(Part 2) Top products from r/singing

It certainly depends on the genre, but yes, most of the runs and riffs you'll hear will either be scales or arpeggiations.

I think there are basically two related skills that you'll have to think about when working on runs and riffs.

One is, what we call in the classical world, "coloratura" or "agility". Basically, it's your ability to sing really fast and move from one note to the next quickly. Like just about everything else in the singing world, this is highly dependent on your breath and how you use it.

I'm currently super in love with Mathilde Marchesi's book on Bel Canto technique, and one of the really great ways she introduces flexibility is by starting really small, with at first two or three note scales, then adding onto the scale as you become more comfortable. The important part is not to start too fast, but to learn how to smoothly move between each note. When you can do that at a moderate tempo, you can keep increasing the tempo, and add more notes, and eventually you can sing very long fast scales without losing that smooth transition from note to note. (So as a side note, if this is something you're really interested in, I'd totally recommend that book - the paperback is not expensive, and it's a great resource).

And then, the second issue is knowing scales. This is related, but it's less about technically executing them and more about aurally distinguishing between various scales.

Like with flexibility exercises, I would recommend starting slow and small. For example, you can practice accurately singing the various alterations of a five-tone scale: major (1 2 3 4 5), minor (1 2 b3 4 5), phrygian (1 b2 b3 4 5), and lydian (1 2 3 #4 5). (You can also do things like augmented and diminished/locrian scales, but those are harder and relatively less useful outside of contemporary music.) Then you can branch up to full octaves, and then get into octave+ scales.

Here, the issue is accuracy, so sing slowly enough that you're clearly hitting each note in the scale without sliding around or "fudging" the note. When you can do that, you can start speeding up and adding more notes.

Anyway, the only other thing to worry about is actually analyzing which scales are used in your chosen genre. This varies substantially so of course you'll want to focus on the types of scales that are used in the music you want to sing. Ultimately, I think you'll find that listening to a really good run/riff type singer is probably the best way to figure out what it is you want to accomplish.

Thanks for the gold - my first!

I learned SO MUCH in my undergrad and master's degrees in jazz performance. I'm not sure what style you're really going for here (although I had your melody stuck in my head in a Latin jazz style), but one of the most useful resources was this book:

https://www.amazon.ca/Jazz-Language-Theory-Composition-Improvisation/dp/0760400148

It's not a giant text so it's very affordable and digestible. But there wasn't a lot of reliance on texts or reading in my program (when it comes to jazz theory). We got a thorough understanding of music theory and jazz theory through practical application in private lessons and participatory courses like Improvisation or Jazz Styles.

Also I think I'm pretty smart about this stuff in general :)

Wish I had more concrete resources to offer you! Feel free to PM with Qs any time.

I have a debut neo-soul single coming out in May :) I'll send you my social media stuff if you're interested in hearing it!

I used this, with a pop filter for demoing privately for two years. It's pretty cool for personal use because of the plug and play nature. You can get a USB to lightning adapter and go directly into Garageband on the iPad. No power issues, or interface needed. Of course it has its own firmware and programming on-board, so you're surrendering a lot of control.. That said, it's great for personal use. Fantastic for speaking engagements like podcasts too (mine is out on loan for that now.)


If you're just trying to get in the habit of recording quick, easy and dirty for your own review - it's great. It's also salvage in post production considering how cheap the mic is.

Anyway, the Blue Ice is a great piece to have around to capture when you need to quickly! It'll be a gateway to better things later!

To be entirely honest with you, I have no idea where this sub is heading. We're just shy of 15,000 subscribers. Fifteen thousand.

Overall it's a pretty dead sub when you compare it to those numbers, which is just depressing.

We've tried weekly discussion threads, weekly recording threads, the whole 9 yards, and it's just a struggle to get participation going. Talks about technique can get seriously heated and personal, and not everyone is on the same page when it comes to the first rule of the sidebar:

> Be Excellent to Each Other.

I would like to form an actual community - not just a sub of Q&As. I'm not entirely certain how to do that, and every time I've sent out feelers looking for ideas, I've been greeted with crickets.

Your signal-to-noise comment is exactly it - but we can't force people to participate if they don't find questions particularly stimulating. I'm hoping the full-genre threads that recycle themselves every 8 weeks will work out, but I can't guarantee that they will.

Out of FIFTEEN THOUSAND subscribers, I see maybe 20 a week, 5-10 of them the same people.

I can do my best to help lead and guide as a moderator, but I can't take the sub anywhere when there's no one to go with me. I want this to be a community-based discussion board, but it's not about what I want, it's what everyone else wants - which has had a frighteningly quiet response.

___

To tag on some responses to what you wrote:

• Intermediate articles haven't been written, in part because a lot of them accidentally got melded in with the beginner ones. (whoops). Where do we draw the lines? Also, yes, they should be user submitted, and no one has submitted them. Sadly.
  
  
• Critiques are one of the trickiest things to handle around here. No one liked them when they weren't in threads, no one likes them now that they're in threads. What's up with that? Oh - participation.
  
