What is your biggest singing struggle?

[Mahesh]

When it comes to "singing well", however you'd like to personally define it, there are many things that come into play - range, style, tone, consistency etc. What do you consider a struggle or a challenge that you'd like to overcome with your singing and would like to add to your singing skills?

 

The next couple of months for me is going to be about learning how to be able to do all those fancy RnB licks and trills that many of the singers do such as D'Angelo, India Arie, Beyonce, Atwaun Stanley and so on. There is so much control and mastery over their voices when they do it - I'd like to work on that and add it onto my skill set.

 

Whats yours?

[justsoulin]

Biggest struggle? Actually singing LOL. (just wanted to be your first reply m8)

[Rudi]

I'm with JustSoulin. I'd like to be able to sing instead of attempting to sing.

[Todd M]

For me, its always really just letting it out. Using my own voice. I have a tendency to be timid, and sometimes catch myself trying to emulate instead of create. A lot of times, my vocals are much better when I just use my natural voice. I have yet to master this myself. But, its popped up a few times at rehearsal and home. 

[Mahesh]

On 22/12/2017 at 3:40 PM, justsoulin said:

Biggest struggle? Actually singing LOL. (just wanted to be your first reply m8)

@justsoulin, long time my brother! I hope all is well there. Great to see you around

[Mahesh]

On 22/12/2017 at 5:09 PM, HoboSage said:

I would like to be able to sing well with melisma.  But, "she" doesn't want to cooperate. 

 

I've been having issues with her too.

[The S]

1 - To be able to sing while recording like I do when I'm not recording. 

 

2 - To make my vocals put the message across. To make the words mean something instead of just being sung. What do I want to say and how do I say it. This is absolutely my biggest struggle and what I work on the most.

 

/Peter

[Mahesh]

On 22/12/2017 at 9:00 PM, Jenn said:

just constantly comparing myself to the greats.

Jenn, you've gotta start encouraging yourself with the greats instead of comparing. 

 

Everything about your voice is unique! The vocal cords, the structures around your vocal tract that gives the unique tone to your head voice and chest voice and YOU are unique. Learning to find your true voice and its tone is gonna give you much more confidence with your singing. You should look up something called Vocal Resonance and Twang if you want to start finding your true tone of the voice when produced correctly and placed (or resonated) properly. 

 

 

On 22/12/2017 at 9:00 PM, Jenn said:

knowing what a good day of singing feels like and not being able to have that all that time.

Do you have a regular warm up routine? If not, I highly suggest a balanced "diet" for your voice (do look up on youtube if you find a term unfamiliar and you will find LOTS of videos and lessons):

 

• 5 minutes of breathing exercises If you are aware of diaphragmatic breathing, inhale a nice full breath visualising that it's gonna hit right in the bottom floor of your stomach. Keep your chest relaxed as you do this and once you've taken in as much air as you can comfortably, slowly and consistently exhale the breath with a steady "hiss". Don't make the hiss too forced, keep it relaxed and allow the breath to flow out easily and consistently and at a fixed rate. This will teach good support and will help you last your voice longer. 
• 10 minutes of lip rolls: this will help you stretch out the vocal cords while keeping no or less tension as you singer all across your range. You may do it on different scales - long and short, major and minor, however you prefer. If you don't have the time and the cab ride is all that you get for your vocal practice, doing sirens using lip rolls work great for quick warm ups
• Pharyngeal resonance exercises and Twang: 10 minutes of this at the end of the vocal routine will really set your voice up for more singing. 
• Straw Phonation: Do look this one up and make a straw your best friend because it works wonders! I know I'm mentioning only certain terms and letting you do the finding but this way I can keep the posts short while packing some useful info.
• LOTS OF WATER. Keep 'em vocal cords hydrated.

On 22/12/2017 at 9:00 PM, Jenn said:

not knowing what you sound like outside of yourself without a recording.

 

Not much you can do about that. Nobody can hear what they truly sound like on the outside without a recording because we hear from the inside of our face as well. The sound is vibrating in various parts of the body. It's resonating. You can get better at vocal placement and resonance with the right exercises so as to hear yourself more clearly resulting in better dynamics, pitching and tone. 

 

[TCgypsy]

Hitting the high notes and scaling through my passagio.

