Voice Maintenance 101

Hey internet,

                I know it’s been a long while- but life’s been nightmarish and just gotten in the way. So without any further ado, I’ll get onto doing the post- but expect to see more content on the site regularly.

This is intended to be a basic guide to voice maintenance for your average metal singer. 

This can be broken down into two categories, Good Habits to get into and maintain throughout your career in order to minimise the stress and damage to your voice and Repair Solutions for when you’re not on top form for whatever reason.

You’ll use these tips to combat two different kinds of vocal wear and tear. Singing regularly and repeatedly is a hard task for any singer, so obviously this has big implications for those of us performing using such extreme methods. But not all throat problems come from good practice, some may have simple but critical causes like illness or lack of sleep and need more immediate solutions.  

Good Habits

Drinking/smoking- It’s terrible to start off a section on good habits with negative reinforcement but it’s definitely the most common vocal hygiene issue that I see at shows. I’ve warned before of the dangers of drinking and smoking whilst being a singer (and highlighted my hypocrisy) but these are still true.

Alcohol dries out your throat and can cause your vocal chords to vibrate together slightly differently and this can change vocal tone dramatically and cause damage to your throat. Continued drinking will only exacerbate the problem, causing more irritation, and drying the tissue further.

Similarly, smoking causes the throat to become irritated and inflamed (as our throats weren’t designed to inhale smoke)- which can cause pain, changes in vocal tone and if done continuously can contribute to the growth of vocal polyps (which will change the way you sound permanently). Short term, smoking too much can cause your voicebox, or Larynx (the name for irritation of it was rather imaginatively named Laryngitis), to become sore and add an audible croak or break to your voice, or indeed, cause you to lose it altogether.

Over time, smoking and abusing your throat can lead to a huskier, lower and rougher voice tone envied by all late night telephone line workers but it’s bad for your throat. You will almost certainly come across singers who say that smoking makes their growls lower and helps them achieve tone, which is ultimately true, but they’re still doing damage to their throats. You can achieve the same sounds without damaging your throat by just practicing. So if you want to smoke, do, but don’t do it to achieve tone or when you’re supposed to be singing imminently.

Hydration- Hydration is the biggest part of maintaining vocal hygiene, and can aid in solving most common problems. Water lubricates the vocal folds and allows them to slide together more smoothly and reduces the amount of friction on your throat when the folds hit together. The implications for singing are obvious. So it’s always good to drink lukewarm water (cold water will shock your vocal chords and cause them to contract a little- the same as any other muscle) before, during and after performing. This prevents swelling, damage to the vocal chords and helps to maintain the throat’s mucosal lining, which can be interesting to experiment with in terms of vocal tone- but do it at your own risk.

Eating 2-4 hours before singing- Eating before you sing can also be a contributing factor in vocal hygiene. If you need to sing, ideally you should have a meal 2-4 hours before you perform so as to both have the energy to sing and let your digestive system work and process the food before show time. This is because the diaphragm, because of its placement at the bottom of your ribcage, can be affected by your gastrointestinal tract working. Practically, this results in less projection and power in a vocal. Also, singing bloated is hard work and just takes away the enjoyment from a performance.

Sleep-  Always try to get a sufficient amount of sleep before you perform. Your entire body relies on you getting regular sleep, and this includes your throat. Sleeplessness usually causes difficulty for the insomniac in terms of both muscular and metal fatigue, which means that both your larynx and the parts of the brain that control it aren’t functioning as they normally would, which can lead to a loss of control whilst singing as well as vocal damage. So always try to get at least 4 hours if you’re going to be performing.

Posture- It’s important to maintain good posture as much as possible whilst singing. Take a look at the diagram below:

(http://0.tqn.com/d/np/singing/21-1.jpg)

Good posture allows the airflow to be maintained throughout your torso, with a number of benefits. The first is increased breath capacity- because the chest is expanded and can incorporate more air in the space around the lungs, which means you can hold notes longer and finish difficult phrasing without having to stop for a breath (for more information, see- http://confessionsofadeathmetalvocalist.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/lung-capacity.html) . The second is that it naturally encourages you to breathe from your diaphragm which develops good technique as well as breath support.

So, what is good posture for singing? It’s normally referred to as correct ‘alignment’ because it’s reliant on getting the correct alignment of your body. Place your feet slightly apart, perhaps by a foot (ha!), placing one of them slightly forward. Make sure that your knees are in line with your feet, your legs straight and fully extended,  and that your hips are in a comfortable position. Then lift your chest so that it’s facing straight up, most people have to push their shoulders back slightly to achieve this, but the main idea is to keep the torso as straight and open to air as possible. Then put your neck straight up, face forward and raise your chin. You should now look a lot like my turtle-necked colleague above.

