I know these books! :D My brokeness at the moment is voluntary though... it's just really busy with university at the moment. I'm in some classes I want to be in so badly (since they will aid my goals in the long run) that I'm not in a position to work. Sometimes you need to make sacrifices... it will only be until September that I'll be this busy. Hehe, thanks for the heads up though! It's really amazing to meet someone else with a powerful and positive mindset. If you're interested, get the book "Goals" by Brian Tracy. It's in the line of the ones you mentioned and it turned my life around!

Interesting response about Young Guns by the way! Gives me some good insights in how it all works :) I really appreciate your elaborateness man. I will get to my exercises in about thirty minutes. Now I need to get back to reading again mate! Talk to you later!

P.S. listening to Tears of the Dragon now, great song! I'll start practising this one as well

Double post, sorry!

Okay, so I did the siren exercise. However, I'm wondering if I'm doing this correctly. Could you maybe correct me if I'm doing the exercise wrong?

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/jisi9oit41d34x4/dZFHWiwAQ-

Hey man!
Yeah you are doing the exercise correctly.
But I hear quite some difficulties here, it´s great you posted this sample!
I am just going to take the time here to make some things clear!

1.) With your floating rips expanded take a belly breath but make sure your chest doesn´t rise like chest breathing. A little bit is ok as your lungs are expanding. Take the micro breath Jaime is talking about to make sure you are not filling your lungs more than 3/4. If you fill your lungs fully you will experience the temptation to empty your lungs which will make breath controll quite impossible.
2.) When doing the siren exercise smile into the sound which will make use of mask a lot easier and will help keeping the tongue down. Focus your voice in the soft pallate and use a mirror to make sure your tongue has the U-shape. The secret super cool way to get the U-shape is to smile while using the bright sound and keeping it in the pallet. And I mean to REALLY have it in the SOFT pallet!!!
3.) Support your voice by pushing down on your diaphragm BUT there are lots of ways to do it incorrectly! Now I am going to show you something really cool!!! It is called the valsava effect. WIth your rips expanded take the belly breath we talked about and cover your mouth and nose with your hands.
Next try to exhale (which isn´t possible because of you covering mouh and nose). You should feel your diaphragm pushing down and THAT is the proper way to support your voice. Do this exercise often but literally don´t knock your self out because you could get a little light headed doing it. Just remember that this is how the correct downward push feels like!
Valsava for the win!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
4.) Always make sure your voice is as opened as it can be, your little punching back in the back of your throat (uvula) should be lifted.
5.) Do me a favor and also use lah (like law), la (like bread) and e (like bee) in your siren sessions. Doing the sirens with these vowels can very well be applied during actual singing.

Now, I wrote all that because I heard three things in your recording: a lack of opening, a lack of support and an overuse of air.
Use less air when doing this exercise, in fact try to hold your breath a little when doing this exercise. You chords were not fully compressed (closed) because of blowing too much air through your glotis.
But your road to excellence will be a lot shorter than most people´s as you already do some stuff right!

You know what,I would like to help you out with your vocals. I have been down the same road as you and I know which road blocks to avoid.
So give me your skype ID and your email and we can get going. My email is rennerrene@hotmail.com
I don´t think you will even need a lot of guidance as there are just certain corrections to be made and you will be able to fly on your own.
But there are some important details that would just be too complicated to write. Time difference will be no problem as Austria and the Netherlands share the same time zone!

Now rock these sirens!!!
René