audiot

…or: the thin white line :-)

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

yes, a student of mine really asked me that once. what she meant was, why is it impossible for me to sing more than two songs in a row, or something like that…

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

in the last part i got a little into the basic principles of the voice itself. i simplified, of course, but it’s enough to understand and work with the things that i’ll write about in future entries. if you want to have more detailed information on this subject, look it up in a medical encyclopedia or talk to a speech therapist or logopedia-ist or however those guys are called in english. but knowing and dealing with the basics can already go a long way…

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…

ok, the basics behind the voice are quite simple, almost as simple as breathing in and out. breathing in is just that – filling your lungs with air. breathing out and singing (or talking for that matter) are very similar but not exactly the same. well, actually singing is just a noisy way of breathing out :-)

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…

ok, still no new design for the site but this one’s better. finally a new entry of what this blog is supposed to be about…

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.

maybe i was too one-dimensional in the previous post. your goal should always be to have a band where you don’t need such things as strategy or diplomacy. it’s best to just say what you think and be able to trust the others to understand. but sometimes (or better: many, many times) it just doesn’t work that way and you have to deal with the circumstances, whatever they are.

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…

so there is a part five :-) at least kind of…

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.

enough about gear-talk. let’s say your, and the band’s, equipment is ok. now what? what could happen if you turn up the mixer’s fader that controls your voice is feedback. so you turn it down again to a point without feedback and again you’re not loud enough. you figured it out with your bandmates, they were reasonable and turned down their gear but still it’s not enough. so you should focus on fighting that feedback. possible reasons for feedback are:

• 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…

so it’s back to the loudness war inside your band :-)

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…

ok, first i want to adress the equipment because that’s easily dealt with.

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…