alice in chains......vocals (VIDEO/live recording)

[everdrone]

YAAA!!! THIS IS ONE OF MY FAVORITE TUNES!!! DO YOU DIG???




I recorded it today just now, one take wonder

[Wormhelmet]

Re: alice in chains......vocals (VIDEO/live recording)

Nice job. Got the edgy breakup good on this one. A few notes a little wavering, but you let loose and those loud phrases where you let loose hit it on the mark.

Nice shirt too.

[everdrone]

Re: alice in chains......vocals (VIDEO/live recording)

Nice job. Got the edgy breakup good on this one. A few notes a little wavering, but you let loose and those loud phrases where you let loose hit it on the mark.

Nice shirt too.

Thanks much brutha!!! I appreciate this, I have not sang much in a long time, so I am glad to know that the tone is sounding good and I hit the loud phrases. Sabbath rocks!!! I need to cover some Paranoid from Black sabbath. rock on!!!!

I got some great feedback from the Ken Tamplin Vocal Academy forum; I will post it here in case it helps someone out there and also cause it helps me stay on task with my vocal training:

------------------------------------------------------------

Three months isn't very long to have been doing KTVA. Most students spend six weeks to three months minimum on Volume One alone. Make sure you aren't moving along too fast to get the actual techniques embedded fully before you go too far.

If you are an advanced singer, then you may be moving at a proper pace for you. I can tell you that I took about six months to get to Volume 3, and then I went back to Volume One for review, and have done so several times.

This sounds pretty good. As to whether you could be hurting yourself, you should not be feeling any pain at all. If you are, then stop and review everything Ken says in volume 3 about glottal compression. You need to REALLY be cutting back the air A LOT. The volume should be an illusion. You need to go back and clean up the voice afterward. Don't just sing with distortion and keep doing that because it sounds so cool. Avoid oversinging, i.e. singing too loud, either with or without distortion.

Use tons of support. Especially when you go to the high Bb, with that distortion, I'd like to hear you supporting more, or in other words, cutting back the air by pushing down more on your diaphragm.

You're getting a great tone, and obviously having a lot of fun. That's what it's all about, as long as you are doing a good enough job of holding back that breath. It's all about making the gnarly sound, but without overdriving your cords. Instead, you are layering a clean sound on top of a mild distortion, but it comes out sounding "As-If" you are tearing it up... but you really aren't... it's a magical illusion of overdriving your cords... and done right, you can safely do it and keep your vocal cords in top shape.

You MUST go back and clean up the cords with clean singing after using distortion. Otherwise your voice will settle into the feel of distortion, and you will lose the ability to sing cleanly. You don't want that, no matter how much you like the distortion sound. You want the versatility to be able to sound clean AND distorted.
Don't let your clean sound atrophy.

Remember, number one, learn to cut that air back dramatically, even when singing clean. Ken tells us in Volume 3 that once we learn this, we do it from then on... clean tones or dirty tones. THAT is what is going to keep you from going hoarse after 5 hour gigs, several nights in a row, week after week, year after year... it really works, and you realize that before you learned that, you were needlessly oversinging and beating up your cords. Now you can compress and reduce the wear and tear on your cords, and sing with a lot less stress. Never let your guard down... keep that breath held back through the resistance of holding down the diaphragm. Support! Protect! Preserve!

Rock On!

Bob

[Wormhelmet]

Re: alice in chains......vocals (VIDEO/live recording)

Sounds like some solid advice. Definitely want to keep those vocal cords healthy. I wish I had some singing talent, but unfortunately sound mostly like a dog caught in barbed wire, so I stick to the instruments and vocal samples from others.

As much fun as it is to say self-taught, I think the benefits of vocal lessons, or any lessons for that matter, are readily apparent in the performances.

Good example to me of clean and distorted vocals I just showed a friend the other day who wanted to show his singer something that showcased versatility like that - the song End Moraine by Sparta.

[El Dunco]

Re: alice in chains......vocals (VIDEO/live recording)

Thanks much brutha!!! I appreciate this, I have not sang much in a long time, so I am glad to know that the tone is sounding good and I hit the loud phrases. Sabbath rocks!!! I need to cover some Paranoid from Black sabbath. rock on!!!!

I got some great feedback from the Ken Tamplin Vocal Academy forum; I will post it here in case it helps someone out there and also cause it helps me stay on task with my vocal training:

------------------------------------------------------------

Three months isn't very long to have been doing KTVA. Most students spend six weeks to three months minimum on Volume One alone. Make sure you aren't moving along too fast to get the actual techniques embedded fully before you go too far.