Realistically, it’s impossible to maintain this at a metal show all the time and look cool. So what I tend to do is revert to it when I feel myself struggling for air, or when I get the chance (standard foot on the monitor poses are great for this). So use it as you see fit, but always be aware of your posture.

Temperature- If you’re going to be singing and it’s cold or really hot outside, remember that this affects your larynx like it would any muscle. If it’s cold, wear a scarf or stay inside for the hour before you perform. If it’s hot, don’t wear any additional clothing around your neck if you don’t have to.

Volume control- Always remember that what the audience is hearing (both live and recorded) isn’t what you’re singing. It’s an artificial recreation of the sounds that are picked up by a microphone and run through the PA, effects units, computer etc. Let that sink in. It’s just an artificial replication. This means that if you don’t naturally sing very loud, you shouldn’t push yourself to. It’s pointless and it just damages your throat when you can get the exact same sound by altering the settings on the Sound Desk. Always make sure to have a soundcheck if at all possible and make sure to sing at your natural volume- don’t let a sound person tell you that you’re being quiet. Ultimately, it’s their job to get whatever sounds you make to the audiences’ ears.

Furthermore, volume control is also a factor in vocal hygiene in your day to day life. All of your waking life, you’re surrounded by a Noise Floor. Wikipedia, the king of reliable sources, defines it as “the measure of the signal created from the sum of all the noise sources and unwanted signals within a measurement system, where noise is defined as any signal other than the one being monitored” (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noise_floor). This is a very exact way of saying that a noise floor is any background sound or interference that is occurring around a sound input at any one time. What this could be depends on the power of the microphone- if you’re using a dynamic microphone, it’ll be things within the immediate range of the mic- e.g. people speaking behind you or the live band playing behind you or if you’re using a condenser, it could be trains near your house, people in the street, the possibilities are endless. This background noise causes us all to adjust our voices to be heard over it, like when you’re in a pub with loud music and you’re talking to your friends. This happens both consciously and unconsciously, and if you do it in a live situation you’ll be raising your voice far more than you need to and end up damaging your throat just to be heard. So remember that this can happen and regularly think about how loud you’re actually being as it’s not always necessary.

Warm up- If you have a warm up or pre-show preparation, do it. More on this topic can be found here (http://confessionsofadeathmetalvocalist.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/warm-ups-starting-rituals-pointless.html).

Quick Solutions

Milk/Honey/Pineapple juice- Whilst I wouldn’t expect drinking any of these to immediately repair your throat, drinking them a few hours before you need to sing (though ideally the night before) can vastly improve your throat if you’re having a rough day. This is due to either in the case of honey, lining your throat and protecting the folds as well as acting as extra lubrication and in the case of milk and pineapple juice, they contain vitamins and bacteria that aid your throat in recovery as well as hydrating it.

Sound Person/Effects- As I mentioned above, it’s totally false but ultimately useful that sound people and effects exist. If you’re struggling, you can solve the issues with your tone by affecting the vocal whilst it goes through the signal path. So if you’re quiet, you can be turned up. If you’re lacking low end, you can double track or pitch shift or hide it in reverb. The possibilities are only as limited as your imagination.

Lozenges/vocalzones/Chloroseptic spray- All of these can be helpful when you’ve got a sorethroat and need to power through a set. Whilst they do help your throat recover, 99% of them weren’t designed with singers in mind and will affect your throat in some way- usually excess mucus or a numbing sensation, which has obvious implications for singing. So just be aware of what they do to your throat before you rely on them ten minutes before a crucial show.

Steam treatments/Shower- It’s possible (and often faster) to hydrate your throat without drinking. Breathing in steam is a great way of getting your throat ready if you’re in a rush. Just boil a kettle, pour the water into a sink or heat resistant bucket. Then once it’s cooled a little, place your face over the top of the bucket and breathe in the steam, slowly and regularly for a few minutes. It’ll do wonders. You can also multitask, as this happens in a less dramatic way by proxy when you’re taking a shower.

Medical Attention/ENT- Find an Ear, Nose and Throat specialist that’s good and see them regularly if you have any issues and always seek medical attention if you have any effects that last for more than a day.

Gargle salt water- This will help fight any infections you have in your throat

Silence- Often the best way of recovering your voice is just not using it. It’s often really inconvenient but can be necessary if your voice is on the edge and breaking during normal use. The time will allow your throat time to rest and recover somewhat, even if it’s not wholly back for the show, it’s still going to be in far better shape than if you spend the day chatting away.

