How often should I warm myself up and with what lessons provided in the mp3's and within daily interval; for example I'm having difficulties in reaching rasp and screaming natively and I don't wanna adopt those effects over nodules or other anomalies -> Specifically: I need some stress on my cords to gain growl and rasp effects; I'm not able to do it without stressing my cords first, I do wanna have it natively or in other words to cut everything how to keep my voice in perfect condition for singing without warming up too often and with what lessons provided within the tracks you gave on the site Appreciate your answers, thank you

got a sugguestion, and you can choose whether or not you want to take this advice or not. really not trying to sound like a dick here man, don't take this offensively as it's not aimed that way:

you should structure your questions in a way that isn't painful to read, and that will increase your chances of being answered. It's kind of annoying to read your questions and I feel like dropping out halfway. Help us understand your problem more by making it easier to read, then you'll get more effective answers. I don't actually know what you are asking.

From what i'm gathering the question is on adding rasp/grit without strain?

the answer is what you probably don't want to here, but it is the answer that you need and it is the answer that will give you results:

and that is, the 3 main exercises (falsetto, transcending tone, siren) coupled with the audio exercises on the members section, coupled with singing practice will develop all the qualities you want. But you MUST do these CONSISTENTLY. You cannot just do a session once a week or every 3rd day. You need to CONSISTENTLY do the SAME EXERCISES, that means every session DONT do a different exercise. do the SAME ONES, you won't get results the very next lesson, but you WILL get results from RACKED UP sessions. There is a good audio exercise for grit in the members section (scream exercise) in advanced section.

And as for strain, never feel it in the throat. if it hurts its wrong, if it doesn't hurt it's fine, just when you sing, feel it in your chest or head, but don't feel it in the throat, jaime says this in the lesson with jonathan spencer.

I'm simply repeating what Jaime has in his books, and what he has here, If ther is any secret its CONSISTENCY.

So:

Download ALL the audio files in the members section, and every time you practice, load them up in your media player and go through them, the warmups, the falsetto exercises, the transcending tone, the full voice, the advanced. DONT SKIP any of them. Don't go "oh warmups don't need that SKIP" i used to do this, you are cheating yourself from results. DO THE WHOLE PROGRAM, CONSISTENTLY.

It may help if you tell us what your current training is like, in detail.

Hope this helps

Good answer Phil.Warm up every day. Learn to sing first before adding grit and DO NOT add stress to the cords to add grit.

Thx Phil but I'm interested if you have had the same problems of not being able to add rasp/grit effects to your voice without strain (rasp / grit similar to Jorn Lande or Michael Sweet) and how long you've practiced to finally achieve it in your voice without feeling tension or fatigue in cords? Thx

Vocalist, if you are new to grit and are new to vocal technique, you shouldn't expect to master grit before you have a solid technique. Learn to breathe correctly, maintain support, then find your vocal placement, then start playing with the grit. Most people do have tension problems when first staring grit. It takes time to master;)

I'm not new to vocal technique I'm just having difficulties with achieving mentioned effects in extreme singing

well to answer your question, adding grit fatigues me a lot faster than singing clean, but at no stage do i have vocal pain from doing it. previously i sung in bands where i was just shouting/screaming, adding grit and getting PAIN, next day i'd be sore. I can sing **** from testament, and not get sore now. It fatigues me yes, but i'm never in pain. I think it'll be more practice until I get to a stage where it doesn't fatigue me maybe a year or so? singing is a slow process, learning to be good at anything is really, but consistency of practice WILL yield results.

I could always do grit, even though it was with horrible technique/no technique. i could get the SOUND. a good place to start is with your speaking voice. Don't even try and sing with it if you can't yet, just do what christian bale does in batman begins, change your voice to a rasp. When you can do this easily, then start "musicaling it" by doing it on notes. but if you can already get the sound and you are just wondering how to make it less painful, then all i can say is do the complete program more, and back off the grit a little. there is a bit of conditioning involved with grit i believe, and that is even with perfect technique the first time you do grit will feel painful, i've done it wrong for a long time so i'm "toughened up" to it, now as my technique improves i'm at a stage where i don't feel pain, i do get fatigued but i believe i'm getting better at that.

