hey Chris Liepe here with how to get a gritty distorted consistently powerful mixed voice
we've got three steps
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like
now before you can pursue power and Distortion in your mixed voice you have to know what
mixed voice feels like and you have to understand how to support your normal voice correctly
if you're not 100 sure that you know how to support your voice correctly and you know
how it feels to do so click the link below and join my free voice course go through those
videos and then come back to this video again to get perspective on how to add grit specifically
to your mixed voice now all healthy vocal Distortion comes from properly placed and
managed compression holding back air while using proper support but a lot of singers
have trouble holding back air and placing that correctly as they go higher particularly
up into what they feel like is a mixed voice they can get it in their chest voice okay
but then the high stuff seems off limits or we end up clamming up or or seizing up when
we try to go too high with this holding back or compressing air approach so these three
steps that I'm presenting to you here are designed to sort of go around the idea of
holding back air and focus on Sensations that allow us to freely go upward while adding
the Distortion step one and bear with me here first think super thin high and whiny just
make the highest whiniest thinnest voice that you can no it might start really head voicey
but we're gonna be more whiny and Brash with it up here like this just talk be really thin
let out some moans
let your voice crack and do different things as you're feeling this out but we intentionally
in this stage don't want to add or try to add any Distortion we just want to be as as
thin and flexible as we possibly can and so go around in different parts of your voice
connect it down to your chest voice the thinner and more brass you are the easier time you're
gonna have with the next step make a buzzer sound in your normal chest voice
do an E vowel or an e vowel
go back and forth and just go around your chest voice make sure you're doing this in
a way that feels as high in the throat as possible we don't want this
that feels lower we want it to be hear the difference see if you can feel the difference
that's kind of a cool sound but it's not what we're going for and it's not going to help
us go upward very well high in the throat buzzer sound must be placed high in the throne
not
no you're gonna have to experiment to make sure you get that sensation as high as possible
then go back to your Brash hi thin voice and try adding the buzzer over the top of it so
get to your clean Brush High hold an arbitrary pitch don't focus on what note it is just
make sure it's thin and whiny and brash
and then try adding this buzzer sensation that's that's high over the top of it yeah
and do this with your hands it's kind of what our throat's doing when we're doing it correctly
it's important that we go back and forth between adding the buzzer sound and taking it away
over that thin Brash sound we're exposing this transition and we're working the transition
and by working that transition multiple times within a single breath we start understanding
how things are supposed to feel in various areas of our Brash thin whiny voice if you
try this second step and your voice feels like it's starting to give out or your throat
really tenses up or you feel like you're gonna choke or you get tickles any of these things
first you just started second you are not supporting correctly return to the free voice
course I linked to in the description that I talked about at the beginning and make sure
you're feeling support correctly discomfort or tension or the inability to hold this without
your voice giving out is not a sign that something's wrong here it's a sign that something is wrong
here I can't stress that enough and a very important placement consideration as you're
inching higher with your thin Brash mixed voice and adding this distorted sound over
the top adding the buzzer sound Over the Top If we get up
nasality we keep in mind
and we play around with the movement between super nasal and not nasal you can hear it
happening in my voice sometimes as I'm moving that resonance around between nasal a
I get different incidental distortions what's happening is my my vocal tract is odd is reshaping
as I direct that resonance in different places which is allowing me to stumble upon different
types of compression and if I have the buzzer sound in my mind and that buzzer sensation
in my mind while I'm bringing my nasal resonance in and out I will likely stumble on this over
the top compressed sensation it's all about how it feels first not necessarily how it
sounds that comes later as you Embrace these Sensations now step three we're gonna go from
arbitrary sounds and pitches that we don't know anything about to targeting particular
notes that feel good Finn and we're going to practice growing them so we stay on a singular
pitch rather than going all over the place and once we've grown the note we stop then
we grow another note so before we're going in and out now we're gonna go in and stop
over a single pitch let me demonstrate uh
okay I'm getting the high buzzer now I'm gonna go to a mixed note again I don't care what
the note name is and you shouldn't either we just want to be comfortable and Brash and
thin yeah that's good for me there's a note that feels good yeah yeah now I'm gonna grow
it I'm gonna picture this going over the top and I'm going to grow it to the point that
I want to pick it ah
[Applause] too ripe my voice broke a little bit time to pick it time to stop just before
that yeah
you can hear I keep giving it more of that over-the-top distortion and I keep giving
it more support until something until something feels like it's gonna break but I'm really
familiar with right the right before so as I'm gonna cut it off right before that happens
I'm gonna pick the note and start over again this creates a nice finish this nice extra
gritty finish on it yeah yeah cool yeah
ah cool now try a different vowel yay [Applause]
by learning how to start thin whiny brash and then putting this Distortion putting this
buzzer sound over the top visualizing it and experiencing it and then over consistent notes
pushing your voice to the breaking point as long as you're not tensing up you can be intense
but don't be tense this allows us to feel essentially three stages of our voice over
a single note and as we practice doing this we can string together phrases with these
notes over different vowels that allow us to portray consistently distorted mixed Voice
or high notes let's listen to the isolated vocals of the Brent Smith Shinedown snippet
I did at the beginning and you can hear me doing this as I'm connecting different phrases
and different notes together not all of them are dirty but when you listen to it in context
you don't really think about oh that one note was cleaner than that one or that note was
you don't really do that you just take it in as an overly aggressive High sort of mixed
feel this is really important that we don't try to lock ourselves into one type or one
stage of distortion or vocal delivery or support or compression we have to be liquid and always
moving with it and dynamic with it and that is is want over time going to give us the
ability to be more consistent
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all my heroes are dead and gone but they're inside of me they see
that was a good grow
let's listen to it one more time and I'll point out some growth and shrinking and entrances
that are helpful for dynamically building Distortion over your mixed voice
even there
I'm using the psy and nasality to to find that buzzer sound over that note
[Music] here I grew that good
good it's very very clean and I grew it as I went down in Pitch I'm connecting and modifying
my level of buzzer over the top as I'm connecting phrases together this is this is how it's
done oh so they're sorrow to the ones sorrow listen to the beginning of Sorrow
I built it over the top of row but saw was cleaner to the ones who paid them
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there was playing with nasality like crazy and you heard how much of that top-end sizzly
grit I got out of throwing it throwing it back there crawl instead of leaving it back
forward which further made it more comfortable it was like a massage changing position of
the and and size and shape of the vocal tract helped me sustain that Distortion and make
it super colorful
but there is
and there you hear live on that's exactly one of those pushing your voice to the breaking
point and then picking it before it gets too crazy
but it's pretty clean right here in the middle
and
that's just invoking my vocal break like I've talked about in many other videos
[Applause] I hope this was super helpful play around with these tips be patient be experiential
and non-judging as you play with these you're not going to sound good but you are going
to be developing muscle memory if you can practice non-judgmentally that will over time
help you build a distorted powerful healthy sustainable mixed voice again be sure to join
my free course Linked In the description below so you can get a handle on how to support
all this stuff and we'll see you for more