Ladies and Gentlemen of the internet, Today I’m going to deal with, and in some cases dispel, the 7 biggest lies, myths and misconceptions about metal vocals and how they’ll affect you as a vocalist. It’ll be a relatively short post, but one that it’s essential to understand the lessons of. Most of this is my opinion and the result of my experience, so it is wholly biased and subjective, so take it as you will.
1) The first and most common comment you will hear, everywhere and unrelentingly is that “it’s just noise”. This can be a massive disadvantage as it will mean that the majority of people (yes- even musicians and music fans) won’t actively be listening to what you’re singing, and to a point, don’t really care. As long as there is something on top of the music most people are happy. So, my advice would be don’t expect too much respect from the majority of people.
2) It’s also a massive myth that most people actively listen to vocals. Yes, they listen to the general tone for about ten seconds to get an idea, but beside that they don’t actually pay any attention in my experience. People care far more about what you’re doing on stage, your persona and what you’re wearing. It’s sad, and shallow but true. And the first lesson I ever learned about being a vocalist. If you look right, appear confident and get the basic jist right, often your own band won’t notice if you’re improvising or lost, let alone audience members. So don’t panic if you’re not totally pitch perfect or you forget a line here or there.
3) There are a million different vocal techniques, and everyone has a different voice. When you add this to the millions of different subgenres that exist at the moment, it basically means that in some way, whatever noise you can make is appropriate to some kind of music, and consequently, can’t be considered wholly bad or wrong. And while every genre has its own trademark expected sound, there is always someone somewhere that veers from tradition and uses a different tone. Most of these people tend to do so because they can’t do anything else. There is a massive amount of diversity out there, and no matter how bad you think you are, there’ll always be someone somewhere worse who everyone respects and thinks is awesome.
4) This one is simple- volume is not the same as tone or technique, and it never will be. Never sacrifice tone for volume. It’s what microphones and PA’s were built for.
5) Another common misconception is that there is no melodicism or tonality. This in itself is just wrong. If one stops to consider it, even just doing the same scream on two different days will never sound exactly the same, so the idea in itself is totally moot given the myriad of different things you can do with your throat to create different kinds of highs and lows or it being a fairly simple matter to pitch growls in scales.
6) If you trawl through youtube videos, you’ll eventually stumble across what is referred to as “cupping the mic” and how it’s a massive sin. The reason people do cup the microphone with their hands is to increase the volume of the growl that reaches the microphone, much like when children make a cone out of cardboard and use it as an acoustic loudspeaker. I’m fairly outspoken on the whole issue really (as if you need to cup the mic, you still have a lot of practicing to do) but many prominent extreme vocalists do cup the mic all the time, and have massive amounts of fans and imitators, so don’t rule it out if you’re struggling or you just want to get going- but remember: people will judge you. Well, anyone paying attention anyway.
7) Lastly, there’s the idea that drinking and smoking somehow make your voice better in a permanent way. They don’t, in fact, given their proven biological effect on the vocal chords, they’re both really detrimental to vocal performance. They do affect your voice, and can make it easier to get certain tones, but don’t think that they’re a magical solution to hitting that new low you’ve been trying to get for months. On the other hand, they’re not going to instantly kill your throat or anything drastic, and their effect happens over a long period. The best advice I can give is if you must do it, do it in moderation.
4) This one is simple- volume is not the same as tone or technique, and it never will be. Never sacrifice tone for volume. It’s what microphones and PA’s were built for.
5) Another common misconception is that there is no melodicism or tonality. This in itself is just wrong. If one stops to consider it, even just doing the same scream on two different days will never sound exactly the same, so the idea in itself is totally moot given the myriad of different things you can do with your throat to create different kinds of highs and lows or it being a fairly simple matter to pitch growls in scales.
6) If you trawl through youtube videos, you’ll eventually stumble across what is referred to as “cupping the mic” and how it’s a massive sin. The reason people do cup the microphone with their hands is to increase the volume of the growl that reaches the microphone, much like when children make a cone out of cardboard and use it as an acoustic loudspeaker. I’m fairly outspoken on the whole issue really (as if you need to cup the mic, you still have a lot of practicing to do) but many prominent extreme vocalists do cup the mic all the time, and have massive amounts of fans and imitators, so don’t rule it out if you’re struggling or you just want to get going- but remember: people will judge you. Well, anyone paying attention anyway.
7) Lastly, there’s the idea that drinking and smoking somehow make your voice better in a permanent way. They don’t, in fact, given their proven biological effect on the vocal chords, they’re both really detrimental to vocal performance. They do affect your voice, and can make it easier to get certain tones, but don’t think that they’re a magical solution to hitting that new low you’ve been trying to get for months. On the other hand, they’re not going to instantly kill your throat or anything drastic, and their effect happens over a long period. The best advice I can give is if you must do it, do it in moderation.
-E
Tomorrow's post: Inhales vs Exhales
Tomorrow's post: Inhales vs Exhales
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