• Registered: 2011-12-28
  • Posts: 2

Topic: Hit plateau in mix/middle voice (using Roger Love & Brett Manning CDs)

Hello, I'm new to this forum.

I'm a 20-year-old engineering student, and I've been singing/learning to sing for three years, faithfully (as in 3-6 days a week most of the time) using Roger Love's Set Your Voice Free Book/CD at first, and then mixing it with Brett Manning's Singing Success about a year into that period.

In the first few months of using Roger Love's CD, I noticed quite a difference in my tone quality and range--I definitely developed my middle voice quite a bit (I had never really been taught how to sing, though I had always loved to sing). After that, though, although I do believe I have improved marginally since then (and I have developed quite a head voice above my mix region), I feel that I have hit a plateau, particularly in the area commonly referred to as the "passagio" by classical singers/teachers, or the "first bridge" by Brett Manning--for me I believe it's around the range of of about E-G below the male high C. I can sing pretty steadily and with mix just about right up to that E, and past that range, I can sing with head voice pretty well, but it's that range that again and again is my downfall--for example, get this: I can sing the chorus "Pride" by U2 in the original key and sound good on the higher notes, singing in head voice ("In the name") but for the second time the line is sung and the "of love" part comes down into that region, my voice gets really unsteady and starts cracking; it's not as dramatic a breakdown when approaching that range from the bottom up rather than from the top down, but probably because I'm compensating by pulling chest voice up. My voice almost always feels tight through that range when I'm doing the various scale exercises of both teachers, and I'm always doing the best I can to follow their advice about not forcing the tone/allowing a lighter vocal quality, etc. Sometimes I am able to sustain more closed vowels in that region (they sound OK, sometimes good, usually not great), while more open vowels usually sound pretty shaky in that region.

The other weird thing is that there is a huge amount of day-to-day variablility (or even variability between midday and the evening) of how well I can sing through this region. Occasionally (usually at night) I don't really notice the difficulty in this area, and sometimes warming up helps me a lot; other times (usually earlier in the day), I basically sound like crap in my mix voice--it just sounds kind of broken/grainy. Even if I don't sound perfect at night, there is usually a large improvement of my voice between early afternoon and after-dinner-time. What's kind of cool is that sometimes when I perform, what I guess is a mix of a good amount of warming up and channeled nervous energy come together and my voice sounds seamless and amazing, but this does not always work, and what's worse is that usually when this does happen, I have a falling-off period of vocal crappiness for several days after that. Right now it *kind of* works out all right, but it's not going to if I'm going to be performing on a more consistent basis, which is what I want to do.

So basically, I'm seeking two things:

One - to make progress with the passagio, which I have worked at for a while with small results.

Two - to gain some consistency and reliability in my voice. Right now I don't know if I am a good singer or an awful one, because I sound like both on a regular basis.

I know these are things many people are probably seeking, but I guess in particular I'm looking for advice on what do do or what to try next considering what I've done and where I'm at. I'm looking for another program and I don't mind spending a little bit of money, but I don't want to go out and get something that isn't going to help me and waste my money (sorry Brett Manning, you're alright and you helped me a little, but if Singing Success didn't shatter my world like you said it would, I'm not sure if I really want to go spend another $200 on your Mastering Mix), and I don't think I really want to try a personal teacher/coach/lessons, because, although I would absolutely love to be working with someone in person, I've read of horror stories just going through this site and others of teachers who teach the opposite of what's helpful in terms of head/mix voice, and I don't have the kind of money to spend on trying teacher after teacher in order to find someone I can trust, considering how much individual lessons are likely to cost. If you still think you should try convincing me otherwise considering what I've just said, you can try--I may be open, but I want to hear something more compelling than just that I need to go to an in-person vocal teacher because it's the "real" way.

From what I've discerned through some perusing of various Internet sources, both of these teachers essentially teach the Speech-Level Singing technique. I'm at once both intrigued and mystified by other schools of vocal pedagogy out there that I'm now encountering through my online research. Right now I'm considering getting Jaime Vendera's Raise Your Voice with his online audio exercises. What do you think--will this be worth it/helpful? What about his other products? What about other techniques/programs out there for the specific things I'm dealing with? Or even this--what in the programs I've been using do you think I may not be doing fully correctly/what should I change about the way I do the exercises?

If it helps, here's a video of me singing on a GOOD night (and the problems I've described are essentially unnoticeable like I described already, but just to give you an idea of what I sound like; sorry my guitar playing is kind of bad. I sing in a lower register until 1:24 and then I go into my upper register) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_Cl2e_f … ideo_title

I always tend to be quite wordy in everything, so sorry about the length; thanks for reading and thanks in advance for your advice.

