Black Watch said:Sorry for the late post on the topic, I will say up front that I am not fan of "cooking monster" vocals that seem to be all the rage in some circles. To be honest I suspect that this became in vogue because people feared they could not actually sing (they probably could).
First and most importantly is breathing. Most people know how to breath to keep oxygen in them, and thats a good thing. But to really sing you have to breath differently. That applies to both inhalation and exhalation. Just like in playing the guitar, you need to develop your "tone" in the voice. Some of it is what god gave you, some of it is what you make of it. For me I am more "opera man" than "screeching rocker". Them's the breaks. That being said, you might benefit from working with a vocal coach. They will give you a bunch of strange things to do and say / sing most likely. It's no different that practicing scales or fretboard drills, you do them. If you are going to sing frequently for performance lengths of time, you will need to condition your vocal chords to take it (they are like any other muscle group). So work your way up to it.
I was lucky that I got to take some vocal training in college and it has helped me a lot. Some of the earlier pointers are very good, so follow them as well. Specifically if you stick with working on your voice, you will find that it does change somewhat, and you will get "stronger".
Also of note: much of what you hear on recordings today is some function of the microphone used and the outboard effects processors. If you are serious about your voice you want to be as careful with how you set that up as you would be your guitar and amp.
Hey, I'm not a fan cookie monster vocals either, but I dig the Linkin-Park-style melodic screams. My prog band does everything from metal, to techno, to jazz, to reggae... you get the idea, so I want to have many options at my disposal vocal-wise.
As for getting a vocal coach--I've learned how to play guitar from scratch over the last 2 years entirely on my own, and I think I've made a lot of progress. I believe that if you are willing to commit yourself, there are enough resources on the internet to learn a craft yourself at a perfectly good level.
So I'll probably not be getting a coach.
It's OK, though. Since I've been playing guitar, etc. for a while, my ears at least are pretty decently developed, so I can track my voice with a lot more discretion than some of the people we've auditioned
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Mid-terms in college this week. As soon as they're over, I'm gonna cram all the info in this thread into a weekly practice routine
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