Guttural voices: Tips and tricks

Jevil

Jevil

Pro Evolution Fucker
Apr 18, 2006
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I'd like to be able to spit out some guttural vocals but I can't.
Does the gutturalist must be born with that physical capability or anyone can do it with a bit of practice?
So, is there any tip to sing that way? Like, drinking absinthe, smoking Cuban cigarros as Fidel, sodomizing your throat with a huge dildo... or what?

Come on, I'm sure someone must know the technique.
 
I can't imagine not being able to do a decent growl no matter what your physical limitations. Are you talking about those extremely low, totally unintelligible grunts? Or maybe the "breee, breee" type of stuff?
I don't know what people mean by "gutteral" vocals these days......
 
the way i figured out how to do them isn't the 'tr00' or 'kvlt' way to do it, BUT.

grab a 57 or something, crank the gain on your pre and put some headphones on.

whilst listening to your favorite guttural slam, cup the mic and start inhaling air, opening and closing your mouth and puckering your lips like a monkey is a prerequisite.

the amount your mouth is open or closed influences how deep or what kind of tonal 'quality' the guttural has and mind you, this will all be whisper quiet, hence the cranked pre-amp.

there are ways to do them by exhaling, but it's way hard (for me personally) and since im just doing it to have some vox over some of my stuff, im not too worried about it.

now, go be somebody!

:)
 
Jevil said:
I'd like to be able to spit out some guttural vocals but I can't.
Does the gutturalist must be born with that physical capability or anyone can do it with a bit of practice?
So, is there any tip to sing that way? Like, drinking absinthe, smoking Cuban cigarros as Fidel, sodomizing your throat with a huge dildo... or what?

Come on, I'm sure someone must know the technique.
Click to expand...

I'm going to assume you mean growls. I found that to do them, you have to find your "type" of vocalist, then try and copy them. For me, Michael Stane of Dark Tranquillity is "my type", not so much that I sound like him, but when I try to growl along with him, I do it best. Johan Liva (spelling??) formely of Arch Enemy is a vocalist who I have learned to stop trying to sing along to. His voice sounds loud and powerfull, whereas mine isn't, so I just rape my vocal chords for no reason.
Once you find your master, keep trying, keep fluids up, but don't over do it. It took me a few months to learn to growl, not that I do it great anymore (thanks to the Arch Enemy singalongs). Oh yeah, and don't try to go too loud if it hurts.
 
Just takes practice. It was easier for me to learn to do death metal type vox than black metal. For the low death metal type just get some air in your lung and make the sound like you are pissed off or annoyed at something. Now try doing that with your mouth in different shapes. Eventually you will feel yourself controlling your throat much like you are controlling the shape of your mouth. To do black metal vocals I open my mouth much wider and use the throat more to make sort of a gargling motion. In other words, doing death metal style uses more of the chest area and black metal vox use more of the throat if that makes any sense.
 
Nebulous said:
Michael Stane of Dark Tranquillity is "my type", not so much that I sound like him, but when I try to growl along with him, I do it best. Johan Liva (spelling??) formely of Arch Enemy is a vocalist who I have learned to stop trying to sing along to. His voice sounds loud and powerfull, whereas mine isn't, so I just rape my vocal chords for no reason.
Click to expand...

Mikael Stanne has a killer voice. I like how his growls actually have a sense of pitch to them- there's the barest hint of melody there (the whole of Haven is a perfect example of this), and it's awesome.

Johan Liiva seems to be the exception to the rule among growlers. Most aren't actually that loud. Mikael Akerfeldt, from what I've heard, doesn't growl much louder than speaking volume, and he sounds absolutely brutal. Liiva isn't really a growler in the truest sense; I don't know what I'd call that- yelling, whatever, but that's seriously a bellowing roar, loud as hell.

It's much like singing, really, in that if you want more volume and projection, it should come from your chest, not your throat. You'll hurt your voice singing from your throat, and growling is the same.
 
Well, when it comes to growled vocals I do it pretty loudly. Some people do it very quietly and still sound pretty good. So it's hard to give somebody tips on how to do it...everybody's different.
Personally, I get all my volume from my chest and I push pretty hard. I also use some, er, distortion? :p ....from my throat to make it sound more expressive and to add accents. Also, sometimes you have to really exaggerate your pronunciation and articulation of words to make things intelligible.
 
Practice makes perfect really. For doing lows try making your mouth into an "o" shape and lifting your tongue to the top of your mouth. To go higher I usually open my mouth wider and bring the tongue down. This seems to work for me. Oh, and also make sure the air is coming from your diaphram and not the top of your lungs. You might have to read up on that part somewhere. I always do vocal warm-ups before doing any vocals whether it be screams, growls, hi pitched weirdness or cleans.
 
It's kind of a cheesy DVD but the "Zen of Screaming" DVD has actually got some pretty good advice in it.

There is also a companion CD that gives you some more specific ideas about making terrible noises with your voice.
 
I don't think what CJWall said will be able to get you what you're going for - there's a reason we don't hear 'inward singing' featured anywhere. You need to be able to move air with your diaphragm (breath control is very important in any singing, some just know how to exercise it better and hit 'that spot' quickly and easily) and, to put it most intuitively, shove your voice back down your throat so that you feel like you're using your chest and not your throat to produce sound. Zen of Screaming is helpful to know what parts of your voice are there for, but practice is really the best approach - it's not that far removed from what you'd consider 'normal', if anything it's just using the same approach to your speaking as bears use when roaring, and you should be able to do it at a level close to or above your normal speaking voice... that 'silent scream' shit will make it very easy to throw your voice out without getting good results when you can, and if you want to be successful you can't just have it as a 'trick' - you should be able to order a pizza with your growl as easily as you would with your speaking voice.

Jeff
 
I can manage to make what (I think) you're talking about, a real low guttural voice that actually has not much to do with screaming or growling, at least in my case.
In fact, I can't growl at all, but I get this voice that quite a few growlers I met say they can't acheive.
Probably it's because the whole technique is different, I'll try to explain:
first of all, I push my tongue down and back towards my throat, then I expand my throat and let the air out keeping my mouth just a little open. As the air goes out, at a certain point i feel the bottom of my throat trembling and the muscles along the side of my neck contract a bit, and that's when the guttural sound comes out. The modulation comes from how much I open my mouth, but I usually don't open it much...
I don't know when or how I discovered I could do this, and I just do some backing vocals in my band so I don't use it much, but actually it did take a bit to improve, since the first times I couldn't go on for more than 5 seconds without coughing.
Hope it's clear, I might post a short sample as soon as I go down to my studio (if anyone cares, otherwise why bother?:heh: )
 
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