  • Registered: 2011-12-23
  • Posts: 102

Re: Hit plateau in mix/middle voice (using Roger Love & Brett Manning CDs)

Took a while reading your post, as at first thought it was spam trying to promote products. WHICH IT STILL MIGHT BE

If all you have done is learn through cd's etc, you have not got a human opinion of your voice, vocal range or technique,you need to get an honest opinion of this from someone in the know, ie vocal coach, music teacher, another honest good vocalist. And make sure you can accept criticism, before asking for an honest opinion.

This is my opinion of your voice from the song.
Your tone and pitch is OK, there appears to me very little emotion though, a technique when practicing is to close your eyes and sing, you create your own little world, learn the meaning of the lyrics and what the song is about, the emotion then comes from the lyrics. You will notice that you then generate facial expressions to enhance parts of the songs, this is good, as the audience will see this and connect with you and the lyrics. 

As a side note, it is not a good idea to inform the audiance that you can play 4 or 7 cords, most will not know what that means, and those that do will use that as ammuunition against you. You Play You SIng, practice and practice your guitar so you could play it blind folded, so when your singing, you concentrate on the vocal and the emotion of the song.

Again, you need to get someone unbiased to listen to your voice to progress further, preferrably someone you do not know, as a friend will always say you sound amazing.

Your vocal chords are like a muscle, the more they are used the better and longer they can perform, do not push them too hard or you will damage them, warm them up before you perform, if you are not well, do not perform as serious damage can occour.
There are plenty of articles on the Internet about vocal chord and how to train them and use them effectively, treat them well, find out what effects them for the good and bad, ie stop smoking, drinking alcohol, coffee, orange juice sticky things before you perform. Water is best, room temperature not chilled before and during your performance,

Last edited by shoxproductions (2012-01-05 11:39:37)

*insert funny frase here*

You can lead a fool to wisdom but you can't make him think .
Everything is possible, except to ski through a revolving door.

Many times I say only 'yes' or 'no' to people. Even that is too much.
  • Registered: 2011-12-28
  • Posts: 2

Re: Hit plateau in mix/middle voice (using Roger Love & Brett Manning CDs)

Hey, thanks for the reply, even though it's been a long time since my original post.

Things have actually gotten a little better recently since I started using Jaime Vendera's Raise Your Voice--I'm finding a little more consistency and less of a break around the passagio. But I've been generally starting to think along the lines of what you told me anyway, that I need to find a vocal coach, and I'm looking for one right now.

Just so you know, the whole chords thing was just a joke because there was a band before me that did a take-off of the "Axis of Awesome" mashup (look up Axis of Awesome on YouTube) which "claims" every major pop song from the last 40 years has the same 4 chords. I said "you know I wasn't going for a Top 10 hit because that song has 7 chords." It was just a stupid joke, I wasn't trying to impress anyone with the fact that I know 7 chords. A lot of people know 7 chords. I also knew most of the people in the audience. No need to lecture me on what to say to an audience; it's not something I normally would say.

Also, how in the world would you think I'm trying to promote products? All I did was mention a few of the things I've used and what my results have been, and I didn't write anything that made them sound earth-shattering. I even talked unfavorably about the prospect of Brett Manning's new "Mastering Mix." And that would be a pretty long post with a lot of extra content if it were just for promoting a product.

  • Registered: 2012-05-01
  • Posts: 20

Re: Hit plateau in mix/middle voice (using Roger Love & Brett Manning CDs)

hi Brad,

You tell him man. I didn't see anything you said that would suggest you were selling products. i listened to your video on youtube, and i thought your voice was quite cool. Good tone and range. I think the only thing missing was a definate focal point  to start the sound from. By that i mean the vocal attack sounded abit soft or wishy washy. I would suggest to you if you haven't already found them to go to perfect-voice.com or perfect voice institute. I've just realised one my think i work for them or something the way i talk about them. It's just that I have used the product of perfect voice, and am now a confident singer with a good and improving voice.

The secret is in the tongue, the back of it. That's the bit to control. That's the bit that gives you a very clear onset to sound and a very good control over your tone, volume and pitch. You just have to learn how to move that area independantly of all others. It sounds like you do it but not consciously.

when this area of the tongue is not used directly one will not know why they are sounding good or bad. this is like fingers to the quitar. if you didn't quite know you had to move your fingers into different chords for tone and pitch variation, you'd not be very good at playing the quitar, well not all the time. it'd be sort of hit and miss. this is what happens to most singers. i've been singing for about 15 years and in that time i've never lost my voice..and i singing everything from opera to rock, and everything in between, ie stevie, luther. all the best bro

god bless voice doctor

God Bless Voicedoctor