1. part I
2. part II
3. part III
4. part IV

last time i promised you a list with music i think is great for practicing. but before i do that, i’d like to give you two links to agility-heaven. you know, drummers have their rudiments, guitarplayers have their scales and so forth. and although those do improve precision, balance etc. they’re also for developing speed. now what can a singer do get faster or maybe doing some showing-off? well, it’s not as simple as doing scales, but it’s a lot more fun. so here’s two links to (drumroll please….): tonguetwisters, YAY !!!

• the tonguetwister database
• 1st international collection of tonguetwisters

go ahead, check them out. do each and every one of them (at least in your language) until you can say them loud and clear without pausing in a normal conversation tempo or faster. the secret is starting slow. as lots of double-bassdrum-wizards say: don’t worry about the speed – the speed will come. so start really, really slow and make it a priority to speak very precisely. and once you got that down, speed it up a little. by the way, those make great warm-up exercises as well – note to myself: there should be a warm-up entry anyway.

just have fun with them and remember to work especially on those you can NOT do :-)

and here’s one of my favorites, it’s maori, the language of the original inhabitants of new zealand, and it’s nothing more than the name of a hill. there you go:

Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaunga- horonukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu (it’s one word)

but now to the question above: “can i learn how to scream?” believe it or not, i get this one a lot - yesterday for example. but this is a special one because i need to give a different answer to you than to someone who asks me in person. so here’s the answer for you: yes, you can. but no, i won’t tell you how because this is one thing you’d definitely need a teacher for. trying to do this on your own is a really stupid thing to do because chances are you’ll damage your voice – maybe even permanently. don’t let anyone tell you, he/she could show you through the net or a book or something. it’s a lie! no, not even youtube. and maybe this is the right time to tell you: first you learn how to sing, then you can learn how to scream. there’s no reasonable way around it, no shortcut. screaming is not a separate thing, it’s more like a combination of techniques you’ll have to learn first – sorry.

now there are some other things to consider. first of all, you should know what you mean by ‘screaming’. i have no idea if there’s an official definition to this – i doubt it very much. by the way: as for official definitions, singing is quite a minefield! it never seizes to amaze me, how many terms are being thrown around that don’t even have a clear meaning. usually someone is just trying to get attention by using complicated sounding words – you know, like doctors do. then you should keep in mind that screaming only works if done at the right moment. you don’t want to go over the top with this, that’ll only reduce it’s meaning. and another thing: screaming, even if done properly, is not really the healthiest thing to do, voicewise – so now would be the time to decide if you really want to go through with this……….still there? ok, then i’ll give you my definition, or more like examples to check out for yourself.

for me, screaming is what the Manowar singer does all the time. yes, i know – you don’t have to like them. just listen to some of their songs and you’ll know what i mean. by the way, i liked this band a lot when i was younger, sometimes i still listen to them – it takes a certain mood :-) and make no mistake, the singer rocks – big time! you can also find a rather famous example in Deep Purple‘s “Child In Time”. this is what i call ‘screaming’, just to not mix up different things.

a lot of people asking that question mean something else, more like nickelback (nope, i refuse linking to them – ptui!) or similar stuff. but that is not screaming, it’s just singing with more power and a little ‘rawness’ in the voice. again, ask your local vocal teacher. now there’s some other guys who say ‘screaming’ but mean growling or whatever this is called. well, there really is a way to do this without hurting yourself, although it doesn’t give you the amount of control you might want. or you could just have lots of beer and grunt away – complete loss of your voice sooner or later along the way almost guaranteed. but in that case this might be considered a good thing…

hehehe, maybe i’ll tell you about the ‘growling-trick’ someday – but not right now.

here is something i’m thinking about for quite a while now. there are vocal lessons online one can find through google or youtube, some of them good – some not. nothing fancy so far. but because i believe singing can only be really learned with a personal teacher and not through one-size-fits-all-clips, i’m gonna start an experiment. maybe there even is such a thing but i’ve never heard of one. so here’s the deal:

i’m gonna try to teach online. basically that means direct contact between the student and me via emails and sending audiofiles back and forth to have useful feedback and advice. no matter how much i thought about this, i simply can’t know if this could work until i launch kind of a beta-version. that’s what i’m doing now. the first people that are interested and willing to help me check it out will get free vocal teaching online (and i’m not talking about 1 or 2 lessons!). i have no idea yet how much time consuming this might become, so i can’t tell you how many students i can accept in this matter. but the offer stands – if you’re interested, drop me a line right here and we’ll work something out.

