One of the last things I've been working on before going on the road (start gigging) is trying to fix my vocal chops. I know now, it should have been the first thing! I would rate my vocals in the advanced amature/semi-pro league as C- or C at best. By far my weakest link, but I want to sing.

The good news: C isn't that far from a B... I'll settle for a B (maybe B+). Also, I started voice lessons a few weeks ago. What I've learned so far is that I've been doing it wrong - breathing, that is - and after singing awhile, my throat feels and sounds strained. I'm confident tho, that sooner or later, I'll get it.

The bad news is - later won't cut it. At age 60 it's gotta be now. This breathing thing just doesn't seem to connect. In fact, I don't always know if I'm doing it right or wrong. She teaches mostly by visualization, which doesn't always work for me.

Last time around, ~ 25 years ago, it didn't matter 'cause I was playing to a bunch of drunks and they always thought I sang great (or maybe I was drunk)... or maybe I'm just more demanding on myself this time. I know some of you are darn good singers. If anybody has any thoughts, suggestions,ideas, or short-cuts, I'd be greatful!

Glenn

Some people are just not singers, no matter what they do to achieve it. Same with dancing. Most importantly are these things:
Singing on Key...Staying on Tune...Singing in the best posslible & non straining comfortable Key for the song, Audience Eye contact as much as possible, knowing the words too.
As far as practicing, I would record your songs to SMF...then let them play & sing with them over and over again until you get it right. Then try doing it together playing and singing live. The record yourself and listen back to it .......does it sound good to you? Does it sound good to your family and friends? See what the consenses is and try to correct the problems if any. Singing is a gift...it can ruin your performance for sure...being just an instrumentalist is not a bad thing...or maybe a mix of both thruout the gig too.
Most importantly is that you Must have CONFIDENCE on stage or you will give off an insecure image to the audience and that my friend is Suicide out there...You MUST be in control or they will eat you up. This a very small part of the total Entertaining package required to be succesfull out there.
I wish you luck!!!!

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www.donnypesce.com



[This message has been edited by Dnj (edited 10-20-2003).]

I sing in an oldies band and sometimes we gig doing acapella. Talk about putting yourself out-there!

The biggest advice I can give is to warm up before your gigs, practice your scales, practice your phrasing and breathing along with your phrasing.

I have noticed practice makes a HUGE difference in my singing. It purifies your voice, extends your range, and keeps you on key. I sing in the car to the radio all the time. I practice songs out of my range both HIGH's and LOW's and I'm starting to hit some of those notes which were once out of my range.

Hope that helps a bit.
Al

Glenn,
The voice lessons will help quite a bit with breath control and expanding your range--at least it did for most of the folks I know, including myself. However, if you're singing results in a sore throat, you're doing something wrong. I would suspect that you're either singing a note or two higher than you should be, or trying too hard to project your voice.

Only perform songs that don't cause you to strain your vocal-folds (cords), learn to use a mic effectively and practice as much as possible. Two hours a day is just about right for practice, but if you haven't been performing for sometime, begin with just one hour a day, then gradually increase it to two and then three or more. It's a lot of work, but it pays off in the end.

As Donny said, record a couple midi files, then sing along with them, and if possible, record the performance on a tape recorder or CD. Then listen to your performances and be objective. You'll quickly hear the mistakes, and with additional practice, you'll be able to correct them.

As for the lessons, some instructors cannot play a song in any key other than the one it was written in. If this is the case, this could be the root problem with the sore throat. If the song seems to make you strain, have them play it in a lower note where it's more comfortable. That's why they put transpose buttons on keyboards.

Final thought. When you get a sore throat, one of the things that soothes your throat instantly is a dill or sour pickle or onion. Years ago, when I was a newscaster for a local radio station, I learned this little trick and it saved my bacon dozens of times.

