Merkabas Voice-Help Hotline
 

There seems to be so many asking the same questions that i decided to make a post of my posts. well the threads in which i have posted that relate to voice, singing, and screaming...etc. I will update it from time to time And i will start linking to this new post which contains links to the others. I hope this helps, and happy hunting.

[B]Warmups[/B]

[url]http://www.musicianforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=219806[/url]

[b]Singing From the "Gut"[/b]
[url]http://www.sputnikmusic.com/forums/showthread.php?t=219911&page=36[/url], post #711
[url]http://www.sputnikmusic.com/forums/showthread.php?p=13868974&posted=1#post13868974[/url] #902

[B]Vocal Cord Isolation[/B]

[url]http://www.musicianforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=4360701[/url]
[B]
Finding Head Voice[/B]
[url]http://www.musicianforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=9745852#post9745852[/url]
[url]http://www.sputnikmusic.com/forums/showthread.php?t=219911&page=43[/url]
About #856

[B]Exercises For power,range, and flexibility[/B]

[url]http://www.musicianforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=5510425#post5510425[/url]


[B]Screaming[/B]

[url]http://www.musicianforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=214130[/url]
[url]http://www.musicianforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=216681[/url]
[url]http://www.musicianforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=108543[/url]
[url]http://www.musicianforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=217625[/url]
[url]http://www.musicianforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=219314[/url]
[url]http://www.musicianforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=215341[/url]
[url]http://www.musicianforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=216131[/url]

[B]Mucus[/B] (a must read for the serious vocalists)
[url]http://www.musicianforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=219357[/url]
[url]http://www.musicianforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=237789[/url]

[B]Dealing with Pain in the throat[/B]
[url]http://www.musicianforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=227425[/url]

[B]Some Samples and Instruction[/B]
[url]http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pagemusic.cfm?bandID=228211[/url]
[B]
Official Voice/Singing Help thread[/B]
[url]http://www.musicianforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=370155[/url]

[B]Good Misc.[/B]
[url]http://www.musicianforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=233117[/url]

this **** should be stickied.

[QUOTE=shadedlife]this **** should be stickied.[/QUOTE]

i was thinking the same thing but i didnt know what contributes to getting stickied so. hey who knows. :wave:

Hey thanks for the sticky! I'll try to update whenever possible. thanks alot.

oooooo -twirls around like a retard-

hey would my singing be effected in anyway if i get my tongue pierced??

i've got mine pierced and it has no effect. it might for the first few days that your tongue swells up to twice its original size. hehe. i wouldnt worry about it. thats funny, today i took my vibrating tongue ring to work to show off to the ladies. They thought it was very , very ...very interesting. anyways.

Tongue piercing will definitely affect how well you enunciate...unless you take it out when you sing. Although most pop and rock music isn't generally well enunciated, enunciation plays a strong role in creating a clear, clean tone.

Kristina
[url]www.geocities.com/kristinasvocalstudio[/url]

define enunciation.

It doesnt bother mine one bit. It might also depend on where you get your tongue pierced. I wouldnt get it too forward.

enunciation is bascially how you make the sounds that make up your words...something along those lines.

Merkaba, I am starting to sing through my gut and it sounds GREAT, well it is compared to the crap it sounded like earlier...and I REALLY REALLY WANNA THANK YOU...cuz if it wasn't for your threads dude I would have probally went on messing up my voice..Thanks Hombre...just one more thing lol...when singing through the gut, do you still do the 50 - 80% thing right?...if so...how do you make it to where you voice doesnt sound dull, because I get a little irriatation in the back of my throat after doing a 10 minute warm up and starting to sing my songs...I might be going over the whole 80% volume max rule lol...but i want it to sound good, not like a drag...welp thanks ALOT ALOT ALOT ALOT Merkaba!

- Cody

i have a question about my voice. i don'y know whats up but i have a regular deep singing voice(was a while ago not sure) and a high falsetto. but i have no mids it seems. do you have any suggestions for things to do so i have at least some in between? i haven't tried in a while but i was gonna start soon and just wanted to know if there was anything i could do.

ps. is it even possible? and i'm only 16 if age is a factor in it.

