I feel like this may be an impossible question to easily answer. But you all NEVER fail on providing great advice and info (which, by the way, says a lot about this group. Generous. Doling our advice and thoughts constantly to strangers, it does say something . . .)
Anyway. I’m at the level that I play mostly at home. Will bring the guitar on vacation to play for friends, at parties, etc.
Never recorded myself singing until recently. I’ve been making video of playing and singing to send to friends. I’m not a “bad” singer. I normally sound pretty good. I usually stick to country when doing it because I find it easiest to sing and play without getting all jumbled up.
The last few days I thought I’d do Hootie’s “Let Her Cry.” I’ve always loved that song. So played it for a while, sang it, etc. Thought, “this sounds good, let’s make a video.”
Holy hell. I sound like a dying bird.
So, I’m sure the answer is “PRACTICE!!” And my question then is what is good, efficient practice? Do I break it down into phrases over and over until I get it and move on? That’s the first thought that came to my head.
And the other is how in the world do I tell how I’m doing other than recording? I can tell when I hit a bad one on an instrument. But been singing casually like everyone else in the world, for my entire life and had no idea that I was so off on this song until I recorded it. So, I guess I could refine my singing ear, but man, if I can’t tell by now . . .
And again, most of my songs I hit pretty good. But now I’m sure there are others I’ve never recorded that I’ve sang at a party and folks’ ears are ringing.
So there. I’m not asking much. I just want to be able to sing Let Her Cry half decently.
#1: Your voice is your signature. Plenty of singers sound like dying birds, but the idea is to make that dying bird sound like the best dying bird you ever heard. It is kind of an ego confidence trick, deliver whatever it is you have like it is gold. But dont fall into the American Idol delusion of thinking you are good - you are not and never will be "good".
Top mistake casual singers make. Don't strain for notes. Stay in your range, even if it is only one octave. Try a different key if the chart you have is forcing you out of your range. Forcing high is what makes you sound like Alfalfa from the Little Rascals.
Relax. Sit up straight or stand so you have room to breathe. Breathe a lot, put some air behind it, take breaths between lines, or any break. This is a weird one, standard advice, sing from your diaphragm, not out of your lungs, pull it up from the gut.
Great tip I got once, think of each word separately, enunciate, dont run lyrics together. Don't rush, those lines are the most important part of any song. This tip changed my singing overnight.
Know the meaning of the lyrics and live them. Sad song, be sad, happy song, be happy. When you rehearse imagine you are on stage at Woodstock, or singing the last song a dying person will ever hear, this type of thing - it is more theater than a technical skill.
Don't be shy. Sing like you mean it. Don't try to sound like anyone else, everyone will know you are phony. Never stop if you forget lyrics.
Lastly, no matter how bad you screw up, make the last lines perfect, it distracts the listeners from what you did. Be the ball, Johnny!
Thanks for asking, gonna go see if I can take my own advice.
[Edited on 5/13/2020 by BrerRabbit]
sing from your diaphragm, not out of your lungs, pull it up from the gut.
Red Dog posted here for a while in the very early 2000s and had this same advice for Gregg. He suggested that Gregg would benefit from doing some wind sprints! That got a laugh or two needless to say.
[Edited on 5/14/2020 by cmgst34]
#1: Your voice is your signature. Plenty of singers sound like dying birds, but the idea is to make that dying bird sound like the best dying bird you ever heard. It is kind of an ego confidence trick, deliver whatever it is you have like it is gold. But dont fall into the American Idol delusion of thinking you are good - you are not and never will be "good".
Top mistake casual singers make. Don't strain for notes. Stay in your range, even if it is only one octave. Try a different key if the chart you have is forcing you out of your range. Forcing high is what makes you sound like Alfalfa from the Little Rascals.
Relax. Sit up straight or stand so you have room to breathe. Breathe a lot, put some air behind it, take breaths between lines, or any break. This is a weird one, standard advice, sing from your diaphragm, not out of your lungs, pull it up from the gut.
Great tip I got once, think of each word separately, enunciate, dont run lyrics together. Don't rush, those lines are the most important part of any song. This tip changed my singing overnight.
Know the meaning of the lyrics and live them. Sad song, be sad, happy song, be happy. When you rehearse imagine you are on stage at Woodstock, or singing the last song a dying person will ever hear, this type of thing - it is more theater than a technical skill.
Don't be shy. Sing like you mean it. Don't try to sound like anyone else, everyone will know you are phony. Never stop if you forget lyrics.
