Haha yeah same. Idk how I haven't done permanent vocal damage yet given how much my throat ends up hurting. I guess I'm at least doing SOMETHING right if that's not happening lol
Early on I found I was best when I first started when everything was fresh for all styles. Nowadays I definitely find higher heights by warming things up. Growls can still sound good without warmups but if I warm up clean voice first I MUST also warm up growls or it doesn’t work. Weird.
@@ij_misir1965 vaping was even worse for me than smoking, I haven't been able to scream or sing for 2 weeks because of vaping.. so now that im not vaping anymore I can finally get back to screaming
I have probably seen most of the videos on youtube teaching screaming at this point, and the stuff you're releasing has been absolutely the best and most useful out there. Keep em' coming!
I don’t know why more singers are learning this gold 😆 I’ve been singing choral music for 10 years (listening to slipknot, asking.. ect..) and I never thought I could do this… until learned and then practiced 😂 I have even MORE control with my vocals! What singer would value that??
I'm practicing screaming since 2014 (for my own) and I a never saw a such informative video like this, this channel is gold for those people that practice screams 🤘🏻🔥
Your emphasis on not just GO GO GOing is so important for me to hear. I'm super excited to get to where I need to be and rushing has been resulting is disappointing outcomes so you've made it clear that it's time to step back and refocus my efforts on learning how to walk before sprinting at 200bpm
I'm getting back into this after 10 years, recording at home and hit a wall hard. Got extremely frustrated and ended up throwing out my voice. Your videos have helped me so much getting me back on track, not only the break down of techniques and warm ups but just the advice to just chill out 🤙
I love this. I know in vocal therapy they didn't want more than an hour of vocal exercise a day. You got me to subscribe! You clearly know how to do it safe and healthy way
Absolutely, generally less is more if you’ve got a specific goal and have exercises in place to accomplish the goal! Obviously, there are instances like recording where you may have to bend the rules if you’re on a time crunch or have a limited amount of time but that’s also why we suggest people prep for that Thanks for the subscribe and for watching! 😊
As someone with a Theatre degree, I'm surprised with how much of the techniques used for extreme vocals is very similar to all my acting and choir practices! When COVID hit I wasn't practicing a lot of breath support and am no longer in tune with my body. My goal for right now is to improve my breathing and relax more.
This was THE video that got me to unlock my screams! I've always been a guitarist but tonight for the first time ever my vocals stood out as being good. Thank you 😊
I used to practice every day or at least 5 times a week. But I eventually learned that it's enough for me to practice two times a week that I give at least two days rest in between. Every since I started doing that I felt that I did way more progression in a shorter amount of time than I did when I was practicing every day.
So glad to hear you’ve seen more progression! That’s amazing! It’s truly awesome what structured time and rest can do for the body! 😊 Keep up the good work!
Your view on practicing little bits at a time and letting it strengthen and improve reminds me of training in the gym. People who thrash 2hr sessions every day in the gym tend to struggle to progress whereas taking it back to an hour a few days a week allows the body to recover. I guess the vocal muscles aren't any different from hitting the muscles in the gym. Love the videos man keep it up 🔥
Yep! Same concept exactly. We use that comparison a LOT. Recovery is equally if not more important and being prepared to practice (warming up) is the equivalent of stretching and prepping your body in the gym for work!
The problem with that analogy is that most people who go to the gym aren’t working hard enough to progress, despite being there for 2 hours. If anything they are “too recovered” as much as that isn’t really a thing. There is a minimum amount of effort you have to do to progress, as well as an upper limit you should stop short of.
To anyone interested in exercise, you can pretty much replace everything he said about training vocals with training your body. Your vocal chords are trained like any other muscle. Don't train too frequently, don't take long breaks from session to session (be as consistent as life allows), and do NOT train to failure. Blowing out your vocals from overtraining is the same concept as blowing out your shoulders from bench pressing too often.
12 years of hardcore vocal and I’m self taught I learned over the years what your saying and I just seen this video and from my experience this knowledge your are teaching has helped me ten fold !!!!! Thank you so much brother 🙏
You could have a millions subscribers and I'd still say you were underrated. The way you talk and explain things is so nice and I'm looking forward to watching more of your videos! Already have like 5 saved! I'm an aspiring vocalist and can't wait to break into the scene! Keep up the great work!
returning back to harsh vocals after about 3 years off them, you have helped a tonne, ill be watching all your vids as this is solid info and has helped me nip in the butt some bad practice habits
First video I've watched from y'all, and the first few minutes have already impressed me immensely with the presentation and mindfulness of the whole-body care approach. Excellent instruction!