Conclusion

These are all things that will help any singer to recover in a crisis situation and hopefully never get in one in the first place. All these remedies and habits are things that I’ve picked up over the years and some of them will obviously be different for different people. Experiment with them and see what saves you in a sketchy situation, I’d love to be able to discover a few more tips and tricks, so if there’s anything that you think’s missing, please do suggest them.

And so I leave you, until the next post. Hopefully it’ll be less than a year this time.

-E.

Lung Capacity

What do I mean by lung capacity and how is it different from breathing techniques and all that other stuff I harked on about before?

• It’s generally defined as the maximum amount of oxygen you can use, or have in your lungs at any one time.
• It’s generally measured by scientists in millilitres per kilogram of bodyweight per minute, but it’s more commonly given in litres per minute.
• The average male athlete has a lung capacity of approximately 3.5 litres per minute, though this is by no means near what human beings are capable of. The average adult human can hold 6 litres of air in their lungs, it’s just that they don’t use all of that space in normal breathing. A notable exception to this rule is Spanish cyclist Miguel Indurain (pictured below) who is documented as having had a lung capacity of 7.8 liters per minute.

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/Miguel_Indurain.jpg)

This has fairly obvious applications for singers as the larger your lung capacity, the easier it’ll be for you to hold out notes and keep singing for longer without taking breath. But what is it that stops people from maximising their lung capacities? 

Without getting too technical, there are two things that can potentially restrict your lung capacity other than just not being able to breathe in as much air. Firstly, the oxygen itself actually needs to make it to the muscle tissue that requires it (this is less of a concern for singers than it is for athletes) and secondly, the muscle tissues that get the oxygen need to be able to convert the oxygen they receive into energy. Failure to do both of these things can result in a reduced oxygen capacity, and this has obvious consequences e.g. increased likelihood of getting stitches while exercising, shortness of breath etc..

Now you know what it is, how can you improve your lung capacity?

The most common ways of improving lung capacity are all based around doing either normal cardiovascular exercise e.g. swimming, or intense sessions exercise for a short period (usually around 5 minutes), then taking a short break to recover and then doing it again.  All the various kinds of interval training are a very good example of this.

 However, given that not all singers will want to commit the time and energy required for doing loads of regular exercise, I’ve detailed a relatively pain free exercise I use regularly that should allow you to increase your lung capacity below. If this one isn’t to your liking, there are plenty of different approaches to achieving a larger lung capacity out there, all it takes is a quick google search to find one that works for you.

Mississippi Meditation Exercise

1) Sit down, put on some relaxing music or a favourite album. Not TV or anything visual, it’s too distracting and detracts from your ability to do the exercise as it draws too much attention.

2) Close your eyes, meditate and sit for 10 minutes without any specific goal, breathing through your nose and out your mouth, steadily and regularly.

(http://www.buteykocourses.com/uploads/76035/images/194932/nosepower.jpg)

3) While still relaxed, and without any over exertion or hyperventilating, take in a deep breath and hold it. Begin counting. Obviously, a regular count is what’s needed for the purposes of the exercise  –I find using “1, Mississippi, 2, Mississippi, 3, Mississippi” works for me but use whatever works for you, as long as you can ensure your count is regular, otherwise you lose the point of keeping the count.

4) Make note of what number you reached when you could no longer hold your breath.

5) Repeat regularly, keeping records of how well you did. I usually do this exercise 2 or 3 times in one sitting with ten minute gaps in between, as I find that I do better on the 2^nd and 3^rd tries. Over time you will notice a gradual increase in the number you reach, and this should directly translate into an increase in your lung capacity.

A couple of examples of how to translate increased lung capacity into songs…

The Lightbearer- Aeternum

Listen from 1.34 - I had no idea what to do for that section of the verse and decided a long scream would be cool, and my increased lung capacity lets me do it in between the verses just as easily live, assuming I haven't been abusing my throat before the show.

Darkness It Shall Be- Marduk

Just listen to what Legion's singing, and try and see where he takes breaths. It's mindblowing, especially given it's in a live situation.

For the more academic amongst you, this article is an interesting examination of lung capacity in singers and provides a good source for finding further reading: 

 http://repository.kulib.kyoto-u.ac.jp/dspace/bitstream/2433/52595/1/soa007_024.pdf

-E

What to look for in Youtube tutorials? The good, the bad, the ugly.

Guess who’s back?

Everyone knows that Youtube is a vast, boundless source of information and funny video clips of cats. Furthermore, anyone that’s into metal will have likely encountered the widespread fashion of vocalists doing videos titled ‘How to scream/death growl/do metal vocals’. They are a quick and easy way of getting information about performing vocals for all you budding Corpsegrinders out there.

