you get anywhere close to their high pitched tone.

Phase cancellation will essentially deaden the bassiness of a note if sung high enough, BUT THE NOTE STILL MUST BE COMING FROM THE WHOLE VOCAL CORD LENGTH. This is the most difficult thing in singing because high notes do not sound bass heavy and at times they don't even sound chesty or husky sounding, so generally singers make the mistake of not letting high notes come from the gut, but the nose and throat

Tip#6 - When I say rich amplified effect, your voice should be loud enough to cut through a 100 watt amp easily.

Tip#7 - If you aren't drinking 20 ounces of water 3 hours prior to singing and every hour until and during practice, your throat is dry. Especially if you smoke weed or cigarettes. This issue is somewhat controversial, opera and classical singers insisting smoking is the bane of a singers existence, while historically hundreds of amazing singers have smoked and have no ill effect from it. Some singers have trouble singing in their natural timbre when their voice is not deepened by the smoking. Typically bad singers suffer from smoking. The vocal chords are kept in a sheath when not used, so inhaling anything is not going to bother them. This is a hydration issue. Add enough water and the smoking does absolutely nothing negative to your voice except it takes away the bad technique crutch non-smokers generally get away with.

Tip#8 - There is a lot of confusion associated with the word "falsetto."

To make things simple, it is a hollow sounding quality to the voice, not a register or a technique. I'm guilt of this all the time. I consider anything above my natural speaking voice's break to be "falsetto" even though physically and technically it is not. It feels exactly like falsetto though, which is why everyone is so damn confused.

I asked my friend for tips a month or so ago and she said it boils down to if it hurts don't do it, and if it sounds good do it more.

Slowly coming to terms with the fact that my voice is low and more of Johnny Cash than a Cedric Bixler or Thom Yorke and it is making me sad. But I agree that struggling with it doesn't help a whole lot. There was one day where I thought "wow I'm doing the high stuff and it sounds great!" but I haven't gotten back into that situation yet.

I recorded myself singing for the first time in 6~ months today and discovered my voice is very boring. Might be because the recording was very low volume though.

vis falsetto: At first I though my head voice was my falsetto, now I'm not really sure what it is.

I know exactly what you mean. Just today I decided "fuck it, i'm going to sing exactly in the tone my regular voice has" and went with something by queensryche, since I heard Geoff's speaking voice for the first time last night. I have to sing a little lower than Geoff and I thought his voice was really heavy, you know. It turned out great. I was hitting notes so loud I turned the mic off and could still hear myself with the Sony Studio heaphones that are supposed to be isolated. I hadn't heard that in a very long time even though what I've been doing lately sounds good too. You really have to let go and just use your natural voice. It is hard to trust singing in a very low voice 100% of the time, then will get you super-high notes with ease and the lower stuff just happens. You can concentrate on the stuff that matters like the nuance and the emotion instead of wondering if you are on key or doing it right.

The only problem with the low voice is that you have to be able to hit high notes in a head voice because you are gonna need it because the "falsetto" doesn't sound like a modal voice until you get kinda high in pitch, but after that your voice will soar with ease and the notes will be more than likely a full octave above what you could have done.

You really have to be aware that the low sounding tone disappears when the notes get higher. Listen to Renato Tribuzy. He has a really deep voice but hits the insane notes too.

You really control pitch by opening and closing the vocal cords, You control the tone with managing the airflow, so if you are doing anything else to hit a note, it is probably disrupting your tonal resonance and it is going to sound BAD, like out of phase speakers.

Tip #9 (?) The position and tilt of your head and back are critically important, move around and try everything until you find the sweet spot.


There is a good reason Lemmy likes his microphone up high like he does. I think the formula here is the lower your voice the higher your chin needs to be up

Never thought of that before. I know posture is important for singing and I tend to hunch over when I play guitar so I've been trying to not do that.

Tip # 10: The Ultimate secret to singing:

Alright, this is very difficult to explain.

First of all, go listen to some midi of a flute or some recordings of one or whatever. There is a specific reason to choose this instrument. You should notice two distinct sounds here: a breathey kind of fuzzy sound and a higher pitched whistle sound.