basically it will work similar to regular teaching. you will need the ability to record yourself, it doesn’t have to be perfect soundquality but i need to be able to hear subtle details – for quite obvious reasons. if you’re able to shoot some pictures as well or maybe even short videos, that would be perfect (if you’ve read through some of my singer’s faq entries you’ll know why). and besides, i’m going to ask you what you think about this way of teaching every once in a while and you’ll need to provide some feedback, because that’s what this offer is about. on the other hand, i will provide you with lessons, explanations, questions, answers and tasks – for example sending you some playback. you would then record yourself to it and send it back so i can laugh my butt off and spread it all around the net analyze it with you….

good idea? then don’t wait around. this sucks? then tell me why by commenting on this post.

have a great weekend…

so what is the actual workout?

it’s as easy as singing the album and concentrate on one thing at a time. for example: always a good topic to focus on is precision. sing the album and concentrate on singing every single note, every single syllable as precise as you can. i do that at least 2-3 times a week to stay on top of things but if you need to build up precision first, it should be more like once a day. another thing is breathing. again, do the whole album and this time fully concentrate on breathing. do you breathe in the right spots? do you breathe in too much air? or too little? is all air gone before you breathe in again? is there a breathing-rhythm?

power, stamina, height are things that should be practiced very carefully! don’t ever overdo it with those! this could cause damage to your voice! that being said, it’s ok to push yourself a little – but concentrate on how it’s feeling. your body knows when it’s too much. and if your throat hurts, you’ve gone too far. power is not loudness (but you knew that already, right?). it comes from precision, efficiency and clearness. and there’s a slogan (i think it’s from some car-tires-ad…): “power is nothing without control” and that is it! you might get carried away, that’s fine – and one reason why you should do whole albums. if you get carried away too much, you’ll notice by not being able to do more than a few songs in a row. when that’s the case, practice on controlling the outburst as much as necessary. usually this is about volume, you got too loud – but loudness is not power, always keep that in mind. for all three (power, stamina, height) you should use a record that’s a tiny bit too high or too tiring for you, so you can stay motivated. but again: don’t overdo it. if it’s getting too hard, take a break. it will come, don’t worry.

then there’s two kinds of speed you could practice: i’d like to call the first one ‘attack’ because it’s similar to the attack we have with instruments (ask your local guitarist). this concerns the beginnings of notes/words. be there on the spot as fast as you can. i’m not talking about pitch here, although this is another thing you can work on (whole album, try hitting the notes – what a surprise…). be quick at starting notes – fast attack. and be quick at changing notes, when it comes to multiple notes in a row: think stairs, not ramp. this is an important skill to work on. the second kind of speed is the more obvious: be able to talk and sing fast in case this ever comes up. for this, sing the album without playback (just your voice) and speed it up, as fast as you can and even faster – this can be quite funny. choose lyrics with lots of words and off you go.

and then there’s whatever you think you’d need to work on….

the order of above things is not coincidence. as you might have noticed, precision does not only stand for itself, it’s also a factor for all others. without precision, you’ll always sound like….well, just bad. by the way this goes for any instrument – ask any pro. and breathing is everything anyway. so those two are the important ones, the priorities. once you got them down (hint: you’ll never really have ;-) ), the others are the topping. but work on them all to prevent boredom. if something is boring, do something else – that goes not only for music :-)

that’s it for now, the next part will be an inside look at my own workout. wooooooooooooooo…..

Image by audiot.eu via Flickr

of course there is! but since that had to be a personal workout for every single guy, i can only make this up for my students, or at least for someone whose voice is familiar to me. what a bummer, right?

ok, i’ll give you a different answer: of course there is! just make one up for yourself :-) here are some tips on how to do this right. first of all, you are the one who knows your voice best, so act accordingly. a workout is something that should fit you, meaning always keep in mind what you can and cannot do. it’s supposed to bring you forward, so it should 1. enhance or improve the skills you already have and 2. broaden your horizon or push your boundaries in order to develop new skills. that sounds a bit technical, i know. the point is, repeating something you already can do over and over and over again (as lots and lots of people do), is boring and inefficient – at least to your brain (your learning-organ). to your ego it’s pretty cool for it gives you reassurance about how great you are. but you want to learn something or get better (yes, that’s possible), so it’s important to focus on something that can be improved or newly achieved.

that being said, it’s of course wrong to set your goals too high – that would become frustrating pretty fast. so where to begin? it’s easy, just take a record that you’re familiar with. you should know the songs including lyrics. because a workout should keep you motivated, it makes sense to use a whole album instead of just one song. there will be parts that you like and don’t like, parts that are easy and parts that are harder to do – that’s perfect. i have a bunch of albums that i know inside out, meaning i can sing the whole cd from the first to the last word without pause and – if it’s live – even the passages in between songs. this makes it easy to dive-in and be less distracted.