However, the vast majority of them are utterly useless.

So, I figured I’d put together a quick guide telling you what to look for from vocal tutorials and also give an idea of the things to avoid. I didn't use tutorials when I learnt how to death growl, so I kinda stumbled onto these kinds of videos after I could already do it. The amount of videos out there is almost infinite, so I've just taken the first five I found on a youtube search and split them into good, average and bad and then given bullet points telling you why!

(N.B. My analysis of these videos has nothing to do with musical style, or how good the vocalists actually are- just with their teaching styles)

Good

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6e1-Sc6BfM

Alxxxs  (Broadly death metal, but gives ideas about other styles as well)

-Nice and simple without a one directional response to vocals, and can actually ask her questions if the need takes you.

-She says its not step by step, but it kinda is. The technique breakdown and actually showing you how to craft a sound is still there.

-She demonstrates an understanding of style analyses, and the idea that vocals and the tone you choose is very much genre relative but still remains open minded about applying the ideas.

-Deals with wrong technique and hurting yourself, as well as people warning you off. Which is something not many people do deal with, but something you’re going to encounter a lot of.

-We differ on the false chord thing, inhales and all that jazz. But all the same, at least she deals with it in a direct and clear way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFeYs2Fee2Y

Aaron Squires (Shagrath-y sound)

(Uses a completely different technique to me, but as a tutorial it’s pretty good)

-Clear and easy to understand.

-Tells you what’s going on inside his throat a little bit.

-Actually breaks down his technique into graduated steps and gives you a starting, middle and end point.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stHvPsSbvqo

Blix (Burzum-y sound)

- There’s technique analysis. I’m not going to go into this further.

-Again, Blix gives you a step by step process to achieving his sound and breaks it down a little.

-Has evidence of his regular singing, and loads of other stuff (always a good sign, as you wouldn't trust someone to teach you guitar unless they had evidence they were good, why should vocals be any different?)

Average

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kp2Cr5Y-wLI

Som Pluijmers (Ex-Cerebral Bore, Slam Death Metal)

(the good)

-Deals with in depth throat biology, which is always good (what she’s doing is explaining the false chord idea as using muscles, which is basically is)

-Emphasis on practice and repetition, starting small and dealing with basics (e.g. breathing and diaphragm). Rome wasn't built in a day.

-Very realistic view of how people start (I started in almost exactly the same way she did) along with recordings of her 13 year old self.

-She addresses maintenance of your voice in the long term

(the bad)

-Saying hurting yourself at the beginning is ok. This is not a good attitude to have, as if you start hurting yourself, you’ll keep hurting yourself.

-She only really deals with Slam technique and achieving one sound, not necessarily a bad thing but bear in mind that this doesn't apply to everything!

-No real breakdown of how she actually does what she does in her throat- just lots of her achieving growls immediately.

Bad

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjXQyeYz19U

Dopey TheDopeSmokenKlown – (Broadly Slam and Deathgrind)

-He talks more about taste, different genres and how much various bands suck rather than about technique and performing vocals. Which is never a good sign.

-Advocates hurting throat. Just… no. What he’s getting at is vocal scarring, which is a thing you can do, but it has consequences.

- He’s less than accurate in his go-to-techniques. Like with Som above he tries to teach by just going look and then growling a ‘finished product’, without going into how he got there. However, at various points he can’t even hit his default vocal and has to think about it and re-try. No one who’s any good should have to do this when doing a style they use regularly.

-“Don’t think you can learn it” – Yes. Yes, you can. If no one could learn, no one would even be able to do anything. If it can be done, it can be learnt.

-His style of presenting is arrogant and stand off-ish. Not a vocal thing, but it’s generally nicer watching videos where the guy talking to you isn’t really negative.

All in all, the key theme is to look for teaching of techniques with developed/graduated examples rather than just growling and saying broad generalised things and avoid videos where keyboard warriors are talking nonsense about stuff they don’t know. Also, remember they're not the be all and end all of information on vocals.

-E

A Beginners Guide To Dynamics In Extreme Vocals

and here's another video of me talking nonsense, enjoy.

-E

Mouth Shapes in Extreme Vocals Video

So, I've started doing videos. Mostly this is to teach people, and only a little bit because I couldn't be assed typing stuff out. I promise.

and yes, I realise the frame it chose to use as the default picture is amazing.