Proper support is essential make sure your following jaime's breathing sections in his book, don't skip that stuff. the more i study the book the more i realise how much i have to not skip any of the exercises. when i was first starting i was skipping transcending tone, thinking it wasn't that good, boy was i wrong, thats the MOTHER of removing breaks and getting that mixed voice strong.

what is your current vocal routine like? please list everything, how often how many days everything. example: this is my routine and note that i do the SAME THING. because consistency yields results, changing it up every session will not work nearly as well in my opinion:

basically all the audio files from the members section (warmup, falsetto, transcending tone, full voice, advanced) I do ALL OF THOSE, then I go into singing. And I work on the same set of songs until I feel i've gotten really good at them, currently my set is: Michael Jackson - Another part of me, Leave Me Alone, Testament - Haunting (really good to work on your phrasing speed) and then work on my own songs. etc etc and some other songs it takes about 40 mins, i do it every day, rest a day or two here and there. i then cool off by doing a few soft songs, and not trying to sing them well, just trying to sing with COMPLETE RELAXATION. i think this as an exercise is killer for smooothing out the breaks in the voice, it stops you from pushing your chest up and teaches freedom.

I was learning to apply grit by just singing songs with it, and when it started to fatigue me too much where i felt if i continued i'd be in pain, i'd just stop. a few sessions later, i could go a bit longer before feeling like i needed to stop. now i can go for quite a few songs before i feel it. i think the main danger from incorrect tehcnique comes in stage performance where you can't just stop the song, you have to keep going. but at home, you are in a lot less danger because you can just stop. and i believe you are building up a certain endurance/conditioning, i think that is part of grit from my experience. feel free to correct me Jaime, i don't want to be giving out bad advice hahaha i'm not an expert.

Hope this helps

Hi. I just bought the pdf book over the weekend and have been reading it. I have been working on my vocals for about 2 or more years now with instruction.
But I'm a bit confused with the downloads from the members section. There doesn't seem to be any order to them as far as there names. Although as I go through the book (the first few chapters) Jamie will talk about them. Some of them I can find others may have another name. I'm not one who loves to sit and read this kind of stuff. But I'm looking for help in some areas I'm not getting with my other materiel. I'm all about he work outs and would like to get started. The Ultimate work out he released I have enjoyed for the last coupe of days. I have three warm ups. The most gental for those rough mornings from Brett Manning, Then I do Ken Tamplins warm up that is a little more aggressive and works with full voice before the end and then I do Jamies which when I'm done is like having a silk voice :)
But I'm all about the hard stuff and developing my higher grit if that is what we are calling it. The mix voice has been easy to maintain but the higher stuff not so. I need a way to practice and keep that going. I have Jamies extreme scream download as well where he shows that just growling along with stuff can help. I'm starting that this week. I used to just burn out singing songs all day. But that takes to much time and renders limited results in the end. My question I guess if I was to ask. Is there a cheat sheet for those files so I can just work on them in logical order? I'm just learning the forum and may only be able to be on here till this weekend when my subscription runs out. I'm a working musician and can't afford the $27 a week. But I bought the book hoping it would help me with the things I am struggling with. Thanks for your time.

Heya Tom,
Drop the other vocal warm-ups while you're working with RYV, they'll just make things harder for you. Make sure you download the Audio Files from the edition of RYV you purchased - most folks get the 2nd Edition. Their only purpose is to give you an audio example as you read through the book - they aren't exercises or anything. So as you're reading Jaime says "Chubacca sound" and you're like "WTF is that??" there's an audio file to show you what he means by that. You really have to comprehend what Jaime's trying to teach you about the technique. There are no quick fixes or "vocal steroids" that will let you cheat, BUT, you will notice results and changes rather quickly. Remember that as you relearn technique you may lose as much as you gain while you go through an "adjustment" period, but you'll get it all back one you "lock in" to the new technique.

Page 255 outlines the 7 Week Training Program to get you started. It consists of the Vocal Stress Release - all the exercises from page 205 - 218. Then do your 15 minute (or so) Ultimate Vocal Warm-Up audio - then sing 5-6 of your favorite songs. That's Week 1. Week 2 do the VSR, UVW - THEN work on the Basic Falsetto Slide (using a keyboard or other pitch/tone creator) - then sing 5-6 of your favorite songs. Week 3 is the same as week 2, but don't do ANY Falsetto Slides, instead work on the Basic Transcending Tone Exercise. Week 4 is the same as 2 & 3, but do ONLY the Sirens (Basic Full Voice) for your isolation exercise NO FS's or TT's. Week 5 & 6 Do ALL the Basic Isolation exercises. Week 7 Pick you favorite of each type of Isolation exercise0 to keep in your regular regimen.

