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Time for another rant


Masklin

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Hey peeps.

A day ago or so my choir had a concert, and I found that (perhaps because of the background noise) my throat got really sore and tired after just 15 minutes or so. I lost 4 notes in my bottom (which is problematic as I sing bass).

When I came home again my range and resonance was back.

Now, the root of the problem is that I just can't dangit sing without straining and pulling. It's sooo frustrating. Sometimes I think I got it down, but then when I wake up the next day I can't find it again.

I'm trying to focus on what our Oiselle said once: That you shouldn't 'feel' your voice in your throat at all. It works somewhat... at least when I have 10 seconds to think and focus before attempting a note.

Yay...

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Warmups are exercises designed to prepare you for singing, ideally to get you "in the zone" where you won't be straining or "pulling" during actual performance.

And yes, ideally you shouldn't feel much of anything, effort wise in your throat. For me, warmups are mostly about placement of resonance, so as I go higher in my range, the sound naturally move up into my head and face. But my throat doesn't feel it. Even when I add grit for something like a Motorhead cover, it feels "normal" because I'm not straining in my throat to do it.

Anyway, warm up exercises should be very focused on particular outcomes, very different from normal singing of songs.

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Particular outcomes such as not feeling your throat, or feeling a buzz behind your eyes, etc?

Anyway, warming up won't help me, since also when I warm up and focus on placing the note correctly, I fail at doing so. Most of the time anyway.

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Quote Originally Posted by Masklin View Post
But singing and warming up are largely the same thing, aren't they?
I wouldn't say so. Like weight training. You warm up with light non weighted movements then progress to light weights and then work up. If the max weight you can bench press is 200 lbs you don't warm up with 200 lbs. You start light and work your way up before actually doing your workout. When you warm up for a workout you don't tire the muscle you'll need to be using. You just get blood flowing through them and "warm" them. Maybe get a little sweat on your forehead making sure your core is warmed.
Same with singing. Warmups should be light and progressive (exercises) working up to what you might be using in your actual singing. But not tiring yourself out. Just "warming up." Not really "singing."

Sometimes there are certain things you may not be able to do with your voice until completely warmed. The muscles need to loosen so to speak. I like to save more difficult songs for after I've sung some easier ones.
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Quote Originally Posted by Masklin View Post
But singing and warming up are largely the same thing, aren't they?
My teacher taught me to warm up and cool down. My warm up in a combination of scales, vocalises and vocal fries. The cool down is mostly the vocal fries.

Here is an example of a vocal fry. biggrin.gif

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I never warm up or cool down, ever. I just sing stuff. And because of the way I sing, nothing ever hurts. It’s only when I try and “belt” (which I still can’t work out how to do properly), does my voice have problems. Nothing hurts too much, but after about half an hour my voice will begin to cut out, there’ll be coughing, discomfort in the throat, and I also get light headed and chest pains. Great, eh!? lol In my opinion, no amount of warming up will help with this because obviously I'm doing things completely wrong!

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