chris liepe here with johnny craig formerly of dance gavin dance formerly of slaves
formerly of amarosa and a thriving solo artist we are talking about rasp and a little bit
grit these are these are somewhat interchangeable but rasp has an airier quality to it and grit has
a more heated quality and we're going to be touching on both in this video
but before we get into it if you'd like to go deeper with johnny's approach click the link below
and join our free course called find your voice and let it kill you
based off a song title i believe uh actually well it's actually the name of my cd but it's actually
based off of a quote by charles bukowski okay yeah so in this course we unpack more of what makes
johnny's voice tick and how you can put some of that into your own voice as well
let's get into some rasp yeah let's get them to show them how they can get that johnny craig
i don't care she was mad spencer has a low level green up uh on his face
just like putting two and two together just like now that you're talking about this like
the breadth of your aspect of the of the rasp versus the grit yeah so i was thinking it was
like who does that really well and i was like bring on mars like he's like hell yeah
yeah yeah yeah right he has but he has like a yell yeah i can't yeah hey yeah
that's what james brown is even michael jackson like yeah that little totally yeah
that's a good thing no yeah it's like that that huh sound right you kind of it's it
it definitely no matter how you're doing it sounds like you're pushing no matter what
right it's more air but you're not like you're not using your throat it's coming from here
right exactly yeah control exactly yeah that's a controlled push that's the that's the difference
right yeah spencer's in the back running the cameras and that was a really good insight rasp
grit they're functions of compression which is how you use air holding back air right one of the
things that we hear very uh prominently in your even in your speaking voice and in your um sort of
middle singing before it really breaks up and gets really heated is we hear this kind of sound coming
over over the top of your normal voice right so if you just if you just go if you say like oh
oh right there's that rasp there and there what you've done is over the years
from drug use from smoking cigarettes never smoke cigarettes no there's no cigarettes okay there's
never a big cigarette smoker well we'll stick with a weed okay we'll stick with drug use yeah i was
like jugglers and maybe some alcohol in there but and lots of singing you have trained your
muscle memory to rely on that sort of sound yeah in a way that a lot of people have not
a lot of people and and my voice is an example of that it's naturally not raspy people have
naturally raspy voices you are an example of this i would say though that it wasn't
always natural it wasn't always naturally a part of your voice this is something that's been
trained into your voice in some cases not by singing but by lifestyle habits and then you
have milked it you've milked the the positions and the muscle memory that has happened as a
result of some lifestyle choices you've milked that into your singing it's given it character
it has come back to character yeah it really it really has and it sounds great and i'm not
saying go out and do that either but and we're also not saying that you need to do that stuff
you know there's this thing out you know i know a lot of people say this kind of thing where
it's like oh yeah you want a good raspy voice go smoke a bunch of packs of cigarettes and age 20
years and then you'll have that's one way to do it but there's a lot of other ways to make this
make this work for you in a technique focused way we can build some of this rasp into our voice by
simply being mindful of the different ways our vocal tract works with our airflow and that is
compression all right going along with what chris just said it's very important that you do not try
to imitate you know raspy singers such as myself it's very important that you do it properly with
the with the guided technique because doing it wrong can cause extreme damage to your vocal
cords and then you're not going to be able to do exactly what you want to do and other things
you're going to damage your throat to the point where you won't be able to sing properly right
you didn't get rasp by imitating another singer you got rasp by um it's being inspired by some
other sounds yeah but not by imitating like oh i want to have that yeah right okay now back to
what we were talking about uh with spencer and and uh johnny and i at the beginning
best way to awaken rasp in your voice in your own voice is by doing a huh
right because what we're doing is we are with with this sound
we are pushing a lot of air through and then we're trapping it suddenly
then our vocal cords are being engaged right so we have this if we were to really break down
there's this thing that's happening and then uh and then we're combining these
things and if you listen to guys like bruno mars hey you know i'm i'm not bruno mars
but that flavor there is a flavoring of that sound in what bruno mars does and there's absolutely a
flavor of what of what that is in your voice yes so to awaken that sensation in your voice
huh and try it in different parts of your range
right in your head voice
scale almost yeah right yeah and let your voice do
let your voice do what it does don't try to go for specific notes