but if you shouldn’t choose something that you already can do? how can that…i mean….ain’t that a contradiction? no. for two reasons. one, practicability: i find it important for my workouts to be usable everywhere, especially (for me) in the car. that means sheets i’d have to look at, lines i’d have to think hard about to even remember, melodies or passage orders i’m not certain about are k.o. criteria. you’d only need to listen to this record more often to achieve those things, that has nothing to do with a workout. and the second reason is: you take that, what you already can do, only as a starting point to begin your workout with. then go from there in terms of concentrating on an aspect you want to improve/learn and try to push yourself in that direction.

to be continued…

anyway, you wouldn’t believe how many times i encountered this problem – actually it isn’t a problem, but it’s often seen as such… let me tell you how i got into this mess in the first place ;-) my second band was a cover band that tried to play the songs as close to the original as possible. there were songs like toto’s “hold the line” or foreigner’s “urgent”, so some pretty high stuff which was hard to do for me. i was about 16-17 then and had no idea whatsoever about singing or being in a band for that matter. i tried to sing the songs the original way and it wasn’t that bad (my voice sounded thin and funny but i did hit the notes). the band liked it, the audiences liked it and so it came to more and more high songs in the setlist until i had problems with singing a whole set because it was just too high. now the band did what lots of bands do in that situation: they blamed it on me. i just wasn’t good enough and needed more practice, if i was even able to do it at all. that hit me hard. but i was the youngster, the newbie, so i tried to comply. i practiced like crazy and managed to get it done somehow, but from that time on i was unhappy with this band. to make a long story short, there were some fights about it and i left the band because they didn’t want to understand.

ok, now about the teacher’s point of view. the voice has a certain range, which is, like the sound, unique for everyone. it depends on things like sex, body height, size of the larynx, length of the vocal cords etc. so it has absolutely nothing to do with skill or effort or anything like it – it’s simply biology. period. it is of course a matter of skill and effort to be able to use the full range of the voice, but the limits of this range are simply a matter of luck. there are a few tricks that can help you cheat on that but with very limited results and not of any use at all if your natural range is not even ballpark for the song.

so as with the loudness, the problem mainly is one of human relation. it’s wrong if bandmates want you to sing higher than you can and it’s even worse if they connect it to your overall ability to sing. i learned this the hard way and had to stand my ground dozens of times. but not anymore. my voice is what it is – like it or not. if there is a song too high (or low of course…), i sing it different – and if nothing works, i get rid of the song. that hardly ever happens but it’s a last resort.

you decide if it’s possible and how you approach it and don’t let anybody tell you otherwise! your voice could depend on it. i was lucky to not get into serious voice-troubles with that overdoing back then, but i sure wouldn’t try that again…

by the way, if you have to make a point about that, tell your guitarplayer (or bass, keyboard…) to play a note that’s not on his fingerboard but somewhere higher or lower. if the answer is something like ‘can’t do that, it’s not on the instrument’, you win. and don’t forget, you might be very well able to sing something that’s out of the question for the singer of the song you have problems with. again, if you get into those kind of troubles, rearrange the song’s vocals so that they work for you. any other approach will just sound bad and that serves nobody…

good luck :-)

when it comes to learning a new language, the vocabulary-drill is what people dislike the most. why is that? because it’s boring and not very effective. you’re reading a list of words over and over again, hoping to remember some of them in the end. your brain notices you don’t like it/find it boring, it concludes that this is not important for you and therefore goes into standby-mode. well, not exactly scientifically correct but something like that. now another example: imagine a campfire. now you reach out and hold your hand directly into the flame. in a split second you have learned something you will never forget for the rest of your life. that is efficiency. and why? because this lesson is important. now you don’t have to get wounded every time you want to learn something, it’s sufficient to just be motivated. make your brain believe that you want, want, want, want to learn this, that there’s nothing more important, sexy, joyful to you right now than this – and your brain will gladly comply.

now back to our question: you should expect from a teacher to show you what, why and how to do something in order to learn it. the doing itself though is up to you. of course he/she should know how to motivate, but with you giving a sh!+ about it, it’s all just wasted time…

a few more things: he/she should be able to protect you from doing harm to your voice, hands etc. and should know how to break things down into smaller steps or how to take a different approach if something is too difficult for you. he should answer your questions (ask them by the dozen – important !!! ). nobody knows everything but finding a way to solve your problems is his job. that’s one of the things i love most about teaching: questions i can’t answer right there, because that means i get to learn something too, yay!

and finally (for now…): it’s about you, not him!

