...any vocalists around here?

[God-l-Send-l-Death]

I was wondering if there are any folks in this board that are members of a band and do vocals, have been in a band, or just do vocals...I wanted to ask you how do you practice/rehearse? What do you guys do? Any throat excercises, things to drink....whatever?

[She-wolf]

Drink water, don't ever drink anything with caffeine or alcohol in it as it dries your throat up before doing any vocals or singing. I'm not a total expert but there's some things you should just not do.
Sing from your stomach not the throat because it hurts and in the long run it will do no good plus singing from your stomach helps project your voice and make it much stronger. Tricky to do but once you have it, it makes a world of difference.
If you have a sore throat or cold, rest! I made that mistake singing/shouting a song at bad society and ended up loosing my voice. *crazy*
Always warm up doing just sort of scales starting at a comfortable level and working up and down the scale and also I guess if you do the growly stuff, intensity of that.
Thing is you are using muscles so like if you are lifting weights you don't start with the heaviest you can lift! Same with singing, start of gently and then work up in your warm ups.
Eh yeah that's about all I can think of. Don't do so much of the singing now really since I get pretty nervous about it but I will try again some day.

[Nomad]

I like to sing, and everyone who's heard me sing seems to like my voice. I have a pretty damn good range, and can do just about any type of the black/death growling there is. I obviously need work on it, but I'm not too humble to admit that I have a nice voice.

Lately, though, I've been playing a lot of guitar. I've improved quite a bit in the last few weeks, plus the free guitar lessons I'm getting in school in my music class :D Once I can do arpeggios (sp?) decently, I'm betting I'll be able to do pretty much everything a standard guitarist can do. Definitely no Steve Vai, Marty Friedman, Jason Becker, or Eddie VanHalen, though.

[MasterOfPuppets]

i sing in the shower *funnynot*

[She-wolf]

I'd do the death/black type vocals just it isn't easy to find anywhere to practise them so I'm not so great on them and I'm still trying to find a way to not hurt my throat by doing them. Yeah at the flat well my flatmate would probably guess it's just one of my CDs, but here at home... *drunk* So most of the time I just stick to regular singing which is still difficult to do in it's own way, I can't sing all that high, reasonably high but not enough for some songs.

[God-l-Send-l-Death]

Cool. Thanks for the replies> :) I don't do much clean vocals thoughthey're mostly low, I don't have a high voice. I sing mostly black/death...so attempt to growl but it doesn't come out as much as a growl....I'm not sure what to classify it under, actually. *chuckle* It's just I wanted to know about a way to deal with sore throats....for the first time in like forever I got one after practicing and I didn't like it much... *sulk*

[She-wolf]

Sore throats, honey and lemon! Best thing for it I think though it always reminds me of having the cold. :(

[God-l-Send-l-Death]

Well, colds do bring sore throats. So it should be the same remedy. *slaps self on forehead* How did I not see this before??? *burn*

[Nomad]

I'd like to ask people like Chris Barnes, Shagrath, and Galder how they deal with raspy throats. I'm sure doing it all night, nearly every night, has got to be hard on the vocal cords o.o

[She-wolf]

Yeah or any vocalist that does shouty, growly vocals. I tried going along to a CoB CD when I got bored of studying at home and gave up after one song! *ugh* I guess it's still singing from the stomach because you'll shred your vocal chords up in no time doing that from the throat alone so it's a case of training your voice to do those sort of vocals without putting a lot of strain on your vocal chords. I guess I'm having a go because I haven't yet met anybody at band society that does them and some songs I write I just can't picture them being sung normally. It's trying not to wreck my voice and not upset the neighbours is the tricky bit!

[MasterOfPuppets]

i do a good shagrath impression...for like a minuet. after that my throat hurts.

[God-l-Send-l-Death]

Actually, I can do a pretty good impression of Shagrath...I used to spin Spiritual Black Dimensions and sing it to the end...and with Morbid Angel I used to spin Covenant and go to the end singing to David Vincent's low vocal....not sure if I can still do it. *wacky* I hadn't realized that till now. And She-Wolf, I hear you about a place to practice...one of the reasons i don't...*sigh*