-E

Breathing, and why it’s not just a thing you do to keep living

Sup motherlickers,

    Today’s post is centred around another aspect of vocal performance that I think everyone should consider in at least a little depth: breathing. And yes, I know, everybody does it every day and they’re perfectly good at it. But breathing for vocal performance is a very different kind of animal, because often your normal breathing won’t accommodate the kind of vocals you’re trying to pull off or you’ll have about a second to breathe before holding out a twenty second long scream, so you really have to be in control of your throat and lungs and know song structures down to a tee. Besides this there are many advantages to being in control in terms of your breathing. Once you’re totally at home with your lungs, you can be a lot more precise and interesting with vocal patterns and do stuff that other people wouldn’t be able to pull off, completely ignoring the potential for ego massaging and stupidly long screams that will boggle audiences’ minds.

I’d just like to take a moment to emphasise that this article actually has very little to do directly with extreme vocals, but a LOT to do with them in terms of indirect improvement, so like, you can feel free to ignore this at your own leisure, but if you take a lesson or two from it and incorporate an exercise from it into your practice routine or even just get a better idea of how breathing works and consider it in terms of your performance it will improve your vocal abilities no end. There are countless sources of breathing techniques to be found online via a quick google search (most of which are based around the same core techniques), but I’ve never bothered with them at any length as I already know the basics of what I need to, and the exercises I’ve either stolen or worked out over the years work for me. If you’re ever feeling fruity, or want to particularly focus on improving your breathing technique feel free to wade through the vast amounts on breathing exercises you can find on the internet. This post will cover the basics of breathing as I understand them and lay out some exercises I myself do in conjunction with improving my own abilities.

 (http://www.merckmanuals.com/media/home/figures/MMHE_04_038_03_eps.gif)

What follows is a rudimentary run through of what happens when you breathe in and out, as best I can explain it and you need to understand it given the context. It may not be the most interesting thing in the world, but it’s worth considering if you’re going to take the breathing exercises seriously. As you breathe in, your diaphragm (an elastic muscle stretched across the bottom of your ribcage) contracts- drawing the air around the front of your mouth down through your throat and trachea into your lungs. As the air goes into the lungs, so that they can absorb the oxygen out of the air, the organs increase in size and volume because of the air they are being forced to contain. This, in turn, forces the intercostal muscles and the ribcage to be pushed outwards, expanding the overall size of your chest cavity. Then, once your lungs have absorbed the oxygen or you force the air out in a different way, the chest cavity shrinks in size, the diaphragm relaxes and the air in your lungs is expelled as they shrink in size.

The exercises I am about to detail focus on changing the way your automatic breathing works, as you breathe a lot differently when you’re not thinking about it directly and focusing on other tasks (like, for example headbanging or interacting with the crowd). This is because conscious and unconscious breathing are controlled by different areas of the brain and are basically unrelated, so as soon as you start thinking about what you’re doing, you’re basically using an entirely separate part of your brain.  I’m still working on changing my unconscious breathing to work wholly correctly during a gig situation, and I’ve been working at it for a few years, so don’t expect it to come massively easily or immediately. Though, the benefits are noticeable within a fairly short time frame if you practice these exercises regularly.

What follows are the three breathing exercises that I use on a regular basis to either expand my lung capacity, make breathing during songs come to me easier on an unconscious level or just focus a little more on building up on my torso’s collective muscle memory.

The metronome exercise

This exercise requires the use of an online metronome, it’s fairly easy to find one online, and any old one will do as long as the metronome is in time. The exercise itself consists of taking in a breath through your nose exclusively for a certain number of beats, holding your breath for a certain number of beats, then expelling air over a prolonged period for a certain amount of beats.

When I do this exercise it usually goes in a 1:1:2 ratio, though if you’re feeling confident go for 1:1:4. So an average exercise for me nowadays is take breathe in through your nose (and only your nose) for 3 or 4 beats (I’m not usually that precise with intake, because I’m never precise during a live situation), hold it for 6 beats and expel an actual scream for 10 or 12 beats. This doesn’t actually push me at all- but it’s a good thing to do regularly, as doing it regularly will expand your lung capacity and enable you to do longer screams and increase the amount of control you have over your breathing. I mean hell, nowadays I can belt a scream for somewhere between 30 and 50 seconds depending on how much I’ve been drinking that particular week. This is all down to practice and endurance, so the more you practice, the better you’ll become.

Sing songs without breathing

This isn’t a structured exercise, more something I’ve done over the years for amusement that I’m pretty sure has a benefit to my vocals on any number of levels. Pick any old song that uses extreme vocals. Sing through it as best you can, without breathing in at any point and just holding your breath during the gaps. You will be forced eventually to take a breath. In particularly intense songs, this can be inside the 20 second mark, with others it will be 2 minutes into the song. Doing this pushes you to really see where the most important places for breathing occur throughout the song and memorise them, as well as building up your lung capacity in an indirect way.

