Thanx, James. You, Jaime, and Skeptor seem to always be the most helpful. This is not to discredit ANYONE who has given me precious and applied advice before. I still must ask, though...Would you say that practicing clean singing in the soft palate has made throatier singing easier for you to accomplish? I'm sure you've read all of my e-mails about grit and growl, just as I'm sure Jaime probably wants to put a muzzle on me until around Christmas time, when his new project comes out. This seems to be my major trouble area, BUT... I've been practicing and utilizing all of the advice that people have given me, and I'm starting to "rasp" this concept a little better. Oh, oh god. My comedy is...retarded. Anyways, write back soon, oh helpful friend.

I'd say that focusing on a sensation in the soft palate rather than the throat for 'throaty' singing has definitely helped. That and breathing properly. Before, when I would shout, which my old band used a lot (just completely pushed vocals with some fals vocal fold screaming at the top), I would be hurting afterwards, sometimes I'd lose my voice for weeks. I am sure I have nodes somewhere on my vocal folds from all that abuse (two years of it). Now, well, here:

http://www.myspace.com/tbcfl

That was about a month after I'd started taking tips I read on this forum and started focusing resonance and feeling in the soft palate and head. I could scream and shout like that all day back then, and it's even easier now, as long as I feel it up against the roof of my mouth (not just the soft palate) and focus on producing some kind of feeling in my nose.

When it comes down to it, I believe that if you can TELL that air is hitting the soft palate, then no matter what you are doing, I think you're a bit safer, clean or gritty. It's become a sign, to me, that if I am pushing too much air, at least it's GOING somewhere and not rattling my throat around.

Brandon, I know you're into all types of singing. I might suggest that you look into asian throat singing, which is pretty generically called khoomei. You'll learn a whole lot about producing grit. Before I started looking into RYV and any SLS stuff, I learned how to scream from studying khoomei techniques and applying them to my singing. Which was a bad idea at first because imo, khoomei can easily screw up your regular voice if you do it improperly for too long and I almost got to that point. There's a lot of info on the internet if you just look for it on Google.

James,

Are you talking about Tuvan Throat Singing? Like the Tibetan monks do? You know, it's that long, low guttural sound that just seems to emanate from the middle of their bodies?

I wanted to learn how to do that, but I wanted to make sure my voice was in top shape before I ever attempted it.


Tim

Yes, that is included in that extremely broad classification.

It's so funny you mention the hard palate, because I think i just posted to someone on her who wanted a bigger tone. I find that if you want that bigger almost operatice upper range, kinda like Tate or even Steve Perry, that you should move the sound forward onto the hard palate.

JV

Yes, that has been a big help recently. I've started to find my head voice, and it's kind of wimpy. Like. Clean Geddy Lee. So on a good day, I try that, makes my chest resonance come out a bit more.