Image via Wikipedia

alright, this is actually so freaking easy, but almost noone seems to care about this. it’s about how we learn….and i’m not talking about learning in school because that doesn’t really work. this is different in every country of course – even from school to school – but most of those systems aren’t very effective. well, there’s not much you can do about that and if you’re not in school anymore, it wouldn’t help you anyway :-)

so if you want to learn something, anything, you’re pretty much on your own. yes, you could find yourself someone to teach you – that’s where lots of people make the first mistake, but i’ll get to that one in another entry. but still, it mainly depends on you. now what? buying books? or dvds? there’s great ones out there but this is not what i’m getting at here. there is one thing that’s more basic, easier, doesn’t need any time or effort at all and it’s also for free. join my sect and i will lead you to the final enlightenment…..oops, sorry that was meant for another blog…

let’s take a look at how children learn. now what is the single most important aspect in that? come on……….correct: imitation! you just won a free lifetime-sect-membersh…dammit! now you might think: wait a minute! to imitate something or someone, time, effort, action is required! and you are right of course.

however, there is one aspect of imitation that is different: the subconscious one. to not get things mixed up and because it describes it better, i like to call this being stamped – shaped or formed are also fine. maybe there’s someone at work who says ‘oh, my god’ or even ‘o-m-g’ about ten times every minute and it’s driving you insane. and then after a few weeks you say this yourself. don’t believe it? investigate. you might be surprised about all the things you pick up along the way, but beware, you might find out things about yourself that are not pretty at all…

believe it or not we are being stamped all the time by our surroundings. our friends, colleagues, favourite tv-shows etc. are stamping us every single moment. don’t panic! because this can be a good thing. if this is good or bad basically depends on you. there is no way to stop this stamping-process, so just don’t bother trying…feeling helpless? need someone to light your…OH, FOR GOD’S SAKE!!! but what you can do – and that’s so ridiculously simple…you can choose who’s permitted to stamp you.

ok, you might not be able to choose your workmates but the rest is up to you. you decide which radio or tv station sprinkles you and you decide whom you’re hanging out with. if you have a violent temper, the texas chainsaw massacre might not be the best choice when you’re about to meet some nerving relatives of yours. go for Bob Ross instead.

needless to say this works not just for moods but virtually everything, meaning you can use this to become better at an instrument as well – or for whatever other thing you can come up with. so if you want to become a better drummer, listen to as much great drummers as you can. actually, you don’t even have to listen. just surround yourself with them, put their music in your stereo while you’re doing the dishes or even watching tv. it doesn’t have to be loud, let it be background noise – your mind will pick it up. don’t concentrate on it, don’t make it time- or energy-consuming, even ignore it. just let it be in the background while you’re driving, reading, making phone-calls…simply all the time and it will stamp you. guaranteed.

one more thing: it’s likely that you won’t notice your progress, at least at first. but others will and if you give it a little time, you will too…

the next point would be to develop a strategy for a song and for the whole gig for that matter. that’s quite an easy one. notice that some songs give you a hard time while others seem to sing themselves – energywise. this depends on the whole song, not just on how high the notes are for instance. the feel is important here. once i had the problem of not being able to sing the songs i loved the most. after suspecting the devil himself to work against me, i thought it might be wiser to use a more scientific approach. the answer was easy, i used to dig into those beloved songs too much which resulted in some kind of small burnout. the next mistake was to think i needed to become stronger because digging in any less was out of the question. the real answer is strategy. no matter how strong you are, there will always be a song that sucks you completely dry. by strategy i mean finding out how and why the song really works and using that to your advantage. for example, maybe you forget to use the guitar solo as a break for yourself to relax a bit because you dig it so much. or maybe you don’t have a regular breathing rhythm for this song because you just get carried away. it’s easy to throw some techniques overboard when you’re into it but you should fight this urge – at least while you’re developing a strategy. try to get to that song as cool as possible so you can have a clear look at it. discover the moments in the song that really eat up your energy. when you’ve found them, decide if it’s possible to save some energy there without sacrificing any of the feel (hint: it usually is!)

another trick: doing the opposite can work ridiculously well, meaning try to whisper that one word you would usually scream – this can make it way more powerful. it can, not does always.

imagine a ‘suspense curve’ (if that term even exists – you know, like in a drama or something…) for the song and notice where power is important and where it’s not needed. for many songs, it’s not a good choice to start from the top of your lungs because then there’s no room to build up from there. save this for the climax, where it belongs…

and a rather general trick would be: if you reach your climax too early, just start softer. come to think of it, this might also work in other situations :-)

it’s not about getting into it so much that you crash along the way, it’s about making it sound and feel good. there will come a time when all those techniques work automatically – then you really can let go because mr. subconscious will take care of it. but until that time….well…..you know……it just sucks to suck, right? :-) but don’t panic, with a little work on that, you’ll get over it quickly.

once again mess around with all of that and have fun…

hopefully you worked a little on finding that line between stable voice and weak, fluttering, barely controllable voice. like i mentioned before, it’s important to always know where you are – linewise. think of it as kind of an abyss: stay at safe distance but close enough to enjoy the view (now, who is the master of lame analogies?).

knowing and dealing with that line is the first step in saving energy, because it doesn’t involve anything new to you, just using less strength or force. the next step would be to open your mouth wider. this leads us back to the second half of my first entry in this category – right here.

