The Singing Training thread

So, I've begun pro singing training as of last night, with a (supposedly) well acclaimed vocal/music training academy.

It was an interesting experience. After going over what genres I like, why I'm there, etc (the guy had never heard of Portishead, the Cocteau Twins or even thr Fleetwood Mac song I did to demo my vocals ;_;) we did scales and discovered I have an apparently very unusually low range in my "natural" voice - closer to a tenor than an alto would be my guess - and he basically suggested head voice is something you should really try and avoid, which narked me a bit because I like singing in that register.

Thoughts on that in particular? Is headvoice/falsetto bad and should be hated? Is it the salt and pepper on the meat of yr natural/chest voice? Will I ever be Liz Fraser with this bawdy bawly Sioxsie gob on me?

Also, anyone got any tips they wish they'd known when they started singing? I know a bunch of you out there would have valuable advice (Dan, JBR, goontie, lookin at youse)

Wait he said head voice should be avoided? I am confused.

pro tips: always warm up whenever possible. Never sing past pain when sick. Never sing past pain ever. Drink water all the goddamn time.

Also figure out where to place your voice in your head (like physically) and be aware of it. Breath control exercises are urgent and key and not to be slacked on.

Ok also still trained use of head voice is not something to be avoided (skips nerdy description of differing vocal pedagogy approaches to head voice description)

I'm guessing he's talking about moving your voice forward into a more nasal register but equating that to head voice is dumb. Also I have posted like 7 times in a row so I'm going to stfu now.

Hahahah you rock :)

No, he wasnt ... well, I dont *think* he was saying avoid it, but perhaps saying its prefereable to use one's natural range - possibly because thats how they train beginners, but I think my head voice is fine (tho possibly way too push-breathy).

The one thing that was a suprise to me was not to breathe too MUCH air in and then blurt it out, which I'd been doing.

OK now Ive done my scales and gone over some of my own songs I feel more concious of my singing and more forced and less natural, which is annoying, but I'm sure that'll pass.

It does pass. Voice lessons are all about making physical support and placement feel like second nature, which requires tons of repetition and correction as well as going through a period where you don't recognize what you sound like.

Also personally I would run far, far away from anyone who told me to avoid head voice, particularly if I was a woman.

Yeah, thats good to know (the getting used to training). As to the headvoice thing, I'm gonna clear that up next week - hell, half the reason I engaged a singing teacher was to strengthen my *upper* register! I dont nesc wanna be louder or more powerful, just clearer and hold better notes higher up. And work on smooth transitions between chest/head singing when it comes up. Im sure he wont dismiss it outright, I suspect he was just dazzled by my unusually low register and wanted to encourage it. Which I'm on the fence about - no one seems to like the tracks I record where I sing like I'm channeling Jim Kerr, haha.

OK so week 2, I stressed the need to train upper register stuff cause thats what neeeeds worrrk, and to my relief he was cool with it, so we did a buncha scales and holy crap, I seem to have like a 4 octave range or something, when did that happen!? Shouldve warmed up more before me lesson tho, my throats a bit sore now :/

Weird part of lesson: some thing about lying on a small inflatable ball so it stretches my diaphragm? Is that a thing!? It wasnt very comfortable.

Oh hello this thread. As a sort of gift for my mum, I decided to try and record a few covers on acoustic guitar and send them to her on CD. They're not sounding too bad actually, but as a novice there's always room for improvement. Had fun trying to do Bridge Over Troubled Water. I had a go at compressing the vocal in Reason but now I'm sort of regretting it cos now everything's the same loudness and this is a song that thrives on dynamic range.

I cant recommend lessons highly enough, as odd as my teacher is. 2 lessons in and the breathing technique alone has completely levelled me up.

It possibly helps that I'm already a decent singer I guess, and knew the basics. but yeah.

I might consider a lesson or two. Could be fun.

If you get nothing out of lessons other than breathing technique, it will be time/money well spent.

This week: vocal cries and volume work. Ow, my freaking throat.

(I will never be a very loud/punchy singer if I keep smoking, jesus)

There's one song in our repertoire where I'm supposed to do full on metal-style singing ending with some BM/DM style growls. I'm sure I used to be better at this kind of thing, I end up coughing and hacking or whatever. What's even more dumb is it's the first song we're going to play live in our setlist.