I think I'm Singing Wrong HELP Merkaba!

[LeadSinger327]

Hey, I have been singing for about 6 months now, but my voice is messing up. I sing emo and like New found glory, Fall out boy, and GreenDay. I get phlem, i think thats how you spell it, when i sing songs like "My Own Worst Enemy" by Lit and "Saturday" by fall out boy. Is this because I'm singing through my throat and not my gut? When I sing my muscle tenses and i can sing higher pitch and with the accent I want. I think I might be doing this wrong. I want to know how to make that sound like Greenday's vocalist, but I lost my voice. Did I damamge my singing by now? I am some - what sick though so that could be a problem also. I love to sing, but I dont wanna ruin my career by singing the wrong way. Someone PLEASE help me Merkaba or some skilled singer! Tell me if i ruined my voice already, and if theres still a chance i can get a GreenDay sound. Thank you all for posting after me!

[Merkaba]

lol...
i was looking through and i saw "help merkaba!". That just tickled me pink. That someone is looking for little ol me!

Well dont get all pannicky just yet. But we need more information first. I need you to answer all of these questions, as briefly as you like. so when you say singing for last six months, do you mean singing seriously, like you just started, or you've been singing and you've been singin hard for the last six months? And since when has the phlegm started. about how long ago? how long do you sing before you notice the mucous? What do you mean by somewhat sick? have you lost your speaking voice as well, is it affected as well, or are you saying that you cant sing good now? is there any pain, if so when? I need answers to all those questions.

Now you should never use the word tense. just dont. it shouldnt exist in your vocabulary unless youre talking about someone else. hehe. only you can tell if youre singing through your gut. or maybe if i had a clip i might be able to tell. but again, your throat should not be the point of focus. your gut should be. your diaphragm. so check out my sticky post and the isolation parts as well. you should feel your gut pull like youre about to cough or clear your throat. but of course you dont want to do that or push with that much force. but doing this is the only way i know of to communicate the area of feeling you should be coming from. you have to close your cords and let the pressure be coming from this feeling as youre giving exhaling a note. but you have to be able to control the push and not just blast it. when youre into the note the gut should not be tense or your abs flexed. your belly button should be wanting to go in and up. though you should rarely make it this far. this is just the feeling. remember you shouldnt be pushing more than 80% or so. you just cant push as hard as you want and expect some thin cords to vibrate properly.

if youre sick, you need to know whats going on. if you have laryngitis you dont want to sing. anything other than that is ok, from what i've learned. if youre sick, youre gonna produce more mucous of course. If youre losing your voice you could just have a big covering of mucous over swollen cords which is just not gonna let them activate and seal. hopefully thats what it is. but this can come from improper singing. so we need you to answer those questions, all of them! hehe. I'll get back to ya.

til then, get some fluids in ya, get your fave non alcoholic, non caffeine drink and read through my sticky and the other posts. getting a good raspy voice or affect like greenday is all the same as any rasp or grundge done properly. i must say that many times i think im ready to go and i find out later that im not, and as im thinking im losing it or something, up pops a glob of mucous and my voice is 100% better and ready to go. This isnt typical, but it does happen. I remember one time i was trying to recover from , what was then, incorrect singing. i was warming up and what not but still feeling like my cords were stiff and tired. I had to sneeze. immediately afterwards my voice was like 95% ready. again, this isnt typical. but mucous can mess up your judgemnt and singing if you let it. now i know that 99 times out of 100 when i feel like i cant get something, then its mucous for me, not just tired cords. like i said, for me, an ideal warmup is an hour. yesterday i drank alot of mountain dew,i drank two beers last night, ate five big *** cookies, and smoked a cigar! so i feel guilty as hell. Theres not much more i couldve done to be mean to my voice other than eat a steak and drink some milk. and as i type this im exercising and pulling and sniffing and silently clearing and glissing and doing EE's , all trying to counter the effects. I'd have mucous in the back of my throat since i got up, which was about four hours ago.

[XemoXmoshXpitX]

You didn't have to make two threads, leadsinger.

[LeadSinger327]

Sorry for double post, :/...wont do it again

[j0s1ah]

are cigars bad for voice?

[Merkaba]

Originally Posted by j0s1ah

are cigars bad for voice?

lol

does a duck quack?

nah, but how do you smoke them. if you inhale at any point, like i do, then its some of the worst, cause like weed, there is no filter. which means extra hot air, and extra hot resin.

