Karaoke Forums

Kappy- you asked about how long shoud you sing...well you're on the righ track by doing easy songs first- they will warm you up without all the boring scales.

Regarding when you should stop- you;r voice will let you know. If you start feeling scratchy- or like you're having to push alot harder than you should..that's your cue. Sometimes if I don't warm up with easy stuff- I can blow my voice out in 1 song- it feels like your throat is on the verge of being hoarse. The time you sing will vary based on how you warm up. how hard the songs you're doing are, the shape you're in, and your health. But if you ever start to feel like you're about to lose your voice- STOP. the worse thing you can do is push yourself into actually being hoarse. I'm glad to hear youre singing!

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Thank you Paula.  I'm an obsessive person.  I seldom know when enough is enough..  I'm the type that's sing until I'm froggy and hoarse, and than take advantage of that pushing myself to sing Rod Stewart and Joe Cocker.

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Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".

Then you're also a prime candidate to get nodes on your vocal chords--- then you;d be able to sing Bonnie tyler( wink) BYW- Joe Cocker and Rod Stewart do that gritty sound from their technique NOT through wearing out their voices. Please don't do that anymore ok? It's seriously the worst thing you can do...you can blow several weeks worth of gains to your range in one night of abuse. It's not worth it. Trust me!

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Moved here from "Critiques Only" thread

RE:



The way I Critique,  I DO need to know the original or at LEAST the style and genre.  While some more creative may attempt to critique that which is extremely different to them.  With NO foundation, or understanding/concept of something totally foreign to me, I will not "Critique". I won't go beyond my own boundaries, I believe that's disrespectful for many reasons.  If it's a style or genre I have never personally performed, or accompanied, I won't Critique. I must have SOME reference point in order to "Critique".  I'm not a creative person, nor am I innovative..  I limit myself to ONLY Critiquing that which I have an understanding of.  Since I know enough about myself to know I don't adapt easily to change, I feel it best I DO NOT Critique something that's a style totally different to me.  The fairest Critique I can give on something that catches me by surprise is "That was different, hmmm".  It's not honest for me to be all over the place when I critique..  My compositional skills are only in limited areas.  I can't give a detailed analysis and scrutinize that which is unfamiliar.

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Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".

Kappy- I have read too many of your threads for you to try to tell me you're NOT creative...that's some seriousl BS....but's that's OK We love ya anyway!

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Hey Paula Can I pick you brain?  I would like to make use of your expertise since I have never had any formal teaching.
You were just talking with Kappy about making your voice rough with technique.

I do my voice exercises on my 70 mile commute to my job.

I have been trying to extend my range so I try to push my voice high as I can...All of the sudden stuff that used to be falsetto , wasn't anymore.

By singing loudly in the extreme high registers I could get my vocal chords to tighten up and then I could get that rasp I was looking for.

My throat never got sore, nor did I get hoarse.  But after those exercises I could not sing in the lower registers for a while.  It was like they were just not there any more...

I have only had a hoarse voice once in my life when I was a kid, and that exercise did not seem to hurt anything on the surface...

But does it?

I had a cold when I recorded my last 3 songs, I am going to sub the last one on MM.

But the next day I tried to mix it up and change things around with my voice.  I recorded Darkside and you and vikki instantly noticed me changing my voice.

I think you guys thought it was my cold that my my voice gritty, but it was the exercise I did in the truck on the way home the day before that allowed me to make my voice grainy the next day, because when I speak I am not hoarse at all.

My cold just made my voice break up because of phloem..sos it took me a million trys to get a Linkin Park song right..

Since you told kappy it damaged your voice to push it like that I wondered if I was?

I don't feel a thing and it did not take any more effort to sing those songs.

I did Smoke on the Water, Darkside and What I've Done by Linkin Park which I will sub Monday but I finally got my voice to be grainy doing that exercise.


But did I hurt my voice by doing that exercise?

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Imagination is more important than knowledge.

Knowledge is limited.

Imagination encircles the world...