[QUOTE=LeadSinger327]Merkaba, I am starting to sing through my gut and it sounds GREAT, well it is compared to the crap it sounded like earlier...and I REALLY REALLY WANNA THANK YOU...cuz if it wasn't for your threads dude I would have probally went on messing up my voice..Thanks Hombre...just one more thing lol...when singing through the gut, do you still do the 50 - 80% thing right?...if so...how do you make it to where you voice doesnt sound dull, because I get a little irriatation in the back of my throat after doing a 10 minute warm up and starting to sing my songs...I might be going over the whole 80% volume max rule lol...but i want it to sound good, not like a drag...welp thanks ALOT ALOT ALOT ALOT Merkaba!

- Cody[/QUOTE]

Well youre welcome, but thank yourself more. We're all here for each other too. i've learned a bit believe it or not. I realized that i had gotten caught up so much in all of these other things i had been concentrating on with my cords. that i had not been focusing on my breath as much as i needed. so i actually had to start concentrating on my own gut more!

Yea, the whole idea of learning to sing with less push is that you cant do this while being tense or throaty. The more you support with your gut, the less you have to have any feel of pushing. So yes, when youre using your gut you still want to sing without a lot of push. over time you might have to back off. Findiing the support gives you so much more ability that you can over do it a bit. but for now just continue to concentrate on it.

well, you shouldnt be getting any irritation doing a warm up. Thats almost a paradox. Its just not a warm up! And you can call it a taco, but it wont be a taco, ya know. To me, now this is just to me, 10 minutes is not a good warm up for me. and i find that i fatigue my cords alot by trying to do too much with a small warm up. I would suggest you do like i do and consider your whole day prior to "real" singing as a warm up. i start as soon as i get up. i start just vocalizing and singin very lightly. and doing glisses, eee's. scales, whatever, as im walking around scratching my sack, rubbing my eyes and fartin', getting clothes, doing this or that. i gargle lightly with sound and do scales gargling, when in the shower. just whatever.

have you recorded yourself singing lately? you might find out that you are singing too hard. i suggest you record in some way , any way, asap. or go to the local post office at night or when noone is in there and realize how easy you have to sing with proper acoustics in place. But over time you develop a feel for what is too much push and what isnt. You can just feel it in your cords. over time just through trial and error and i know that when i get a specific feeling, that feeling before has continuously led me to quick fatigue and down hill. Its all in my head now, but i've had to develop this with all my registers, and with all intensities. I dont know anyother way to tell you other than remember that if you push too hard youre not getting anything extra. there is a point of dimimishing returns. you will have to find this on your own. which is perfectly fine as along as you warm up adequately and theres no pain. its ok to fatigue your cords. without a teacher, its just trial and error. but like i had said in an earlier post today, if there is no pain, and no affect to your speaking voice, then continue to push your limits. remember youre going to have to just strengthen to keep good tone with a harder push. this takes time, and there is no way around it. just pay attention and you'll develop your own degrees of what you need to do.

There is also an area where if youre singing hard, you need to let the air escape, this is where you rasp. if youre not trying to rasp, but youre singing hard, youre forcing your cords to close against too much pressure, where as if you were rasping, you would be releasing this extra air to the back of the throat for the rasp. so if your not trying to rasp a note, you really shouldnt be pushing hard at all. Trust me, regardless of what you see on tv, or videos or even in concert. if its not a rasp, you can get any not to sound full and blasting with like 30% gut push. Again, how do you think these guys tour a whole year with shows every other day?! Even the strongest cords couldnt do that with near maximum or maximum push. its all about having an open relaxed throat so you get a full rich resonance that sounds thick as hell and you can add whatever kind of facial expressions or whatever to make it look like whatever you want, and youre not feeling lower because the sound and feel thats coming out is just right, so youre not worried about equating push with emotion, which is what singers do wrong. an open and relaxed throat can give you alot of presence and with a little throat shift, you can get a heavy sound with out a lot of push. it will just take time for you to find your own points. you want to just play around and feel yourself out. you will need lots of non judgmental alone time to grow the fastest with best feedback so that you can know the feel of your own optimal push. Now dont get me wrong, especially when you start off, you will have to give some good push to get alot of what you want. just keep the throat open and relaxed. but overtime you will realize that you dont need that same push to get the activation your seeking. so keep it in the back of your mind ALWAYS that youre striving for everything to be as easy and as non strenuous as possible.

