Advice Needed For My Singer

[Jak Angelescu]

Hey guys. I know this is a guitar forum but I have seen some people on here double as singers/vocalists so I thought I’d ask for advice. My singer is feeling pretty down on herself lately. She never could do the growls/screams/grit that she loves in her inspirations and yet recently she’s been looking up loads of tutorials online and has finally (after 8 years) managed to teach herself how to do it right. She’s new with it, it comes and goes, and yet she felt proud the other day of her progress and she posted a video on her FB page about it.
She sang along to songs that required that kind of singing. All she keeps getting is “You’re too quiet, we can’t hear you. We only can hear M Shadows, Chuck Billy, Sebastian Bach etc..”. So we did an acoustic thing together and she still got “You’re too quiet. We can’t hear you.” So then she puts up a video of her just singing Phantom Blue and playing the piano. She still got the same thing.
I’ve been feeling so bad for her because she has gotten that her whole life. She’s opera trained, and in Los Angeles it was nothing but a beat-down fest of “You’re not good enough. You’re flat, you can’t scream, you’re not Angela Gossow.” So she tries to learn how to scream (which she really wants to) and now she’s getting the “You’re too quiet”. It’s like nothing is ever constructive criticism. It’s just mindless stabbing. Like nothing she does is ever decent.
It’s made me realize how amazingly lucky I am to have this site because she doesn’t have anyone to really turn to, so I’m hoping I can get some tips here or advice to give her. My question really is for singers: Have you ever had someone constantly bashing you down and how do you overcome it? Is there anything I could relay to her that may help? I’m a guitar player, so I can’t offer much help to her other than encouragement but she’s going on 12 years of singing and has never had anyone even say “Wow, you’re not bad.” It’s always been nasty stuff.
Thank you guys so much for all your support. This place really is truly amazing.

 

[Ed Seith]

If it’s not a mix thing (i.e. turning up the vocal track), it might be a “head mix” thing, where she’s self-regulating her volume too low. That often comes down to self-confidence, which is a downward spiral. Try doing a multi-track recording with her. Use Reaper, or GarageBand, or whatever, and have her sing her part direct to a track. From there, it can be mixed with her volume higher than she self-regulates, and she can post that. With that, if that is her only real issue, the compliments should start rolling in and pretty soon you won’t be able to shut her up.
Which Phantom Blue? Built to Perform was such a great record!

 

[Jak Angelescu]

Thank you so much Ed! I’m going to talk to her about this. This was the kind of advice she’d like to hear. REAL talk, you know? It was My Misery Awesome to see another Phantom Blue fan here!

 

[Tory Capman]

I was just thinking to myself yesterday, “I love the Syn school and guitar is my main musical mistress. But I also sing, and it would be awfully helpful if M Shadows did something similar to this (maybe less in depth) and made some videos to help coach some of us vocalists out here that just can’t understand how he produces that big aggressive sound. I’ve read some on his vocal coach Ron Anderson and had previously purchased an app made by Ron with some vocal techniques and warmups but it no longer works with current iOS updates:/

 

[Jak Angelescu]

@Tory my singer was going to take lessons with Ron, but only severely rich people could afford him. I had no idea he even had an app!

 

[Tory Capman]

I wish I was rich enough to afford Ron lmao. The app is called VoixTek. If you have an older version of iOS you may be able to get it or perhaps the videos are on YouTube! That’s all the app was, just a collection of short videos of Ron explaining and demonstrating how to do certain warmups. It was very helpful!

 

[Sound_bender]

You can’t let criticism get you down! If you’ve said she has been singing for that long she is obviously passionate about it! No one with such passion can be simply put down by being told they’re too quiet. Realize you have a gift, friend, it may not be everyone else’s style but it’s yours and it’s amazing and that’s what matter most of all! After all music is a feeling and if you’re feeling it that is a gift alone that not many can harness!Don’t change a thing, Keep on singing and keep
on rocking!

