Karaoke Forums

I don't know about the rest of you, but 90% of the karaoke singers that I think fall into the good, very good or excellent range, smoke.     I can't figure out how they can be so good.     Shortness of breath thing and who knows what it does to the vocal cords.   I am surprised by them.    Most of the time they are strong singers and they usually have a pretty good vocal range.     Makes me want to smoke, sometimes.    

We grew up in a time where clean vocals were displaced by an amount of vocal gravel during the classic rock period.  Burton Cummings,  David Clayton Thomas, Paul Roger's type front vocals become recognised as "rock" voices, and the clean, "choir boy" type quality took a back seat when blues styles integrated with classic rock at the tail end of the British invasion... Beatles became more raspy, and songs with gravel during the psychedelic period of the mid-late 60's displaced earlier  Herman's Hermits type short-lived periods of what some might've considered "bubble gum", clean styled vocals were short-lived in the early mid-1960's, and Beatles,  Creme, Rock Opera style (Hair and JC Superstar), Rod Stewart, Joe Cocker, Led Zep, Stones, Sabbath, Iron Butterfly,  took on harsher raspy voicings.. and people got used to rasp in vocals... Yet even Billy Holliday in the 30's-50's, and alot of blues, big band vocals were raspy...  Clean vocal style or choir boy type prestine voices aren't common in "R&B" style I suppose..

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

I smoke three in a row ... before I do My Rod Stewart act.

Stop, you're killin' me.    LMAO  :wave:

Sadly enough it is one of the reasons I started smoking when I was 15. I had an annoyingly clear voice until just a couple of years ago. That took me about 22 years of smoking. This also takes a toll on my body that we all know about.

Now it is time to quit, never a better time than the present. I don't think I'll mind too much if I end up with a clean voice again as long as I can get back the upper few notes I have lost over the years.

It'll catch up with them Bigdog.  That and age.

 :)

Kelly

Kelly, right now I'm smokin' 5 barrooms a week.    LMAO   My throat feels funny most of the time.    Tickle, cough thingy.    I can gravel with the best of them now.

Last winter I had bronchitis for about a month. It put me out of commission for like 4.... I only recently got my range back completely. I don't smoke. I can't imagine how someone can smoke and sing... it doesn't seem logical that it would work together, especially when you see someone hold out a long note that's up in the stratosphere, then see them go outside for a smoke. One of the regulars where I go to karaoke, she can sing Evanescence (and nail it to the wall) right after coming in from a smoke. Sorry... baffles me.  :no:

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Te audire no possum. Musa sapientum fixa est in aure. (I can't hear you. I have a banana in my ear.)

I feel for ya.  I don't smoke.  Of course 24 years in the fire service, I probably have gotten a little. .  

I am currently seeing over the past 5 years at my gig, fewer and fewer smokers.  Hope it continues.

Kelly

big dog, DONT START !!  i am 42 years old and can not find a way to quit...even at the pleas of my best friend who doesnt want me to die at an early age, i still cant find the strength to quit..i have cut down quite a bit but just cannot stop..i quit a 10 year cocaine addiction 10 years ago...quit drinkin 8 years ago, but for the life of me cigs have a hold on me...i have sat and balled my head off a time or two at my shame in not being strong enough..i have a rep for being a dead on ACDC/Guns and Roses singer...smoking has definately gotten me that title, but at what cost...i would rather sing like the wiggles and be smoke free than to keep smoking to the ovations i get for Welcome To The Jungle..the effects of smoking on the vocal chord is quite severe..just as it starts healing your next cigerette pushes it back to being damaged...it creates a false security to hit the screaming tones...dont fall into that trap Dog...be yourself, find your style and kick (@$%&#!) bro !! congrats to all non smokers..believe me, the power it takes to quit smoking or not even start is a power so strong that you should know that with power like that, you can achieve anything in life you dream of ...

dumbdrums, proud of ya for kickin' the cocaine.  Even more proud of ya more admitting you had a problem and encouraging others to stay away.  If the cigs help you stay off that, than so be it.  Sounds like to me it's actually the nicotine that is the problem..  

Many just have a habit of lighting up a cig.  Others (I assume like yourself) actually crave the nicotine.  Just try to stay with the low tar.

Kelly

I wish I had never started. Everytime I quit, I can get through the need for nicotine but the feeling that my pacifier has been taken away is harder to manage.

I feel for people with any addiction.    My dad smoked, my kid smokes.    Good luck in quitting the other stuff.    Keep trying to stop smoking.    Sing two songs and call me in the morning.    :hug:

Hey dumbdrums, I always like to hear about people who find their way through tough times like the your post above. It helps me to know that I can do more than I think I can, given the chance.

Kudos to you and hazaa.

I started smoking when I was 11-years old. By the time I quit at 44-years old, I was up to three packs a day. I couldn't sing a song without coughing and fighting to clear my throat. As much as I love singing, smoking had made it uncomfortable for me to sing. I also became insecure around people because I noticed I was constantly coughing and clearing my throat.