  
• Richard Miller is NOT a book for beginners. Not even close, and I'm a little upset that it was marketed to you as such. This is a more recent thread on the same topic, and honestly, this is the book I found written in beginner-terminology that was the best. You can even find it on WorldCat which is a worldwide library catalog, where you can check out books from around the world simply by having a library card at your local library - so you'd be able to check it out for free without having to worry.

Good on you for turning your embarassment into motivation! That's a tough step to make, and it will be very rewarding to work on your singing.

As for transitioning from one note to another, just practice scales. The bigger the jump between notes, the more challenging it will be; there is a whole lot that goes into blending the registers so I won't get into that. So just start with scales in the easy part of your range, and try and make the transitions smooth as though you're just singing one sustained note (that is, the breath stays constant between notes-- you don't need to "stop the air" between notes). And as a matter of fact, when I say start with scales, don't let ambition push you to doing scales that cover too large of a range or are in a difficult part of your range. Start with just 2 or 3 note patterns, like "do-re-do" (but all one one vowel, such as "ah"), or "do-re-mi-re-do" and so forth. The old-school singing schools started very slow with this kind of stuff-- like this book for example:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0486223159/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_2?pf_rd_p=1944687542&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=1423438736&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1EVP16YWAGXYX5QPGN1C

There are pages and pages of simple 1, 2, and 3 note figures before you start getting to the point of singing bigger scales. Singing a full octave scale with even tone and easy production is surprisingly hard for a true beginner. The "grand scale" of 2 octaves (maybe with a turnaround at the top making it 2 octaves plus a whole tone) is certainly "advanced." Adding consanants and vowel changes is another added layer of difficulty. I'm just mentioning these things because I came to singing a complete beginner, and thought it was silly that it should be so hard. On guitar, violin, or piano, which I had played for years, there is really very little difficulty or adjustment required in moving around from low to high notes. The voice is really clunky, and by nature not very smooth from bottom to top. It takes a lot of time to get a consistent tone throughout one's range. Just bringing this up to say-- take pleasure in small victories, and don't get discouraged! ;)

As for vibrato, it's a nice milestone to strive for, but it's not really recommended that you try to create it consciously. It will come naturally as your technique gets better. Strangely enough it is just one of those things that emerges on it's own once you've found a nice and relaxed and resonant mode of singing. It can be created artificially in various ways but this is usually considered to not sound very good, and some of which could be downright unhealthy for your voice.

If you want aninteresting but easy to comprehend book I really REAAALLY recommend Rock and Roll singer's survival manual by Mark Baxter :)

The various voice type versions for the 24 arias are the same songs just transposed.


I have this one, which I used to sing from quite a bit when I was younger.


I didn't get into German until more recently and basically have just gotten each song's sheet music individually. But Amazon has a few books that look promising, such as this one. I also like this one a lot, it's got a nice range of languages and a good song list.

https://www.amazon.com/Blue-Snowball-iCE-Condenser-Microphone/dp/B014PYGTUQ/ref=pd_lpo_267_bs_t_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=HFG9NJSQ0VGHYACGE87J

If you want something easy to use that will be good for hobby but would need an upgrade for anything more...

I would recommend the blue snowball (I have the Yeti which is the upgraded version of this).

Here is the non-mobile link from the comment above
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The Owner's Manual to the Voice discusses how different things affect the voice (caffeine, certain medications, etc.) and might be worth checking out!

You should pick up a diction book! If you only sing in English, get this one, and if you're a classical singer, get this one. I'm not sure about other languages.

If you're isolating vowels and learning how to properly shape them, do it right and learn what the books say. They can help you think about vowels in different terms that you're used to.

It's a lovable piano, which is why I'd love to see it tuned. If money is tight, you can go DIY. It's kind of a rabbit hole, but at least getting both strings on every key tuned the same will stop it from being so honky-tonky.

I'm a big fan of Estelle Liebling's Vocal Course books (https://www.amazon.com/Estelle-Liebling-Vocal-Course-Mezzo-Soprano/dp/0793506352). For a breath control exercise she suggests practicing speaking the alphabet as many times as possible to "strengthen the breath system." Basically you inhale into the lower back ribs then say the alphabet as many times as you can. Take short breaths when you run out and keep going. I swim laps so maybe that's cheating, but I was able to repeat it about 8 times the first few times I tried it.

This advice to 'find a teacher' is so prevalent because it works (and/ or this sub is inhabited by many voice teachers). We also are slightly sadistic in that we don't want to give you the secrets; we want you to put in the work to find them and figure them out for yourself; education is a journey, not a destination. We are educators, it's what we do.

My advice is to look through any number of the singing blogs out there in the ether maintained by singers and voice instructors. The knowledge you seek is out there if you're willing to look for it.

Depending on your style, there should be plenty of methods books to choose from. Pick a basic one to start and just roll with it. If you want some classical technique, I'm really looking into this book of vocalises, but without more info, I can't tell you whether to go with med, high, or low voice. Common practice is to assume a voice is medium unless it proves itself otherwise.

Ninja edit (thought of something else): I would also advise using recordings of yourself to guide you. You need to learn how to analyze your own singing to get a sense of where you want to go with it. Listen to high quality examples of singers in your preferred style (with a similar voice) and get to practicing.