Good Luck,

Gary

I suppose I would be a better singer if I had taken voice lessons. I just started singing because the singer didn't show up one night, and I wanted to get paid. I learned under fire.
I have almost always taped (now digital) myself, for more than 30 years. I am my own worst critic, but the sound has improved to the point where it's not painful to listen to.
Over the years I've learned not to hurt myself and to sing more or less on key.
I had some good encouragement from friends when I first started trying to sing. Something like, "that's not so bad, stay with it," etc. As you get experience, you learn what you can or can't (at least SHOULDN'T) do. I'm still learning to sing after all this years, and I'm lucky enough to have a few close local entertainer friends, such as Hank The Lurker, who continue to pass on their knowledge.
I can't do Piano Man, but I love the song. I can do Merle, Elvis, Conway, George Strait and others who were kind enough to sing in the correct key for me.
Most valuable advice you will ever get:
DON'T DRINK ALCOHOL WHEN YOU WORK. The doctors, lawyers, bankers, etc. don't get drunk at work (at least most of them don't) and neither should you. It doesn't make you sound better, but it can make you THINK you sound better and can make you try things you shouldn't. Also it will almost certainly shorten your career and life.
Look at me being serious.
DonM

Many well known pro singers vow they never had a singing lesson in their life, but that is more the exception than the rule, as most professional singers have had at least a few vocal lessons. Many great vocalists got their vocal experience (lessons) singing in church.

I'll never forget attending a music seminar given by Harry Connick Jr where he told us he never had a singing lesson in his life, but after later checking into his background, found out he's had a number of vocal coaches and vocal teachers. Many pro singers like to give their fans the false impression that they were just born good singers, but the fact of the matter is that a voice coach will not only teach you the basic mechanics of vocal production but also help you 'fine tune' your unique vocal style as well. I recommend everyone here (even the best singers among us) to consider at least a few brush up lessons with a 'GOOD' vocal coach. You'll be amazed how much they can help you take your vocals to another level. - Scott

AT Temple (in the 70s) I studied diction and phrasing in a voice training course. I was a woodwind major, and playing the clarinet was by far, the best thing I could have done to develop good breathing habits.
The diction part was important, but more than that is something that I have stated many times here:

LEARN THE WORDS.

You can't fully deliver a tune if your eyes are glued to a chart. You need to understand what the lyric means before you can transfer those words into an emotion that will touch the listener.
Many great singers, dont have great voices.
It's all in the presentation and the honesty of the delivery. Listen to Jimmy Durante or Sachmo sing a love song ..... it's beautiful, moving and inspiring on ANY level.
Take a finely trained voice, and subtract the emotion and you'll get "Ho Hum".

Guys like Jim Nabors and Andy Griffith have beautiful natural voices, but I can't get into the phrasing and delivery that they use. It's the tool INSIDE your head that you can reach people with. The mechanics are the easiest part to master.

Of course, if you have NO ear for pitch and bad timimg .... you're going to need to be VERY charming to sell the tune !

Record your self as much as possible ..... it really DOES help to show you the correct path. You can learn alot from a recording. (sometimes, a hard pill to swallow!)

Good luck, and don't aim for a "B" ..... shoot for the stars, and you'll get the best you can from the effort.

Great advice dave...

Memorize the words & Memorize all the music
This will leave you eyes, voice and entertaining abilities directed at he audience. No one wants to see someone looking Down when they perform...they want to see a big smile and eye contact
[very important] if you want to sell the song. What you project to the audience comes back to you...it's a two-way battery!!!

Thanks, guys... there are some good suggestions here and I'll soon implement some of them. I have to cool it for awhile since my pipes are raw, but on the mend. Frustrating, since I'm fired up.

I'm in the process of memorizing lyrics. You don't have to convince me of the importance of performing to your audience. I've seen performers both ways... and yes, it makes a huge difference.

Has anybody ever seen Cat Stevens perform? 20 some years ago I saw him... and even tho it was only a TV performance, I was so knocked out by his enthusiasm and passion that I'll never forget it. Yea, memorizing lyrics isn't the easiest thing in the world, but easier than changing the way you've been breathing all your life, for me, anyway. Think I'll go have a pickle.

I saw the CatMan at the Spectrum in Philly (long before First Union/Walkoverya ... )and I loved it too. The acoustic guitar sound was awesome. I've been a fan forever, and still do a few of his songs today. I love Father & Son, Wild World, Sitting, Hard headed woman ... the guy is great.

I went to night school vocal lessons. What you realise is that everyone else has the same problems, its a question of whether they have the nerve / guts to admit it.

Uncle Daves "learn the words" point is also spot on. You only start to perform a song after you've stopped worrying about it (and worrying makes you tense which is A BAD THING).

You have to warm up the voice, loosen up the head, throat and upper chest muscles, avoid alcohol and indeed anything chilled. Cold fluids tighten up the throat. Personally I fail on the beer front but you can't have everything.

Certainly the things that help most to avoid
soreness have got little to do with technique - pick your key well and never overstretch. Having said that developing your breath technique makes singing that much easier you will end up louder anyway!