Paula musically my ear is very stubborn.  I locked into traditional use of genre's I know and like.  What this means is rigidity has set in, and often what I don't recognised I'm less apt to accept due to my own expectations.  I don't compose, I've never written a song, ALL I do is go for cover, or if accompanying a vocalist, I do what I am told to do to follow the arrangement as instrumentalist..  I'm not musically creative,  I'm a cover musician. Consequently, I'm more resistent to change I don't recognise, and objectivity is tougher for me when something very different comes long.  For that reason, it don't feel it fair I "Critique" in certain areas. It's not fair to those that are extending themselves into less chartered musical territory.

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Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".

Hi Murlin- to answer your question- it all boils down to the fact that your vocal chords are a muscle. To make a gain you have to "work it"- the difference in what you were doing versus what Kappy was doing is that he was pushing to the point that he "hurt" himself. What you did was push yourself to fatigue- then you stopped. Probably because you had a set time limit of the length of your commute. That's the idea- challenge your voice without harming it.

Also like a muscle you are working the top part of your vocal chords and tightening them up to get that higher range...to work the lower part you do an entirely different thing. You warmed up your upper range but not your lower one. Thats what was causing you problems. I'm the same way- when i warm up to sing classical- I have a hard time doing the lower/tenor range stuff and vice versa. I'd say you were doing it correctly - the key to it all- is to challenge yourself without going to the point of pain or hoarseness, It sounds like you successfully got the gritty sound without hurting yourself. THAT"S a good thing. YOU were controlling the amount of grit on your voice...it wasn't there because IT had taken over your sound.

Hope that answers your question- if not lemmeknow and I'll try to elaborate a bit more.  :)

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Hey thanks a bunch...Whew had meh worried...

Ya know, I never new your vocal chords were muscle..that makes total sense now since I use to lift weights...

I started working my voice a couple years ago.  I hadn't used it in so long, I had lost every bit of my falsetto and when I would try to do Henley, I would get a bunch of popping and weird sounds it was horrible...then I started singing to myself on the way to work and after about a year my falsetto came back...

I think I have found my range and I have about a 3.5 octaves in there when everything works right..

That exercise I was doing was at the very end of my range where I can now sing those notes in either falsetto or normal...I did not know that was even going to be possible...

I am sad that I have almost ruined my hearing though...At least I have some left and can still enjoy music...

Thanks so much for your insight...

Sorry Kappy for getting off topic, but didn't want to start a new thread just for one question...

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Imagination is more important than knowledge.

Knowledge is limited.

Imagination encircles the world...

This is interesting to me...i've always wondered how many "octaves" of range I possessed, i'm kind of uneducated on this ...olol....how do you determine this?  Does your full range include falsetto?...and if you have a broad range, what if you can't hit some of the notes effectively?...In other words, if you can croak out a really high note, but couldn't sing with it effectively, should this be considered a part of your range?....

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Satisfaction is the death of desire

Well yes it does for me...More than an octave is falsetto
But as far as someone else's definition it might not be...

'Cause I use technology to hit the very lower registers....via la Darth Vader...

So let me rephrase and say instead of having a 3.5 octave range, say, I can croak out notes in 3.5 octaves....I kin live with dat definition  :mrgreen:

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Imagination is more important than knowledge.

Knowledge is limited.

Imagination encircles the world...

Nathan,  easiest why to determine this is hit a comfortable note in real voice. A note that you know is your GENUINE singing comfort chest voice area.  See how much lower you can go without cracking or getting hoarse and strainy sounding,  similarly see how much higher you can go..  Your comfort range will likely fall within an octave or so either way from middle-C on the piano..  See how far you can span from you lowest note just singing a major scale to a point where you can hit WIHTOUT having to crack into falsetto..

IE.... You DEFINATELY are at least a comfortable second tenor with abilities to singinto the first tenor area (Climax- I Love You) is higher tenor, up around first tenor..  Just out've curiosity I'll listen for you comfort range honing in on high as well as low note comfort areas seeing roughly where you fall... I think you can handle second tenor easily, perhaps some baritone and first tenor..