[Glammerocity]

Unfortunately for me there was no solution, because it's tone. You can sing 3-5 nights week and get a voice that can hold a note for 5 minutes, as all my gigs did for me, but you're born with tone. You either have a winning one or you don't. And I didn't.

[john]

2 minutes ago, Glammerocity said:

Unfortunately for me there was no solution, because it's tone. You can sing 3-5 nights week and get a voice that can hold a note for 5 minutes, as all my gigs did for me, but you're born with tone. You either have a winning one or you don't. And I didn't.

 

Out of interest, did you just sing naturally, or did you investigate vocal techniques and how the voice is produced? You can certainly change tone to a degree. Of course if you tried to adjust and still it wasn’t good, at least you tried. Most people don’t. Especially from way back when... when most pop/rock singers knew very little about their voice (in my experience)

[Glammerocity]

13 minutes ago, john said:

 

Out of interest, did you just sing naturally, or did you investigate vocal techniques and how the voice is produced? You can certainly change tone to a degree. Of course if you tried to adjust and still it wasn’t good, at least you tried. Most people don’t. Especially from way back when... when most pop/rock singers knew very little about their voice (in my experience)

 

I didn't really put much effort into finding a tone. I was getting gigs, so it wasn't an issue, it was obviously good enough for purpose and I had a singer I wrote with, so I didn't need to sing there. I mentioned before that an engineer once advised me to pull funny faces when recording vocals, which I didn't do but it is a way of getting a different tone. It seems the most recognisable voices aren't necessarily the best or strongest voices. Personally I can't stand Morrissey but can't deny he has a very distinctive voice, which made him famous, while my songwriting partner was once called by Q magazine, "the best-kept secret in British rock." He stayed that way, too, despite his great voice.

[john]

True, though there are more and less attractive vocal character qualities. Some are more enduring than others.

[Miuzia]

My biggest singing struggle is learning to accept that growth takes practice and time.  I put in the work but I’m definitely too impatient for the results to happen, like yesterday! 

[Mahesh]

On 2/22/2018 at 10:40 AM, TCgypsy said:

Hitting the high notes and scaling through my passagio.

What is it that you struggle with when you are hitting those high notes? 

 

Is it muscle tension? Improper cord closure so that the voice breaks? Both?

 

Did a bit deeper into low larynx exercises to help your neck to stay relatively disengaged and relaxed when singing, that should help you overcome some of the issues from stopping you. As for scaling through passagios, look up SOVT or Semi occluded vocal tract exercises or SOVT. That should get you some insight on the right technique and exercises to help you smoothen those breaks out. 

 

 

 

[Mahesh]

20 hours ago, Miuzia said:

My biggest singing struggle is learning to accept that growth takes practice and time.  I put in the work but I’m definitely too impatient for the results to happen, like yesterday! 

 

Ah, I've been there! But remember this - practice doesn't make you perfect; practicing perfectly makes you perfect.

 

So if your impatience is making your force yourself for results in ways that are nowhere useful to good and healthy vocal technique, that is what your muscle memory will latch on to. More than learning good technique, unlearning bad technique is trickier and more challenging in my opinion. So I would suggest that you figure a way out of that. Believe me, I know how hard it is to accept, I named my upcoming record that very same word 

[Miuzia]

Thanks for the wise words!  You’re absolutely right!  The quality over quantity is key.... 😊

[ExtraWithExtraExtra]

I've done choir for a long time, but I never had formal vocal training and don't have the resources to do it now. I was always told I was too quiet and tried to sing louder (in a way that probably amounted to shouting). Now, I still don't really know how to project properly and probably have damage from years of doing it wrong, so I'm scared to try and correct it on my own. 

[Capo3tanya]

My daughter is a power house singer, she sings Adele very well, such a mature voice for a 15-year-old.  I have the ability to belt it out, but rarely do in front of people.  I like to sing things like Deep Purple's Richochet and Rush's Priests of Syrinx, but for some reason I am too timid to do this in front of anyone.  Any time I try I get nervous.  I'd like to have the confidence to just not give a hoot and go for it 

[Capo3tanya]

Just realized I got the title to that song wrong, it's Child in Time.  Deep Purple.  Such a BAD A** song, I can't get it out of my head.

Edited July 11, 2018 by Capo3tanya