But to sum up, i would try a way longer warm up. and dont try any push until youve been warming up a while. and remember that you give less push the higher you go up(again, when you reach falsetto, you have to keep a good pressure however, it takes a bit more of airy effort)

[QUOTE=Azraelscross]i have a question about my voice. i don'y know whats up but i have a regular deep singing voice(was a while ago not sure) and a high falsetto. but i have no mids it seems. do you have any suggestions for things to do so i have at least some in between? i haven't tried in a while but i was gonna start soon and just wanted to know if there was anything i could do.

ps. is it even possible? and i'm only 16 if age is a factor in it.[/QUOTE]

Its not only possible, it already is there.Did you read the section on isolation exercises? if not, then do. doing Glisses should help you alot. You should be able to go from your lowest chest voice to your highest falsetto with one breath without losing anything whatsoever. and highest falsetto down to lowest chest voice. I love doing glisses. Its just a good thing to do . its like yoga for your cords.

proper breathing is important, from the gut, and dont over push.

your cords are thinner/thinnest in the mids/upper mids. they might be weaker here, and you need to work with it, without over pushing! The thinner they are, the less pressure it takes to vibrate them! with falsetto your cords arent clamped together, they open up, so its a different ball game.

And be sure youre not constricting your throat. I've written about this numerous times. and its all here in the forum. But what happens is that many people equate higher vocal squeeze with higher throat squeeze. this just will not allow you to develop higher head notes. your air pressure is not balanced with a tense high throat and youre just gonna fatigue instead of strengthen. its all in the isolation post.

If youre not a "naturally" strong singer at a young age, then yea, 16 might be a little testy. its like trying to run against a 20 year old. unless youre just one of those gifted. But its not too early by any means. just read this forum over. you need to warm up adequately, learn to isolate your throat from your cords, sing from the gut without overpushing, with an open relaxed throat, and warm down after your work. no pain ever, and your speaking voice should not be affected. so read up, and keep practicing those glisses ...at different speeds. and over time just start at a mid note and do notes and exercices. everything you need to know for your specific question is somewhere in my sticky!

I have a question about screaming. I'm learning how to scream, well teaching myself. But I'm having a few problems. The first is I don't think I'm pushing right. Whenever I scream my throats starts to be sore. And when I scream the scream always gets caught in my throat, either on mucus or spit. Which totally destroys the scream. And my scream is also too...hissy is how i'd describe it. sometimes to the point the scream will break up into a hiss. the scream i'm trying to achive...I don't want to sound stupid because i've said this in other forums but i don't know any other band..like old underoath stuff. not the really deep screaming, but the high, crazy screams.

i dont know underoath.

your probably pushing too hard and closing your throat as you tense for the scream. Its all in the sticky threads. hissy cause you probably have little tone, and its just air. there should be no pain ever. and if you have mucous you need to warm up way more, and push less. the harder you push and more incorrect you sing, the more and quicker mucous developes as you go along in a session. the mucous is there for mainly protection. so if youre accumulating it, something is wrong with your singin. unless you have a sinus drainage problem which i couldnt help you with. read the posts. plus, the higer picth screams are thinner cord screams, you dont have to push as hard, just becauase youre going up in pitch.

[QUOTE=Merkaba-1]Its not only possible, it already is there.Did you read the section on isolation exercises? if not, then do. doing Glisses should help you alot. You should be able to go from your lowest chest voice to your highest falsetto with one breath without losing anything whatsoever. and highest falsetto down to lowest chest voice. I love doing glisses. Its just a good thing to do . its like yoga for your cords.

proper breathing is important, from the gut, and dont over push.

your cords are thinner/thinnest in the mids/upper mids. they might be weaker here, and you need to work with it, without over pushing! The thinner they are, the less pressure it takes to vibrate them! with falsetto your cords arent clamped together, they open up, so its a different ball game.

And be sure youre not constricting your throat. I've written about this numerous times. and its all here in the forum. But what happens is that many people equate higher vocal squeeze with higher throat squeeze. this just will not allow you to develop higher head notes. your air pressure is not balanced with a tense high throat and youre just gonna fatigue instead of strengthen. its all in the isolation post.