Lastly, no matter how bad you screw up, make the last lines perfect, it distracts the listeners from what you did. Be the ball, Johnny!
Thanks for asking, gonna go see if I can take my own advice.
[Edited on 5/13/2020 by BrerRabbit]
Thanks much! This seems like great advice and well-stated. Gives me a lot to think about as I work.
Also, really made me note that it’s a different focus if I’m singing for folks. While I might be consumed with making every chord change as smooth as possible and making no mistakes in my fills, etc., I’m probably the only person even paying attention to my guitar playing. And I ought to be putting the same level of concentration into my singing.
Jeez, Brer Rabbit put down some amazing ideas.
I sing 1/3 of the vocals in a band, and I am a limited singer.
Some things I have learned:
1. Just like guitar players are supposed to benefit from trying to play horn licks on guitar, I think singers benefit from singing melodic guitar lines as practice.
2. Singing harmonies is really good practice, a good way to learn. The other guitarist in my band knows musical theory, and he can help me learn a vocal harmony by showing me on guitar the notes that I am supposed to sing, which goes back to # 1 above.
3. Practice really IS key. Sing in the car, in the shower, with your guitar. Your voice muscles need to say limber and to get effortless.
Warming up is huge too, just like exercising before athletics.
4. That advice about singing within your range is really key. I think Robert Plant and Mick Jagger are smarter than Ian Gillan and David Lee Roth because Plant and Jagger keep adjusting their singing as their voices change and lose some range. They don't force it.
Mark Knopfler has made a great career out of singing within a very, very limited range. He just makes it his.
I think Gregg always kept it simple; he didn't aim for too many extended notes or added "Whoops" or vocal athletics. He never tried to be Stevie Wonder.
As an example, with "Let Her Cry," Darius Rucker sings the word "Cry" as a two-syllable word: "Let her cry-hi." I bet Gregg would have made "Cry" a one-syllable word.
Think about when Darius sings about pouring a drink and feeling sorry "for my self." He punches "for my self" as one short crisp syllable each. I would sing "Let her cry" just like he sings "for my self" because I'm better at hitting a word as a one-syllable word rather than stretching it out into a two-syllable word.
Finally, I do think you are right to record yourself and hear your own voice, but while the cliche is that "the tape don't lie," it is also true that many good musicians are MERCILESS in judging themselves. So, while the tape might not lie, we might not hear the tape completely honestly. I criticize myself for flat notes or sharp notes on certain songs, but other musicians - honest ones - are like, dude, no, you're being ridiculous. So, get a second opinion.
Great advice so far. I sing/strum a lot. Play in public some, played around the campfire at Wanee for about 10 years and some neighborhood gatherings etc. I think most would say I have a pleasant voice and I got better over time.
Couple lessons that helped me
1. I got a lesson. Literally just a single 60 minute lesson 5 years ago helps me to this day. She told my "I" and "Y" sounded winy and that I should sing that "eye" sound rounder with less annunciation. I use that tip to this day.
2. Sing songs in your range.
Most professional singers sing much higher than you think. For example, I learned Seven Turns and Where It All Begins. Way too high for me so I changed the key/chords. Even Gregg sings high. He played These Days with capo on about the 3rd or 4th fret and I play it with no capo.
I sing the majority of my songs in a lower key than the original. I even tune my guitar a half step down. When I do have go higher in a song, I practice how to fake it or re-arrange it a bit if I have to. I also go softer as I get higher....that helps me.
3. Record yourself on your phone. Listening back and practicing does help.
Good luck. Most people are better singers than they think.
While I might be consumed with making every chord change as smooth as possible and making no mistakes in my fills, etc.,
This is big. Gotta have the accompaniment second nature, it really interferes with singing. Do the tricky stuff between lines When recording it is better to do the instrument first then record singing over the track, unless you are going for a natural sound, like folk or blues, jazz, anything where tempo flexes with the words . For pop, rock, country, forget it, record the instruments first. I have found singing will slow down everything . Main thing is the singing is the most important thing when it is happening.
Open mics are great for this - and to see how folks forget the singing and focus on playing, or how when they sing the whole sound changes.
Saw Quincy Jones on PBS awhile back and he produced Frank several times and was just freaked at how Frank could move in and out of the pocket and caress words weirdly, perhaps not correctly, yet it sounded fantastic and most of all unique.
Listen to the phrasing carefully. The first word is odd and is isolated and sounds wrong...but cool?
