Vocalist Journey

I still vividly remember my first steps.
I recall squeezing notes at C#4, I recall it being incredibly difficult. I recall squeezing my voice tightly.

Nah, that’s somewhat of a lie. I still do squeeze out some notes here and there, to be frank I always feel like I never progressed, only when I listen back to recordings do I realize how bad I was.
From being incredibly off pitch with an overly darkened muddy tone accompanied by a horrible accent to somewhat not making the ears bleed, that’s a nice distance.

It may strike no one as an achievement, nor is it an interesting journey or voyage, there is nothing exciting in sight, however, I learned to look back and appreciate the distance.

How does one even justify anything? How do we ever justify making the right choices?
We only seem to do so by observing the outcome, it is a bland way of looking at things, since we will always have a “what if”, if I’d done that I would have had that, why can’t we do this for the right reasons? Because there’s nothings else to be done.

I don’t have much to show for the years I’ve practiced on and off, I haven’t really pursued it either, I’ve just been a passive shell of a being existing away from the rest of the world.

So in terms of outcome, I cannot justify this pursuit, this desire to just learn to express oneself, this voice that few if ever will hear and all will forget in a matter of decades.

I was obsessed with the outcome in my early 20s, it robbed me the opportunity to grow. But that along with many others things I’ve learned over time.

• Most vocal coaches on Youtube suck:
  If they can’t sing, don’t bother, if they can, try to see if their explanations make sense and align with your own experiences and what you want to have in your own voice. Your first clue whether to someone can sing or not is does it sound effortless, does this person have great control, do they have a great tone across the board?
  
• You are likely going to sound like your vocal coach:
  For example, Ken Tamplin’s students tend to sound “shoutier” with heavier chest mix belted notes. They end up being more on the rock side kind of thing, never seen a KTVA student cover “The Weeknd” singing softly or James Blunt.
  
• Vocal Analysis does not mean crap:
  Especially nowadays in 2024 and since 2020, we’ve had bland sounding individuals who claim to be coaches launch reaction channels and falsely mislead the masses.
  Most beginners including myself still lack tools to interpret the “feel” that most would address and vowel modifications and vocal tract shape.
  
  Listening to a thousand vocal analysis videos of Chester Bennington is not going to help me for shit, because I have to get the technique down in my own voice to even begin to comprehend what is meant by things and what he was doing.
  
• Most vocal coaches who are naturals are not a good fit for beginners:
  They tend to speak in terms of “feel” instead of technicalities and breaking down the voice and explaining why people cannot do XYZ.
  
• Do not mistakenly rush to classify your voice:
  I used to think that I was a Baritone, in fact, I rushed towards classifying myself, that’s why I sang with a dark tone, I thought that was what I was meant to do, cause I couldn’t hit the high notes for shit. I thought I was meant to stay in a certain range.
  Every voice has a personality, you need to accept it as a friend yet push it towards growth, you will only learn who you are through your limitations, who you cannot be.
  
  Listening back to it nowadays, that is the most un-Baritone tone I’ve ever heard, it’s nowhere as full and rich, it’s just an extremely misused voice.
  
• Breath control is overrated:
  I do believe that to be the case, singing is about controlled exhalation, I had taken a course early that made breathing seem like an abs workout, that discouraged me since that shit was completely unnatural.
  
• It’s all about resonance:
  That is it, it’s not about range and god forbid, DO NOT PULL CHEST VOICE UP, figure out your passagios, they will take a while to figure out as a beginner because you will be awful.
  
  For resonance to happen you need:
  • Good stable exhalation
  • The right vocal cords coordination (I’m heavily working on and developing mix)
  • Good echo chamber/resonant space (I’m working on that as well)
    
• The voice is not a muscle to grow:
  This is why we don’t inject steroids and then go for AA exercises…
  You should be happy, less needles and wasting cash on injectable hormones.
  The voice is rather about muscle memory, not strength, it’s about coordination.
  
• Last but not least, again, DO NOT PULL CHEST VOICE UP:
  Chest voice is a limited register, you cannot push it beyond your passagios, break depends on the vowel, EE and OO being the most challenging (I still struggle with those, I’m learning about them over time).
  
  To push beyond comfort you’ll have to use more air while pulling chest up, you will not sound powerful, you’ll sound squeezed.
  
  Everyone who ever sounded good singing high was mixing effortlessly.
  THEY DID NOT PULL CHEST.
  Pulling chest voice up has been my worst mistake and it’s unfortunately advocated by some vocal coaches who are popular.
  They all sound like dog shit and strained, do not fucking pull chest. It is extremely hard to stop doing, you’ll never sing EE and OO with ease, I still struggle hard with these vowels.

Take the time to learn how to make the best out of your voice and utilize your instrument by maximizing resonance.

Do not maximize range or strong notes that you can belt, all of that will come naturally with the right technique, with ease. Because that’s what all the great singers are doing.

Maximize resonance for a beautiful effortless tone and a light mix, that will get you there much faster.

I am not an expert, I am still learning, but this is to put briefly what I have learned this far.

See you in the next one.