If youre not a "naturally" strong singer at a young age, then yea, 16 might be a little testy. its like trying to run against a 20 year old. unless youre just one of those gifted. But its not too early by any means. just read this forum over. you need to warm up adequately, learn to isolate your throat from your cords, sing from the gut without overpushing, with an open relaxed throat, and warm down after your work. no pain ever, and your speaking voice should not be affected. so read up, and keep practicing those glisses ...at different speeds. and over time just start at a mid note and do notes and exercices. everything you need to know for your specific question is somewhere in my sticky![/QUOTE]

thnks man. gonna try all of that out. its just i don't really wanna have to search for a vocalist too when i start my "little" project. but first gotta get a guitar and practice. thanks again. you rule :thumb:

Dude Merkaba, you are the man...I have been following these threads and I've been able to hit better notes that I want..I've even learned how to kinda scream like Axl Rose and not mess up my voice...you rock man, you should like get a "Posting" award lol...but to the point...Will my voice be higher pitch if i stick with these long warm ups and pratices? because I really want to have a high pitched barritone...is that possible?...and another thing how do i get my scream less raspy...I sound like I am murdering someone when I want a Emo Band scream lol...If I sing loud with my gut singing will that mess up my throat? I drink 5 bottles of water while praticing daily...since I am on the right track...My chords should be getting stronger right? Thanks for all your help dude, you're a musician life saver!

- Cody a.k.a Lead Singer

i've been reading all your posts and practicing and i think i have it down to an extent... im a little bit shy when it comes to being infront of a mic though....

just how much do u hafta stress to get a good sound out of a mic when screaming?? i heard it allows you to slack off some and the sound is still fairly decent... but u dont wana scream your lungs out the whole time right?? im a bit shy/confused all of that... i wana know how hard you push and what that volume would be w/ out a mic please...

[QUOTE=LeadSinger327]Dude Merkaba, you are the man...I have been following these threads and I've been able to hit better notes that I want..I've even learned how to kinda scream like Axl Rose and not mess up my voice...you rock man, you should like get a "Posting" award lol...but to the point...Will my voice be higher pitch if i stick with these long warm ups and pratices? because I really want to have a high pitched barritone...is that possible?...and another thing how do i get my scream less raspy...I sound like I am murdering someone when I want a Emo Band scream lol...If I sing loud with my gut singing will that mess up my throat? I drink 5 bottles of water while praticing daily...since I am on the right track...My chords should be getting stronger right? Thanks for all your help dude, you're a musician life saver!

- Cody a.k.a Lead Singer[/QUOTE]
****, sorry, i must have missed this post. Well i cant tell you that your voice will get higher. You know that. but if its possible, you are helping yourself out by having good warm up and technique. Remember youre going to have to work out the cords and that means exercising. not just singing. but reaching and missing notes. so you need a place that you can do that comfortably so you dont tense up and use incorrect technique. IM in an apartment complex and if i hear someone upstairs you would be amazed at how much it just ruins my throat position.

If you want less rasp...
Well is this rasp coming from the throat or from the cords. if its coming from the cords then you need to push less because thats just pure wrong. You might be shifting your throat down and not knowing it. Just try to push less, most people overpush anyways. And remember youre going to have to experiment with how much cord activation you include in the scream in order to get some kind of style or tone youre looking for. so push less first to see if you can get the same tone. dont forget about isolation. when all else fails for me, i go back to the blank face robot and it helps me find out what im trying to do and what im doing wrong. singing a strong and or high note is way difficult to do without any movement. its a wonderful exercise to show you just how much our ideas and images of emotion just plain interfere with our vocal technique until we know otherwise.

