Sep 19, 2004 06:31 pm Mark Baxter taught Steven Tyler and has a website he knows his stuff. He's on my links page.
www.karynwhittemore.com
Heavy Metal Vocal Techniques
Posted on Sep 19, 2004 04:54 am
Seth
Member Since: Aug 01, 2004
Heavy Metal Vocal Techniques
Hi I am just getting into heavy metal as a vocalist and is wondering if any one knows of any techniques used to help your voice so you don’t harm your vocal cords as much? Any help would be aswome
Thanks
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Sep 19, 2004 06:31 pm Mark Baxter taught Steven Tyler and has a website he knows his stuff. He's on my links page.
www.karynwhittemore.com
Sep 23, 2004 07:43 pm Put on a rubber glove, grab yourself where your most sensitive. Squeeze with all your might and.....just act naturally.
Sep 24, 2004 02:22 am Phew.. okay this is an area that is actually getting a bit more respect as an 'artform' which is bloody great in my opinion.
Okay, stuff you wanna do to stay alive:
1 - Listen
2 - Breathe
3 - Rest!
To elaborate:
1 - Listen to absolutely EVERYTHING you can, especially by the guys with excellent technical skills. I suggest you check out Devin Townsend aka Strapping Young Lad, Speed Strid from Soilwork and Jens Kidman from Meshuggah.
Despite these all being excellent bands the singers all have brilliant technique. See if you can get bootlegs 'cause then you can hear what they're doing better (if it's reasonable quality). You gotta try and hear what they're doing to get the sounds they are and then emulate it. It's just like guitarists that study Jimi Hendrix or Steve Vai or whatever and try and do it themselves.
2 - Breathe. You gots to learn how to use the breath in your lungs efficiently. People like the aformentioned Devin Townsend have incredible control and that's the key.
You'll get a good aggressive voice through getting your singing voice strong and practising. :)
Start with scales (just go 'la la la la la la la', like 1st, 3rd, 5th, octave, 5th, 3rd, 1st, and then go up a semitone and do it again) and feel where your breath is going.
You can expell a lot of air and get barely any sound and feck up your throat, or expell very little air and get a strong well-projected sound...
A good thing to try is stand up (always sing standing up) and put the palms of your hands against your ribs and feel them move out when you take a breath... also put your hand on your stomach (near the top) and make sure you're breathing right down into your tummy.
Then - when you're singing out try and expel as little air as possible and get a strong sound. do your scales and you'll feel your stomach doesn't move in evenly. You gots to practice until you are.
You wanna get your voice STRONG before you start to batter it with agressive vox stuff, or you'll develop real problems later.
3 - Rest your goddamn voice! :D
Dont' go psycho with it, while you will get a lovely gravelly scream going once you can't speak anymore and your throat feels like its inner coating has been stripped away but in the long run you'll just damage your chords again and again and end up buggered.
You can practice in your room or at gigs or whatever, start with just adding a bit of 'edge' to your scales and stop doing it when you feel discomfort. You can do this more and more until before you know it you're sounding like you should be in Opeth, and you can switch between screaming/growling and singing really easily...
Heh.. good luck :)
The very, very best advice I can give you is get a vocal coach. Really. It'll pay for itself a billionfold when you're 40 and still have a voice. :D
Sep 24, 2004 04:46 am Great words from Willum there. I've recently delved into this in a bid to protect and enhance my vocals. Breathing is the key, and thats what all the books and exercises focus on.
I recently got given a really crap german book about "how to become a pop star" (dont ask!), but there are one or two really great bits of advice in there amongst all the "stroke your microphone and call it Natalie" crap. The one that really hit home was the breathing bit. It said singing is like blowing a candle. If you do one almighty blow, the flame will go out straight away. But if you take a deep breath, trying to use the other 50% of your lungs that most people in this world dont bother using, learn to blow an even flow.... hey presto, the flame flickers and dances with life... but it wont go out.
The flame is your voice.
Best o' luck bud.
Sep 24, 2004 08:04 am *sniffles*
that was beautiful nueud... flame... *sniffles*
:D
Sep 24, 2004 09:25 am Haha, just reading it back it sure does sound soppy. Bliddy emotional drama queen that i am LOL!! :D
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