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January 2005
Posts: 4903
Location: Phoenix AZ | Originally posted by moody, p.i.:
Dave "Just call me Well Hung" Witko..... Gotta nice ring to it..... I agree.
Dave |
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March 2002
Posts: 15654
Location: SoCal | I don't think that's quite what I posted...... |
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October 2006
Posts: 5575
Location: big island | Seth Riggs has a program that has helped me sing better. Here's the link:
http://www.singersadvantage.com/ |
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Joined:
August 2002
Posts: 8307
Location: Tennessee | Originally posted by Tupperware:
Originally posted by moody, p.i.:
Dave "Just call me Well Hung" Witko..... Gotta nice ring to it..... I agree.
Dave |
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November 2005
Posts: 4817
Location: Campbell River, British Columbia | What happens in Connecticut stays in Connecticut... |
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January 2002
Posts: 14127
Location: 6 String Ranch | Just to get sorta back to it, pick the right songs for yourself. There are some that suit you better and some you just shouldn't think of trying.
Paul I seem to remember you saying that people were always polite and listened when you played and sang, and let them see your gun on your belt.
Dave, if you want to walk about 3 blocks over and three blocks down from where the dinner is you'll be in the hood and I'm sure you can score a boomer there. You may need Paul and his "accessory" mentioned above to get back outta there.
Have we started being nice to Cliff yet or was that just the rumor? |
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Joined:
November 2005
Posts: 1126
Location: Omaha, NE | My take on the subject...singing is one of those things that is all about attitude. You have to sing your song. It is pretty rare to be able to do a competent job of copying the style of someone else.
I also want to echo the comments above about warming up. For me, it comes in two stages. The first warm up I do is before we start playing. I just run through some stuff, humming it up and down as low and as high as I can comfortably manage. Just gets things loosened up. Generally, my voice doesn't really open up until I have been singing hard for 20 minutes or so. I can absolutely feel when that happens...my range goes up a ton and my control improves.
The most important thing is to sing a lot. Between my bar band and my church group, I probably sing 10 to 12 hours a week these days, and it really helps. The more you sing, the better you will get.
And I also want to echo the other point: You don't have to sing well to be a good singer. The "American Idol" style singer is fine, but those folks are rare. You can still be enormously entertaining with an average voice. But you have to bring something else...some personality, some charisma, some mojo. Do that, and you are golden. |
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November 2005
Posts: 4817
Location: Campbell River, British Columbia | |
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Joined:
November 2005
Posts: 4817
Location: Campbell River, British Columbia | Originally posted by fillhixx:
The GREAT thing about singing in bars... (there's only two. one is getting paid.)....is that near closing time you and everyone in the place magically become fantaaastic! singers. "S - A - T U R-D A Y......NIGHT!
S - A - T U R-D A Y......NIGHT!
S - A - T U R-D A Y......NIGHT!" |
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September 2003
Posts: 9301
Location: south east Michigan | Yeah... you gotta "sell" the song but there is danger there, too. I don't want to "over" sell the song. That could be just as disasterous as missing the notes. It could be a very fine line between the two.
When you start to think about it there are so many factors to be aware of like does the next song somewhat fit in with the last song. |
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January 2004
Posts: 627
Location: Cherry Hill, NJ | The thing was, that I came up through the Mick Jagger/Bob Dylan school of singing. I wish I would have taken singing a lot more seriously. It was mostly attitude then, rather then melodic notes, that flowed on pitch. I find that I could sing good on John Prine tunes, but don't think I would attempt Sinatra. |
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Joined:
March 2005
Posts: 12750
Location: Boise, Idaho | I can't believe you got to 5 pages already without me. I don't have much to add, but emphasize those who called the voice a muscle. I think some people just can't tell whether they are off key, but there are those that can't seem to hear it. If you can tune the guitar by ear, you're probably not one of those.