Laying down and focusing on stomach breathing

The next exercise is designed to make you focus on breathing/expelling air from your stomach and not your throat (this is a massively common piece of advice from vocalists, whether they embrace it themselves or not). In theory, the more you focus on doing it consciously, the more naturally it will come to you unconsciously and will make the whole performing vocals shindig a lot easier.

Lay down flat on your back. Put your hands just a little bit above your belly button and below where your ribcage ends. Breathe in through your nose for 5 seconds. Feel which muscles in your torso are working, and how it feels like it’s actually your stomach that’s expanding (if it doesn’t then you’re doing it wrong). Hold your breath and make sure no air is expelled for 10 seconds or as long as you can hold it, then expel the air in your lungs slowly over a period of 5 seconds.

Again, this exercise is fairly indirect, but it helps to focus on the breathing technique to be used on stage, as it maximises the amount of air you take in and makes fully sure you take it in with your diaphragm. 

(http://i2.squidoocdn.com/resize/squidoo_images/250/draft_lens4617962module33154212photo_1242174201belly_breathing.jpg)

In conclusion, I don’t use all of these exercises regularly, as I’m fairly good with my breathing technique. At least I think I am, and I can pull off anything I write without particular focus on breathing. My general advice would be “don’t be a pussy”. If I can do it, you can. I’m asthmatic and if pushed can belt a scream longer than any vocalist I’ve met in the flesh, and this is without any kind of regular breathing exercises. The key thing is while you’re learning to do vocals, practice regularly, maybe even get a few lessons from a classically trained singer (as I intend to do, given I know I could improve in this particular area), and don’t give up. At the end of the day nobody respects Chris Barnes because he can hold a scream, people love him for the tones he gets out of his throat, so don’t sweat it if you can’t get a particularly long scream or you find the whole breathing thing difficult to get to grips with. Just keep at it, and if all else fails, listen to the professionals, some of them aren’t that good at it themselves!

-E

Tomorrow’s post: 7 Myths About Metal Vocals And How They’ll Affect Your Experience As A Vocalist.

Warm Ups & Starting Rituals: A Pointless Waste Of Time Or Totally Indispensable?

Hail! Denizens of the internet!

          Today’s post is centred around, as the title states, warm ups and starting rituals. Are they really necessary? I’ve met vocalists who go straight up on stage, no preparation whatsoever and just scream their hearts out. And by contrast, I know people who have painstakingly detailed ways of warming up that they never deviate from. The purpose of this post is to run you through a number of different warm ups that some people swear by so that you can try them out, as well as give a bit more thought as to what warm ups do to your throat and the purpose behind what I call ‘start up rituals’.

A quick definition I lifted from google tells us that a warm up can be understood as “exercising in preparation for strenuous activity” (wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn). This quick definition fits vocal performance as well as it does mundane exercise, given that the Vocal Chords are in fact muscles. Your throat creates all the different sounds that it can emit by vibrating the two ‘vocal folds’ contained within your larynx together (for the moment we’ll completely ignore use of the false chords), with different frequencies of vibration creating different pitches of sound. Hence, by warming up you allow the vocal folds to warm up and they’ll react a lot differently to if you hadn’t warmed them up.

While warming up isn’t always strictly necessary (oftentimes you’ll find yourself in a situation where you don’t have time for whatever reason, and it’s not the end of the world if you don’t), but it can make a massive amount of difference to your throat’s stamina, ability to create tones, the overall range of your voice and the amount of control you have over your throat. In general vocal performance becomes a million times easier having done a warm up. The only situation where I wouldn’t warm up would be if I were trying to replicate a vocalist’s tone who clearly didn’t warm up before hand, or had a fairly throaty and simple tone e.g. Abbath from Immortal, or numerous other prominent black metal vocalists.

But what warm ups can you do? I’ll describe 7 different types of specific warm up I’ve tried and experiment with over the years, giving an overview of the technique and my opinion on its effectiveness, and any interesting points about that respective warm up.

1)Traditional singing warm up – ‘do re mi fa so lah te do’

Pick a note, any old note (for the non-musical amongst you, just pick a low deep kind of a tone), then sing that note on ‘do’, slowly by increments of a tone (for non-musicians, any small increment will do) singing each word with each note as you go up. You can also do this in growls and screams, but I wouldn’t advise it without being warmed up first.

I use this technique all the time as a standard initial warm up, and as it can take you through your entire dynamic range, I don’t really see any particular weakness with this warm up, apart from maybe the weird looks you get in a venue growling along to a Julie Andrews song. I mean seriously.