Well if youre coming from the gut, you still can damage. you still can close your throat off. THe idea of coming from the gut is to get a constant tank of pressure that you can dispense at your own discretion. if you dont, then when you need extra force, you will tense your throat in an effort to push, when you dont have anything to push because you didnt pressurize you diaphragm first. so HOPEFULLY you will be getting stronger. remember that youre working out, so you will reach plateaus and weaknesses and have bad and good days. just remember that mucous can really fool you into pushing harder than necessary. thats why i warm up so long, to sing and vibrate away the mucous instead of blasting it away by cleaing the throat, couging or grunting with cold cords and muscles.

so just stay on the path. i must say that i grew alot when i started to push less....because if you push too hard youre just fatiguing the muscles more and damaging everything, so you spend resources on repair and potential weakness.... over time i realized that i was singing harder and harder cause i had gotten stronger over time. Just dont rush it. Theres nothing better than being able to keep your voice healthy.(knocks on wood after blasting his for an hour)

[QUOTE=putit2myheadbaby]i've been reading all your posts and practicing and i think i have it down to an extent... im a little bit shy when it comes to being infront of a mic though....

just how much do u hafta stress to get a good sound out of a mic when screaming?? i heard it allows you to slack off some and the sound is still fairly decent... but u dont wana scream your lungs out the whole time right?? im a bit shy/confused all of that... i wana know how hard you push and what that volume would be w/ out a mic please...[/QUOTE]

1. dont use the word stress, its a bad sounding word. hehe
2. the mic is your friend. get over it now if youre planning on singing. You can use it now to listen to all the imperfections that make you feel shy. lets face it, if you were sure you werent gonna miss anything, you wouldnt be shy right? so practice as much as possible until you got your voice down so well that you know its ins and outs, and that translates into confidence. Man, if you wouldve asked me like 7 years ago if i was planning on singing in front of people i wouldve laughed myself to death.

And sing acapella as much as possible. especially if you can record it with a mic. you will hear all of what you need to work on. And things you thought sounded bad may sound alright, and things you thought were dead on arent quite right. (**** that rhymed). Especially since you hear with your whole body when you sing. but when its played back to you, you hear what everyone else hears. I always sound dead on when i sing. when i record, i say hey, i need to work on.......etc. after a while you realize that its technique based so you just smooth out your breath and technique and it helps problems in general.

oh, dude, listen to my samples. On adobe audition(cool edit pro's new version) it shows your waveform as you record. when i do the falsetto screams the volume is off the meter! But im pushing at like 60 percent, if that. Remember , you have an acoustic instrument. all the other instruments are electrically amped up, unless youre doing a folk session by campfire or some shlt. So dont feel inadequate about having your mic up to its full potential. thats what its for. I mean if youre just too loud then you just adjust the output. but you should have a level to where you dont have to push much to do anything. alot of gain but not too much that you feedback easily. Again, deftones, mudvayne, linkin park, metallica, etc. touring all year long and doing like 5,6, or more shows a week! and these people have professional setups so they get it easier. now of course they still kill it though. i mean they are still shredding cords. but just not killing them.

for me, i've gotten it down to where i can project without pushing first. that comes from learning when to shift the throat and open it and drop the jaw and all this, plus i've been doing it a while, so by now, a 50% push for me is nothing but its still pretty loud, depending on the setting. usually i dont push hard at all. as time goes on, this has to increase though. so thats why you dont wanna blast at 90%. unless youre doing a 20 minute show! as far as working out it depends on how much time you have and what youre trying to work on.

[QUOTE=Merkaba-1]especially if you can record it with a mic. you will hear all of what you need to work on. And things you thought sounded bad may sound alright, and things you thought were dead on arent quite right.[/QUOTE]
Thats my problem though, I hate my voice when it's played back to me, I just cannot stand it. So I have to get my friends to sit still and listen to me, which is another problem because they don't know what they're talking about when it comes to singing. So would someone be willing to listen to my recordings when I get my mic and adapter on dmusic?

we will. ;)

^^ yea, you wont be the first

most people who hate their voice sing with a high larynx. I'm willing to bet you do as well. you start to get some resonance in there and you'll like yourself more. I was the same way.