Whilst on a good day with a following wind I can get to Bb and not sound like a cat, I only tend to go past F for held notes in a song if if feels wrong in a lower pitch (e.g. Eric Carmen - Hungry Eyes - sounds rubbish pitched to an F but has the right feel when I use G!) or it is so rangy that the bass end sounds awful as well. Iterestingly since I took lessons my lower register has improved hugely, which I attribute mostly to better breath control and resonance management. This takes pressure of the top end as I can now sing songs in a lower key without sounding gutless or losing pitch. An interesting practive exercise is to sing your favourite songs one octave down! Its also a good warmup exercise. I do this in the car on the way to gigs.

I use a compressor on vocals to give more gain in the quiet bits of my range and take the volume out of the louder areas (i.e. to compensate for having no microphone technique due to playing a keyboard at the same time!).
On the subject of keys, I'm sure I read that Art Garfunkle picks the key for "Bridge over Troubled Water" just before he sings it, depending on how good feels.

A bit of technical stuff which may help...

Our teacher placed great emphasis on space, relaxation and resonance. It's all connected. The space bit is that if you have your mouth constricted, or your throat is "tight", theres less of an opening for the sound to come out of and you sound more like a duck. Your throat will get tight if you aren't relaxed; if you are breathing using your chest rather than your diaphragm you are onto a loser as the act of breathing tightens the throat. You can get more space if you move you ribs out of the way - ever wondered why the serious male singer can get pigeon-chested? You can't hold the ribs out if you are using them for breathing. Shifting the ribs is beyond me, however. Heaving shoulders may emphasise a big emotional point of a song but they do nothing for the quality of the voice.

You may notice a lot of "Broadway" singers always sing to the balcony. This keeps the airway from the throat out through the mouth open and unobstructed. Singing to your feet is therefore a very bad idea!

You can alter how you sound by adjusting the shape and tensions in your face. Smiling makes you sound brighter - singing with a "depressed" shape makes you sound duller. You can experiment by humming a constant pitch and moving your mouth and face around to see what differences it makes to the tone.

The tensions in the face and throat also alter resonance, which also affects the sound. You are getting somewhere if you can hum a note with your mouth closed and get you lips to vibrate in sympathy. If it starts to tickle, all the better!

Also, singing wearing spectacles makes you sound more like a duck. I use contact lenses when signing - you really can tell the difference if I'm wearing glasses.

Hope this makes sense and helps!

Good stuff, and you're right about singing to the balcony. Aim for the last row!

John...

Thanks for a very comprehensive and interesting reply. As an optometrist, I find your glasses vs. contact lenses comparison interesting. I wonder if your facial posture is different when you're wearing contacts. That's the only thing I can figure would make a difference.

Hold the phone! "Also, singing wearing spectacles makes you sound more like a duck. I use contact lenses when signing - you really can tell the difference if I'm wearing glasses."

If this was the case, there would be a lot of really great vocalist that sound like a duck--which is not the case. If your specs are having an effect on your voice, you're either not wearing them properly, or there's something anatomically wrong.

I've been wearing glasses since age 12, never sounded like a duck, and some folks would put me in the baritone range. I'll match my bottom notes against the Statler Brother's baratone any day, and come to think of it, I believe he wears glasses as well (could be wrong on that one though).

I do agree, however, that you must learn the words in order to gain confidence and maintain good eye contact with your audience. Once in while, you can take a quick glance at the words, and that's not a bad thing. Most of the time, though, you should be looking at the crowd, smiling, using a bit of body language and be enthusiastic--it's contagious.

Like most of the performers on the site, I now use a laptop computer in conjunction with the keyboard. It serves several purposes, including holding the lyrics to more than 600 songs. The lyrics are in bold, black pring using 14-point Times New Roman font so you can see them from any angle or distance on the computer's 14.5-inch screen. At the top of each page, the keyboard settings for the song are in bold, 20-point font.

The same songs and settings are in my Music Finder Directory, and after the first word of the song's title the key the song is performed in is in brackets. For example, "Margarettaville (A)" tells me that I play and sing the song in A-major. This eliminates lots of problems and decreases dead time to less than 2 seconds between songs. Keep in mind that you can scroll through the MFD using the 2000/2100 and Tyros scroll wheel feature without selecting the song. Then when you end the song you're singing, it's just a matter of pressing the enter button, press the intro button, and you're ready to kick right into the next song. When you can keep the music flowing, one song after another, with little or no dead time between numbers, you'll keep the dancefloor filled, you'll build confidence and everyone will be smiling at the end of the evening.

