need help for getting this scream right...

[findingthesound]

Hi everybody,

I need help from the screamers here as I can't make the kind of scream that Chester Bennington do, and need it to expand my vocal skills.
I can do growl, low/midrange scream and some screamo things (primal scream sort uncontrolled) well and can hold them without hurting myself at all and for a longtime, but I can't find how this f+@*!! of chester from LP get his kind of screaming.
It seems to be high pitched, like a screamo scream but way more controlled, well pitched, and without having the scream "back in the throat" (can't translate it better...).
So it's defenetly not a death/growl scream (this I know how to do).
But when i flip into head voice, I can't keep the "overdrive", or I go into too much screamo thing, wich i want to avoid.

So any one know how to do properly this kind of well controlled high and full screaming?


Hope we can keep this thread clean without "i hate LP" (appart the first album, me too), or drink wiskey and smoke a lot, or other dumbass comment.

Just talk about screaming techs please...

Hope we can share some usefull infos!
Thanks

 

[Dalinkwent48@aim.com]

I'm could be way off but unless you have the same singing style and voice as chester I think it would be pretty hard to mimic what he does as far as his screams.

 

[findingthesound]

0:54



This...

 

[findingthesound]

Yeah I know. I was talking about the technical thing, not how to have his voice. Like you said we all have different voice.
I can go pretty high from what my teachers told me, and should be able to make it. So it seems I have a voice range that should allow me to do it.
So the only thing I miss (besides training again and again my ears and my breathing), is what he does to keep the "overdrive" while going in head voice... I try to find but it's still a mystery too me!

 

[arv_foh]

I believe the technique you are looking for is called "vocal fry" google it and you should come up with a bunch of stuff

 

[Skaldir]

this scream at 00:54 is done with the false vocal cords, so its not made with the normal vocal cords. Its definately easier to make a scream without a note under it, cause you only need the false cords. Its harder to use both together like at 4 seconds. that would be the real competition, right?

 

[findingthesound]

I'm not really sure it's a "vocal fry". I've seen all those vids (lots are totally screamocrap...) and I've seen zen of screaming dvd by melissa cross. But they all don't answer on how to do this well. And the second dvd of melissa is joke: it's like watching an advertissement for the dvd while your watching it!!


I have seen in the video a guy saying that chester voice is like 2 or 3 frequencies (=notes) at the same time.
It remembers me what David Féron (a french teacher for saturated voice) said while I take some courses 3 weeks ago. He made some research with Dr Gérard Chevaillier, and in videos they made he showed us that while the vocal chords close at a frequency (the note you hold), when you put some pressur (but how and where?) in saturated voice your two "ventricular bands" above the vocal chords (maybe simply called false chords?) begin to touch at another frequency, like all the 3 or 5 time your vocal chords close, they close. So it create an harmonic. And when you up again the pressure, they touch two times at the same or different frequencies, creating the simult 2/3 voices; like in a guitar amp, while you saturate it build up the harmonics that make the full sound.
So this is the tech I'm looking for to reproduce the Chester's saturated voice.

Now, I remember David told us to not crush the larynx (?) and have it relaxed, and to master the anteroposterior and/or lateral compression, but we didn't have the time to go deeper with this, cause it was the end of the lesson. He told us too to know how to breath correctly and to not push lots of air outside while screaming. Last thing is to up the cheekbone (high part of your cheeks) like if you make a kind of vicious smile, to put the larynx in the good position for screaming; and to close up the mouth corners, while make a determined vowel.

That's all I know for now guys... So maybe some one know what is this anteroposterior and/or lateral compressionthat put a good pressure that make moving the "ventricular bands", while avoiding the bad pressure made by crushing (=lowering too much the larynx?) ????

Hope will finally nailed it...

links:
http://www.myspace.com/feron
read the one below there is some interesting english texts:
http://www.icvt2009.com/prog_chevaillier.html

 

[findingthesound]

Well, maybe it's a fry but with very well controlled false chords with it, and with the natural note in the highs.
...