[Merkaba]

Hey Merkaba, I have like read all your threads. Lol. I just don't understand what you mean no not sing through the throat. I have to put weight on the back of my toung in the back of my mouth to get the sound i want. Is that singing out of my throat? When I clear the mucus I can sing ALOT better, but I am afraid that this is hurting my voice...Oh yeah, the answers to your questions...I have been singing for 6th months foreals...i have been singing about 9 but the first 3 months were on and off...Now I sing daily and pratice all the time...(another note: i try to sing over the bands that i cover...is this bad?)...I just started this year for singing, so I would be a n00b at this...lol...When I start to sing i have a mucus, I clear it and I can hit those notes i want to...I just barely did warmups before I started to sing after 5 months!!! im an idiot lol...My speaking voice is fine, but my throat by the adams apple feels funny...i get a small throbing pain in there, but not bad at all...I am not like dying sick, but I have like a "bug" as they say because I threw up the other day and im tired some of the time, but I dont have a fever...I take Vitamin C pills everyday...thought it would help lol...this whole throbing in the throat thing just started like a week ago...AFTER the 6 months of singing this way...I'm like what the **** lol...I can sing good, well im not saying im great, but when i sing i kinda get the sound i want...lets just say i dont sound like ive been smoking for 50 years...lol...i do pretty well...ive been in a couple bands and i always get the spot of singing, so that might be good...I get pain after singing all day...I drink tea and water ALL the time...but I still get this mucus...and I know that I go OVER 80% too much..i go about 100%...when my voice heals ima go about 50% lol...just to be safe...see i just barely found this forum after i ****ed up my voice...so I didnt know if i was doing anything wrong...Well if you could get back to me on this cuz IM SCARED i messed up my voice! I mean i talk like i did all the time, but my throat is a lil soar by the adams apple, so i need some tips on recovery please! Welp, thanks for the help...

- Cody

Please and THank you!!

ok...
i dont know what you mean by putting weight on the back of your tongue, but if youre using it enough to where you notice your tongue, the sensation of putting weight or pressure on your tongue, im willing to bet, is probably you pushing your larynx up. a no no. and plus it just creates tension and fatigue. it can be your downfall, especially for a rock singer.

There just shouldnt be much going on in your throat. the mucles that move your cords are in the larynx. mentioning your tongue or anything up there leads me to believe that youre tensing and closing the throat. the mouth is only used for consonants except for a few adjustments with the jaw to get certain resonance. thats nothing to mention here though. try singing with your tongue all the way out, and see if youre still doing or trying to do what you think is putting weight on your tongue. (this exercise would be vocalizing, not singing. dont try harder to make the words and sounds understandable , just do everything else normally but have your tongue out) So see that the way you describe it is impossible. you cant put anything on your tongue. so what are you really feeling? pulling it back and pulling down is also common and only creates tension. tension is like a disease, it spreads, and causes unwanted problems. plus if you know you push way hard, its even more probable that youre not isolating the cords, and that extra push and emotion is also causing you to push and squeeze the larynx extra hard. its just hard for many people to understand that when youre doing hard singing, you want to push EVERYTHING hard. But you cant. you cant push the larynx. And 99 out of 100 people just never understand this, especially since the ideas of hard singing are primarily pictures from videos, lets face it. this is why a teacher is so important if you cant get it on your own. half of my words deal with the fact that its hard to seperate the muscles. your whole life has been showing that tense situations call for tense muscles. videos, movies, joking around, etc. singing is intense. but professionally, you have to be able to get the intensity across without constricting yourself. to do this, you have to be able to work with the cord muscles and not the throat muscles, even though they are right there all together. Isolation exercises.


you should warm up enough to get the mucous loose first. this is the whole point. i start warming up the minute i wake up in the morning. i sing a bit before work, depending on my schedule. and while im at work, im doing excercises. then when i get off work, its up to me how long it takes me to drive the 10 or so miles to my house. sometimes i go straight home, sometimes it takes me two hours. depends on what i want to do or feel i need to work on. so really for me, i've been working on my voice all day long.

and when you clear your throat, you want to do it silently, although none at all is ideal. singing and vocalizing should be your primary mucous ridding action.

