Ok, so I don't have any significant money (still in high school) so any voice tips would be appreciated since I can't afford the programs on CDs, DVDs, or otherwise.
I would begin by watching the voice training videos by CandiFLA (http://www.youtube.com/user/candifla) and Deep Stealth (http://www.youtube.com/user/deepstealth) on YouTube. Together they cover pretty much everything you'll need to learn.
Here's some stuff that's working (worked) for me:
- Start by understanding the difference between pitch and resonance. Pitch is the height or frequency of your voice, resonance is how your voice bounces around before becoming a sound. Pitch is all about practice and resonance is all about technique; pitch gets better with time and a lot of practice, resonance is something you have to figure out, but can be found pretty quickly if you have a knack for it.
One issue I had before I could understand the difference was that they really require one another. When I first started out, I couldn't tell if I was doing a good job with either one because my pitch was not yet high enough for me to experiment with my resonance. Once your pitch comes along, it'll really become a lot easier for you to throw your resonance around until you hear the voice you want.
- While a lot of fundamentals and techniques exist, there really is no golden set of rules for anyone because all of our voices are unique. There are some things you're simply going to have to figure out for yourself and your own voice. This is the one thing that really held me back for a long time and discouraged me from practicing much harder -- I kept looking for someone to tell me exactly what to do or lead by example, because that tends to be the best way I learn. Just jumping in blindly is scary for me, and when you're sitting there listening to something about yourself you can't stand, it really pushes the learning process to the back of your mind. Unfortunately, you really have to do some of that with self voice training. You really have to be strong, believe in yourself, and fight or tuck away that feeling of hatred or despair that pops up during early practice rounds.
- Try speaking (resonating) towards the front of your mouth or speaking towards the bridge/base of your nose (a little more difficult). Take your voice outside of your chest. After you get used to doing this, try to use air or breath to split your voice in two and send a bit into your nasal and a bit towards the front of your mouth - this sounds complicated and takes some discipline to get down correctly, but it makes your voice sound a bit more anchored and authentic.
- Try controlling the air flow in your throat so it comes either through the back or the front (of your throat) almost entirely. This helped me develop a better pitch, but it can make your voice sound raspy if you focus too much on either end. I found the back side to be more crucial in obtaining a good voice and far easier to do, but the front end is really helping to bring together a better timbre for me and avoid a rasp (I'm still working on it). You eventually start learning to swap between the two for different sounds.
This may not be necessary for everyone, I don't know. I had never really heard it spoken about until I started trying it, and it has been very helpful for me. It was very tough at first and required a bit of straining, but now I can relax my throat significantly more and get a nice sound out of it.
- I am still learning laughter and yelling, but something I have found helpful is to sharply angle the resonance of my voice and channel the pitch. I bring the pitch almost entirely through the back of my throat/vocal cords, and I aim the resonance so that it bounces off the base of my tongue and up towards the roof of my mouth. I have been pretty successful with yelling and I have gotten some hard laughter or even cackles out of this that I am very satisfied with, but I am not yet consistent. This one really seems to take a ton of practice to make second nature. I think the pitch is holding me back, personally (I have only been hard at work with voice for about a month and a half); maintaining a high pitch during laughter and yelling is VERY difficult, so of course a good pitch in general is going to be required.
- Air flow is very important, but I think also very delicate and difficult to notice until you have decent pitch and resonance. I think the effect of air flow is very subtle but ultimately necessary; I would describe air flow as putting a little bit of breath into your voice to push it along, as if it were on a cloud. When I first started out, I tried to incorporate it with everything else and it was over complicating things for me. I think it's best to begin practicing air flow only when you feel your voice is "passable" on the phone.
Other miscellaneous tips:
- It really helps to be able to hear yourself when practicing. I like video games, so I have a program called Steam. On Steam, you can test your microphone and it will play back any sounds about two seconds after you hear them. This really helped me along and allowed me to quickly try and develop on different approaches. I'm sure there are similar programs that work better.
- You might consider finding a way to keep yourself on task when practicing. I have a very supportive group of friends, both online and in real life. I used Skype with the ones I trusted constantly just to talk or play games together. They were very encouraging and their willingness to give input when asked was really nice, but primarily it let me talk for hours on end. It was the single most helpful contribution to my developing pitch and making a habit of resonating in particular spots; they even let me keep the Steam microphone test on so I could hear myself at the same time (they would hear me twice some times - they were amazingly good sports about it).
I'm surprised I ended up writing so much, I hope it wasn't overwhelming. I really hope this was helpful to you, and I wish you the best of luck.
Could I have a link?
PS--> I feel bad for wasting peoples' time, so I just need to say, for future reference, that I apparently have no clue how the details work through text. I am very sorry for wasting your time, Sybil. I do applaud you for your effort, though.
Quote from: DianaP on October 13, 2012, 08:25:46 AM
Could I have a link?
PS--> I feel bad for wasting peoples' time, so I just need to say, for future reference, that I apparently have no clue how the details work through text. I am very sorry for wasting your time, Sybil. I do applaud you for your effort, though.
It's totally okay, you should find what works best for you. Maybe someone else will read what I wrote and get something out if it. If no one does, then I still tried to be helpful and that feels like a good thing to me; I don't mind at all. I really hope you find what you're looking for!
Quote from: Sybil on October 13, 2012, 09:51:22 AM
It's totally okay, you should find what works best for you. Maybe someone else will read what I wrote and get something out if it. If no one does, then I still tried to be helpful and that feels like a good thing to me; I don't mind at all. I really hope you find what you're looking for!
Sybil thank you, what you wrote was interesting and is something I will come back to I'm sure as I practice my voice.
Of course! I'm really happy that someone might make use of what I wrote. Thank you for telling me that.
Quote from: Sybil on October 24, 2012, 12:36:20 AM
Of course! I'm really happy that someone might make use of what I wrote. Thank you for telling me that.
I too am new to this and have been practicing my voice alot lately and I found what you wrote wonderful, helpful and thought provoking :)
Thank you! Defiantly have this thread bookmarked.
Same to you Tessa, I've watched your YouTube video a few times now and it helps me re focus my efforts :)
I've been singing queen in the car to and fri work purely in falsetto for my practice :)
JustJami on youtube has a couple good vids. Here's the link to the one that she suggested to me.
MTF Transition Vlog 19 The Female Voice 2.Oh !! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4cWP5ecnBA&list=UUPEn3ADAtGAJxkPUXlLHoBg&index=3&feature=plcp#)