This guy is really good at articulating his words and explaining things in a way that is easy to follow. I have add, and have no problem listening to him
The advice on not deleting your recordings that you aren't pleased with it to keep it and use that later to see how much you have improved. I taught myself this and it's clearer to see where you're improving ECT. That's why I choose a handful of different levels of difficulty to constantly improve and have past examples of where I was at compared to where my development grew. It's a great book mark on where your progress is! Great advice.
it’s definitely good to be able to reference back to see your improvement! even if you never show anyone, it’s cool for your own personal satisfaction 😁
@@ExtremeVocalInstitute right!!! I even ended up having older recordings grow on me after I listened to it a few times. Especially , when you think about how well you did for how many attempts you made. Sometimes I don't catch that unless I got listen to it a few times. I didn't even think about the fact I was doing that until I saw your video and was like "he's totally right! That makes so much sense!" Lol
You could be a motivational speaker of some sort for people with mental health issues, when you said the thing about seeing how far you’ve come and not deleting old recordings. I started to think about life and started crying legit. I’m never proud of how far I’ve come. Lessons for the future.
This is great advice in general! I'm trying to learn metal vocals and guitar. Much more frustrated with guitar than vocals and the talk about getting stuck, and trying something different absolutely resonated with me. Thanks David! Solid advice 👍🙂
Incredibly essential video that covers one of the most important things - mindset. Because the only way you can become a good singer is to practice regularly for YEARS. The most hard thing to do is to not burn out to what you're doing, especially when you're thirsty of being able to do things that your favorite musicians are doing, not seeing that they are professionals who are showing their best of what they managed to accomplish in 5,6, 10 and even more years.
I love all of your videos so much in how informative they are and how much you genuinely care about the safety and health care that goes into practicing and performing safe vocals ive been trudging and struggling for the last 3 years and doing some for a couple days then forget for several months but for about the past 3 months when I stumbled upon this channel and watching and absorbing all of this stuff it’s making me more positive about my vocals and I’m still trying to find my sound but I think with what I’ve learned I’ll be closer sooner then I would be if I had not found you
I'm thankful for people like you who is super insightful and knows how to keep an honest voice for practice. I've been wanting to get better at singing ever since I was 14 but never truly seen my worth. I think this video will help me go a long way. Thank you again for this awesome video!
Thank you very much for these videos. I'm going to be starting the process of learning how to sing/scream properly and this video has been a big help, especially on the mental side of things. THANK YOU
I'm a beginner and very grateful for ur videos cuz they are easy for me to understand. Now I have something I can practice with and thanks to You I know how to start ☺️
Having been that idiot who almost wrecked his chords back in the day (I started coughing up blood during a garage performance with a band I was trying to join.) I gotta say your videos would’ve been a huge benefit when I was in my early teens. but what you said about the body’s ability to heal is too true. It actually took me over a decade to be able to do roars and screams again. (I was 13 when I injured myself and I couldn’t do extremes again till mid last year when I was 27. so literally just over a decade). but it’s strange cuz now my vocals have a particular sound to them that I struggle to describe. I’ve also noticed that my vocals are easier to initiate than ever. another thing is that i’ve found a way to use them in voiceover work. like how i’ve been developing a character that uses my deep roaring vocals to add emphasis when that character gets angry.
p.s. one very VERY good Wind-Down exercise is vocal yawning. if your students struggle to yawn, you can have them just look at videos of people yawning and their instinct to yawn will trigger. :)
did not saw the the video yet but i read the comments. a bit more than a month ago i thought i had to get to a point where i can practice/scream at least half an hour every day. i also did a lot of other stuff that includes a lot of voice too and guess what - my muscels gave in. just about to start practicing again im so glad i found your videos :)
Your videos have helped me take my screams to the next level and I am so grateful!! I absolutely love pushing my range and hearing all the weird ass noises I can make. Metal has saved my life and I will always be here. Now to make it out of Wyoming and find kindred souls
I’ve been doing false chords for 16ish years and I’ve picked up some bad habits along the way. I’m glad there are videos like yours out now. I’m starting to retrain my body and voce with better techniques and habits. We didn’t have very good videos in the early 2010’s haha I think I was in 8th grade at the time of learning, so I was between 13-14. I can say, one thing I’ve never been able to comprehend was fry screams and your videos have helped me make more progress in the past 4 days than I have in all of this time. I forget which video exactly, but you made a simple hand gesture and sound and it made sense. Seeing as I’ve been doing vocals for this long, it immediately made me realize that I had been adding tension/comprehension in the wrong area and a light went off in my head. I’ve already got a solid fry down now I’ve made the proper adjustments and got my body used to what it should actually be like and not whatever it was that I was doing before. Now I just have to spend the time slowly chipping away at it until it feels natural like my false chords. Tbh, a lot of my bad habits came from leaving my band, moving across the country and barely practicing after. Maybe I’d jam to a song here and there, but I can definitely feel and hear that don’t sound as good and it takes a little more effort now. I stopped using my diaphragm a lot so I gotta get that back in check lol but anyway, dude, thanks for making things so simple and right to the point.