your cords are directly behind your adams apple. what do you think is hurting? hehe. so what ever youre doing you need to make a change especially if you noticed it any before you got sick. in any event, there should never be any pain in your cords. so given your concern, and your statements, i wouldnt do any strenuous work with it. you could have some larynx iflammation from the cold or the singing or both. When you get an infection your body generally ups its mucous production, everywhere. the mucous will drip from your nasal down the back of your throat onto the cords, even if you dont sing, this can be a cause of some of the discomfort. singing and whatnot can irritate the vocal folds further or initially, scratching them and leaving it marred, and set you up for infection. laryngitis can come from your misuse, or from some other infection, or a combination of the two. dont add to it, in other words.

the lining where your cords meet to produce sound is cartiladge. so you dont want to keep blasting it. its relatively rigid, compared to the more flexible folds that are the vibrating flaps, so to speak.

tea has caffeine. if it isnt decaf i would watch my intake. again, im not preaching its just what is so. hell im about to go smoke as soon as i finish typing this! caffeine dehydrates the body, thus the cords. increasing mucous production to offset the drying. water and fruit is the way to go. i drink a ton of juice though, not from concentrate.


whenever you get a chance, do eeee's . regular speakin push, regular tone, just make ee's. again, e is the only vowel that makes your cords close and line up. now vibrating a few hundred times a second, and youve got alot of work. this helps them regain their shape, and helps reduce some swelling by keeping the blood flowing and the area moving. and dont forget that the cords lay horizontal. pushing too hard, over time will bow them up. this keeps them from sealing properly. so yes, along with the other reasons, when you start back up, you should be going no more than 80 percent or so. if your voice sounds like its not as strong or as good when you push less, then youre using incorrect technique. you should be able to get perfect tone and volume with an adequate push. again, anything more than you can handle is just air passing through and fatiguing the cords. at a certain force, your muscles contract to get a specific frequency. volume is determined by another set of muscles that make the cords thicker, thicker cords can handle more of a push, but are less flexible, thinner cords are more flexible, but cant handle a lot of push. so when you go up in pitch, pushing at close to 100 or at 100, youre killing them. not strenthening them. if i were you i would try to take at least a lesson or two from a coach. one or two can be all it takes to get you the hands on knowledge that can change your life. if you are singing incorrectly. over time you can develop lots of bad words like nodes, nodules, polyps...things that end many peoples careers. so take some time off, if your band doesnt understand, you dont have to feel like you have to say , well some guy on a website said so. tell them what you know. its not good to sing with pain, and you dont want to jeaopardize your career. youre too young. also do the isolation stuff when the pain subsides. with minimal push of course.

The no pain no gain idea is of course some male ego lopsided nonsense, especially when it comes to the cords. my own quote is , "That which doesnt kill you makes you stronger, or leaves you crippled"

[Blink_Fan315]

ok i was to lazy read all that posted but anyways, to sing through your diaprahm (stomach) when inhaling air push your stomach out not in, and if your voice breaks/cracks or just goes completely out of tone when singing high notes (NFG) that means your damaging your vocal chords, and u need to stop, and if your born with low voice like me then your not going to be able to sing really high notes, theres limits that your born with....

[Merkaba]

Originally Posted by Blink_Fan315

ok i was to lazy read all that posted but anyways, to sing through your diaprahm (stomach) when inhaling air push your stomach out not in, and if your voice breaks/cracks or just goes completely out of tone when singing high notes (NFG) that means your damaging your vocal chords, and u need to stop, and if your born with low voice like me then your not going to be able to sing really high notes, theres limits that your born with....

of course you are!

just because your voice breaks doesnt mean your hurting your cords, or your chords. if you think this is so then you need to explain how you come to this idea..... dont just say hey dont sing if you crack. cracking is due to inorrect air balance with the cords. true, you can be pushing too hard, but this is still not always damaging, IF you have your pallet open, especially for falsetto notes. if youre cracking youre using incorrect technique that can be corrected, but if you stop just because you crack then you may never get it corrected! again, to others reading, the higher the note, the less force it takes to get the sound because the cords are thinner. just dont over push and come from the gut. cracking usually comes from you trying to sing a note with the wrong voice, and not having enough flexibility to be able to blend the two voices together. trying to sing a falsetto note(open cords) with a head voice(thin closed cords) means youre going to try to over stretch your cords to get them thinner to get that note, but if the note is out of your head voice range you have to be able to go falsetto. repeitiion helps you be able to know instinctly where your spots are. you pretty much have this, and relaxing and letting go helps you refind it. glisses will help with this. i 've posted all of this before. but i had to reiterate because of this post.