If you are an advanced singer, then you may be moving at a proper pace for you. I can tell you that I took about six months to get to Volume 3, and then I went back to Volume One for review, and have done so several times.

This sounds pretty good. As to whether you could be hurting yourself, you should not be feeling any pain at all. If you are, then stop and review everything Ken says in volume 3 about glottal compression. You need to REALLY be cutting back the air A LOT. The volume should be an illusion. You need to go back and clean up the voice afterward. Don't just sing with distortion and keep doing that because it sounds so cool. Avoid oversinging, i.e. singing too loud, either with or without distortion.

Use tons of support. Especially when you go to the high Bb, with that distortion, I'd like to hear you supporting more, or in other words, cutting back the air by pushing down more on your diaphragm.

You're getting a great tone, and obviously having a lot of fun. That's what it's all about, as long as you are doing a good enough job of holding back that breath. It's all about making the gnarly sound, but without overdriving your cords. Instead, you are layering a clean sound on top of a mild distortion, but it comes out sounding "As-If" you are tearing it up... but you really aren't... it's a magical illusion of overdriving your cords... and done right, you can safely do it and keep your vocal cords in top shape.

You MUST go back and clean up the cords with clean singing after using distortion. Otherwise your voice will settle into the feel of distortion, and you will lose the ability to sing cleanly. You don't want that, no matter how much you like the distortion sound. You want the versatility to be able to sound clean AND distorted.
Don't let your clean sound atrophy.

Remember, number one, learn to cut that air back dramatically, even when singing clean. Ken tells us in Volume 3 that once we learn this, we do it from then on... clean tones or dirty tones. THAT is what is going to keep you from going hoarse after 5 hour gigs, several nights in a row, week after week, year after year... it really works, and you realize that before you learned that, you were needlessly oversinging and beating up your cords. Now you can compress and reduce the wear and tear on your cords, and sing with a lot less stress. Never let your guard down... keep that breath held back through the resistance of holding down the diaphragm. Support! Protect! Preserve!

Rock On!

Bob

Nice work. Layne Staley is a prominent vocal influence of mine also (I sometimes get told I sound like him and people who haven't heard AIC before actually assumed it was one of our songs!). That's some good advice from the vocal academy and is pretty much exactly what any good vocal coach will tell you. The glottal stop is what prevents people from reaching the high notes without having to "push" and requires a bit of practice to get control of, similar to a gag reflex or training your eye to not close when you're putting a contact lens in.

You will know when you're doing it right when you can reach any note you can reach in falsetto with 'chest voice' and not have to push out much if any extra volume that you would for mid-range notes. Learning this really opened up my range. You may be burned out on vocal coaches but I strongly recommend trying until you find one who knows what they are doing. It doesn't necessarily have to be a rock vocal coach to learn valuable things. My last vocal coach was pretty conservative, more into showtunes and classical stuff but was a good teacher and I didn't have to completely readjust the way I sing. For three months, you're coming along nicely.

[everdrone]

Re: alice in chains......vocals (VIDEO/live recording)

Nice work. Layne Staley is a prominent vocal influence of mine also (I sometimes get told I sound like him and people who haven't heard AIC before actually assumed it was one of our songs!). That's some good advice from the vocal academy and is pretty much exactly what any good vocal coach will tell you. The glottal stop is what prevents people from reaching the high notes without having to "push" and requires a bit of practice to get control of, similar to a gag reflex or training your eye to not close when you're putting a contact lens in.

You will know when you're doing it right when you can reach any note you can reach in falsetto with 'chest voice' and not have to push out much if any extra volume that you would for mid-range notes. Learning this really opened up my range. You may be burned out on vocal coaches but I strongly recommend trying until you find one who knows what they are doing. It doesn't necessarily have to be a rock vocal coach to learn valuable things. My last vocal coach was pretty conservative, more into showtunes and classical stuff but was a good teacher and I didn't have to completely readjust the way I sing. For three months, you're coming along nicely.

Thanks Duncan! AIC rocks! cool stuff. I am studying the Ken Tamplin videos and he teaches open throat technique and to avoid closing off the back of the throat, maybe some glottal stop is ok at the beginning of the note but he does not want any of that gag reflex in there. Consonants can close off the throat so this song makes it easier since there are not that many consonants.

I am reaching a high A without going fully into head voice, I may have a bit of a blend. I am a tenor. I cannot really go higher without feeling some weird tension in my throat so that sounds pretty awesome using chest voice for head voice notes. I think you are talking about notes around high C that Ronnie James Dio hovers around constantly. I need to strengthen that area for sure.