2)Melissa Cross Approach

In her ‘Zen of Screaming’ DVD, Cross takes you through about 14 different warm up exercises and different students performing them all in their own respective vocal range in a clean tone. Her exercises invariably have you making strange noises (e.g Mee- gee monkeys, Wee-ee Wee-ee Wee-ee Wee’s and trying to replicate the sound of a French doorbell) up and down a scale, much like the ‘do re mi’ exercise detailed above.

Having tried the exercises, I don’t really find them useful at all. They barely even warmed up my throat from the cold street I had just come in off. While many famous and, in some cases, quite talented vocalists swear by her warm ups and take her word as gospel, I don’t. You can get the desired effects of this warm up by doing the ‘do re mi’ exercise, and look like a LOT less of an idiot than if you walking around saying “mee- gee, mee- gee” in different pitches for half an hour. By all means get the DVD and try them out yourself if interested, but these exercises proved entirely worthless (and on one occasion actually detrimental) to my vocal ability.

3)The Pitched Shout Exercise

This warm up is based around pitched shouting. You start off with a pitched shout at a normal speaking volume, and repeat it five times. Then increase your volume by a small increment and repeat five times. Repeat this process going from your normal speaking level of volume through to as loud as you can go while keeping the shout at a constant pitch. Repeat the entire process of going from normal levels to your loudest pitched shout three times. More if it’s a cold day, or you feel you really need to get particularly warmed up. 

This exercise is great for initially warming up your throat in a hurry, because it’s quick and efficient. It also requires sustained effort from your vocal chords and in general is a really easy one to remember and use. Personally I use the word “hey” just to try and not look/sound too weird when sitting backstage singing to myself, but it can work with anything. The only downside of this exercise is it only deals with volume, not with dynamic range, but as long as you do it along with other exercises in order to cover warming up your throat fully, it’s an amazingly useful little warm up.

4)Singing clean pitches of what you would when growling

An alternative to the ‘do re mi’ exercise is just singing through the songs you’re going to sing in a clean tone, making sure to include all the changes in dynamic range and timing in the song, rather than growling them.

While not wholly as effective, it can be useful in a limited sort of way. One positive of this warm up is it embeds the vocal structures of songs in your mind, and they’re easy to forget when you’re zipping about the stage from right to left, headbanging like a maniac and trying your best not to trip up over the bass drum mic or crash into your guitarist. Hell, I do this exercise for that very reason alone a lot of the time.

5)Extremes of the range of your throat

This isn’t really a structured exercise, but I do utilise it when warming up. Basically the two ends of your vocal range area really deep ‘ee’ drone sound at the bottom and a silly high falsetto at the other end. Basically, I just play around with saying different things or singing along with songs exclusively in these ranges. The resulting sounds are usually something resembling Mongolian Throat singing (look it up, it’s awesome!) or King Diamond/3 Inches Of Blood like vocals, which are hilariously off key when I sing them, but as long as I’m using that range it serves it’s purpose of warming my throat up.

6)Humming

Just humming for a sustained period of five minutes or so is an excellent vocal warm up, as humming is created by making the vocal folds vibrate together really quickly and this, unsurprisingly, warms them up a good deal. Don’t stick to humming one thing, hum sustained notes, hum melodies- do whatever. Variety is the spice of life after all, and also helps you get that little bit closer to your full dynamic range.

7)Growling along with things

Last but not least, simply growling along with things is a good finishing warm up. Whether blasting through ‘Pursuit of Vikings’ or singing one of my own songs, it lets me know whether the warm ups I’ve done so far have been effective or not, and whether I need to continue warming up or not. It’s usually best to do something slow to mid paced, like the afore mentioned Amon Amarth song, as you’re testing out whether the other warm ups have been effective or not. It can also be a good chance to recap on songs you’re not totally confident with before a show.

While the warm ups detailed above are the main ones I know that me, or people I know, use a lot, they’re by no means the only ones out there for you to find and try out! Hell, even talking with a mate for half an hour can be a good way of warming up. I find that if I rush out of the house to a practice straight out of bed, and without having spoken with anyone, my voice is about 3 times as hard to warm up because it hasn’t been used at all beforehand (also, for this reason doing vocals in the evening time is usually easier and more comfortable because you’ve been doing indirect warm ups all day long! If forced to perform in the morning/afternoon, take special care to make sure you’ve warmed up adequately).

