THE VOICE CONNECTION
SOUND OFF

Welcome to The Voice Connection Sound Off; a forum for users of books like Raise Your Voice, Melody to Madness, The Ultimate Breathing Workout, and Unleash Your Creative Mindset, as well as a place for Vendera Vocal Academy members to interact.

This message board was created so that singers could come together and "sound off" to help support each other during vocal development and the creative process of unleashing the creative spark that occurs when writing and producing music. Currently, myself and vocal coaches Ben Valen, Ray West, and Ryan Wall are here to respond periodicially to your questions, with new vocal coaches coming soon. But, feel free to help each other too:)

This board is here for you to ask questions about my and my fellow coach's books, videos, and MP3 programs, as well as offer others help with our vocal techniques. You may also post videos of yourself and your band to share your music and ask for critiques.

Please refrain from negative comments, profanities, spamming, and inappropriate criticisms of vocal methodologies, vocal coaches, and singers. All negative posts will be deleted and subject to banning without question. I will not respond to negative posts, because, as Mark Twain once said, “Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.” With that said, positive criticism is welcome because that is how you'll grow as a singer during the training process.


The Voice Connection - Sound Off
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Re: questions about grit/ scream and prevention of nodules

Sounds to me you've been at this long enough and cautiously enough that unless a freak accident happens you should be JUST fine :-)

I get a little anxious sometimes too and just want to hear a second opinion so I can find the ONE dot I wasn't connecting to the others (or several dots). Sometimes I just overthink and freak myself out LOL - just depends where my heads at that day.

Re: questions about grit/ scream and prevention of nodules

Diane
Sometimes I just overthink and freak myself out LOL - just depends where my heads at that day.
hehe same do I. :) well what really touches my cords is mucus, and sometimes It is so stuck and dried that I feel it scrapes and hurts my cords if I try to remove it a bit just like now, expecially if you suspect you have food sensitivity. I´ve not been here so long only around a quater of a year or less , and I have done only approximately 100 session maybe less. But since I practice grit/scream and see the substantional gains I feel like addicted. the funny thing was a realization that I spend like hour and half during grit/scream excercise, but the clear time of workout is less than 20 minutes and the rest is breathing time, warmup, warmdown and lippbubbles in between screams as additional warmup. I was courageous enough to increase the rate, since I read about the guy here (Christopher) who did a 5 hour long session of grit/scream :D:D I think many people are kinda afraid of grit/scream excercises. I was afraid too and I told myself I have to wait until I get full strong voice in heights, resolve past breakpoints. and I knew that the first grit sessions are going to be felt with frustrations, I went through it, then after like 25 sesions you come to the point whether you are not sure whether you go the right way, your vibrato in heights will feel wird, then I had an important session when I spent couple hours to work on the uppest 6 notes and found I cut through it and sine then I have known that I´m on right way. the point is if you have clean voice you can´t imagine how you are going to be sound completely raspy/gritty and how your rock scream is going to be sound.

Re: questions about grit/ scream and prevention of nodules

LOL, I'm with a on spending a lot of time working. I can easily spend 2-3 hours in our jam-garage before my family is knocking on the door saying "you coming in soon?"
I spend about 10-15 minutes on VSR, then another 15 minutes on UVW, Then I'll sing a song or two to make sure things are warm and fluent, then I'll work on various Falsetto, TT and Siren exercises ( I just feel where things may feel "weak" that day and work on them with the exercise that best fits the situation)until I feel like I'm smooth and have had some progression. Then I'll sit out there and sing songs till whenever. I like to really warm up then sing a few songs that have grit or screams. The lyrical content generally helps me find the emotional freedom to scream and use grit in a really gentile and natural way and are in my "comfort keys". Also I feel like there are different "colors" of grit, so I like using imitation with different vocalists to find the "colors" and how they feel. I haven't tried any grit exercises yet, I've only been at this particular technique about 8 weeks now.

Re: questions about grit/ scream and prevention of nodules

LOL, I´m still in colledge. I think for people with naturally clean voice there is only one way to learn how to scream rock and that is low grit/midrange grit and high scream. I do highscream not exactly like Jaime teaches I use the same principle as in low/midrange grit so it´s slight variation. What I dont have clear is (first thing) whether when making IEEE (or hEEEIIIAAA)I should go louder or not loud. Second thing is when doing IAAA I go either one time louder and straight for grit and another time I go from reinforced falseto slowly entering the grit, you know what I mean. But I dont know which way is better for not developed grit. when I shoot straight louder IAA I use to cut deeper into false cords, and when going slower from reinforced fallsetto I try to work on break point between clean and gritty, which one is more benefical I don´t know.
the third thing is whether it´s better to manipulate the sound EEEIIIIEEEIII or AAAIIIAAAAIIIAAA (and so on) with vocal cords or do vibratos into grit like Jaime showed in instructional video of Highscream. this would be interesting to know which one brings me results faster.

Re: questions about grit/ scream and prevention of nodules

I always wanted to sound like Dio and Eric Adams from Manowar, and I have done a good job of getting the Eric Adams thing down - I can SING and sound a lot like him, but I can not SCREAM like him, and that is what I am looking for.
Not "screamo"/death metal kinds of stuff - I have zero interest in that, but scream, as in "old school" metal.

Specifically like this:

Eric Adams' Scream in "King of Kings"

Re: questions about grit/ scream and prevention of nodules

well, it´s partially a matter of genetics how your scream is going to be sound after the proccess of long term training. I don´t aim to get death metal/hardcore or any type of scream like that. From what I have understood jaime teaches hardrock/ heavy metal type of scream which I have been going for. eric adams scream is awesome. But as well there are certainly more types of scream in hardrock community. the point is I dont know how I will be sound at the end, so the point is top develop your own style your own scream. Anybody here on forum who can give me answers to my questions in my previous comment?