This is where things get a bit confusing. That breathey tone is the actual note. It what we associate with a note. The pitch is what we associate with it's relationship to other pitches. Essentially all notes are the notes themselves and the pitches are tone, but we tend to ignore the notes. This is very important because it is the sole reason you can't transpose a song to a new key and maintain it's mood.

Seriously. Go play a perfect 4th chord then a perfect 5th chord. Notice the have the exact same breathey quality but the pitch is not the same at all. However both chords are considered the exact same note fundamentally. Think about it.

The good news is there are only 12 notes. These twelve notes will sound identical in color no matter what octave they are in, respective to the note. But the pitch is what changes in an octave.

An "A" sounds like an A no matter what, that breathey tone is there in every simgle one of them in varying degrees of intensity.

My point is this, what do all the best sounding singers have in common? If you've been listening to the same records as me, they have a huge emphasis on note color and severely dial back the pitch to a considerable degree. This makes singing extremely easy and has the side effect that your tone will be amazing and natural to your own singing style.

Essentially, you sing the color, and never ever the pitch. If you are having a hard time finding the color of the note, boost 400-600hz by a good margin, you'll hear it then.

This is a difficult exercise, but the day you start hearing the notes the right way, you'll never be the same.

You'll be able to sing anything, no matter how difficult. Stuff like vibrato and dynamics are a thing of the past in your list of worries. You'll start to notice these effect are very natural and intuitive to accomplish.

THIS IS NOT FALSETTO TECHNIQUE. Falsetto is a function of there being a wide gap in the throat and it vibrating only part of the vocal system. That falsetto hollowness should not be there, but the tone of it most definitely should, just accompanied with a much louder PITCH along with it, as opposed to a very quiet almost invisible one falsetto accompanies.

Here is some good solid information on "Steven's Rule"

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hb ... pitch.html

It essentially says your perception of pitch really sucks because it changes due to volume and dynamics.

Just one more reason to listen to "color" and not pitch. Because it has no such wonky or weird laws governing it.

Here is the simplified version after noting what works and what doesn't:

1. Hold your larynx in the exact same position at all times, unless there is a key change. It should be positioned just slightly higher than when it rests due to the air pressure. Gently feel it to make sure it isn't moving up and down, but some movement can be felt in the middle of it, which is a very good thing because THAT is what is going to control the pitch.

2. Falsetto is a sound, not a technique. I don't use that sound myself and I don't have a break in my vocal chords either that anyone would be able to find. There simply is no vocabulary to describe a high-pitched voice that is full sounding. This should be coming from your chest voice still, no matter how fucking high the note is.

3. Your head voice is your speaking voice with your nasal cavity being the main source of resonance rather than your chest, though it is not uncommon for someone to be able to use both at once. I can't tell you exactly how to make this happen other than to sing higher notes in a speaking voice.

UPDATE:

This is essentially trying to connect two things that don't fit. Disregard this. You can sing in any register you want, so long as the larynx stays in the same spot throughout, and yes, you are going to have to keep it there because it wants to move on it's own.

What was happening is that singing as deep as possible keeps the larynx in the same position, hence the results.


The answer is both a yes and a no. You can change the way your voice sounds by moving the larynx up and down, but even if the tone is higher pitched you still have to approach the singing exactly like you were trying to sing in a bass register, if you are one, or whatever your register is. The tone will change, but it needs to be the original sound to change without sounding really irritating. trying to sound "not bass heavy" is going to be a disaster. Just do it anyway and be amazed that it doesn't sound the way you expect.

a) the more gentle you are when *not in head voice* the easier the notes will come. If you wanna sing loud and high, sing it quietly and gently. you are breathing the note colors, not using your voice to hit pitches. The pitches come in a package deal with the notes, but pitches are not notes.

b) are you sure you aren't singing in monotone? If it is boring just change the intensity of the notes. Practice playing nothing but roots, 4ths and 5ths and going back and forth between them, those are the money notes.