Oh man the apparent lack of progress sure is frustrating sometimes. That why I started uploading my stuff, just so I have an easy way to compare where I am now to where I was before. And sometimes it sure feels like I'm stuck at the same spot, but looking back 6, 3 and sometimes even one month there's a big contrast haha. And everybody's different and progresses differently, so if you want to compare yourself to someone else, it should definitely be you from the past, there's no use in comparing you at day 30 with your favorite singer who's at 15 years of experience. So I highly recommend to keep absolutely everything you do!
The tips you have here are excellent, not just for screaming and singing but honestly anything. I teach dance/fitness and this totally applies to that as well. Good stuff. Thanks
I've found my clean singing has actually improved due to my growl-focus practice, and vice versa. It's a bit synergistic, which feels great. I'm curious to hear your take on inhale vocals, if you haven't made a video on that (I haven't looked).
That’s great to hear! All of our students work on melodic singing and screaming at the same time for exactly that reason 😊 Short answer about inhale vocals is they’re not safe and it’s not a matter of “if” you hurt yourself but “when”. You can’t control the amount of air pressure over your vocal cords when inhaling like you can when exhaling. We’ve had many a discussion about this in our community group so if you’re looking for a longer answer you can find it there!
All I've ever been able to do is inhales and I agree it's not a matter of "if" it's definitely "when" . I thought I was on top of the world with my inhales and one day the "when" hit me and I ended up tearing my throat all to shit . And now I sound horrible and it hurts any time I try to scream be it inhale or exhale😞😞
@@codylittle4018 I've been doing very crazy inhales for 18 years now. It should never ever hurt, you might get a dry feeling and need water because of the inward air flow, but you aren't using real vocal chords so you can't really damage anything unless you are doing them completely wrong. I can scream for hours and hours and my throat has never hurt. Maybe the first year when I started I had some scratchyness going on, but once you get control you aren't going to hurt yourself
@@ExtremeVocalInstitute 18 years inhaling and never had a problem. In fact I can do inwards better than some outward vocalists, annunciation is the hardest part, that's what took the longest. But inhaling hard literally makes a false vocal that doesn't use your chords or throat, it's the sound of the air. Maybe I got lucky on my abilities but I find it hard to find a perfect outward range, I'm more chesty and less heady when I do vocals.
I just wanna say, regardless of if you see this or not...This has been excellent help mentally and physically. Your positive outlook and advice is absolutely excellent and I can see myself applying it to more things than just vocals...This type of mentality works wonders for art or writing. I'll be revisiting this again that's for certain! Thank you again for the excellent opportunity to learn!
That’s why it’s very good to learn an instrument next to singing, if you’re passionate about making music. You can divide practice up into blocks of singing and blocks of practicing guitar (for instance, not saying I’m addicted to guitar or anything, really, I can easily go a few days without, well, hours at least 😅). Save the voice one day, save the hands another. If all the focus goes to the vocals only, it’s really easy to go too far and burn out your vocal chords. You could also buy a nintendo switch (again, not saying I’m addicted, I take breaks for food… sometimes 😂).
When I finally make a go of this, I'm going to head your way. This was an excellent video. Thank you for the advice and tips. I look forward to the day when I can make it to your institute. Peace bro.
It's cool to talk about vocal technique for metal and heavy rock. How does one create a sound that has a physical, animalistic core without riding this tiny set of muscles into tension and ultimate oblivion? Id like to figure out how to make a wider range of sounds. I have this notion that I don't actually sing with muscles or even with my vocal chords; I sing with my mind and breath and the vocal chords and voice box is the aperture through which the sound flows and is coloured.