Im Trying to start a band and there are very few people who are willing to sing where i live so i kinda want to learn how to sing/scream. I can get high and low notes and all but i cant seam to scream relly. i have read thies fourms quite a bit and tryed many things but i still comes out more like a whisper. what am i doing wrong? thankyou for the help

Edit:btw im a 15 year old male

[QUOTE=Idontknow]Im Trying to start a band and there are very few people who are willing to sing where i live so i kinda want to learn how to sing/scream. I can get high and low notes and all but i cant seam to scream relly. i have read thies fourms quite a bit and tryed many things but i still comes out more like a whisper. what am i doing wrong? thankyou for the help[/QUOTE]
you have to get "behind" the note, and feel like youre getting ready to sing it. more than likely youre squeezing your larynx and throat up in the attempt and its just not allowing enough air to activate the cords. check out the isolation stuff, and remember to feel like your going to sing the note. and like i say, you should be able to sing that note first. and sing it over and over again. practice hitting the notes hard first. not too hard. then you add the throat to get the rasp. if you can get a sample up it would help too.

Ok, ill try that, i Dont have a PA "Yet" but i will soon so i was trying before hand. i kinda want to do a Finch/The Used type of scream. thanks Merkabab-1. ur the master

Edit: Im trying... it still comes out weak and to raspy... what can i do? ill get a sample up as soon as possable. it sounds.... too raspy kinda :confused: :confused:

hey Merkaba-1 and others who can help.... i've been readin through these threads alot today.. I just found this site earlier.. Anyways I havent sang since 6th grade.. Im now 18 almost 19 and thing is i dont remember anything from choir.. Alot of my friends play acoustic/electric guitar, bass, or drums.. I have been playing guitar but my friends want me to learn to scream sing so we can start a hardcore/metal/screamo band.

Could you help me with things i need to learn. Like do I have to be able to really sing like kids do in choir to be able to scream sing? I printed the singing 101 breathing tips from this site and will be practicing those alot, i already breathe with my stomach going out so i dont really need to practice that but i will. Please anyone post things i need to learn and explain them and w/e else u can tell me, thx

music singing preference... i wanna have sing style somthin like AsILayDying or RememberingNever, Or Atreyu..somthin like that.. u can email me too that would be great..email is [email]eatreyu182@yahoo.com[/email]

its fairly simple.
all the stuff i stress
hydration
warm up
low relaxed larynxed, open throat
warm down.
no affect to the speaking voice
no pain

other than that youre just gonna have to practice singing hard, and getting rasp.
i cant stress enough the importance of learning to isolate. its vital and it allows you the freedom to come up with your own stylings and helps you work out the cords not stress them.

K what exactly is rasp? Sry i dont wanna sound dumb but i dont know anything of singing anymore.... Anything u feel would be good for me to practice paste here or on my other thread i made cuz i couldnt find this one haha.. Like i printed that breathing tips if theres anything like that i can read that describes and is somthin u feel i should practice let me know.

Now I havent even screamed since i was like 12... I can lightly sing along with some of my fav metal bands but i dont scream the lyrics just use a quiet like whisper deep voice when driving. So should I try to scream like when I was a kid and get feel and practice to ulter it to right way.. Im still not sure how im to know this bounce of back of my throat or pull down on my throat thing. Sry if this is all confusing im about to leave so i typed it up very fast.. I am very serious about learning to scream sing and so im not here just to waste anyone time I really wanna get all info and help i can. thx

if youre that serious you wont mind reading the begining of this thread, which takes you to some previous posts of mine. its a good read

Yea ive been going through them :)

rasp, aka scratch...its when you deflect the air off of the back of your throat. which is where you get that static like sound from when people scream. It doesnt and never should come from your cords. the thing is you have quite a few muscles in the area. so you have to learn to not pull all of your throat closed or push extra on the cords when youre trying to do this. this is pretty much the key to longevity and "screaming". dont forget that a mic with good settings makes any screamer sound that much better.

Hey Merkaba, it's bad I don't have so much time to visit the forums..........I see you still rule :) If you remember I asked about raspy voice a month ago and singing like Cobain etc. blah blah blah............well, I you really did help me and I kinda learned to get some rasp (heh, one of the reasons I don't have so much time for internet....enjoying my singing :))..........Thanks to you again! :thumb:

But now some problems started to come out with my voice. After a month that I started to sing better, there have been some worsenings too.

Like, uhhhmmmmm it's been already 5-6 days that I started to have mucuous in my throat...........I read your topic about it and didn't quite understand if it's good to have mucuous or not. By the way, I watch my nutrition, don't smoke and don't drink.

