[Music] hey Chris Liepe here with special guest will Ramos from the band Lorna Shore and in this
video we're talking about how to do harsh vocals all the time without hurting yourself [Applause]
first of all before you start doing any vocals it's very important to warm up you need to warm
up that is if you don't want to hurt yourself warm up that's not even step one but that is you need
to do that 100 of the time so make sure you do that and then you can start to get into the actual
things that make sure that you don't hurt yourself and if you want to know exactly how will warms up
and takes care of his voice click the link below and join his free warm-ups course you're not gonna
regret it okay the one of the most important things when it comes to doing vocals is making
sure that you are at a solid volume and when I say solid volume I don't mean stand there is no
standard to volume control at this point we live in a world where there are microphones right and
you know we're not just like cavemen screaming out into the ether hoping that somebody can hear
us the point is to be very controlled and that's what the most important thing is when it comes
to doing vocals you want to be controlled don't just be loud don't just be loud a lot that is a
very common misconception is that people have is that you want to be loud to and a lot of people
especially when they're learning how to scream they're realizing that if I want to sound like
I'm distorted I need to be loud but that's not the case and long and realistically there's a lot of
bands out there that do that and that's totally fine but you will also see that these bands will
have days that are very off because they blow out their voice on tour maybe they need to take a day
off maybe they just need maybe that one day just completely does they sound really not as good as
they do the other days compared to the first day on tour and then give them like the sixth day on
tour and now they're just doing sound even nearly as good and now then you see them live and you're
like man this man sucks realistically they don't suck they're slowly or quickly burning
their voice out because they don't know how to not hurt themselves exactly and that that first
thing just pushing too hard by default you want to wear out your voice just do that right it's
very important to find your sweet spot I call it the sweet spot because it's different for
everybody certain people are bigger people and they have bigger diaphragms where they have a
bigger system and they can they can push they can sound louder without even trying to sound louder
if you're going past the point of safe volume as you're learning you will definitely hear it
if you were well you will you will hear in your voice because you will do vocals and then you'll
get off let's say you you could try those vocals for five ten minutes and now you take a break for
a second and now you start to feel crazy over here in like this area because what's happening
is like you're pushing too hard from here your constriction of top can't properly support the
amount that you're trying to push out and then that's when your vocal cords starts to get
beat up and swollen and then when your vocals are too swollen then you can't really scream properly
and that's what makes vocalists not sound as good as they are the first day so when you have
found the balance of airflow and volume that's sustainable so you won't mess yourself up what
I'm hearing you say is that you should be able to do it for long periods of time if you have done
it for 10 minutes at a time and you're feeling ugh there's there might be a placement issue off
right but it could just be that you're not using your airflow right you're going too hard too loud
finding that balance is going to take a lot of 10-minute sessions where you are messing up your
voice and so when you first start to to work on these extreme sounds you have to make sure that
you're doing it in short increments until you've found that balance listen to your body go 5-10
minutes like you're saying how do I feel should I go longer should I uh well no I need to be done
for the for today and then the next day find your balance or try to find that balance again but you
can't possibly answer the question of well how long should we be practicing this stuff you have
to listen to your body yes and as you get this airflow thing down as you learn those balances
it's like falling off riding a bike and falling off the bike a bunch right yes I've hurt myself
a lot let's put it that way when I first started everybody does because you need to find how to not
hurt yourself but you haven't permanently hurt yourself because you've listened to your body
and be like okay I did I did some stuff too too hard I'm gonna back off okay so and that brings
me actually to my second point which is another way to just make sure that you're always good with
vocals is to take that break you need that break I'm telling you everybody's different so people
go longer than others but like if you need to take that break listen to what listen like really
listen to what your body's saying because if you don't you won't be able to do vocals the next
day and then whereas the next person can do vocals the next day because they listen to their body and
they had a nice vocal rest they slept they didn't talk too much afterwards like they really did the
things that they needed to do because at the end of the day somebody who can take those breaks
is going to do they're going to make it faster to the end goal that you want to be at because
they're not over extend they're not over accentuating themselves like for instance
just like when you go to the gym you're not gonna go to the gym and then try and pick up 200 pounds
or get out of workout or you're not gonna go to the gym and lift the same muscle group
over and over and over again and then two days in a row you're gonna vary it up right
so having that rhythm of rest work building tearing down getting the balances messing up
having that Rhythm and understanding what that Rhythm including rest means to you is going to
help you for the Long Haul not hurt yourself what's the third thing stick to exactly the
basics don't yes it's you can go crazy and start overthinking things but that's usually what your
heart where you'll start hurting yourself because you'll start trying to push from different places
that first of all it might work out but also realistically you're gonna cause you're gonna
burn yourself out so it's very important for instance like how in a previous video we were
talking about how you do the growl and it's just this it's the constriction it's the pushing and
then you're just letting it out if you start over complicating it and thinking that it's something
else completely you're gonna blow out your voice and that's a very important just stick to exactly
what you should be doing when I what you were taught previously and then
keep practicing that and notice that while you're practicing it your voice will change into the
sound that you wanted to automatic by value even having to think about it because you're
practicing and that's the most important thing oh yeah don't be like this is a gutter roll so
I'm just gonna if I start like ripping my throat apart and it sounds like that that means it's
good it's like no because when you do a guttural it should never rip your throat apart thank you
[Applause]
so when you're in the zone you're leaning into the differences in feels not the differences in sounds
right that's part of what's keeping you going if you start paying too much attention to how
everything sounds you start manipulating things in a way that are going to burn you out faster yes I
think it's important to know what you sound like obviously but that's when you already know what
you're doing if you know what you're doing you can it's both they go hand in hand with one another
but if you're still just trying to feel it out you don't want to just jump into something yeah
and start ripping your throat up thinking that's what I need to do to get the sound because I've
done that for years and at this point you don't do that I've learned I'm I have learned for you so
you don't have to learn the hard way nice stick to the sensations stick to feeling what you're doing
and put that before the desired sound yes trust the process and as you lean into these Sensations
and how things feel make sure things feel okay the sound will develop over time as you get more and
more comfortable leaning into those Sensations yes and it's a very common misconception that
people will think that they can just pick up and I mean it maybe has to do with just how we are
as people now but like a lot of people think they can just jump into something and just be amazing
and they'll figure it out but realistically it's never sound at first it will never be like that
it will never and it'll take it takes vocalists sometimes years to sound where they feel is very
confident where they can show up it took me I I mean I'm a slow learner but like it took me about
six or seven years before I figured that I wanted to be in a band where I was confident enough in my
own vocals yeah and that's fine it's not a race again just make sure that because if you race
to the end you might just hurt yourself and then you'll be at the end and now you can't do vocals
anymore trust the process do it the right way and you will get better with how you even realizing
it you can literally record yourself the first day and then record yourself a year later and
you will sound a thousand times better so enjoy the journey enjoy the process enjoy feeling your
voice trust the process the sounds will come ultimately that's what's going to help you
not mess up your voice is if you're trusting the process and enjoying the journey instead of just
trying to jump right in and make up for lost time if you try to make up for lost time that's one of
the things that's going to mess you up yeah get more comfortable with your voice it's your voice
not anybody else's voice your voice whenever you handle your voice the way you should don't
expect it to be anything else other than what you can produce if you'd like to go deeper with will
learn exactly how he warms up and how he takes care of his voice on lots of different levels
click that link below and join the free warm-ups course we'll see you for more see ya [Music]