but feel that engagement feel the the the semi-air blockage first and then feel your vocal
cords engaged this is the first way to awaken rasp so find where it feels most comfortable
okay now when he does it you get into not only rasp but you're building grit on top of it which
is the next level of holding back air that happens when we pursue this air getting caught by the area
above our vocal cords this is the false chord area this is uh the area above our larynx when you go
you kind of do that old man thing and you you pause in that area
you are creating a partial blockage with your false cord area if i hold back more air and i push
more from my primary support area we get grit so we can transition from rasp to grit and we can
teeter in the middle which is where you land all the time you're teetering in the middle of that
he has trained his upper vocal tract his false cord area to engage almost automatically
there is nothing in your voice that suggests you have vocal nodes there's nothing in your
voice that suggests you have poor vocal cord closure otherwise you wouldn't be able to belt
like you normally do you have trained your vocal tract to engage in this way so let's
get there from someone who's who's cleaner and doesn't have that all right let's get there so
do some more hus for me get some huh huh okay you heard on the very end of that
and then you heard the rasp so you heard the grit and then the rasp more put push more air through
initially the more the yeah the more the air gets pushed through think of your voice as like a fist
and you're pushing the air more from the bottom think of it as a fist and then this is what you're
doing when you get to the grip by using that airflow think of it yeah you're covering your fist
with like another fist think of your vocal cord as that so you're you're or your whole vocal tract
yeah so you're the more you're using that support it's gonna and that's gonna get that i like that
so if we start with and then we push a little bit more and then focus on that even more
right so let's if we're just doing rasp
it's less push it's softer yeah you know but then you get that if you want that yeah and
that doesn't hurt you at all no that feels feels good you're creating this heat and it's above your
vocal cords you can tell when something's going to hurt you when you're making those like noises you
can tell when something starts to burn really bad or something obviously you need to lean back you
don't you don't need to go that far okay yeah what you might experience when you're experimenting
with and then pushing more less and focusing on the qualities of of air rasp initially versus when
you're focusing on those different sensations if it ever feels like it drops it feels like
it drops below your voice box in other words the cookie monster sound that a lot of people
that that doesn't work with our vocal cords in the same way you're not gonna be able to make notes no
no yeah yeah you could do that quietly but if you really want to hey
you want you want that kind of grit or you want that more seamless rasp if it drops it's going
to start to break as you're making those notes and stuff and that's obviously not gonna sound
good on a track for holding a note or something like that it will kind of like break a little bit
all right so three takeaways to developing your rasp start with a simple and keep in mind the
different stages that happen during that then try to hold back more air at the end of that huh make
sure it's placed above your voice box above your larynx and get a little bit of that crackly sound
this will often happen as you go a little bit down in pitch although we're still not going for notes
like that now you're going to notice heat you're going to notice
a warmth in your vocal tract but if it's high it shouldn't cause you to cough
it shouldn't create tickles it shouldn't cause you to go hoarse as long as it's high if you're
coughing if it's tickling if it's causing you to feel like you're going hoarse you're doing it
wrong right the burning sensation if there's any should be high let me say that again if you're
experiencing tickles if you're experiencing the need to choke or cough you're doing it wrong it
is very possible to play with the sensations and the placement of the and make sure it's above
your vocal cords and and not have any issues at all so one thing that is extremely important while
doing this you need to make sure that you are warmed up before you start trying a technique
like this you don't want to start right off the bat because again that's going to cause you know
some sort of vocal damage that you don't want and cracking right you're not going to be able
to dial it in if you're if your primary cords aren't able to close well of course right they
got to be good and juiced they need they need to be nice and warmed up so make sure whatever your
warm-up is however you feel comfortable doing that you do that first before trying this technique
again lots of inspiration from studying johnny craig's voice this is a different approach to rasp
and grit than i have looked at in the past but effective and there's lots of ways to go around
and learn from other singers and create things create opportunities in your own voice
if you'd like to go deeper with johnny's approach click that link below and join the free course
find your voice and let it kill you your voice won't kill you your voice won't die you won't die
but it's what we called the course so click that link below we'll see you for more