I'm not a singer but would like to improve my voice.
Monday I have been asked to sing at my great grandma funeral. Her memory of my singing is when I was a kid.............. I actually sung some then but was not a trained voice.
After puberty my voice changed and I fell beteen octaves.
I don't have a full scale in any octave.
Monday I am singing with my dad who is a Low bass easily hitting the bottom key of the piano and can probably go a little lower.
My brother is alomst identical to dad only not as well trained.
Me I suck....

I dont know how to play the piano yet (some day) But I can play woodwinds so I'm going to compare to the saxaphone since it's the one designed to mimic the human voice.

Since they are both bass, I'd like to sing tenor, are there any tricks I can do to train my voice in a day to go a little higher. If I could hit equivelent to a first octave C on the alto sax I'd be happy. I can hit A strong and most of the time hit B with out cracking. But the elusive C cracks more often than not. I can almost mimic the same thing in the 2nd octave, I can hit D,E,F,
but G I start straining and on up is hit or miss until b and my ever elusive C is an absolute no go in 3rd octave......

Any help, links or advise would be appreciated.
I've never had even a second of voice training so try to keep it in laymens terms. Like I said, to make things mroe cmplicated, piano is a no go for me either, I cant visual (so to speak) the sound of a piano. If you can convert it to octaves of a sax or most any wood wind that I can visualize (so to speak).

 

Ok, due to the seriousness of the situation and the time frame, I'm going to lay my Man Card out on the table.

Y'all can try to revoke it, but you can suck my bum-hole if you try.

PSS-Mag, to reach a higher note involves a lot of training your throat muscles (vocal chords) to get there. You don't have time for that. Instead of trying to sing through your throat, you have to try to sing through your nasal passages. This will alleviate almost all of the strain on your throat muscles and allow you to reach higher notes through your nasal cavity.

It will take a little practice, but it is easily done. I started singing in 6th grade as a high tenor and grew into a low bass. If forced to, I can sing near soprano notes by pushing all the air past my vocal chords up into my nose. The sound volume isn't nearly as loud, but it doesn't need to be. It requires more air volume, though.

Not quite sure if that made sense or not, but I hope it helps.

 

Thanks Sleepy, yea I'm not worried about my man card becasue I didnt volunteer and I'm not doing it for any reason other than grandma asked me/us repeatedly over teh last 10-15 years to sing these two songs again for her at her funeral when she died.

Besides that, I know many manly men who sing. My dad for one and if anyone called him a sissy for singing..... yea I don't know a man alive with enough guts to do it to his face so it's not even a what if scenario.....

He's a gentleman, but you don't want to rile him, he can and will.... and has put a hurt on a few when he's been pushed to it.

I'll try in the AM, right now wife and kids are asleep and I dont want to wake them up practicing.

Also, I have heard lemon juice helps clean and soften the vocal cords for faster transitions and possiably higher cords. I've known a few singers that have used it when they are sick. Actually one of teh girls that sung at our wedding was sick and barely had a voice, she was sucking on a lemon until the minute she walked up to the mike and sounded great, you'd never known she could barley talk that day.

Do you think it would help?
If so I'll go buy a quart tomarrow and go on a lemon juice diet between now and then.....

 

What is the song that the three of you are planning on singing?

 

The first one is Amazing Grace, the second one I cant remember the name of it. It's another old time hymn though. We are practiing later today, I'll remember then.

ETA:
Just thought of it....
The second one is Living by Faith.... I think is the other one that she wanted us to sing again for her......

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkl3ENHHlB4



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMIyfIQdNxk


Singing Success home page

 

I signed up for the free stuff on www.singingsuccess.com. The free video is interesting.

I've never heard of the terms head voice and chest voice.

Interesting stuff.

 

If they had that on download I'd order and be downloading it now........

Unfortunatly the mail wont even run one time before I have to perform.

But I signed up, and watched the free clip. Now I'll be going around all day tomarow, tomarrow night and monday morning doing lip rolls and funny sounds..... I will probably order the set sometime soon because I am so embarrased of my singing voice but love to hear people sing. I hate being envious of people who can sing. It's nothing I want to do professinally, but just to have the ability to be cool for those once in a while situations where it would be cool to show off.

 

quit smoking

 

Yea I know, this is one of the times I hate that habit alot.
I have cut back to almost nothing until after the funeral and have been drinking lemon water and doing exercises to cleans my vocal cords of the tar and mucas. Also havent had little or no dairy to prevent excess mucas between now and then.

I'm such a perfectionist there is no way I could do this professionally. I couldn;t live like this everyday just so I could sing for work.

We just finished practice, I must admit it's not as bad as I was afraid it was going to be. Dad switched to tenor, I htink I've only heard him sing tenor 4 or 5 times in my life. My brother sings bass/harmony and with the help of that video I went to a strong bass/tenor so I've taken melody, my other brother joined in and he is a power tenor. He put us over the edge helping with harmony, he was just going to play guitar but glad he joined in vocals too.

His style and my style are similar, my dad and borther are different than us but they are similar to each other. We all met in the middle and blendeing our styles it sounds pretty dang good.

 

update:

Just wanted to let you guys know how it turned out.
It went extremely well, you'd thought we had sung together all the time.

Thanks for that link Silver07, with that video I was able to conquer C in all of my range by having my chest voice surrender to my head voice. I had never heard it put like that either. Once I visualized it and a short time of using the exercises it became seamless, even moving from one octave to the next. That guy is a genius! I will be ordering his DVD soon.

Also my daughters watched the video, they are both in choir I can hear the difference it helped them. Their teacher even noticed first thing too!

 

Congratulations.

I was doing one of those exercises while driving into work the other day. It does seem to feel very right, but silly.

If I was to do it in Wal-Mart, they would probably call the cops on me.

Dave

 

Hi, my name is Lou. I would like to sign you up for my new band. I have been detained recently but am looking forward to hearing you and your relatives.