I am wondering if there is a difference between getting lessons through Skype and getting lessons in person? I would want my vocal coach to know compressed rock distortion sounds. I am glad to hear you learned a lot from your coach that is into showtunes and classical stuff. I had a coach for 6 lessons, about 15 years ago and I made sure he knew I was into Nine Inch Nails and Tool, and he started me with the basics and went very slowly and I had no idea of the timeframe or importance of what he was teaching but it was all legit stuff, he gave me recordings of the lessons I listened to over and over. Recently I went to a "Speech Level Singing" coach and was not impressed, I really think that style is designed for speaking or something; it just did not work for me.

I thought about this and looked up local coaches, I may try that instead of a skype coach, thanks for telling me about your coaching experiences. I have not found an affordable skype coach that focuses on rock music but Ill keep looking. Here is a dude that I might try lessons with thats in my area with a lot of credentials: https://takelessons.com/profile/robert-m3

I gotta get my skype set up for vocal lessons and Ill PM you, that would be cool if you could help me over skype.

[everdrone]

Re: alice in chains......vocals (VIDEO/live recording)

Sounds like some solid advice. Definitely want to keep those vocal cords healthy. I wish I had some singing talent, but unfortunately sound mostly like a dog caught in barbed wire, so I stick to the instruments and vocal samples from others.

As much fun as it is to say self-taught, I think the benefits of vocal lessons, or any lessons for that matter, are readily apparent in the performances.

Good example to me of clean and distorted vocals I just showed a friend the other day who wanted to show his singer something that showcased versatility like that - the song End Moraine by Sparta.

Cool brutha, I listened to that song, it is great! I posted it below for reference. Dont paint yourself into a corner, singing is just like learning an instrument, but you cant see it so you have to pay close attention to feeling and muscle tension. If you like instruments then stick with that, cool stuff you have!!! I definitely will keep up with the lessons, I must admit I am neglecting guitar/bass lessons though right now.

[B2D]

Re: alice in chains......vocals (VIDEO/live recording)

Good job on those High B notes!

I'll do Jerry's parts if you do Laynes!

[Kamanda~SD]

Re: alice in chains......vocals (VIDEO/live recording)

Pretty hit and miss for me, some notes are on, some you come into, and some are just off. Also, the amount of delay is distracting.

Overall, not too shabby, would like to see this again after some more honing and further control.

[everdrone]

Re: alice in chains......vocals (VIDEO/live recording)

Good job on those High B notes!

I'll do Jerry's parts if you do Laynes!

YES!!! PM sent. Thanks for the mad props!!!

Pretty hit and miss for me, some notes are on, some you come into, and some are just off. Also, the amount of delay is distracting.

Overall, not too shabby, would like to see this again after some more honing and further control.

Cool brutha, thanks so much for the listen and honest constructive criticism. I have been singing for 3 months so I need to put in another 1000 hours and focus on this. THanks much for the interest in wanting to see this again, will do!

[Swampy]

Re: alice in chains......vocals (VIDEO/live recording)

Pretty hit and miss for me, some notes are on, some you come into, and some are just off. Also, the amount of delay is distracting.

Overall, not too shabby, would like to see this again after some more honing and further control.

Cool brutha, thanks so much for the listen and honest constructive criticism. I have been singing for 3 months so I need to put in another 1000 hours and focus on this. THanks much for the interest in wanting to see this again, will do!

I gotta say, it's nice to see you can take honest constructive criticism in a positive way. Not many people can.
As for what I think, it's much better than what I could muster up. If I had to sing for my supper, I'd starve.

[Kamanda~SD]

Re: alice in chains......vocals (VIDEO/live recording)

^^ Agreed. I tried to keep my post as non-bashing as possible but most people would probably come up with a million excuses and ask 'can you do better?'. His attitude and acceptance of criticism is exactly what makes me want to follow his progress, clearly he's keen on learning and not just satisfied with the status-quo or that one quick fix.

FWIW I can't even come close to singing this tune!

[El Dunco]

Re: alice in chains......vocals (VIDEO/live recording)

^^ Agreed. I tried to keep my post as non-bashing as possible but most people would probably come up with a million excuses and ask 'can you do better?'. His attitude and acceptance of criticism is exactly what makes me want to follow his progress, clearly he's keen on learning and not just satisfied with the status-quo or that one quick fix.

FWIW I can't even come close to singing this tune!

I can say from experience that nothing teaches you better than jumping straight in the deep end. Eventually there will be little left for people to criticize (which shouldn't be as dirty of a word as it has become, it just means people are paying attention).