 

[findingthesound]

I found some other explainations:

I have taken Melissa Cross's Zen of Screaming 1 + 2 and have found them very useful for screaming with endurance. However, the thing I did not find it useful for was singing with vocal fry. Just to clarify what I mean, singing like Chester Bennington, or Disturbed, or just about any hardcore band out there. Singing with "grit" is basically what I am struggling with.

You have to train some new techniques, that therefore, train new muscle memory... specifically what your referring to in the bridging process from chest to head is training to engage the Veli Levator Palis or "soft pallate"... a soft lifting of the pallette facilitates bridging without breaking... then in order to get a full voiced tone in the head voice you need to train the ability to contract the Aryepiglottic Sphincter to get the "twang" or pharyngeal sound that "cuts"... an extreme contraction of this kind, gives you distortion... the HEALTHY KIND that Jaime Vendera is referring to above. As Jaime was saying, distortion is an embellishment that overlays an already well established placement of the voice. In laymens terms... you need to always Bridge first (train that skill first), then work on connecting in the head voice (turning falsetto into full voice tones)... a hyper contraction of the "twang" movement (aryepiglottic sphincter) creates distortion...now thats distortion in the head voice, like Chris Cornel, Bon Scott, Bon Jovi, Sebatian Bach...
The other kind of screams, extreme distortion like Opeth and Lamb of God... you need to train a different set of moving parts... primarily use of the FVF... or the False Vocal Folds.
Regardless if your screams are "high" screams or hyper-distortion screams... YOU MUST train the skills. Find the right teacher and training system. I reccomend for high screams; my book "The Four Pillars of Screaming!" or Jaime's book "Raise Your Voice"... for extreme distortion ("cookie monster"), get Melissa Cross's system...
This stuff is really some of the most advanced techniques in all singing for all genre's... it takes a lot of training and patience... but you can do it. I suggest you get in touch with an instructor to guide you properly in the beginning.
Hope this helps.
THE VOCALIST STUDIO
Robert J. Lunte

http://voicecouncil.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=215

 

[-JohanFrisk-]

long thread, didn't read everything but do you already know this tech but struggle to go high-pitch with it or do super long screams like Chester?
i'm not really an expert but i think i can do this tech fairly well
so you basically want to combine (quiet) yelling with false chord distortion.
this is called 'heat' in ZoS 1 but the dvd won't really teach you HOW to do it some people call this 'fry screaming' but it's too easy to get it mixed up with 'vocal fry' then so, yeah.. 'heat' is a better term. very gentle saturation from the nasal region. sounds awesome
experiment! i eventually learned how to get the placement and resonance right by doing a midrange growl and then lower the volume until i could mix in some "true voice", try that! i found that you have to be very controlled and refrain from using too much power, go easy mate. hope it helps

 

[findingthesound]

Thank you fro your post!

Your right, it's something like the "heat" thing in ZoS 1 mixed with false chord.

So False chord I know how to do, but "heat" (or "grit")......

"heat" is also call "grit" in an other book; after searching the whole net a second time avoiding ZoS, I found this book "Raise your voice! 2edition" from jaime Vendera and there a lot of thing explained, just begin to read it but there's loads of good infos, and things are really explained, not like in ZoS 1 or 2.

So, after reading it a bit, it seems that what I thought to be head voice is in fact falsetto (high notes, light with relatively low volume), and I need to work to transform my falsetto into full voice, to get a better tone that's very similar to the chest tone but in the highs, and have enough power to make the false chord begin to vibrate (because they need a particular amount of pressure to make it). He explains all the exercices that I have to do to make it.

After that and other exercices to control extremely well the breathing (there's lot of things to control, from rising your cheeks, to expand your ribs to get more resonance, relaxe the larynx (the throat), and open it, while pushing with the bottom like if your on the throne to compensate the reflex of pushing to much air outside, and take not to much air to begin with), you would be able to control and make long well sustained high pitched note into your new high full voice, not distinguishable of your chest voice.

So that's the first part that I need to master correctly to get this full high scream.

He explains in the second part how to get the "grit" (page 359... after all the explanations needed above and some good warm up exercices).
So finally, he tell to use the soft palate to guide us.