Another problem is about pain in throat...........After you gave me a tip on singing from diaphragm I got rid of pain in my throat and felt much better.......But now it begins again, this time it's a bit different pain............I don't even know how to describe it. It's not in my throat like it was before.......you know not the part that hurts when you've caught cold...........It's somewhere in back and a bit up.......sometimes I even think it's somwhere in back of my head. :confused:
I couldn't describe better, I guess you know what I'm talking about...not throat itself but somewhere upper, like back of your head. It would be great if I know what causes it.

Thanks beforehand

[QUOTE=btoto]Hey Merkaba, it's bad I don't have so much time to visit the forums..........I see you still rule :) If you remember I asked about raspy voice a month ago and singing like Cobain etc. blah blah blah............well, I you really did help me and I kinda learned to get some rasp (heh, one of the reasons I don't have so much time for internet....enjoying my singing :))..........Thanks to you again! :thumb:

But now some problems started to come out with my voice. After a month that I started to sing better, there have been some worsenings too.

Like, uhhhmmmmm it's been already 5-6 days that I started to have mucuous in my throat...........I read your topic about it and didn't quite understand if it's good to have mucuous or not. By the way, I watch my nutrition, don't smoke and don't drink.

Another problem is about pain in throat...........After you gave me a tip on singing from diaphragm I got rid of pain in my throat and felt much better.......But now it begins again, this time it's a bit different pain............I don't even know how to describe it. It's not in my throat like it was before.......you know not the part that hurts when you've caught cold...........It's somewhere in back and a bit up.......sometimes I even think it's somwhere in back of my head. :confused:
I couldn't describe better, I guess you know what I'm talking about...not throat itself but somewhere upper, like back of your head. It would be great if I know what causes it.

Thanks beforehand[/QUOTE]
Well thanks for the compliments, and its good to see youre improving. and yea i remember you. an upper throat pain? well above your adams apple? it could either be muscular tension or the affect of blasting air over the back of the throat. but its a pain, not a discomforting annoying feeling, but actually like ow, pain? if it feels like its in the back of your head, it very well could be. you'd be surprised what people will inadvertently tense up. it could be muscle tension. I just cant make the call from here. i mean, you should be able to know if its in the throat. if it is you can push air to it, without sound, to hit the area and allow you to feel if its in your throat or not. if you cant find the area with air , without sound, then do it with alot of air and very little sound to see if its your cords. otherwise its muscle related more than likely.

as far as mucus...let me get this straight. you were find a month ago, but over the past five or so days the mucus all of a sudden starts to come around?

well, mucus can also drain down from higher nasal areas if you have allergies, or anything going on up top. just be sure to warm up good, and try not to clear your throat much. if you do, do it without sound. it could be just the amount of time it has taken for your cords to start to be stressed. so you might just now be trying to protect a perceived stress or damage by your body. just remember it can fool you into thinking you have to push harder than you do. usually when i have mucous i dont really get it totally away until i start to do some high rasp notes. but as long as youre doing rough work, youre gonna be getting some mucus. be sure to warm down at the end of the session, and if you've been going a while. keep singing lower and softer for at least five minutes after you finish practic/gig. then do eee's. its all about getting your cords to return to normal length. if they dont, they will bring in more mucous for the perceived stress/damage and the swelling that is occurring in the area.

dont forget that you dont always have to push from the gut for every note. some notes and vocal techniques you dont want a lot of push. remember you use it when you need it. and dont forget that you dont have to go up in volume as you go up in pitch.

keep us posted. good luck.

[QUOTE=Merkaba-1]Well thanks for the compliments, and its good to see youre improving. and yea i remember you. an upper throat pain? well above your adams apple? it could either be muscular tension or the affect of blasting air over the back of the throat. but its a pain, not a discomforting annoying feeling, but actually like ow, pain? if it feels like its in the back of your head, it very well could be. you'd be surprised what people will inadvertently tense up. it could be muscle tension. I just cant make the call from here. i mean, you should be able to know if its in the throat. if it is you can push air to it, without sound, to hit the area and allow you to feel if its in your throat or not. if you cant find the area with air , without sound, then do it with alot of air and very little sound to see if its your cords. otherwise its muscle related more than likely.

as far as mucus...let me get this straight. you were find a month ago, but over the past five or so days the mucus all of a sudden starts to come around?

