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#1
06-14-2013, 05:17 PM
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Startling Realization
I play and sing for my own amusement and just discovered that apparently I'm very easily amused. I've done it for a very long time and it has always given me great pleasure.
When I'm not playing, I'm listening and have always thought I has a reasonably good ear when hearing music. Since it is now so easily done I have recently begun casually recording my sessions on my iPhone and have become appalled and embarrassed when hearing my "singing" voice to the point of considering stopping. I can't carry a tune in a bucket as they say. The thing is that when I'm playing I think I sound great. The deficiencies regarding tempo and phrasing I've improved through effort and a metronome, but my god my tone/pitch if awful. Apparently all these years my wife's been faking it...ha ha. Lately I've stopped singing entire songs and just play and listen to my Martin throwing in vocals of a chorus or a verse. This situation has really been annoying me. Thoughts and opinions welcome. 
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#2
06-14-2013, 05:41 PM
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Nobody would ever want to hear me sing either but I found that singing and playing at the same time takes quite a bit of skill over just playing. Now I sing now and then just to improve my playing ability.
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#3
06-14-2013, 05:59 PM
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Don't let it bother you, just keep playing and singing but work on your vocals harder. That's the only way to improve. Also learn were you're rage is and adjust playing your songs in your key! and Not the key that the artist do it in. Good luck.
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#4
06-14-2013, 06:12 PM
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I understand your dilemma. I am not a singer nor do I consider myself a bad singer it's just that I have to work at being a good singer. Like you I don't like to hear myself when recorded neither singing or talking and I think that might be a natural reaction because I believe we sound different to others than we do to ourselves in our own head. Kind of like playing a guitar sounds different than hearing someone else play that same guitar for us.
I was practicing guitar one evening and after a couple of beverages I was feeling pretty good. My wife was at the computer and I started belting out a few blues standards accompanied buy acoustic strumming and lead fills. My wife (proffesional singer) said I have a wonderful voice for the blues. So I have learned that when my inhibitions drop and I sing the music I like with passion it works well. Since that event I have learned voice control and what keys and songs are best for my singing voice. My wife and most of the members of her family are natural singers (big time country twang) and have been in bands and sang at weddings and funerals and have been competetors in regional music contests. My family....not so much. So I think if a person has natural talent, so be it. The rest of us have to work at it but it can be done. Don't give up......give it hell! Blues
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#7
06-15-2013, 03:39 AM
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Quote:
OT, I know, just in the interests of balance... 
__________________
"There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in." - Leonard Cohen.
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#8
06-15-2013, 04:13 AM
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Quote:
You have to start simple. Play a note on guitar, try and sing the same note. Sing or hum a note, and try and find it on guitar. As you've discovered, your voice sounds way different on recordings (and therefore to other people) than it does to you when you sing, because most of the latter comes through the bones in your head, not through the air. There are a couple of ways to hear your voice more as others do in real time. You can use a mic and headphones - or you can lose the technology, and just sit or stand facing the corner of a room, as close as you can get (given you probably want to play your guitar at the same time). You'll find your voice reflected back to your ears. (Facing a flat wall can also work, but it's better off the two right-angled walls in a corner.) If it feels weird, remember this was how Robert Johnson (allegedly) recorded his songs. People thought he faced into the corner because he was shy: I suspect he just wanted to hear himself properly. Use that process to establish your comfortable range - finding the highest and lowest notes you can comfortably reach and hold, with reasonable power. (Get some lung power behind each note: don't shout, but don't mumble either.) When you know your range, then you need to make sure any song you sing falls within that range. This will probably mean you need to change the keys of some of them. If you find you're a bass, don't attempt songs in a tenor range, and vice versa. (Eg, the conventional rock voice is a tenor - because high male voices communicate passion - but few men are naturally in that range; most are baritone or bass. Hence the common experience of amateur singers straining and cracking when trying to cover classic rock; either not realising they have to transpose, or believing a lower key would just not be "right".) If your range seems embarrassingly narrow (less than an octave), then you need to work on extending it; and upward is usually the easiest direction to go (a bottom limit is usually more fixed). I'm no vocal expert, but it's about learning to breathe, opening the airways, and using enough power. As with guitar, if you play too quietly, the instrument doesn't "speak" - use more volume, and you begin to appreciate its resonance. Same with the voice, which is only an instrument you need to learn how to use; feeling how the different resonances work. Pitching, of course, is the most important thing. In terms of tone or overall sound, don't try to change that in any forced way. Your voice is you, and you shouldn't try to sound like someone else (eg try and sound like Johnny Cash when singing a Johnny Cash song...). It's about making the most of what you've got. Everyone has a voice - everyone should be able to sing. It's just that most of us never get the right opportunities or encouragement. Either we think we can't, so avoid trying. Or (like you) we think we can, but we haven't done it in public before, or heard ourselves, so haven't been able to assess the result objectively and correct things. (In certain African societies, everyone sings. They'd think it crazy for anyone who can speak to say they can't sing. But that's because their musical cultures are fully democratic, and most social events employ music - played or sung by everyone present. In the west, we've created a separate caste labelled "musician", believing only special people, born "talented", can be admitted to it. Amateur instrumentalists - like us  - successfully challenge that view to some extent, but it's harder for singers, because the voice is so personal: much easier to be dissuaded if we think we can't cut it.)
