singing

anyone know where to get tips and practice exercises for singing?
i looked all over, and anything that i did happen to find was very vague.

Well, there isn't much help on the 'net (for free, at least). I was looking pretty hard about a year ago, until I finally broke down and bought an internet study package (the one advertised on the main page of this site). I haven't had the time to really go through it thoroughly, but it seems like it could work.

Basically, the only advice/help you'll ever get without going to a real vocal coach is in breathing exercises. Even a vocal coach will get you to first do breathing exercises before anything else. You need to learn to breathe in fully, into the diaphragm, then be able to control the flow of breath out of your mouth.

After that, it's basically practicing scales to improve your pitch and voice control. There's no magic pill to make you a better singer overnight; you'll need to practice every day, just like the guitar, esp. if you haven't been blessed with a nice voice to begin with.

Uh well I'll list out one voice crap that I know, and if I were to give lessons it would be the first things I'd tell everyone. If you want to learn more just e-mail me at [email]iiholly@aol.com[/email]

Voice Care:
1. no soda- it puts a coat of sugar on your vocal chords and makes it hard for them to move
2. water-its like lotion for your vocal chords
3. cough, don't clear your throat. Clearing your throats causes the two flaps of skin that are your vocal chords to rub together which is bad. Coughing just lets the air go through the flaps.
Stance:
1. umm don't know if you know your ballet positions but go ask someone you know who does ballet or look it up. When formally singing you always stand in the "third" ballet position.
2. don't lock your knees... this can cause you to pass out.
3. When you stand, stand with your chest out. Like you have a string attached to your chest that is tied to the cieling. DON'T ARCH YOUR BACK.
4. There should be no tension in your throat when you sing.
Exercise:
SHHHH EXERCISE
1. get in positino
2. breathe in so you're stomach expands
3. blow all the air out as fast as you can while making a psh noise through your teeth. You may get spit all over what is in front of you, thats an indicationg that you're doing it right.

And thats all I've got to say about that.

wow, thanks for the replies.
i did practice scales, arpeggios, skipping thirds up & down the scale, well pretty much a lot of the stuff i practice on the guitar. it did seem to help a lot.
like you were saying eggman (?) :) , i was not blessed with a good voice,
and could not hear myself when i sang, so i didn't know just how bad it was.
i found a tape recorder to be a very revealing experience, and the scale practice brought me from horrid with no range, to actually being able to do a handful of songs without everybody in the room suddenly having someplace else they had to be.
but i couldn't quit smoking, so it was an uphill battle, get better, get worse, very frustrating, and probably doing more harm than good. so i decided to quit working on it until i could stop smoking. i'm wanting to try it again, and i'm going to quit smoking, and give it a shot again.
so i guess i wanted some input, i don't know exactly what. but back when i was working on it, i always found myself wondering, if i had lessons, a vocal coach, what would they have me work on? what kind of exercises would they have me do?
thanks for the list holly. i didn't know that about clearing you're throat.
sorry about rambling :)

Well, a vocal coach can help you to get the most out of your voice. Teaching you different techniques, and how to access the three different voices (chest, throat (?) and head/whistle).

They can show you how to do a proper vibrato (which is actually one of my pet peeves in a singer-- when they do a throat vibrato instead of a stomach vibrato, and they feel the need to quaver every single stinking note).

Just like with a guitar teacher-- a vocal coach can help you do things you never thought you were capable of doing. Also, you can ask to learn specific songs and they can walk you through them.

It probably sounds like I've taken vocal lessons, but I haven't-- yet. I will, one of these days, when I get my act together. All the above advice is based on the internet course I bought, as well as advice from other people I know, coupled with a healthy dose of common sense. Oh yeah, and I guessed a lot of it, too.

Vocal coaches can help, but its almost impossible to teach pitch. So if you don't have pitch, you're pretty much a lost cause. :(

relative ?

No if say a piano player gives a note (provided its in your range) and you can't get in tune with it, you just are jumping until you think your right, and you never make it. You'll need relative pitch if you were, say, sight singing music, and you get a starting note.

Now I agree that vocal instructors don't teach pitch, but there is still hope if you don't (which is where I differ from iiholly).

