I'm able to do the "hard" things, but still don't think I'm any good

I find it strange and frustrating that I'm able to do things like vibrato really easily (I can slow down and speed up and use it in time with the music), and using falsetto and also my "normal" voice well, and doing the little trill type things in tune, and my range is quite good...

And yet I still think I suck in just NORMAL singing. Strength, resonance, etc.

How is it I'm able to do these apparently more technically-difficult things, but not have a really excellent voice in general?

I don't know maybe you were just training doing the hard things so much that you hadn't had time trying the easy things...that's why when you kinda made a good "level" up with your voice - doing the hard things and made up a style of singing ,

other things may seem quite hard.

LOL I messed up a little bit huh?

Ah, you're learning what the tools are.

Now you need to learn to 'use' the tools.

I think I have the same problem, though it's shaped differently. I can pitch notes correctly and hold them, but those passing notes, speaky passages, little words ("of", "the" "a", etc) get weak, thin, unstable.

It's as if my breath control only works on the dominant, longer notes and not on the shorter passing notes. As a result, the longer notes seem like islands,, and I try to leap from one to the other; when I get there I stay too long because this is safe ground for me. But holding notes like this makes me sound more operatic, and I really want to sound folky!

How does one fully engage the breathing machinery when doing the short stuff???

I would say that you need to practice staccato exercises with an H sound. H is the only consonant that is made with the larynx, the rest of them are formed by moving the mouth.

So if you will just repeatedly voice "H" on pitch - and pump your diaphragm to get it Like just go Ha, Ha Ha, Ha and vocalize each one on a different pitch, you will feel your diaphragm and lungs pump for each individual one you do.

Try that, and see if that helps you.

I second Consume's advice. I first heard of that in Melissa Cross' The Zen of Screaming. She calls it a "He-He treatment", and likens it to creating a "dot map" of the song. I find it very helpful to focus solely on the note rather than the lyric. I find it particularly useful on my own songs when I've written lyrics and am still sort of clumsily ambling around in search of a melody.

What type of music do you want to be able to sing?

I know a singer that has a great voice, very powerful, good pitch control, good ear. Unfortunately, she seems to have no control over her volume, her vibrato, her hard consonants, etc. Basically, she lacks subtlety. It's a shame, because she has the tools, but won't take the time to learn what a good instrumentalist has to learn - less is usually more.

In this, Goldenvoice is correct. You obviously have the tools (like a pianist with the piano, the sheet music, the bench and the fingers) - now you need to learn the subtlety, the nuance, when to go hard, when to go soft and low, just like the pianist needs to learn to express the 'feeling' of the piece being performed.

Tact, nuance, subtlety, expressiveness - it's all in how you use your instrument to express not only what's written in a song, but what's implied as well.

It sounds like you're well on your way, however.

Oh, just normal songs like Jefferson Airplane, Fleetwood Mac, just SONGS. lol

I agree with what several folks up there said. I think breath control is what you need. You've learned the stuff that requires a 100% from your voice, now you need to learn the right dosage. It's done with breathing exercises. You need to learn how to keep your voice on mid-volume, because from there you can go very loud and then very quiet and all over again. If you spend your breath immediately, you can't control the dynamics.

The same thing happens when you try to sing "normally" as you say - you're so used to give a 100% right away that you can't dose it.

I've had more or less the same problem, I could sing the hard stuff, but just normal relaxed singing proposed a problem. It's something a lot of singers do and it's something to work on. IMO it's not pleasant hearing someone who always sings turned up to 10.

It makes a lot of sense that you feel that way. Think about it.....if you are so good at doing really difficult things with your voice that impress you, then why would you be impressed with your regular singing voice?

I suppose if you're so good at the difficult singing, then your regular singing seems....well....plain.

When you listen to guys like Jeff Buckley, Chris Cornell, or Ian Gillian, you don't drool over their normal singing...you drop your jaw when they do the harder things with their voice.

I know...and I know people (not personally) like the lead singer of this band, The Fleet Foxes, for instance, whose voice is quite unique and just...you could listen to it forever, and yet it's not doing anything spectacular. It's not even that technically GOOD, but it's the voice itself that you love. I don't have one of those voices though, sadly.

Oh, and I never yell...I'm not one of those singers you often get on American Idol or whatever that sing at the top of their lungs and have no subtlety. I do have that. I am ok with that. I just don't think I sound any good.

You are probably just too hard on yourself then. It has been said a million times.....you are your own worst critic.

Do you have any clips that we can hear? Maybe someone on the forum could critique your voice.

I actually kind of fell into singing when I was a kid. I always used to sing along with anything I heard that I liked and started to mimic whomever I was listening to, male or female. Now remember we are talking a long long time ago, late fifties and on. To make a long story short, I became a lead singer with a couple of Jersey groups, one a cover the other an original hard rock blues group, circa 1969. I have found that by listening to those we love we learn a number of things, most important of which is dynamics.

After a while I developed my own voice and you could hear all the different influences that made up what I became. I never made it big, I was too immature, being into substance abuse which caused a lack of confidence and a myriad of other problems. I really am thankful that I didn't make it, I may have come to a premature end. Now, at 60, having left all that crap behind some 25 years ago, believe it or not I sing with a Zeppelin cover band and I feel that I sing better now than I ever have, and I'm having more fun also.

So if you've learned the "hard stuff", just listen to the easy stuff and keep singing, concentrating on controlled breathing and dynamics.

The "monkey laugh" that Consume mentions, on a chromatic scale, is golden.