__________________
"There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in." - Leonard Cohen.
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#9
06-15-2013, 05:31 AM
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How does your voice sound when you sing without the guitar?
Sometimes you hear the instrument(s) so much, you don't 'hear' your voice well enough to realize where it really is at. So it may be this multiple focus-of-attention thing. Already you have to pay attention to the 'chord' hand and the fingering/picking hand. Voice adds a third focus. Sometimes singing with a group, I've got to plug one ear so I can hear myself (not because the other singers aren't good  )
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#10
06-15-2013, 05:40 AM
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One thing I would add to JonPR's comprehensive reply is keep the guitar playing as simple as possible when singing. I guess that when you recorded yourself about 99% of your concentration was on your guitar playing and the other 1% was divided fairly between breathing, what you did earlier, what was for dinner, all the other stuff and, of course, singing.
When you sing the voice is far more important than the guitar. The voice is lead and the guitar is backing. When you sing you need to listen to each note for starting pitch and ending pitch and at the same time listen to each phrase for, if you want, the 'poetry' or sense and clarity. After a bit of practice this becomes automatic but until then you need to focus your attention on it. In order to do that you need to keep you guitar playing as simple as possible.
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#11
06-15-2013, 06:01 AM
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Quote:
(To the OP) - When you sing and play, think of yourself as a singer first, guitarist second - however uncomfortable that might make you feel at the moment! When you sing a song, people are not listening to your guitar-playing (I know, embarrassing ain't it); they're listening primarily to the lyrics, but of course also to the quality and expressiveness of your voice. Naturally they will know if you are singing wrong notes - which is why pitching matters most - although they may not know exactly what's wrong. (Some people think "out of key" and "out of tune" are the same thing.) But once you can get yourself in tune, then it's the confidence and expression of the delivery that gets across - how well you communicate the song. The guitar is secondary - until you get to the instrumental break of course... You don't have to have a strong and well-trained voice. Sometimes a thin or weak voice is attractive, especially on the right kind of material (sensitive singer-songwriter stuff). E.g., you wouldn't want to hear Pavarotti singing a Nick Drake song... (Just as Nick Drake would never have passed an opera audition...) Just get yourself in tune, and then be yourself.
__________________
"There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in." - Leonard Cohen.
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#12
06-15-2013, 08:17 AM
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recording equipment?
Quote:
I purchased a Zoom. Now I still make mistakes, but the sound matches what is in my head. That purchase was the best thing I did for confidence.
__________________
the loved ones: New World Guitars Player 628 2012 and Cordoba Dolce 2011 the neglected ones: GS Mini Spruce 2012 and Art & Lutherie Ami 1999
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#13
06-15-2013, 08:57 AM
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Thanks Everyone
I'm not using an external mic, just the phone.
The guitar playing sounds fine just like I hear it except I notice more string buzzing from I what I assume is sloppy fretting and a tendency so emphasize the treble too much.
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#14
06-16-2013, 07:49 AM
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One thing that you have to consider is that your worst critic is yourself. We tend to be harder on ourselves than we should be. That being said, just like playing an instrument, singing takes practice. As others have said, if you can hear when you are "off" then you can hear how to correct it.
One last thing, the main thing that makes a voice beautiful is not how on pitch you are but rather how much heart and soul you put into what you are singing. My wife thinks that when I sing "Nights in White Satin" it is absolutely beautiful. Now I know that it is nowhere near what the Moody Blues do, but she tells me that I sing it with so much feeling, passion, and emotion. I must admit that I do sing it with feeling, that is because I am singing it to my wife. Sing with feeling and the notes will be there when you need them.
__________________
"Your green eyes they don't miss a thing, they hold me like the sun going down, warm me like a fire in the night, without a sound." Kate Wolf Epiphone Hummingbird Studio Martin 000-10e Last edited by Muffinhead; 06-16-2013 at 08:15 AM.
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#15
07-06-2013, 08:23 AM
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I too recently began recording my singing and playing and went so far as to put a few examples up on Soundcloud.com. I posted links to a few fingerstyle pieces to demonstrate a guitar I had for sale awhile back and was appalled to learn people could listen to everything I had done at the sight and weren't limited to the links I posted! I used to be a decent singer and recorded for awhile with a guy with a tenor voice who complemented me very well on a number of southern gospel tunes we used to play at local churches.
So why am I appalled now for people to hear me? After having 18 major surgeries with long, complicated recovery times, I had a number of episodes of fluid build up in my lungs that left the bottom third of each lung scarred. It has since developed into lung fibrosis. My lung capacity is diminished enough I can't manage a deep enough breath to sing anymore. I didn't realize just how bad it was until I began recording myself, something I don't do anymore. I'm still trying to figure out how to delete the songs from Soundcloud as I truly sound horrible!
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