Singing

[BlasterBates]

My tip on a loud gig wear an ear plug or even two, you can hear yourself clearly then, otherwise with noise you can easily end up out of tune.

[NotAllThere]

There are exercises you can do to extend your vocal range, and to transition smoothly between the different voices. Warm up is essential.

For most people, practise is all that's required to maintain pitch. Mind you, when the stage foldback monitors go off, it can be a pig to stay in tune - you just can't hear the other instruments.

[BlasterBates]

...and of course when you sing in your range it still "sounds" the same pitch as the original singer because singers with high voices sound lower than they are, there's more depth to the voice at their pitch. This is what I find. When I sing at the same high pitch as pop singers that sing high and a lot of them do, it sometimes sounds higher, because the tone isn't as rich, but when I drop it just a tone it sounds very similar. Sometimes though the key is a good key to play in. In fact Elvis's backing band retuned their instruments for some songs so that both the band and Elvis were playing and singing in their favourite key, Jailhouse rock for example, is in Db but the guitar is tuned down so Scotty Moore could play in E.
It's a tricky one when your perfect pitch for the song is something like Bb. Some songs we do live I accept the less than perfect choice for the pitch so that the guitar riffs are easy.

I was kind of trying to work King Creole in the setlist but A is a bit too low, and C is a bit too high but B and Bb really suck as keys to do guitar riffs and solos in, haven't figured this one out yet.

[TestMangler]

I play guitar and on occasion, have to sing. In my humble opinion, my singing voice sucks. It sounds alright in my ears, but recording and playing back, it's just horrible. I'm like a first-round dropout on X-Factor. Not hugely off-key, though it happens, just... bad.

Is it possible to improve when you really suck? Or do you need a certain natural skill to build on? I do know in my head what I want to be doing, and I'm not totally unmusical... but what can I do? Does simply practicing help and if so should I practice with live foldback or what?

I know a few musicians are on CUK, and there must be some gifted amateurs too.

Have you tried identifying the 'strong' part of your own vocal range and changing song keys to suit rather than trying to screech out songs in the keys you happen to find them in ? I've worked with loads of vocalists (including good ones) when I used to do a bit of semi-pro guitar/keyboardy stuff and was amazed at the number of them who would fight there way through songs in the wrong key or leave songs off their lists because the 'they were too high/low etc' and didn't know you could play any song in any key you want to.

A good example is the guy from The Crash Test Dummies, if anyone remembers them. He's a bass baritone so not your normal pop/rock type vocal range. Once he started working/writing in his own vocal range, he suddenly discovered he could sing (ish).

[xoggoth]

Take up Blues. I occasionally used to sing blues in a student club once, you can get away with anything.

[TimberWolf]

I can't sing. On the rare occasion that I've tried to sing even one line, the voice doesn't change to the right note or pitch or something. Aside from karaoke songs obviously.

[shaunbhoy]

In my humble opinion, my singing voice sucks. It sounds alright in my ears, but recording and playing back, it's just horrible. I'm like a first-round dropout on X-Factor. Not hugely off-key, though it happens, just... bad.

If all that is true then you are being overcritical of yourself. You ought to at least get to Boot Camp, if not further. And if you are fortunate/unfortunate enough to get Louis Walsh as your mentor, and look anyways reasonable in teenage garb, then the sky is the limit.......d000hgward!!

[d000hg]

It's not for recording, but playing live... I only record to get an idea what it really sounds like, because I'm sure listening to yourself with the sound vibrating through your skull is not accurate... it seems like my brain automatically hears what I want to sound like.

Also - some people really just can't sing. Take the comedy auditions on X-factor as an example. Or are they really not that bad and were 'set up' somehow?

[SupremeSpod]

Are you recording through a proper recording mic. if not it means nothing.

A cheap mic. doesn't really record your voice.

Trust your ears, if you sound good to yourself you probably sound good to everyone else as well. The main thing is you sing in tune....this is the most important thing, and as long as you don't shout, which is unlikely when you're singing with your guitar on your own, but easily done in the excitement playing with loud electric guitars, then it'll be OK.

Everyone has a "voice" in there that's different, you just have to tease it out, it doesn't have to be big and powerful (but it's nice if it is) it can be quite "normal". Quite a few pop singers actually have fairly average voices, no better than average Joe in his bedroom , the really great singers are few and far between.

But get someone to listen to you, anyone will do, just someone who won't politely say it's fine when it isn't or someone who yells "FFS are you strangling the f**king cat?"

Sage advice.

[BlasterBates]

Are you recording through a proper recording mic. if not it means nothing.

A cheap mic. doesn't really record your voice.

Trust your ears, if you sound good to yourself you probably sound good to everyone else as well. The main thing is you sing in tune....this is the most important thing, and as long as you don't shout, which is unlikely when you're singing with your guitar on your own, but easily done in the excitement playing with loud electric guitars, then it'll be OK.

Everyone has a "voice" in there that's different, you just have to tease it out, it doesn't have to be big and powerful (but it's nice if it is) it can be quite "normal". Quite a few pop singers actually have fairly average voices, no better than average Joe in his bedroom , the really great singers are few and far between.

But get someone to listen to you, anyone will do, just someone who won't politely say it's fine when it isn't.

[Cliphead]

Singing will improve with practice and you would benefit from a singing teacher as Cojak's suggested.

Warm up your voice for an hour or so before recording and you should hear a difference, I suspect you're not so much off key as not quite getting the pitch of certain notes right.

Also when recording you might want to consider this which surprisingly many pro's use.

[cojak]

Take singing lessons, a good teacher can work wonders, so I'm told.

[d000hg]

I play guitar and on occasion, have to sing. In my humble opinion, my singing voice sucks. It sounds alright in my ears, but recording and playing back, it's just horrible. I'm like a first-round dropout on X-Factor. Not hugely off-key, though it happens, just... bad.

Is it possible to improve when you really suck? Or do you need a certain natural skill to build on? I do know in my head what I want to be doing, and I'm not totally unmusical... but what can I do? Does simply practicing help and if so should I practice with live foldback or what?

I know a few musicians are on CUK, and there must be some gifted amateurs too.