http://www.musichopper.com/screaming.mp3

This was me singing about 2 years ago... I got sick of singing the high end part of the song in falsetto clean and lame... I had no idea what head voice was. I had no idea about anything... leave it at that. So anyway, I decided to just scream vocal this part up high because doing it clean up high used to sound real bad lol. Please let me know some things...

1.) Was this head voice?
2.) Is this safe to do?
3.) If this is a safe head voice then how can I get my head voice to sound strong and not like a woman without adding the grit thing going on there.

PLEASE HELP!

ROBOT

First off, great voice on the lower parts. I really liked it. Now on the higher ones it sounds like head voice, but a bit strained and, don't take this the wrong way but, a tad on the unpleasant side. If you want to have a strong head voice that sounds like a man without having to add grit, you need to work on bridging and connecting. The siren and vocal cord stretch seem to be great for this, but make sure you're doing them exactly as Jaime says. If you can get the transition between chest and head voice smooth as silk and keep the sound big without straining, you'll be fine. Once you learn to controll it you can add grit or vibrato or anything you feel would inhance your voice. Belting the screams on the high notes is not a safe way to go.

I'll say this though, that second high scream sounded much better than the first, Kinda reminded me a bit of Chris Cornell for a second, but it does sound a lot like you tightened up your stomach and clenched your throat for them. Never clench. The power push is only effective if you can tighten the stomach without clenching the throat. Keep the sound up in the soft pallate, stay firm but flexible, support low, DON'T FORCE, CLENCH, OR STRAIN, and remember take the time to learn how to do this properly. You don't want to damage your vocal cords, and you don't want to keep bad habits. So keep working at it. You've got a good voice, its unique, and I think you could really go places with it if you fine tune it a bit.

I agree about it sounding unpleasant... I can sound almost exactly like Cornell when I clench the throat and sing high. I can hit the stuff in say hello to heaven and a few other songs where it is high and clenched. I get the feeling he killed his voice doing this. So I will not anymore. haha. This was about two years ago and I had no idea about vocals at all I can siren up and down my break without having one usually but the head voice sounds very weak and its pissing me off. I can resonate it and add some volume that way but it still sounds all lame when singing something like that "Josie's on a vacation" ...the outfield song. That guy sounds like hes pulling chest. I can do it that way too but that isn't too healthy cause I strain at times above an A.

I just was wondering if it is head voice and not some weird falsetto grunge thing.Up until today I thought head was falsetto because of how easy it is to sing there.... but I tested it by sliding it down to my chest and no breaks.. so I finally found my head.. time to start mixing and getting some sort of power out of the head tone. This is so much fun. I love learning. I also just found out why I strain on anything above an A...I have been pulling my chest tone and straining in the throat because of it. Tomorrow will be a bunch of fun work with exercises now. Now that I am not trying to get my chest up to a friggin C lol. That sounded like a dog being beaten or something.

Also, thank you very much for the compliment on my voice. I like having my own unique voice.. I really can't hide it much. Its always... me.

Just keep in mind it is possible to get that throaty sound without clenching the throat. I'm not sure if Chris Cornell really killed his voice doing that or if it was just other lifestyle decisions that has made him lose a bit of his edge, but I have alot of faith in Jaime's techniques. I've watched all of the videos in the member's section, listened to all of the vocal examples that came with RYV and watched all of the youtube videos of his, and he clearly knows how anyone can be a great singer. If you're going for the Cornell sound, its possible to do that without the dying throat. It just takes work. I'm just getting into the actual RYV excersises myself, still on week 2 of the 7 week program, but I had some knowledge on vocal technique before this, a few things I needed to clarify on here, but it was more or less an easy thing to figure out. Finding head voice is the easy part to me, its making it sound more manish that I have to work at. As much as I think I might know about technique, when it comes to actually singing this stuff, I'm clearly an ameteur. But I've heard great things about people progressing when they start doing the transending tone excersise, so I'm just waiting for that week to come up to see how well it works. Really I just can't wait to see the results of the whole program. After the 7 week thing is up i'm going crazy on grit and vibrato excersises on top of the other excersises, and i've got a huge list of other books, cd's, dvd's, and mp3's, as well as a few more products i'm going to be getting. Its not cheap, but its something I want to be great at, and i think that's the reason we're all here.

There are two problems with those screams. First, they get distorted, which does not suit the song and probably means you're straining if it isn't intentional. I don't know whether they are damaging or not. Second, the vibrato is uncontrolled and extremely unpleasant to hear. Go for a cleaner approach for the screams and develop your vibrato there.

I really really like your normal singing though! It has feeling!