Singing to the back of the room is fine, but in a choir context you're going to learn soft and loud. One of the problems with singing softly is that you may not be able to hear yourself and may stray off pitch. A friend in high school supposedly ruined his voice by singing to the radio turned way up so he could hear it while he drove the combine in the summer. I'm not so sure he was ever that good.
Work on your falsetto. I lost a couple octaves of range when I quit singing and playing guitar for a few years.
If you go to church, sing along. It will help the voice and your ability to read music. Plus the people are usually charitable and there's always some loud guy that's worse than you.
I don't know if there's anything you can do to fix a voice with bad tonal quality, but singing from your diaphragm will help take the nasal tone out, unless you want to sing like Bob Dylan. In that case, forget anything anyone said in the last 5 pages. |
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February 2004
Posts: 2487
| Mussa; I have always been lucky enough to be one of the guy's that seems to be able to sing and sing fairly well. I can say I do not know if you could take a voice that does not sound very good and make it belt out beautiful music but I can say for a fact that I used to be able to "almost" hit many of Jon Andersons vocal workouts with YES. Somehow with repetative work I became able to sing more than 20 of their songs. And it Mean I could sing em! Hit every dam note! Copied his soft little parts and the high high's. I did a demo sent it out to a few contacts and got a hit from someone that has an interesting and unexpected connection with the big leagues. I was wondering if I could perhpas find my way to a tribute band ro something. The MPS's were good enough that I got one recording session paid for by a guy who is working on a CD and eard me, I got a note back from the guy in the big leagues. To my amazement I got the second best answer you can get when sending a demo to the big show. "They wanted more vocal work" This is good.....and I was given three YES albums to sing what ever I could do from them and then anything I wanted to do after that.
I practiced and waited and waited for the guy in the goddam studio to get me in to do this and what happens....................The day I get there my voice craps out! I have Lost my Freekin Voice!!!!!!!! I have not been able to sing the Peter Gabriel I always use as practice on nor anything High at all since January 4th..........
Now a guy like me who is just a self taught player and not an exceptional talent but found he had a wonderful and very rare talent to be able to copy quite well a guy who is a world class singer. Well I do not know what is wrong with me but I try and keep moisture in the home and I am not sick?? But I can't sing and I think I have blown this opertunity for good from the email I got from the guy who was sending my stuff on to whomever and wherever they were.
So I guess what I am saying is YES you can teach a voice new things perhaps not everything but you can also loose it along the way as well.
I am baffled about what to do. I have gone through the 5 steps of death and dying concerning my voice. I am at acceptance with it now and hoping it will just return when it's ready. I can't fix it, I have tried everything I know.
So good luck man! Even when you get the voice working good vocals are a living instrument and way to delicate to be reliable.
Be a guitarist, if it's in tune you stand a chance of hitting the right frets!
Randy |
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August 2005
Posts: 3736
Location: Sunshine State, Australia | Wow. Starting a topic and getting 5 pages of informative and encouraging responses within 24 hours gives me a warm, fluffy, gooey feeling.
Thanks all, and lay off Cliff, eh! He da man!
OK, so what have I learned? Sing standing up, barefoot, while driving the car, to the people in the back seat. That's gonna freak out the guys I drive to work.
Seriously, I might have to read through the whole thing again and take notes.
My next thread will be 'How do I play guitar better?' ;)
BTW, yeah, Mark, I was wondering if you were gonna chip in. |
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May 2005
Posts: 486
Location: North Carolina | When I did musical theater, they often cast poor or non/singers in principal roles because they looked right or read well, hoping they could coach them through the songs. Never happened and was often painful for the audience.
You can improve someone's look or coach their acting in short order, but you cannot teach them to sing in six weeks.
Given enough time, you can learn to sing reasonably well. But remember, your voice is your voice; what you will improve is control. You can, you will, do it. It's fun, enjoy it. |
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March 2002
Posts: 14842
Location: NJ | JustDoIt. |
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singing