Thus far I haven’t mentioned what I call ‘start up rituals’. A start up ritual is something you do before every show in order to get into a certain frame of mind, as well as warming yourself up for the impending performance. Anything can be incorporated into it, from specialised warm ups and physical exercises to touching your lucky rabbit’s foot or invoking Cthulhu to finally make his long awaited entrance onto this pitiful material plane. The purpose of it isn’t wholly to get warmed up or in a frame of mind, it’s kind of both, and fairly hard to convey the purpose of. I have my own start up rituals that some of you will know, and others won’t, but I’m not going to share them. Discover what works for you to get you pumped before a show, or puts you in that truly fabulous, or serial killer mind set.

And that, dear readers, is as close to a basic guide to warming up as I think I can write.

-E

Tomorrow’s post: Breathing, and why it’s not just a thing you do to keep living.

First post! 10 Pro Tips For Beginners

So, 

    as this is the first week of me doing the blog, I’m going to do a post every day. As I’m new to this whole blogging thing, figured it would be appropriate to start off with a bunch of articles aimed at complete beginners to performing vocals. So without any ado whatsoever, I give you 10 Pro Tips For Beginners To Extreme Vocals.

1) If it hurts your throat stop. This is not negotiable in my opinion. During the first while of starting out, a small amount of dull aching can occur, but no sharp pain in your throat should ever happen. Doing this can lead to permanent vocal chord damage. (Though just to emphasise- this is my opinion. Some vocalists scar up their throats and massively affect their normal talking voice in order to get the tones they want when singing, which is fine, but it’s a sacrifice they were willing to make. This first piece of advice is there to prevent permanent damage to your throat, ignore it at your own risk).

2) While you’re starting out, don’t worry about timing or singing along with anything- just practice getting tones. Once you’ve got a tone in your throat you like, take a break for 5 minutes, go back to it, and try to figure out how you got that tone. Repeat this ad nauseam. As well as training your throat and your ears, it also aids in building up stamina.

3)There is no substitute for regular practice in terms of developing your voice. Your vocal chords are built of muscles after all and like any muscles, they need to be developed slowly over time. Only practice until you can feel your voice getting tired then give up for at least a few hours, if not the whole day, then try again tomorrow. You wouldn’t try lifting a stupidly heavy weight anvil before working out at the gym for a while beforehand, so don’t try and bust out a Devourment song when you can only get out a 2 second rasp and it hurts you while you’re doing it.

4) What you listen to influences you unconsciously, so if you want to end up sounding a certain way, a good way of working towards that is listening to that certain band/vocalist a lot.

5) Once you work your way onto singing actual songs, don’t necessarily start off with songs that require lots of technicality or particularly extreme vocals, try something easier, for example Kiss or AC/DC are both fairly simple bands to sing along to, and can be fun to put a more extreme spin on (even singing along with a pop song off the radio can be a good exercise. Shock! Horror!). The reason I suggest this is to build up stamina before you try tackling the harder speed songs, meaning that hopefully it’ll be far easier to sing along with fast songs after you’ve been doing it with mid paced ones for a while.

6) Use the whole of your face to get a sound when you’re experimenting with getting a tone. It can both sound and look stupid but the way you move and shape your face muscles can affect vocal tone, e.g. try moving your forehead muscles when screaming, notice that as well as your voice naturally raising because you’re thinking about moving the muscles upward, it can also add a different overtone to the scream. And don’t worry if you’re pulling silly faces to get a sound you like, doing it off-stage people call it weird, do it on stage and they call it “stage presence”.

7) In my experience what I eat or drink before I perform can affect tone, be aware of this when you’re learning. Avoid milk a couple of hours before performing as it can coat your vocal chords and massively affect their vibrations and hence, affect the tone of your growl. The actual problem with milk is that it coats the vocal chords, as it’s a really thick substance, and makes it hard to get the necessary vibration to get out a growl. By all means experiment with different things e.g. I can get a far deeper growl  when I’ve drunk a can of Coca-Cola.

8) Practice standing up and remember you can breathe through your nose as well as your mouth, it will affect tone and allow you to breathe far better, you’d be amazed how many people this doesn’t occur to.

9) Project your voice upwards and don’t sing at the floor, and keep your mouth open at first. This will help you get a decent volume to your growls and screams (I’ll discuss mouth shapes and their influence on tone in a later post, but for now, focus on just getting a decent volume on a normal growl or scream).

10) Once you think you’re happy with your voice, try showing a friend that’s into metal, as they’ll hopefully be honest with you, and if you actually intend on singing in a band you’ll have to sing in front of people sooner or later, no point sitting in your garden shed growling away to no-one but your pet cat forever (no matter how metal the cat may be) .

Tomorrow’s post: Warm Ups & Starting Rituals: A Pointless Waste Of Time Or Totally Indispensable?