notice that i said opening the mouth as wide as possible saves energy. hmm, this may sound illogical at first – i’ll try to explain: there’s a certain amount of air coming out of your mouth (that was transformed into soundwaves inside your larynx, remember?) the wider the mouth opens, the more air gets through – the louder you are. more air means: mo’ loud, yeah. but it means another thing too (i really hope this makes sense to you in my crappy english…):

if

a certain tone = a certain amount of air + a certain amount of strength

then

more air + less strength = the same tone

well, more or less. but it really means you can compensate for less strength by just open your mouth wider. that’s not rocket science alright, but does it have to be? as long as it works – fine. and it does.

again go on practice that in connection with the last exercise: move to the ‘borderline’ and when you feel it slipping out of your hands, open your mouth wider and notice what happens. this could take a while though because chances are it will be something completely new to you…

p.s. i don’t want to irritate you by using terms like ‘strength’, ‘force’, ‘power’ and such all over the place. i’m using ‘power’ to describe something like a powerful performance, meaning something good, something wanted. what i’m talking about here, however, is not something wanted, it’s some necessary evil. so i’m using another word – strength. that means another form of power, muscular power, energy-consuming-face-turning-red-only-so-many-gos-per-day-power aka the one that needs to be reduced to a minimum. to provide another lame analogy: a fridge needs energy to cool your stuff – that’s the necessary amount. but if you keep the door open all the time, it needs lots and lots of extra energy because it has to compensate for your stupidity. so in my book power means something good and the other terms are…..ida know…..just……just deal with it, sorry

sheesh, i really need to learn english someday………………….

if you don’t get it, blame it on me and drop me a line through the contact form.

thank you

did i write something about saving energy already? i think i mentioned it but haven’t really explained yet. so first of all, and the same with every instrument, being relaxed and using as few power/strength/force as possible is the starting point. take a drumstick or a guitar pick for example: you hold it very relaxed and loose, with just enough strength to not let it slip away. if your knuckles turn to a bright white, you’re doing it wrong. with the voice it’s quite similar, you need enough strength to stabilize the tone but not more. that’s a common mistake and an understandable one because for a newbie it’s hard to sing a good, round, stable tone. think about a kid that learns to ride a bicycle. in the beginning he/she will hold on to the handlebar (right word?) as hard as possible but with practice comes competence and the grip will get less firm – less strength is needed. this takes not only practice but also a certain feeling of safety aka losing the fear. and another point is related to this: holding the handlebar too firm will result in some sort of trembling because of the cramped fingers.

back to the voice now: you need a certain amount of strength to sing a stable tone – more in the beginning, less if you’re experienced. so now it’s up to you, try to find out how much strength you really need. just sing a song the way you usually do and then reduce the strength, the energy you spend until it becomes all weird and fluttering, unstable and imprecise. then increase strength until you’re on the safe side again. do that a few times until you know exactly where the ‘tipping point’ is. this is very important! you need to know at all times where this point is and how far you are away. exactly how fast can you go before your car slips off the road? how loud can you crank up your amp before the neighbours call the police? how much beer can you….you get the idea.

i’ll give you a little time to experiment…

have fun

anyway, what about the candle? and the efficiency for that matter?

the candle experiment simply shows how much of the air is transformed into sound and how much gets through ‘unhindered’. think about the vocal cords again – they’re pressed together in order to create sound from the air coming through, remember? now what would happen if they’re not really closed or if they’re closed but not really tight? right, only some of the air could be transformed into sound, the rest would stay ‘normal’ air. by the way, that’s how whispering works: the vocal cords are pressed together but a small opening in form of a triangle remains on one end of the vocal folds. there’s even a word for this, directly translated from the german term would be whispering triangle or something similar.

maybe you have already guessed so, whispering is not good for the flame of our candle. to make sure, hold your hand in front of your mouth. first say ‘hello’ in a normal way and then whisper it. it’s possible to create sound and even sing with the vocal folds not closed completely. this gives the voice a somewhat breathy sound. but it’s not efficient at all. it requires a lot more air and tends to dry out the vocal cords or better: the layer of fluid surrounding them. this again makes singing harder because dry vocal folds aren’t as airtight as moist ones. so you would need more air to create enough pressure to create a tone. that’s why you should drink a lot during singing… more air means more effort, more struggle, more work and less control, shorter passages between breathing spots, less stamina etc. in a nutshell: no good. moisture however may not be good in your basement but in singing it’s one of the only friends we’ve got (sniff).

