Singing

[Tiarilir]

are there any tips and tricks out there?

I know it's a broad category, just looking to fine tune my skills as far as I can :-]

[Prab]

Erm.. phew, a very broad category.
Do you have singing experience? Are you just starting out?
Are there particular styles you want to focus on? Death Metal Growling/Screaming? Or classic singing?

The first and foremost thing you have to make sure of are suitable warm ups. There are plenty of those.
If your vocal chords are warmed up well enough, you'll do less or no damage at all to them, depending on what it is you're doing
If you do the warm up exercises regularly they train your voice too.
So I would recommend you start with good warm up exercises.

[Tiarilir]

I wanted to get into growls but I just can't... do... them.


So Classical singing for me. I'm a low Baritone, I've taken a few lesson but the teacher wasn't any good and VERY objective, no personal feel to it at all, so I stopped. I might start going to a new one.

[AngelOfMusic]

Personally, I'd rather have a voice teacher who is objective about my singing.  How can you get good guidance if they let their personal opinion color their views?

Breath is important.  Always remember to breathe deep into your diaphragm.  Try and stay away from caffiene.  Dairy isn't good for the vocal cords either.  However, I've been able to have dairy and then go sing with minimal (if any) problem, so it really depends on your physiology.  Alcohol and smoking are also bad for your voice.

A bit of lemon juice mixed with water is good for your voice. 

If it hurts, you're doing it wrong.  If it hurts, you need to stop and let your voice coach know that it hurts.

Drink lots of water!  Staying hydrated is just good for you all around.

If you live in a dry climate, you might want to invest in a humidifier.  It's not fun singing when your throat is all dried out.  But again, this depends on your physiology - heating systems used in cold weather dry me out, but air conditioning does not.  But my boyfriend gets dried out easily when in air conditioning and heating.

You might also pick up Pro Secrets of Heavy Rock Singing.  Especially if you can't afford a vocal coach just yet.  It's a pretty useful book.

[Prab]

You might also pick up Pro Secrets of Heavy Rock Singing.  Especially if you can't afford a vocal coach just yet.  It's a pretty useful book.

I second that! This book is a very interesting read and pretty useful.

If you want to get into growling try the DVD "The Zen of Screaming" by Melissa Cross. There are two Volumes of that one, the first one is the most useful and the best for beginners! There are good warm ups for all vocal ranges and technique explanations. It's the closest you get to an actual vocal teacher
But it's not substitute for an actual vocal teacher.

[Tiarilir]

I've recently started a diet which includes alot of lemon, and it's miraculously improved my voice range.
I've been trying to sing a few songs every day since I posted this, and been doing it frequently in the past as well.

However, I do not notice much of an improvement over time. I also fear I might be slightly tone deaf, is there any way I can get this confirmed?

[Wulfgar]

Hi there,
here is a tip that I picked up back when I was singing in my band. This sounds a bit weird but try it out. Your singing depends mostly on the way you're breathing so this has to be trained first. Lay a hand an your stomach an try to breath towards it. (That doesn't mean you have to blow air against the hand on your stomach) If you do it right you can kinda feel how your breathing changes. (It's even possible to breathe in the upper regions of your back or something like this) Back to the point. If you want to try growling you must learn to breathe in this way baucause from the depths of your stomach you can grab a lot of power and scream it out without hurting you voice chords.
In addition to that I would recommned to do warm up singing with a great variety of different styles of music. I was singing melodic metal and used pieces sung by Matt Barlow as well as Nightwish songs by Tarja Turunen. It worked out for me very well because the range between a very dark and voluminous voice and the high pitch of the female vocals were perfect to give the voice chords the possibility to work in different styles. (Oh btw try to do the warm up singing clear an not to loud at the begining)