and if youre born with a low voice, you can still have a big range. yes there are limits, but you dont know yours until you train at a high level. so train. i've added about 3 semitones to my head voice over the past year, or about a note and a half. i've probably added 5 notes over the past 3 years head and falsetto combined. that is a lot in case you dont know. i just kept training. so if three years ago i would have said, well this is it for me, i never would know anything more. plus i know i can get at least another semi tone or two over the next year or so in my head voice, and another one or two in my falsetto. the only thing is, it takes a bit of time to get the muscle memory, strength and cord integrity down to where you feel totally comfortable with using it. falsetto is that area were you can make alot of gains because youre not using the cords in the usual manner.
plus you can cheat. if you take good care of your cords. over time you can stretch the cartilage. this is the part that doesnt grow alot, this is why youre destined to have a certain range. cartilage runs along the length of the edges of the cords where they close. but its like yoga. i mean, if you want you can really get your cartlidge and ligaments very supple. your muscle tissue wont outgrow your connective tissue. its just like any other fitness idea. so if you get your connective tissue to stay supple and growth bound, the tissue its connecting can continue to grow. its not rocket science. with time and proper care you can make alot of gains. never say never. (but just dont ever say forever)

[j0s1ah]

i don't inhale.....too much.

[Merkaba]

Originally Posted by j0s1ah

i don't inhale.....too much.

godalmighty, i have to cut back.
i do

[j0s1ah]

lol, so how do u stretch the cartilage? just by the usual or anything special?

[Merkaba]

the usual...just over time. not really something to specifically work on. but im saying you can always look to keep improving on your range. regardless of what youre born with.

[LeadSinger327]

Dude Merkaba, you are the dopest person ever, lol. I have been looking around for days for answers...I think my sickness is over cuz I take Vitamin C and Zinc...I try to sing things like Rooney for warm ups...I might have a bass voice, but I can still hit some high notes, so does this mean im a baritone or whatever? lol...noobish...this woman is charging 45 bucks for 45 minutes is that bad? I think I might go with her because shes like the only one in my area...Maybe just 2 lessons so i can learn how to breath right or something...I just don't want to hurt my vocal cords, so when i get older they can sound much better...im only 15, so does this mean my voice hasn't trully changed? Welp thanks for the help Merkaba and everyone else! Please and Thank you!

- Cody...Lead singer of "Starting Over"

[j0s1ah]

45$ for 45 sux. thats a dollar a minute, she better be good.
you may be a baritone. what's your range?
the voice continues to change untill u r like 30. but once it has made the big change (puberty) it is a little more mellow.

[Merkaba]

Originally Posted by LeadSinger327

Dude Merkaba, you are the dopest person ever, lol. I have been looking around for days for answers...I think my sickness is over cuz I take Vitamin C and Zinc...I try to sing things like Rooney for warm ups...I might have a bass voice, but I can still hit some high notes, so does this mean im a baritone or whatever? lol...noobish...this woman is charging 45 bucks for 45 minutes is that bad? I think I might go with her because shes like the only one in my area...Maybe just 2 lessons so i can learn how to breath right or something...I just don't want to hurt my vocal cords, so when i get older they can sound much better...im only 15, so does this mean my voice hasn't trully changed? Welp thanks for the help Merkaba and everyone else! Please and Thank you!

- Cody...Lead singer of "Starting Over"

well its probably not gonna get much cheaper to tell you the truth. But you dont have to go all the time. The average male is baritone if I'm not mistaken. but yea, around 15 ish your voice box is gonna start growing as you go through puberty. this is a main limiting factor on your range. or what determines range. I'm 28 and i have added like three semitones to my head voice over the past few months just because my last plateau i thought was it for me...but it wasnt. so you dont really know what your range is technically until you really keep working hard. i mean your natural range is different, as far as a teacher would tell you they would say youre a baritone or tenor and these different subclasses, just because of the whole cateogorzing deal for classical music. but in rock and alternative you can use alot of mixed voice and falsetto reaching, even if its not strong.

What are you confused about? just keep taking care of your cords and practicing. you ARE 15. You might have a ways to go, but youre starting early.