I just bought "Raise Your Voice" yesterday and am reading through it, and I cannot wait to start putting the exercises into practice.

Here's my question, though. First of all, I'm 38, never really developed my singing voice. I can get pretty high, but not as high as I used to hit (my influences are Queensryche, Helloween, Iron Maiden, etc.). With my age, what can I reasonably expect in terms of improvement? I doubt I can hit notes like a 25 year old, or is there hope?

Second question, is that unfortunately I am pretty overweight (243, as I type). I suspect that if I dropped some weight, my voice quality would improve, am I right? What's the correlation between being overweight and voice tone? And, can anyone suggest some exercises that could help strengthen my flabby stomach muscles effectively?

Thanks for everything, and I am glad I bought the book!

Fortunately, as tissue, your vocal cords can't become overweight ;).

Weight, as far as I understand, has no direct effect over your tone.

However, the effect that it has is making you need to exhert more energy to produce the sound properly--it also makes it harder to get really good breath control as I understand.

Of course, the root of good singing is breath support, so that may prove to be a bit of trouble, but I know plenty of overweight singers who sound fabulous :D. Don't sweat it! But do try to lose that weight, since it's just generally not healthy for you, and will probably prevent you from reaching your full potential.

I once helped out a 48 year old man, and although I only knew him for about three months, he improved a -lot- over that time. He went from basically speak-singing in a very wobbly voice, to producing a much cleaner 'singing' sound (still wobbly a bit, but then he wasn't actually doing exercises--just trying to fix little things that didn't require training). 38 is not too old at all, and although you might take longer to pick things up than the 25 year old would, I'm sure you can still do great things with your voice.

Anthony is dead on. Halford's older than you are, and he can hit insane notes. I'm 22, and the highest falsetto note I can hit is an A5. That's really high, granted, but there are people far older than I am that can hit much higher.

As far as weight is concerned, the three tenors were some pretty hefty dudes, and some consider them the greatest singers ever. Not me, personally, but I respect their extraordinary abilities.

Lemme ask, how tall are you? This'll give me a better idea as to what your weight proportions are. Don't be ashamed, just go for it. If Cobb Knobbler gives you any flack, just watch ANY of his videos and you'll feel 10x better;)

To be honest, just DOING most of the RYV exercises will strengthen your abdominal muscles to some degree, if done properly. You don't need a ripped 6-pack for singing. To be quite frank, haing abs that are TOO strong can be a detriment to singing. Just work with the Power Push, and do plenty of breathing exercises. With proper breathing, it'll actually work your abs AND intercostals. You'll learn more about that the more you read RYV.

Another HUGE piece of advice is to get Jaime's OTHER book, "The Ultimate Breathing Workout." I think learning proper breath control will be the most beneficial aspect of singing that you can reap. Well, I hope I've helped. If not, Jaime will probably throw in his 2 cents, but he honestly learned everything he knows from me! Just kidding. He'd probably kill me for saying that

Thanks for the great advice already! I can definitely feel the burn whenever I tighten my stomach muscles, so that might do good for them as well as breath support, I didn't think about that.

As for how tall I am, I'm 5'10, so doctors say I should be in the 180-185 range, but if I can get down to around 200 I'll be extremely happy!

As far as the age thing, y'all are right about Halford and others, they can still hit insane notes! I guess I'm sort of worried since they have been doing it all their lives and I'm just starting out, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, many thanks to all of you that support each other! I hope you don't mind me leaning on you for information.

I have a friend that was nearly 500 pounds and he was an AMAZING singer. He is now down to just below 300 and the biggest difference is that his stamina is better and he doesn't run out of breath as easily.Some of my closest friends are rock stars in the 40's and they still sound amazing. You get what you give. If you put 110% into this program, your voice will astound you. There is a Useful Tip in RYV that presents a breathing program that has to do with controlled breathing and panting. That will help with the weight and strengthening your lungs and helping with weight. You should look into starting a cardio program. I suggest this to ALL singers. I do cardion 6 mornings a week, rebounding on a mini trampoling for an hour, and I do something called FlowFit 5 nights a week. It's like a cardio yoga. Hope this helps:)

JV

Thanks, Jaime! (It's so cool that we can get advice from you like this, you rock!) I just read the brething, panting routine. I am going to start doing that on a regular basis (just not in the car!). By reading through some other things, I am doing some firsts. Looking for colloidal silver, for instance, and taking vitamin C. Regardless of voice potential, a lot of the things in the book seem like a guideline for healthier living, period!

Jaime,

I'm not in my 40's, I'm only 29!

HA-HA