with this kind of background light up your candle once more and try again…

alright, now i have to use some terms i looked up in an english-dictionary – hopefully they’re the correct ones and you can understand this…

after the air comes up through the windpipe or trachea it passes through the larynx aka voice box (notice something?), the throat, the mouth and out it goes. it would be good if you’d have a look at the windpipe-link above which leads to an article on wikipedia. you’ll see some pictures of the lungs and the larynx, especially this one here is important

if you would chop someone’s head off (hypothetically speaking…) – right through the larynx – and look in his throat from above, this is what you’d see. the windpipe is in the middle and on it’s left and right sides you can see the vocal cords or vocal folds (the somewhat brighter stripes). when breathing normally it looks like this, during sports it’s opened wider because of stronger breathing and when you talk or sing the vocal folds are closed. they are virtually pressed together. how this works exactly is not really important and even if it was, i could not explain it in english. suffice it to know that the air goes through the larynx and passes the vocal cords inside of it. that’s where it gets interesting. take two sheets of paper, hold them together and blow through them. one would imagine that they just get blown apart but they don’t. they kind of flutter, right? well they should, just try harder the next time, will ya?

this is exactly what happens with the vocal folds during singing. they are pressed together first, airtight. a thin layer of fluid helps with that. then the air comes from down below and is stopped there. now a certain pressure is needed to get through. if this pressure is high enough the vocal cords are blown apart and flutter or better: vibrate. that creates the soundwaves, which are nothing else than differences in air-pressure. so this is where the tone begins. it then travels through the throat and the mouth where it gets it’s characteristic sound and color. every person has a different shape of the throat, mouth, nose-region and so every person has a different voice because the reflections are different – some frequencies are amplified (those are called formants), some pass through and some are weakened. the mixture of all those frequencies defines the sound of someone’s voice.

i think that’s enough for now. i’ll make the connection to the candle-experiment in the next entry of this series…

p.s. i hope it’s allowed to embed this picture here. if anyone has a problem with this, just let me know and i’ll delete it right away…

this time i’ll give you a little exercise, or maybe call it an experiment that was used for hundreds of years but is almost fogotten today – at least it seems that way…

the next part of this series will cover the way the air takes and how you’re making use of it, but i believe it’s easier to understand what i’m talking about (especially regarding my somewhat creative english :-) ) if you mess around and make some experiences first. so for now have some fun with this little sucker here:

1. light a candle
2. if you find that you don’t have a candle, obtain one. in that case this should have been step one, deal with it.
3. light the newly obtained candle. no, if you already completed step one before reading step two, you don’t need to light a second candle (if you happened to have two candles in the first place), nor do you need to light the first – already burning – candle a second time. you also don’t have to check if there would have been a second candle. one candle is perfectly fine, there’s absolutely no nee…..
4. i’ll just assume that you have a candle and it is properly lit. this is no step for you. i just don’t know how
5. to write something outside of this list and then conti
6. nue it with the next num
7. ber
8. what the hell…

alright, there you go:

the following experiment requires one burning candle.

just hold it in front of your mouth while you sing a few words. the goal is to sing without the flame moving too much. that’s basically it.

now what is that good for you ask. the thing i’m talking about is efficiency. it’s vital to your singing that you become able to use the air you’ve got in the most efficient way possible. one reason for that is quite obvious: you may want to sing for hours without passing out – hyperventilating is not the best way to reach that goal… another reason is the sound, a full and round tone requires efficient use of the air. yes, wasting air can sound cool but you’d have to know what you’re doing first – and that’s what we’re working on right now. so stay focused on efficiency.

so take the candle and sing into the flame, especially vowels. you can try to sing a song, but there’s a bunch of letters like ‘p’ or ‘t’ for example that make this quite hard. you could sing those letters softer, as long as you’re not getting used to that! no matter what you sing, play around a little and try to find out how to ‘control’ the flame. what do you need to do to keep it calm? does volume make a difference? come up with your own questions and find answers by just singing into the flame… develop a feeling for a ‘flame-friendly-singing-mode’.

ok, here is some kind of a disclaimer in case there’s any wiseguys out there reading: this is just an exercise to develop a certain feeling and control. ‘flame-friendly-singing’ is not the way you should sing from now on. and while i’m at it: fire is extremely dangerous. do not burn your house down, not even with a voice-friendly flame ;-)

9. have fun

aaaaaaaaaarr

10. rrrrghh

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

and another point: could you be the problem? to my own disgrace i have to admit that i was the problem – more than once. what can i say, i was young and needed the money :-) you can’t blame an 18-year-old for being stupid. but i evolved and i want you to evolve as well. so just for the heck of it, find out who’s the problem and go from there… and if you’re 18 or even younger, go ahead be stupid and selfish – it’s your right. and the old folks need something to complain about…

i thought it might be helpful to get a little more into the diplomacy thing. this is an often underrated point of huge importance. a band is quite similar to a relationship, sometimes even worse :-)