Good luck and stick with the lessons,

Gary

The glasses tend to slide down my nose and compress the airways! The only way I can stop this is by tying my glasses to my head round the back and thats just not on!

I'm maybe overdoing the description of the "duck" effect, but to take it to the extreme, sing without glasses and then pinch your nose to block up the airways and there is a noticable difference in tone.

[This message has been edited by MacAllcock (edited 10-23-2003).]

If you wear glasses that restrict your air flow, you've got more issues than we can discuss here. C'mon, get real .....

Good, now I know what you're talking about... and there is a fix. Go to your eye care professional and have him apply a pair of non-slip nose pads on your glasses, which should at least minimize the sliping.

If that doesn't work, I would suggest getting a new pair of glasses. Something small, light weight material, like titanium, and high-index lenses. Possibly rimless or semi-rimless frames. All of these items will add up to lighter weight, maybe MUCH lighter glasses than what you're wearing now and eliminate the problem. Hope this helps and good luck.

I understand what John is talking about. I've worn glasses since High School and when I have sung wearing glasses ('spectacles' for all our UK members) and especially when perspiring (no not because I was nervous necessarily ) but on a hot day, etc., the glasses do have a tendency to slip down on the nose and in theory could possibly pinch the nose a little and constrict the air passages. And if and when that happens your tonal quality could be altered to make you sound like, well; a duck (sort of). I have since switched over to Contacts when Gigging myself because mainly I'm Vain (just kidding of course) "actually I do it because the Stage lights have a tendency to reflect off the lenses of my glasses and it does not look very Professional imo. Anti-Reflective coating on the Lenses will mostly prevent that but Anti-Reflective coating has a tendency to wear off after a while and the coating can actually become smudged to where it starts to be difficult to see through them. And wearing Contacts also will eliminate the possible other scenario that John is talking about. If you do wear Glasses make sure that they have a 'secure' fit to where they wouldn't possibly slide down the nose. It can be embarrassing and you may even lose a Gig contract because the Owner, etc., won't put up with his client sounding like a duck. Just my thoughts.

Best regards,
Mike

Don... yes you can! All you have to do is to change keys at the appropriate places. Billy Joel starts in the key of C. Then at "Son can you play me, etc", he jumps up an octave. That's the hard part, right? Well, the song needs a lift right there, but the same effect can be had by changing keys. What seems to work here is going into the key of F. Then at "Now John at the bar", go back into the origional key of C.

Whenever changing keys in the middle of a song, it's important to preceed the new key with some sort of chord modulation, which can be creative, or as simple as injecting the dominant 7th of the new key (in this example, C7).

When listening to commercial arrangements you'll hear this sort of thing done all the time... and sometimes in such a creative way that it's a strong asset to the overall arrangement. However, when it's applied to a song that we've heard 100s of times, it'll seem "not right". Never-the-less, as musicians, we have a creative license to do this sort of thing... and after a few plays, it'll seem very acceptable. Give it a try on "Piano Man"... great song, BTW. You might like it.

Good idea. I'll try it.
DonM

Don,
If that don't work, try tightening your shorts--Whoah! That'll bring you up a notch or two.

Cheers,

Gary

Don't worry Mike.........We call 'em glasses in little old England too........

If you can't get glasses that won't slide down your nose do what I do. I go to McDonald's and get two straws and jam them up my nose. It keeps the airways clear. This method especially works well if you are doing the Beatles "I Am the Walrus".

Tom, that really is the last straw...

Glenn
kbrkr got it right.
Warm up before the gig(s). If a have the time, I'll run through a variety, maybe 4 or 5 songs that take me through the necessary ranges, a few hours before the gig.
Also, on the way to the gig, in the car, gently sing along with the radio or whatever.
Run through some vocal scales, and when you reach the top..slide down to the lower octave. Likewise, doing the scales in reverse, when you reach the bottom, slide up to the octave.
You need to loosen up the vocal cords.
Don't drink anything too cold, and as unpopular as this notion is..No Alcohol. A good warm up is essential Glenn.
I'm 52, still gigging on a regular basis in a solo act, plus I'm playing with a Show Band, covering everything from the 50's through the 80's. So far I haven't had any problems.
Good Luck..Hope thisd helps