hey, i'm a big fan of christian bands and i really want to have the ability to sing like they do..they make their voices sound so...pure? clean? if you know what i mean. for example..ryan cabrera? when he sings it sounds so..clean or like the singer from starfield.. everytime i sing a song it sounds different everytime. can anyone ..give me any tips or anything? lol i will appreciate everything. thank you very much!
Do you sing with your natural voice or are you trying to sound like someone else? Only reason i ask is because you say it changes everytime.
well ..i really dont even know i think its just guess i can't control it.
Check your local craigslist for a teacher and get some basic lessons.
What it really sounds like to me is the singing is easy syndrome. Even experienced singers do it. Heck I do it.
It works one of two ways:
1. Somebody starts playing a song and says "do you know this one?"
2. You say yes even though you've only heard it a couple of dozen times on the radio
3. After singing it you are strangely dissapointed with your performance
or
1. You work out some song you've really wanted to play for a long time over several weeks and now you have it down
2. You sing along and you suck.
Try this:
1. Find a song that is semi popular, but isn't done in bands all that much
2. Learn the heck out of the vocals, listen to nuances, breathing, inflection, volume/dynamics etc and woodshed them
3. Take your knowledge to some band mates and say, "Hey, you know this one? It's just C, F and G."
4. Watch them look at themselves in disgust when you finish the tune.
My point is many people spend weeks on learning to play something and ZERO time on learning to sing it. Singing is a complicated thing and to learn to sing a song takes at least as long as learning to play it.
Think about it, you have to:
memorize the words
pronounce them intelligibly
phrase them
breathe in the right places
get your dynamics right
get across the emotion of the song
get across the meaning of the song
What Nick says is oh so true. I began voice lessons and it is much more involved than I thought it would be.
I am starting with Eleanor Rigby by Lennon & McCartney - just a basic song and it will probably take me longer to be able to sing it correctly than it took to learn how to play it do to the fact I have to learn how to control my voice to hit the notes correctly. Then add the emotions, breath correctly, etc.
I believe the effort will be worth it, I am looking forward to being able to sing the songs I learned to play.
B.S. :D
Maybe OT, but Nick, how did you learn how to sing. I saw you at RJ IN and you sounded like you had been singing for awhile (and while playing, yikes).
"Nothing...can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts."
I totaly agree with Nick here. I'm a rubbish singer and have always hid behind playing guitar fairly well to excuse not being able to sing. But over the last year, when I was working in London and didn't hav my guitar, all I had was my voice, and I was living with two flatmates, so I could only sing quietly too. I found that before I had often put cd's on too loud for me to sing along and really focus on what I was doing.
The other thing I noticed was that previously I hadn't really focussed on what I was doing. And that wasn't just because the cd was too loud, but because I (a) wrongly assumed singing was something you could do naturally (only some people with perfect pitch are this blessed all the time), (b) I also wrongly assumed that being a rubbish singer meant I was nver going to sound much better than I did on my first attempt at any given song, and (c) I found that my breathing would change drastically from rendition to rendition of any particular song (try singing along to Jeff Buckley's version of 'Halelujah' - no matter how many wrong notes you hit do the entire song - it soons becomes apparent how crucial breathing is to being able to sing the rhythms he does). If you don't have that Jeff Buckley tune, I reckon pretty much and sax or trumpet solo from a jazzer will demonstrate the same point.
I'm still way off being a good singer, but some songs that I have sung along to a lot, I can do fairly well (i.e. hit the right notes throughout, change the phrasing, change the dynamics, etc). I'm planning to take singing lessons from January onwards and work as hard at that as I have (and continue to do) on guitar.
Another thing I found was that many songs I can do okay renditions of without guitar totally fall apart when I try plaing guitar along to it. And these are pretty simple tunes like Bonnie Raitt's 'Louise' and Dylan's 'Visions of Johanna' - its just because playing guitar means I can't totally concentrate on just the singing, but this is something that will get better with time. Just make sure you practise the songs the way you intend to perform them (e.g. playing guitar sitting down if you just wanna play them around the house, singing while playing guitar stood up if you wanna play gigs like this).
That little revelation gave me a new found respect for some pop performers who do complicated dance routines while singing live - also made me horribly envious of Hendrix being able to do Little Wing - I can play the rhythm part, but if I try to sing along to it a few bars of 5/4 time sneak in where I lose focus on what I'm supposed to be doing on guitar! :twisted: If anyone else points this out, I do, of course, inform them that I'm doing the 'jazz version' of little wing. :wink:
Everyone is born with his own voice, and that's something you can't really change.
but singing ability is definately something which can be aqcuired...
Getting a professional coach can really do tremendous things to improve one's singing.
also you have to remember that sometime a singer's voice sounds good thanks to good sound technicians and producers
which can very much improve the vocals' sound.
Johnny from guitars101