a lot of musicians are no fun when it comes to the picture they have about art. they see themselves as artists so who are you daring to question a decision they’ve made? as such kind of artists they seem to believe that any change to their work is a sacrilege. of course they’re wrong but they will never understand that. this is one species of musicians i encountered and it’s the worst of them all because in dealing with them everything is about strategy. if it’s ‘your’ band, get rid of them and save yourself the trouble. but you might not have that luxury, maybe they’re just really good on their instrument and it would take ages to find a decent follower. for whatever reason, let’s assume you have to work with them. that’s already it: work ‘with’ them, not ‘against’ and not ‘without’. it’s ‘with’. it’s always teamwork, but what good is it if one side understands that and the other doesn’t? that’s where diplomacy comes in. it’s one of the things i learned during my times as estate agent and financial advisor (yes, i’ve been there….) and that served me well in all the bands i have been since. for example, if there’s a question to which you know the answer, you don’t give it. instead you direct the other one, without him noticing, so he finds the answer himself. now you’re not the dislikable mr. know-it-all and he doesn’t feel stupid because he found the answer himself or better: you both found it together. this goes for other things as well. you want him to do something to your advantage – turn down his amp for instance. but if you say: “hey, turn down your amp!” or “you’re too loud!”, chances are it wouldn’t work because he’d see it as an interference and would block. yes, i know, this whole issue is infantile and ridiculous but look at today’s international politics….

this is like a law of nature: if one involved person is irrational, everything becomes irrational. being reasonable doesn’t work anymore, so you’ll have to use strategy to achieve your goals. whatever brings him to turn down his amp is irrelevant, the only thing that counts is that he does it. you know him best, so you’ll have to figure something out that works for you. a good start usually is to compliment on his sound or solo or speed or whatever. too bad that this room turns everything above a certain volume to mud. and you would so enjoy to listen to that solo, but oh well…. and don’t you forget to mention that it is so much better now that everything became a lot clearer once it’s done – you want your success to last, don’t you?

so if you’re dealing with such specimen, become the helmsman, the influencer, the puppet master (think mike novick on ’24′ – i just love that character…). as long as nobody notices, you’re fine.

• wrong positioning of the speakers
• wrong positioning of the mic(s)
• bad interior of your room
• wrong handling of the mic(s)
• wrong handling of mixer or effects

there could be other reasons as well but dealing with those five should usually solve the problem. i’m not a physicist, so i won’t give any scientific answers (glad to hear that? yeah, me too :-) ). it’s all based on experiences, so maybe you’d have to mess around a little bit.

first of all, mics have polar patterns, usually a vocal mic is a dynamic microphone with a cardioid pattern (sometimes super- or hypercardioid), that means you should never point your microphone towards the speakers (monitors are speakers as well…). that is of course the side of the microphone that you’re singing into. if your speakers are behind you, so that you in a way have to point the mic at them, move either the speakers or yourself. the rule would be to point the mic as far away as possible. so check out your options regarding positioning of mics and speakers. certainly this goes for other microphones in the room as well (background vocals for instance). if the monitor is the problem, make sure you really need it at all. i have never been in a rehearsal room where monitors were necessary. people often do use them though… if you absolutely want to use a monitor because you want to look as cool as this guy (ego anyone?), be careful to never point your mic at it as well. the less speakers the better because each one is a possible feedback source. be sure as well to not set up the speakers too close to a wall, they should point into the room. google around a bit for correct positioning or read/ask in forums. don’t forget to post a picture of your room with your question. the problem could also be wrong positioning of guitar or bass amps, because if there’s a muddy soundsoup instead of a clear sound separation, problems are preassigned already.

the treatment of the room itself is also important. naked concrete walls may be exactly to your gusto, but soundwise it’s…uhm…kind of subperfect… again google around. just pasting carpet to the walls is not really a solution. a wall-air-carpet-sandwich could work fine though. use wooden battens (if that’s the correct word….) to create a layer of air (about 4-5 inches thick) between the wall and the carpet. try to make the wall patchy and uneven. but this depends very much on your specific room so no one-fits-all-recommendations here, sorry. that’s what internet forums are for…

now about the handling of your gear. first, read the manuals to be able to use the mixer correctly. this should be a no-brainer but people operate mixers wrong quite often, so make sure not to be among them. the same goes for any additional equipment like reverbs or delays for instance. there are feedback destroyers out there and some of them work nicely but it’s always better to solve the problem than to keep it at arm’s length. feedback destroyers could for example cut frequencies that you do want and therefore create unwanted sound changes.

one more thing that always reminds me of action movies in which people hold guns horizontally to look cool. they wouldn’t hit the target if it would be more than, like, five feet away, but who cares if cool-looking is involved ;-) . anyway there are people who hold their microphone by closing their hand around its head (the ball-shaped thing at the top). this is the part you should sing into. smart designers created handheld microphones with a haft which can be used to hold it with the hand. so please do so. i once was part of a ‘support’ band that played the songs to which contestants sang in some kind of singer’s battle. we did rehearsals with all of them before and about 80% of them held the mic the wrong way. what a feedback party! and check this out, we had a feedback destroyer back then and because of the massive feedbacking it shut down frequencies our guitarist needed (he was playing through the p.a.) for his sounds. so i gave this advice about a hundred times in three days: hold the mic where you’re supposed to hold it. good thing i had my earplugs then already – i might be deaf by now….