well, mucus can also drain down from higher nasal areas if you have allergies, or anything going on up top. just be sure to warm up good, and try not to clear your throat much. if you do, do it without sound. it could be just the amount of time it has taken for your cords to start to be stressed. so you might just now be trying to protect a perceived stress or damage by your body. just remember it can fool you into thinking you have to push harder than you do. usually when i have mucous i dont really get it totally away until i start to do some high rasp notes. but as long as youre doing rough work, youre gonna be getting some mucus. be sure to warm down at the end of the session, and if you've been going a while. keep singing lower and softer for at least five minutes after you finish practic/gig. then do eee's. its all about getting your cords to return to normal length. if they dont, they will bring in more mucous for the perceived stress/damage and the swelling that is occurring in the area.

dont forget that you dont always have to push from the gut for every note. some notes and vocal techniques you dont want a lot of push. remember you use it when you need it. and dont forget that you dont have to go up in volume as you go up in pitch.

keep us posted. good luck.[/QUOTE]

Wow, you know your job...............I did what you said i.e pushed air without sound and now I'm sure..........yes it is my throat. I don't know why I thought it was back of my head :confused:

Ok I'll be frank with you. Actually all these problems with pain and mucus started to appear after I sang and played Nirvana's "Drain You" for several days, trying to sound like Cobain too much. Maybe this is the reason, but it's not that hard song.

Yes, mucus started to come around over last week. I mean, it's not it causes me so much trouble. And sometimes I even like..........because, you know that with mucus it's easy to get raspy and sound cool. But it becomes irritating while talking.............I know that it annoys people I'm talking to. I guess they think that I have a bad desease and going to die soon...lolz :D

Ok I'll try to sing lower for a couple of minutes after I finish...........well, actually I doubt I can do it. Let me explain the situation:

I do all the singing and guitar playing at home. But I do it when there's no one around. And it happens not that often. I mean I'm kinda ashamed to sing when my family is at home. So as soon as they leave, I pick up my guitar and start singing. And I don't do any warmups because I know that I have for example only 35 minutes, and I want to enjoy myself all that little time. :upset:

I guess now you understand me why I don't any warmups. Simply because I have little time for singing and I want to use it for my own songs. :thumb:

Also, if it's possible for you, can you please download Nirvana's "Lithium"? I want to know what Cobain is doing in chorus. The "Yeah Yeah Yeah" part. Because as it sounds to me, it's not screaming......and I don't want to scream, I just to be able to do that thing he does, it sounds to me more like an agressive singing rather than screaming.

Thank you :thumb:

Breathing Question
 

Hey. I've been reading through your posts and I've picked up lots of great tips about warmups, isolation, and rasping. Thanks for putting all of this out here! I have been singing since before I can remember, but I always find that my vocal cords get tired and my diaphragm never does. I have read in a few different places that proper breathing should be done with the stomach, and the chest shouldn't move at all. Also, also the shoulders should stay down. When I do this, it feels like I only have about half as much air in me as when I fill up my whole chest. Am I doing this wrong or will it get better with practice? Thanks for the help!

well i must say dont overthink the breathing thing. but it is important. dont really tense up anything when youre trying or try hard to keep your shoulders down. just let them relax and they will not move much. However many people do breathe improperly and raise there shoulders and move the chest alot. your stomach should bellow out first and and your chest is still gonna move a little, but mostly at the end of a deep deep breath which you really dont need to do that much in singing. of course over time you dont have to think about this stuff so you can enjoy doing whatever you like while on stage, not having worry about your shoulders while doing death metal or rock would probably help out. lol

i really wish i had a good singing voice but my voice is always high pitched even when i try to sing normally...do you think me being 13 might have something to do with it...a reply would be most appreciated

My voice is cr*p
 

I'm sixteen and my voice is still squeakin on me. I made a microphone in an electronice clas in school and I taped myself attempting to sing on mt stereo. I never heard myself sing before. I was thought my voice was ok. Until I listened to it on the tape. I can't sing in key or anything. I think I'm just gonna stick to playin bass cause I suck at singing. I don't know if a cr*ppy voice could be changed, but if it can mines gonna take a lot of work. Would it even be worth it for me to try to sing, because my band has no singer?