So here's that simplified with ACRONYMS!!! (Yay!)
Week 1 = VSR + UVW + 5-6 Songs
Week 2 = VSR + UVW + BFS (page 233) + 5-6 Songs
Week 3 = VSR + UVW + BTT (page 242) + 5-6 Songs
Week 4 = VSR + UVW + BFV (page 251) + 5-6 Songs
Week 5 = VSR + UVW + BFS + BTT + BFV + 5-6 songs
Week 6 = VSR + UVW + BFS + BTT + BFV + 5-6 songs
Week 7 = VSR + UVW + 1 Falsetto Iso + 1 TT Iso + 1 FV Iso + 5-6 Songs .. and week 7 becomes your DAILY regimen where you'd add specialized exercises for Grit or whatever you're working on and add them in there. ALWAYS do your VSR and UVW though, those are your constants.

Please be sure to READ so you understand what's going on and what you should be feeling for / visualizing to get the most form each exercise. I use the audio files to listen to the Isolation exercises before starting them so I can do it along with him and get the feel - but you GOTTA read too - even if it's just once or twice to get the mental images. You can do exercises till you're blue in the face and get no results or make things worse - you have to understand them and do the PROPERLY to get results. YOU AND YOUR VOICE ARE WORTH INVESTING SOME TIME IN!

Don't worry about gentile. I did the whole Brett Manning thing, and truth be told with proper technique you're really not affected by "morning groggy voice" - with proper technique EVERYTHING is gentile to you voice. I can wake up, throw clothes on, hop in the car and sing with the radio on the drive to work no matter how "sleepy" my voice is because I use proper technique - NOW would I go singing in front of people without warming up PERIOD - no, that's unprofessional, but COULD I - yes.. I wouldn't, but if it happened it wouldn't be the end of the world or a tragedy of a performance. Motivation and blood flow/oxygenation are the only things that will wake up ANY portion of your body - hence the VSR and building stamina by jogging and singing, etc.

In my experience the vocal routine is best done at the "peak" of your day - at your individual time during the day when you feel the most energetic - be it in the morning or at night - when ever YOU feel the most energy in your day. This is also when you are the most mentally alert and more likely to "click" with things and commit them to muscle memory - you don't want to make "bad" habits, you want to make "good" ones. You're also generally in a more positive mood which only benefits the creative and confidance side of singing.

Hi vocalist.

"""when i was first starting i was skipping transcending tone, thinking it wasn't that good, boy was i wrong, thats the MOTHER of removing breaks and getting that mixed voice strong.""" This needs to be stressed out, it´s very important and same thing happened to me with getting mixed voice into full voice.

Vocalist if you want grit, firstly you need to make all of your falseto into full voice to build the maximum range with strong voice in heights. so you need to do isolation excercises and transcending tone just like Phil said. once if you feel confident to reach your range goal then start doing grit. i had an absolute clean voice when I started and had exact problem like you´ve described. I think the best way is to start only with falseto voice or less louder voice/tone and find the lower intensity that produces a mini grit. it won´t be a grit rather a scratch similar to a vocal fry. It took me 10 sessions (hours) to work on that. and on eleventh session I accidently drank a tablespoon of cod liver oil that brought my cords together and was able to go full tone/intensity on grit/ high scream all the way. since then I got some grit from other 20 sessions but it´s still a long long way to go.

"Not new to" and "mastered" are two separate things - as I'm sure you know. It takes quite a bit of time to make technique your second nature. Until you are what I call "comfortably locked" into a technique (you're voice goes to it automatically, and doesn't fall out of proper technique) then you shouldn't attempt rasp. THAT being said, we all know you're going to anyway!

BUT I would wait until after you've done the seven week "boot camp" outlined in RYV (which will answer your question of "how often should I warm up"... which is EVERY DAY if possible, if you sing "regularly" it will become more natural and fluent.). Get your Vocal Stress Release done DAILY, OWN your Extreme Vocal Warm-Up exercises, MASTER your falsetto slides, Transcending Tones and Sirens. IDENTIFY AND SHIFT your core of resonance fluently. If you don't have these basic concepts under your belt then the "HOW" of rasp production is just going to completely confuse and escape you. I can tell you with great certainty that if you have ALL that stuff set and good, rasp will come very easily because you will have the knowledge and control you need to make it work - the RIGHT way. Think of your rasp like the roof of the house - if you don't build a solid foundation and sturdy walls, you're roof will crush and kill you. RYV and the 7 week boot camp are your foundation and sturdy walls.

BUT - like I said, You're going to try it anyway! It all begins on page 307 of Raise Your Voice 2nd Edition with Melissa Cross' explanation "Anatomy of a Scream". Since you've mastered the technique and build your strength and volume, smoothed out your vocal breaks, explored your resonance core, etc. It should all be pretty easy.