7thson and Jim -->

[Mr. Hyde]

Originally posted by 7thSon

yes the transitioning is the hardest..
and yes priest is easier to sing then maiden
to me bruce's voice is the toughest act to follow...
i beleave even he has lost his range from time to time.
at one point he started sounding like ac/dc

Yeah I think you are right about Bruce losing it for a while. I bet he went back to basics when he left Maiden and was able to recover a lot of what he'd lost. His voice has a slightly different qaulity to it now than on early albums but when I saw him live this time around he didn't seem to be straining on any of the high notes at all. Unlike live after death and the other vids. I have.

 

[jim]

As for Bruce, he has mentioned that in the 'old days', they were unwilling to spend the money on a really good monitor system. This has a tremendous impact on a singer (at least some, me included). Now they have the hi-tech monitors, ear plug monitors, etc. So he attributes being better now then before (live) to actually being able to hear himself...

As for head vrs. chest vrs. falsetto - here's a very quick analogy - where people naturally transition from one to the other varies greatly (IMO).

Chest voice - imagine talking to someone, trying to talk in a booming bass voice, like your imitating a giants voice while playing with your kids - 'fee fi fo fum, I smell the blood....' That is chest voice. You can 'feel' the resonation in your chest.

Now raise the pitch to a more normal tone, like talking (or singing) like a normal person, (the giant is shrinking down to a human size) you can feel the resonance switch from your chest to your head (you might feel it in your throat)when you raise the tone. This is head voice.

If the giant kept shrinking down to the size of a mouse, and you continued saying 'fee fi fo fum', you would switch to falsetto to imitate this. In normal speech, falsetto is obvious. When making the switch while singing with power it becomes much less obvious. If you listen carefully to the great ones, you can still tell most of the time. Give Halfords CD Resurrection a listen. He switchs all throughout.

There is one more voice which I am not familiar with, that is even higher then falsetto, but it is something you cannot use to sing or talk in. A Whistle register comes to mind, but I'm not sure.

Personally, after meeting Mark and reading his book, I came to the conclusion that to really improve as a singer - pitch, range, register swithing, etc - you have to dedicate an enormous amount of time to practicing very specific exercises. These exercises make you sound like a dying cat. Very discouraging. Being very limited in time right now, I haven't dedicated that kind of energy yet. If the new Exxplorer CD starts selling, I'll probably start an exersize regime soon to get ready for the new CD.

 

[Mr. Hyde]

I'm familiar with doing vocal exercises where I sound like a dying cat!

What confuses me about the difference between falsetto and head voice is that I feel that when I sing I have basically three different approaches that I can use. One is the boomy chest voice where I can feel it in my chest. There is another one where I definitely feel notes resonating in my head and I can feel it in my face. Then there is one where I mentally picture the notes as if they are coming out of the top of my head. The last voice is the one where I can sometimes scream like Halford. I say sometimes because it really depends on my mood. The second one is where I can attempt to sing like Bruce and the first is where I can pretend to be an opera singer or sing the lower stuff bruce does.
The first voice and the last are the easiest to get a lot of volume from. The middle one is sometimes pretty weak. It's almost like my voice has a V shaped volume curve. I think I'm beginning to understand what Mark says in his book now about pushing the lower chest voice up too high in order to sound more powerful.
(Either his book or his faq says that I can't remember for sure)
I've finally started practicing quietly in the Bruce voice range to see if I can improve the transition so I don't feel I need to push the low range up. Only time will tell on that though I guess.

So would I be on the right track if I were to assume that the first voice I describe is my chest voice, the second my head voice, and the third a falsetto?

 

[jim]

That sounds like it. Unless you have falsetto and head voice switched. Usually head voice is the normal upper ranged singing and falsetto is extremely hard to learn to sing with power.

If you were to try and imitate talking like a girl (i.e. so you can actually feel the difference in your throat) - this would be falsetto. The difference beween head and chest isn't felt too much in the throat...

 

[7thSon]

hehe you guys are getting deep
alls i can say is that my life is pretty plain i like watching the the puddles uuuuhhh wait that not what i wanted to say lol

oh yeah,,, that my throat is very open and relaxed when i go into the upper up ranges
and from a lower range to higher range is one smooth breath.

 

[rabies]

This is a really great thread. Thanks for the lessons Jim!

So I guess when I try to imitate Barry White, I am using my chest voice...when I sing normal tunes (like the Beatles or something) I am typically using my head voice...and when I scream up high..or try to talk like a girl, I am using falsetto.

My problem exists when transitioninig from my upper range in head voice to falsetto. I cannot get a lot of power ini the lower range falsetto voice...only when I get way up high. Any tips on how I can beef up the lower level falsetto voice?

 

[jim]

According to Mark - practice practice practice! Seriously though, he has some interesting exercises in his book (can't remember offhand). I'll be revisiting it if it looks like the CD's are selling...