cool, now we had own gear, band equipment, the room, positioning of various things, handling of mics and other stuff as well as a bit of egos and dealing with feedback. maybe there’ll be a part V, i’m not sure yet…

ok, let’s assume you have decent equipment now. then there’s still the question about the band’s gear. if you sing through a small powered mixer and cheapish small speakers (i once encountered a band that sang through a small home stereo…) you can easily reach the limit of this gear and that means there’s simply nothing you can do – loudness-wise. so it becomes a matter of diplomacy. the only way here to get a good mix of all instruments (including the voice of course) is to get the others to turn down – not necessarily an easy enterprise. one way would be to just not care (you can hear yourself because of your earplugs, remember?) and wait until the others mention that the vocals are not loud enough. then point at the mixer to show them that you can’t do anything about it. now try to convince them to turn down their gear so the voice will be heard again. never, never, never give in and try to sing louder !!! you’re as loud as it gets. that’s what you have to believe yourself and that’s what the others need to believe as well. and one other thing: loudness is no criterion for a singer’s quality! good luck. by the way, i left bands because of this and if your bandmates are too stupid or stubborn to understand, maybe you should do the same – this is a fight, nobody can win because the loser in any possible case is the music aka the band aka all of you.

if the guys understand that you’re all sitting in the same boat – cool. but although they might agree to turn down their volume it still doesn’t have to work because – depending on the music – a certain loudness could be essential, at least for the drums. below this crucial volume-level the music does just not work. if that’s still too much for your gear, there might be no other way than investing in a better amp and speakers…

as a last resort you could focus your attention on the next part of this series…

in my opinion two things are imperative and two more are recommended. i think a p.a. is for the whole band so it’s not your job alone to provide one. in most cases a pair of speakers, an amp and a mixer can be borrowed somehow or bought. it doesn’t need to be the newest high-end stuff – search/ask in internet forums about what your band needs and look on ebay for instance. even 20 year old gear can work fine…

but now about your stuff: first, you need a microphone. i strongly recommend a professional one, you won’t have any fun with some cheapish-china-bob-cable-already-attached-and-available-in-fancy-colors-stupid-thing. do yourself a favour and get a decent one. it will be your friend for ages. now for the tough part: discussing about mics is like discussing about religion, i’ll take a shot nonetheless. i’m using two mics on stage: a Shure SM58 and a Shure Beta 58A and i would trust my life on them. period. the SM58 has been around for 40 years now and in my opinion it’s legendary status is well deserved. it’s been a good friend to me for 16 years and counting. it fell down so many times and has been watered just as often and it still works perfect. the Beta is a little bit different, in terms of proximity-effect, polar pattern, feedback behavior etc. – i choose one of them depending on the gig. i also own two more live-vocal-mics, a Beyerdynamic wireless (don’t know the name or the exact whereabouts but i haven’t used it in years anyway…) and an AKG D3800 which was a gift (i haven’t checked it out yet). for me the Shures are the way to go but look around yourself. decent mics cost at least around 100 bucks but as i said, a good microphone will work for decades – think about the price of a decent bass, guitar or drumkit…

the second thing i treat as a must-have are earplugs. i’m using a pair of those, called Elacin – they are custom fit and cost a lot but nowadays they are no longer a must because the ‘normal ones’ have become good enough. i’d recommend the Alpine thingies but again, look for yourself. just make sure the frequency pattern is kind of linear, meaning they don’t change the sound – they just reduce the volume. decent ones should be around 20 bucks.

earplugs are so important because they let you hear yourself and that’s essential for quite obvious reasons. and, as a bonus, they protect your ears :-). no matter how bad the rehearsal or stage sound is, even with no monitors at all – you’ll always hear yourself because of bone vibrations. it sounds a bit different but you’ll get used to it quickly. they sometimes are your best weapon against feedback as well, but that’s a different point on the problem-list…

alright, if you still have some money left, invest in a microphone cable and a stand. both should be of good quality (read the first few sentences about microphones again…). don’t buy a stand with plastic screws or some other ridiculous features. no one really needs a cupholder or an ashtray (smoking kills by the way) but it needs to be solid and robust. it’s better to wait a little and get a good one.

cool, now you’re ready to go…

i’ll get to the other points on the list very soon.

p.s. sorry if the technical stuff is not explained very well, i often experience lack of correct terms in english when it comes to such specific points. the links are just to illustrate – depending on where you are, you might find better ones of course…