I'll start with a story of mine. A few months back I was the student director of a junior version of the musical Into the Woods (It was HELL...). Now there was this one kid who was completely tone deaf, yet he had been cast with a half of a song for a solo (by the teacher director, who did the castiong, then handed it to me and took care of stage crew 'n' stuff). So we had to figure this out. Being the most musical person in the performance (as in, I was the only person who could tell if something was sharp or flat) and the teacher director never helping us, I got elected by the kid's girlfriend (also in the play) to help him out. Lucky me :D ! So what I did was take the sheet music (I don't play piano, but I know the notes) and took him over to the piano. First I found out the key of the song. I went to the first note of the scale, and had him sing it. Way off, as was expected. So I told him to stretch the note until he had it on (I told him flat, go higher, sharp, lower etc...) Eventually he got it. Next note in the scale, same thing, we did that for probably a half hour to an hour (so this is like half the rehearsal already), but as we did it more, he started to become quicker on getting the notes right. It was kind of like an ear training that used singing as well. Eventually, he became much better at the song. He also built up confidence for other stuff.

Where was I going with this? If you know you are completely tone deaf, and have a friend with a good ear, who's not afraid to say you are nowhere near the note, you can get better at pitch recognition, enough to be able to sing halfway decent. Of course, you probably will still be a couple steps behind, because the notes won't register as fast as people who are not that tone deaf.

Hope that helps you!

i hope i'm not tone deaf, or my endeavor to play slide is a lost cause as well :)
definetely don't have perfect pitch, but my relative is okay. but i'm sure it could develop further. but hearing differences in pitch on the guitar is different than hearing yourself trying to sing notes.
someone could have good skills with it on an instrument, but not be able to sing well, or even match tones well with their voice. it's a whole different instrument.
i can't afford a coach, so i have to get what little info i can, wherever i can find it. i did make some pretty dramatic progress from my starting point, which is good, because it shows that it can be worked on. but i hit a wall, and don't know where to go from there to get where i want to be. don't get me wrong, dramatic progress is from horrible to bearable, or maybe even pleasant on some songs.

[font=trebuchet ms]Third cousin?[/font] :)

i have been hearing a lot about middle c on the piano.
how does that transfer to the guitar, fret/string? (i don't have a piano handy to find out :) )

i havent read ther entire thread and maybe this has already been pointed out by someone, but i´ll say it anyway.

be VERY VERY VERY carefull with choosing a vocal coach. there are soooo many soo called teachers out there - even certified teachers (!!!!) - that do NOT teach you individually as it should be - they just tell you what you have to do no matter if you have problems with it or not. apart from that there are also ALOT of techers out there that simply teach wrong techniques.

THIS IS DANGEROUS for it can SERIOUSLY damage your voice!!!

so befor you go to a techer talk to his/her students who have been using his/her techniques for at least 3 years.

you can do soooo much harm to your voice with the wrong techniqes!

neighbours , fight with them once in a week , will help you clear ur throats ....

oh, i see.
no , i don't. middle c?

Oh sorry, Check out this page.

Basically in notation, middle C is 5th string 3rd fret.


But since the guitar plays everything an octave lower than how it is written, middle C, transferring to say a piano, would be 2nd string, 1st fret, or 3rd string, 5th fret.

There ya go!

I know what I'm about to bring up here has been priorly discussed on a thread, but after searching for the thread I'm unable to locate it. What causes our voices to sound different to us than everyone else. You the know the ol', "boy, I sure sound weird on the answering machine" line. I think it's so strange/cool/wierd that no one in the world will ever hear our voice the way it sounds to us when we speak. How does this affect singing? Is this why people who think they can sing really can't? Does it affect tone and pitch? Can you tell when you're singing the right notes by ear or is this a learned ability?

thanks ace! i really needed the reference point, and because of the notation differences you described, i could never seem to get a straight answer, until now. :)
leedogg, i've wondered about the same thing, it's a good question(s).
i was working on an eagles song, and thought i had it pretty good, recorded it, and when i played it back the tone was horrible.
so i just don't record myself anymore. lol, just kidding. i think if a person is honest with themselves, and objective, with the goal of improvement, a bad tone could probably be worked on. i hope :)

[font=trebuchet ms]Other people hear your voice only as sound waves traveling through the air.

You hear a bit of the sound waves, but mostly you hear vibration transmitted through your bones and muscles.[/font]

So people hear the finished product, and we hear it as it's being produced? Interesting. I bet since our ears/nose/thoat is all interconnected that has its own affect as well.