On low pitches, the ripples or waves will physically feel slower. On mid-range
screams, the waves or ripples will get faster. On high throaty screams, the waves will
physically feel very very fast, almost so fast that it feels like a “pinging” against the soft
palate or a metallic sensation in the roof of the mouth. As long as you ALWAYS hold
on to this sensation, you’ll never hurt your throat from screaming. This is THE key to screaming correctly

So like you said -JohanFrisk-, it seems to be a good idea to begin with the low and go higher.
I begin to understand that this is what I do when I do screamo kind of scream, but with an uncontrolled head voice and without false chords.
I was doing one or the other thing, but can't get to two in the same time like Chester cause for the moment I don't master my full head voice, with allow to use both...
So let's go training!

(This book is much more than what I write here, it's the best book I've seen to really learn how to sing all kind of rock/metal in hte good way, plus there are some writing from other good teacher, even melissa cross write some words on metal vocals)

 

[-JohanFrisk-]

i believe IT IS the heat/grit technique you're looking for. you said that you know the low/mid/high falsechord-"growl" already. the heat tech is a combo between this (false chords) and some gentle yelling/shouting/singing (true vocal chords). the heat stuff only works for midrange stuff so for higher and lower pitches you have to blend in more and more falsechord-"growl".

you don't have to worry about chest/mixed/head-voice to learn this tech!

to actually learn heat, my advice is to not think about singing and headvoice and stuff. take the midrange growl you already know and bring down the volume gradually until you can mix in some of your (true vocal chord) singing/shouting/yelling but save your breath and don't go too loud on this, it doesn't need much power. it's going to feel like a new technique, you should know when you get it right, it feels very different from the growls, it's still falsechord distortion but with some vocal chord singing mixed in. (extra info: vocal fry is distortion produced entirely by the true vocal chords. i like to think of it as the 'falsetto' of screaming )

falsetto cannot be developed into a full true tone! falsetto is just "false voice". you should look into mixed voice & head voice. it's all about placement and "zipping up" your vocal chords so only shorter parts vibrate where as falsetto is more like playing harmonics on a guitar it sounds way weaker. check out mixed/head voice lessons like the Brett Manning stuff for example.

about breathing, nothing complicated really but very important:
expand the lower sides of your ribcage outwards (check the melissa cross website for pics) and keep them in this position all the time. breathe in and really expand that stomach. only your stomach should move and try to breathe really deep, all the way to your genitals. shoulders and chest should not move!
Melissa Cross has a good and simple breathing exercise:

Melissa Cross:
Learn breathing exercises to start with. For several weeks every morning, lay on the ground with your left fist forcing into your lower side rib cage and your right palm on top of your abdomen. Breath in through the nose, hold 20 seconds, out through the mouth. Do this for about 10 minutes. Make sure you understand you have an upper and lower lung. A small tank of extra air can reside in the lower lung as a reserve for singers/screamers that they can call upon in emergencies and extra power. You must practice using that reserve by filling your whole lungs and letting out the top part while keeping the lower part seperate and letting that out later. Your palm on abdomen and fist on ribcage will show you whether its full or not because of the expansion obviously and you'll know anyway. Doing this exercise over and over for weeks will teach the screamer to use it without thinking about it. Always good.

oh yeah, a general tip/rule: when going up in pitch you subconsciously want to push more but you actually need a lot LESS air for higher pitches
and by the way, most of the info you have posted is very vague and sometimes just really basic stuff. i bet you'll get confused if you try to figure out stuff like that. just my 2 cents

 

[findingthesound]

I think with your help and what I found in "raise your voice! 2edition" I have all the infos on how to do it.

Yeah I know some things I wrote are basic stuff, but it was to help those who really begin with scream cause lot of beginners I met don't even know how to breath correctly, so I just wanted this thread to be the most complete!

Your explanations are great and precise and you really nailed it!

Thank you -JohanFrisk- !

 

[-JohanFrisk-]

*flattered*
I'm glad i could be of assistance. i wish you good luck with the screaming!