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Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".

Cool...I remember I took a voice lesson once, when I was about 15 or 16, and the guy told me I was a 2nd tenor...So maybe yer right...This is why I don't like to critique people.....I am clueless on this technical stuff....but yea, any insight you have on this would be great....

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Satisfaction is the death of desire

Nathan since VERY few in here have technical knowledge, assuming you DID have technical knowledge most would go "huh"..  Fact is you are an excellent guitarist, and vocalist, SUPERB musician with an amazing ear and top notch ability to do what you do tastefully, and VERY well in the opinions of most..  What this means is YOU HAVE more ability to Critique with what you have in such a setting than I do ..  IE.. You helped me tremendously, and while I have some technical knowledge, I STILL can't hear myself as I sound singing when I play it back... so I can't help myself in this area.. I Couldn't hear what you were able to pick out in "easy".. But you were correct,  the fact that you have the familiarity to hear that I was focusing on getting it done, and trying to be on pitch at the expense of "getting into the" song isn't something I can hear..  Yet I do know I am trying very hard to be accurate, and I'm so rigid it makes sense that it shows... yet I can't here it...


So PLEASE... Critique !   You, Billy, ALL in here are singers.. and that's ALL it takes to critique in an area like this... Technical Jargon has it's place, but this isn
t classical composition school, or jazz theory..  It's useless in an area where few understand it.   Just say it as you here it...  Your critiques have always been accurate. The fact that a few didn't like them was NOT because of your delivery. But it was an unfortuneate even (two years back) that I too learned from..  (see PM)

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Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".

I really appreciate your words here Kap..but man I have a million things I need to work on too........It's one thing to be able to record a song where you can go back and fix mistakes, or do a part over and over until you get it just the way you want it...it's another thing to pull of a great live performance....That's my weak point, because I admit I get nervous, even after being in a number of bands over the years...I doubt myself when I sing live.  And as far as critiquing folks, I just don't think i'm really good at it.....I mean I can hear what sounds wrong, but I can't tell someone how to fix it, so how does that benefit the critiquee (is that a word)....?

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Satisfaction is the death of desire

Yet at my level, I don't have the capacity to hear some of these areas. However I still might be able to help in areas that haven't occurred to you, so this is how we all can help one-another.  All constructive input is a good thing when intent is to help another person. I wonder if some of "these" areas we feel can stand for improvement in our own performance, are ways we are super hard on ourselves ? I suppose this can be a great thing for achieving status as one of the better musicians, I know in my particular case,  It also drove me bananas and caused MANY sleepless weeks in the past...  Somewhere in between I suppose is a good thing..

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Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".

Interesting concept..

In a recent showcase submission that was done extremely well according to many that listened, an interesting point was brought up; Sometimes on a particular song that some of us knew VERY well during the days of the original artists rendition but weren't overly fond of (in the 1970's for example) the SS rendition *in the opinion of some* is much favorable and enjoyable to listen to. Some feel the original song as done by the original artist lacked something, or made is feel a certain why that we didn't particular feel comfortable with...


 So what is the difference between "rank" of perhaps 10, 9, or 8 in such a case ?   Just the ranking persons philosophy on ranking and nothing more. Also degree of preference for style (an ENTIRELY subjective area). This DOES NOT mean the song isn't as well delivered in the opinion of the person leaving the rank lower than a 10...  An extreme of this (or example of this) was MANY of us during our education recall the prof that just DIDN'T give "A's as a grade.. In subjective content the philosophy was "Give too many A's, and you lower the overall bar of excellent work, since fewer have something to strive for"... My own opinion for what little it matters, is the prof that NEVER gives an A on occassion will be contested, because being human, THESE profs become set in their ways often unable to see when something is an A... Yet to me a "10" is not an "A" rank, a "10" is an A+

Also,  some styles or just MUCH tougher in a real competition to get the highest rank on than others.

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Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".