I made a CD for family and friends, I noticed that more time was spent trying to clear my throat, catch my breath and hold back coughs than time being spent singing, yet I continued to smoke. People were always saying I must not be a smoker because of how long I can hold a note. It wasn't that I didn't smoke as much as I knew the note was coming and had to take very deep breaths and be aware that I needed to control each breath more than if I didn't smoke. I knew I had to quit but I couldn't set myself up to quit. Just the thought made me smoke more.

One day I was at work having a smoke break (at three packs a day the smoke breaks are common). I was standing in a cloud of smoke coughing my lungs up. As soon as I'd catch my breath from coughing I was take another puff and start coughing again. During one of the coughing fits I fell down on my knees and hacked and hacked and hacked. Don't you know it, as soon as the hacking fit was over I took another drag from the cigarette. It suddenly dawned on me that I was standing in a cloud of cigarette smoke, coughing my lungs out to the point of falling to my knees and yet I continued doing exactly what was causing it. I got mad at myself, put the cigarrette out, went to the drug store and got patches and slapped one on my arm. That was 11 months ago; I have not taken so much as a puff from a cigarette and I feel like a million bucks. It is amazing to feel the air hitting the lungs is actually fresh-cool air instead of stale-liquid feeling air. I had no idea there were so many fragrant flowers in my yard and that the seasons do have their own unique odors. And, I now get up in the morning without spitting my lungs down the drain. I went from coughing non-stop to rarely ever having to cough. I no longer spit black soot from my lungs. There have been so many changes physically and mentally since I quit smoking. I can't say I feel like a brand new person but I feel close to it.

I notice the difference in my singing now and so do other's. The gurgling sound of phlem (sorry) in my throat while singing is gone. The rasp in my throat is gone. The notes are much easier to hit and hold. I can sing a song without rushing out to have a cigarette. I also feel better when people come near me because now I know they won't be smelling my last cigarette.

Quitting smoking is the hardest thing I ever had to do but the rewards for having quit make the struggle of quitting worth it.

Good for you, dumbdrums.. my ex boyfriends brother has had an ongoing casual romance with both cocaine and crack... as well as being a full fledged pothead. The family has tried and tried to get him to stay clean, but he is so buried in self pity that all  he wants to do is get high. It makes me sad, cause he is a very smart person, and also a very talented drummer. He was teaching and making money from it but even that he screwed up. It makes me sad, because I have been fortunate enough to live a life fairly  addiction-free. I smoked for a while in HS, but then I quit cold turkey and never went back. I have a lot of respect for you dumdrums, I wish more people would recognize when they have a problem.  

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Te audire no possum. Musa sapientum fixa est in aure. (I can't hear you. I have a banana in my ear.)

I'm not proud of it but I am a heavy smoker.  Hopefully I will be able to quit for good over my vacation this summer.  I tend not to inhale all that deeply or at all, so maybe that's why I still have enough air in my lungs to sneeze and get out one syllable words as needed.

I can say with some expertise that knocking off the booze (and I was an alcoholic for sure) was much easier than beating the cigarette habit.

I hope this time to be more successful at quitting. The last time I was having medical problems as I was just finding out about my food intolerance. Every day was a struggle to find food that was safe for me to eat. I quit at that time because cigarettes contain the substance that I have cut from my diet.

That only lasted for a day. I was already starving because I was paranoid about food but I knew I could tolerate a few cigarettes a day. Quitting both at the same time was more than I could handle. That was just a few months ago. I had the motivation then but not the strength to quit. It will be different this time and I hope it will end better too.

I have a lot of respect for those who have given up any addiction. Cigarettes is the one that hits home for me because I can relate better.

EDIT: The time I quit for a day, I got a glimpse of what I have to look forward to WHEN I quit. I won't go into it, but you get the idea.

My psych highly recomends that I quit too. Whenever I visit her, she can smell the memoried of the last one wafting into the room with me. It is not a welcoming smell. To keep in mind that my smell precedes me will help the next time.

Wow Michael, for what it's worth I would never have guessed by your voice! I hope you have some success. I know how hard it is to quit, I've watched friends do it... and my parents NOT do it .

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Te audire no possum. Musa sapientum fixa est in aure. (I can't hear you. I have a banana in my ear.)

I smoked for 16 years then quit in 7 weeks with the help of a program called Smoke Enders.  It worked for me, I don't know about others.

I hung out in bars for years and didn't smoke.  Then I went through a period of intense stress a couple of years ago and just like that my 18 year hiatus from smoking ended in a heartbeat.  I'd like to quit.  I don't know if I can.  But I do know this.  Right now I don't want to quit badly enough.  If I can really get up a good emotional head of steam I might be able to do it.

Larry

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"Life is too short for diet soda and lite beer"