My Voice

Good tone, good pitch, but a case of the wobblies. Breathing is the answer, as in so many cases. Your voice sounds unsupported, and the lack of support makes your singing at times unstable.

I understand that lessons are out of the question, but perhaps you can find someone over there who knows how to sing? All you'd need is the fundamentals of proper breathing, and that would give you some direction. You wouldn't necessarily have to have a full-fledged vocal coach. In fact, even a yoga instructor if you can dig one up will probably be able to help.

Barring this, you should try to get your hands on a DVD.

You can also stabilize your voice a bit by singing on the vowels. When you hold a note, make sure you stay on the pure vowel--if the word ends on a consonant, articulate the consonant only at the last possible moment.

You need work (don't we all?), but your prospects are good.

Oh, and thanks for your service!

+one to everything JJ said.

Try to think of songs as how you would say them, you wouldn't necessarily breathe midway through saying a sentence, so don't do it when your singing! You want to breathe from your diaphram (through your nose ideally) and avoid gasping for air as much as possible.

But you obviously have the passion for this so let me say this: never give up! I refuse to believe that some people can sing and some people can't, sure some people seem to have a natural inclination for this sort of thing, maybe from singing from a young age... or maybe from pure luck... but at the end of the day, if your willing to learn and want it enough... the sky's the limit.

Lessons are maybe not viable, but if you have an internet connection theres a lot of stuff out there... and theres also a lot of good books with C.D.'s including exercises... if that is available to you.

But keep recording yourself, make a diary, and make realistic goals; "I am going to have better breath support by the end of the week"... good luck... do keep us informed :).

Nath

Jack and Nathan,

Thank you much for your experience and advice! It is all very appreciated! I agree with it not sounding supported - that is what I have been thinking for some time but did not know quite how to articulate it. Funny thing about finding people who can sing well. My roommate is a fantastic singer but has no idea why he can sing. :) He has been singing his entire life and never taken a lesson and cannot explain how he does it! I will definitely work on breath support and look into getting some DVDs or books. Do you have any recommendations? I have scoured the internet for quite some time and the recommendations here vary greatly. Thank you very much for your help!

Roger Love's "Set your voice free" is a good start and very reasonably priced imo, this is the book i have been using the past 6 months... I've also used a lot of websites which are too numerous to name...

I'm a scientist at heart... my approach to singing is very systematic, and I try to work in a logical way with it. Most people have functional vocal cords, and this is what makes the sounds that we make. But obviously theres a lot more to getting the tone you want than vocal cords, its got a lot to do with air flow, muscle structure and strength (which can be developed) placement of the tongue and soft palate, and so on and so forth. I don't like to get TOO technical and confuse myself by learning every tiny muscle in my mouth and throat, but I like to have a basic idea of what i'm doing. So when i first started, I would record myself, and list a whole lot of things that I didn't like about my voice, and I went through them one by one. This is where Roger Love's book came in handy for me, as it identifies a lot of problems that beginners tend to make.

So for instance, my voice was very nasal, so I made an effort to forget everything else and work on that. For me it was a high larynx (and sometimes still is) and I had to work on lowering that. After that I noticed my voice was out of tune a lot of the time so i started singing scales in harmony with my guitar, recording them and making sure I was hitting the notes... so on and so forth.

Nowadays the list is starting to get smaller... but then again the better you get, the more problems you realise! So i'm a long long long way off where I want to be... but i have improved... and still am improving.

So get a mirror, pull some silly faces while your singing and get to it. Only YOU can find your own voice at the end of the day imo. You've got all the tools you'll ever need, the rest of it is just guidance from people who are ahead of you :).

Keep on singing,
Nath

Sure, I like Roger Love's book, Set Your Voice Free, which includes a CD with vocal exercizes on it. A lot of people like Jaime Vendera's book Raise Your Voice, but I find that book geared more toward hard rock/metal type singing. Still, it would be worth looking at.

On DVD there's Renee Grant-Williams Vocal Master Class, which is good but VERY expensive ($60). :shock: The only other one I've ever used is a Berklee College DVD: Vocal Technique: Developing your Voice for Performance, with Anne Peckham. This one is pretty unexciting but nonetheless solid, and it should be useful if you can scare up a copy.

The good news is that almost all instructors agree on the fundamentals of good breath support, so it doesn't really matter much which books/DVDs you end up using. Check Amazon and Homespun Tapes http://www.homespuntapes.com/

Keep on Singing! 8)

Thanks again guys, I really do appreciate the help! It means a lot that you took the time to answer the questions!

Thanks!

Any time matey... this forum can be a little sleepy at times... so please post recordings questions and everything else. We can try and help you as much as you can help us :D.

Nath