hey all, Mygeeto here
im not sure if many of you follow the metal genre at all, but thier is a band i listen to called Iced Earth fronted by Matt Barlow - perhaps the best singer i have ever heard.
i have some vocal talent, but not enough! Matt is a Baritone singer, and i beleive i am as well. so i beleive i can be as good as him one day.
Matt's emotional projection through his voice, and his vocal range, control, use of vibratto, power and screams are just godly... i will give anything or pay any price to be able to sing like him, so i wanna ask a few questions to help get me started:
-who else is a Matt Barlow/Iced Earth fan?
-how many lessons a week should i be taking?
-how many hours a day should i practice singing on my own?
-what kind of vocal teachers should i be seeking out to be able to sing like him?
-how often should i cycle/change teachers?
-how much should i expect to pay every half hour/hour for a good vocal teacher?
i have basic knowlage on singing but i wanna expand on this so are there any books on vocal thoery, vocal exersizes, techniques and anything else i might wanna take a look at? what would you recomend?
thanks in advance, and sorry for the long post
hey there.
i have made some improvement in the screaming range lately..well...a big improvement. cause before i just DIDNT know how to do it and now i do. doesnt mean i nail it every time but i still know how to. its just practice i need.
buy 'the zen of screaming' by melissa cross....its not an option. it IS the best scream dvd out there. although it doesnt spend a heap of time on screaming it teaches a heap of singing need-to-knows and gets you started on screaming. knowing how to distort your voice without any kind of intense pressure is vital to making your voice last.
DONT practice screaming for more than a few minutes a day. ie one or two screamo songs AFTER youve warmed up.
you can practice singing as much as your vocal chords hold out. but dont just 'sing' otherwise youll just reenforce the bad habits you may have. try and put into practice the things your learning and make sure your doing them.
iv never heard of iced earth but i do love the metal genre.
take as many lessons as you can afford. but your better off taking one or two. taking notes and PERFECTING those things before going back again. otherwise your just paying for something you could be doing at home.
one thing i have to say is: everyones VOICE BOX is different. so even if you have the exact same range you will never be able to emulate his scream exactly. copying a scream is much harder than copying singing. so find out HOW to scream then use that over his screams when your singing along. its sound better and not forced. but note, it takes AGES to scream well. i 'can' scream. but it doesnt sound nearly as good as the pro's and iv been learning pretty insensely for a year now.
...screaming on pitch is hard...real hard :(
Hey,
It would be helpful if you posted a clip of you singing so we can see how you need to improve! In my experience it helps to have some constructive criticism so you know where to improve :D.
-who else is a Matt Barlow/Iced Earth fan?
-how many lessons a week should i be taking?
-how many hours a day should i practice singing on my own?
-what kind of vocal teachers should i be seeking out to be able to sing like him?
-how often should i cycle/change teachers?
-how much should i expect to pay every half hour/hour for a good vocal teacher?
I'm a big metal fan, but I'm more of a modern metal fan, my tastes tend to lean more towards nu metal, metalcore and some thrash metal, although I'm open to listen to everything. From listening to some songs by him its quite clear that this guy is a good singer, although i wouldn't necessarily class him as baritone as his range is actually very impressive and can hit the high notes too. Baritone in metal to me is more like Howard Jones of Killswitch engage... but I may be wrong.
( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y78muHp3dSI heres an example I found)
As for how many lessons and how long you should be practicing... well thats up to you. It depends how much you want it... But as with anything, you should be having fun with it, if you feel yourself getting stressed and forcing your voice, STOP. You can't restring your vocal cords, so if they hurt, stop doing that. Go away and come back later. I always find it helps to drink a lot of water too. As for vocal teachers, find one that suits you. Take a C.D. in and tell them thats how you want to sound, if they don't approve or try teaching you to sing in a way that does not suit you, then find another one! That applies to changing them as well, if you were happy with a teacher and then decide you've gone as far as you can, get a new one. At the end of the day its you're money and you should at least be happy with the money you're spending. Price again is always relative... I'd like to say that the money doesn't matter, but you often get what you pay for.
I hope any of this helps you!
Nath
i would probably class howard jone's SCREAM (the majority at least) as baritone but he isnt a baritone singer. hes well into the tenor range on most songs when he sings.....damn him....so talented.... :S the screamer from bullet for my valentine is awesome to...
i listened to 3 songs by iced earth.....old school arent they....
he doesnt really 'scream' he just puts heaps of power into his falsetto. which actually can bow your vocal chords....very bad...but he doenst have the full chest voice top end of axel rose or sebastion bach. hes 'cheating' as it were. like a lot of singers in that genre do. because theres hardly any distortion of the voice i would guess that you could either go that high normally (damn near impossible) or experiment to find a way of making your falsetto sound less 'thin and weak' without hurting yourself. if you took the music away from his singing he'd sound pretty stupid...so dont feel bad if you sound dodgey :P
i listened to 'pure evil' 'dracula' and 'melancholy'