 

[Noah Berends]

As Ed said, perception of volume in person and perception of volume on camera are unfortunately often two different things and any number of things can affect volume of voice relative to instruments, such as mic placement, direction, etc. Ed’s solution is very good, recording the vocals on a different audio track than the instruments gives you as much mixing freedom as you need and you can make the voice louder/instruments quieter in post. Aside from that, if only one mic is available, I’d say record the voice and instruments in separate takes or put the mic closer to her than the instrument. As far as technique advice I’m afraid I can’t offer much since I can’t sing for crap anyways. So I would say work some magic in post production and once you start getting some well mixed tracks, sound and self confidence will see a great improvement.

 

[idssdi]

Well first of all people can really be assholes. As far as screaming/growling goes I have heard somewhere that it comes from the stomach. Like breathing through the stomach(if that makes sense). I personally notice when I am singing I actually sing louder when i feel more coonfident with the song so maybe it is simply a confidence thing. I do also wanna say another thing. I haven’t really heard your singer sing maybe those people who say she sings flat are just dicks but for me a singer who sings flat or sharp can really annoy me a little bit sayig that if she really does sing either flat or sharp maybe changing the key of the song might help.
Hope this helps a bit

 

[Josh Wright]

Use your diaphragm, and push the sound. It’s either confidence, or her in head mix is off, at which point to her she is loud but in reality she is pretty quiet. My dad has the head mix problem. He cant find a beat because when he listens to music he hears all the drums at the same level, or when he is singing along to the radio he is actually mumbling but he thinks he is yelling.

 

[Jak Angelescu]

Wow you all are so amazing. I read these comments to her and she definitely has a new perspective and things to try. Thank you all SOOOOOO much

 

[Josh Wright]

I whole heartedly believe, and the success of this website proves it’s not just me, that all musicians need to have a safe place where we can help eachother progress, build eachother up, and a place to escape the negativity and just be a musician learning and growing in your craft.

 

[John Tierney]

Hi sorry for chiming in late. But I think I can offer something to help. Im not much of a singer but when I do renditions of Suicide Silence or Whitechapel, a lot of people say I can do it.
1) What kind of singer is she trying to emulate (Growls, Shrieks, hybrid)
2) If its growls that she’s after, cup your hand around the top part of your mouth and sing in a low register, and make sure the mic is close to your face almost as if your kissing it.
3) Shrieks- Are a bit tricky, but make sure your airway is small in its opening. What I do is kind of pull my tongue back to my throat and make my epiglottis (the thing that covers your windpipe when eating) close it off sort of. When I then sing the air forced has a high pitch so the shriek is heard.
4) For any kind, there is no room for being timid (VERY IMPORTANT), the genre is designed to be up in your face, screw you attitude so if your timid then that will affect your vocals. You need to go all or nothing like Ids said CONFIDENCE, I know that she can do it.
5) This one you need to handle with kid gloves but….. Use the sadness of the haters and turn it into anger and use that anger to emphasize your tone remember metal is usually an up in your face thing. (NOTE: This is kind of dark) (If you’ve seen, “The Waterboy” its kind of like that)
6) Get your adrenaline up and then do it. Adrenaline will give you more energy and that energy can be both felt and heard. Get a punching bag or hit something (helped me)
7) IMPORTANT: Budget the air in your lungs. If you go all out in a verse or chorus and you quickly find your self almost out of breath, this = sharp or flat sounds. This you need to practice, do a simple growl (they require the most air) and see how long she can maintain the sound without changing pitch. And work on this, the more you do it the better you understand your own body and you can sing w/o hiccups (try not to get these lol)
As far as haters, I say to them, heres the mic go up there with my group and do it if I suck. Making them do that will shut them up b/c she has training even if its not metal its a lot of classically trained vocals which is in my mind hard. That should shut them up.
Hope this helps and to your singer, “YOU are a kick ass vocalist”