I'm always warming up hours before I record or even on the days I'm not recording, I mean I warm up melodically first in every free 5 mins I have during work hours, also spend as many hrs quite or just resting whenever my body tells me to
Im 5 minutes in amd already so helpful. I ruin my vibrato concentrating to hard on controlling my fry to attempt tje high screams and pop my throat every day almost. Been wrecking the voice i started with trying metal aye. Not going back though im hooked
i used to work in loaders and dump trucks a few years back, over the course of a year i self taught myself how to do the vocals but never knowing how to warm up for such things, ill definitely be paying more attention to this kind of thing going on. but from what i learned on my own over time id say im not too bad, i have sang many songs to the tune of a growl my favourite song to practice with is arch enemy - war eternal. its definitely my favourite song by these guys but its also the only one i actually learned the words to so naturally i sang this one hundreds of times. one cool thing i found out is i can imitate a mountain lion's scream almost perfectly. ive scared a couple people because of this lmao. once was completely by accident. i found out if i practised too much i would get bad headaches, sometimes theyd get bad enough theyd become migraines. ill be following your channel from now on and hope to hear some more really good tips on practicing properly.
My goal lately is to get through 1 song every time I practice. If I can make it through 1 brand of sacrifice song or 1 shadow of intent song (they're in an easier register for me) then I've done well. I don't have the endurance to do harsh vocals for much longer than that yet but I'm working towards it. For now this is okay and better than I used to.
I always try to practice in the car with out music. I always record it on my phone/pc (if I’m at home) so I can hear it played back instead of in my head.
Really great tips here! I just a quick question, so these aren't really harsh vocals but how would someone do a thrash metal vocal style like singing raspy? (Metallica, Slayer, Testament, Overkill)
I lost my voice after trying to get my scream out right, ive taken so long trying to get a fry scream but i cant seem to get it out so i might just have to stick with my false chord for now but im so thankful i found this because it got to the point my throat felt scabby and thats when i would stop.
I used to sing in a metal band 10years ago, and im getting back to it now. I used to scream the hell out of myself in my car at each oportunity i had. Thats not good.... but now i have à 15min. Car ride to get home. Would that be a good moment like 3 to 5 time per week-end to practice warm ups and all the exercices you talk about?
Is making a setlist that’s about an hour and 15 minutes long (with interludes every 3-4 songs) a decent way to practice? I warm up first and then the first few songs on the list are more singing cleanly and gritty to make sure I’m warmed up completely
Is there someone here that practices both Screams and Clean vocals at a regular basis? If so, can you talk about your routine and overall experience about it?
A year late but I think I can; I usually practice a few clean warm up exercises first and then a few heavy/scream exercises. I then use specific songs to warm up and train my voice more (for heavy vocals, that is. I use Dragula by Rob Zombie because of the variance in using your false chords, there's some lighter distortion in the verses and some heavy stuff - not screaming - in the chorus, so it helps to warm up that kind of rough, growling sound you need for false chord screaming. I then start practicing with songs that either have a small amount of screaming, or have a manageable level of screaming (in terms of pitch, tone, intensity etc). Particularly I usually start with Blind by Korn because there are only 3 real screams in the song and the rest is distortion, and The Void by Parkway Drive, because it's a lower pitch throughout the song with a few pitch ups in the choruses and towards the end, but it's completely distorted throughout the whole song, which really warms up your false chords and by the end of the song they should be sufficiently warmed up and you can hold more extended screams. Now saying that, since I'm warmed up, I focus on strengthening; I try out songs I either know completely or are at least familiar with (a lot of Slipknot,Parkway Drive, I Prevail, Linkin Park etc). Those bands usually have a mix of clean and heavy vocals which I think is important because you can familiarise yourself with the transition between clean and heavy vocals. I also have singing lessons midweek and am part of an ensemble too, so I get *plenty* of practice with my clean vocals, so that helps with keeping my normal singing voice strong, which you will need for screaming. In my experience, you *really* should not push yourself in the early stages of your vocal development, especially with screaming. Learn to distort your voice first, get confident with that and then start practicing screaming. If you can tell you've potentially done some damage, stop but don't panic; you haven't trashed your voice, just overworked it. Take a few days off (3-4; your throat will kind of feel like it's covered in sandpaper and you'll want to constantly clear your throat, that's fine. If you can taste iron/blood, definitely stop, but again don't panic. Just take a few days off and let your voice/throat recover.)
@@Red_Beard2798 and do you think you're still evolving in both? that is my main struggle right now. I've been singing and screaming (false chord, couldn't learn fry scream yet, even though i tried a few times over the years) for several years now, i've reached a good level in both, but i slowly stopped evolving with just my normal routine, which consists on just casually singing/growling songs i like, which are usually the same 150 ones in my playlist. I feel i just can't get any better, even though i'm far from the level i wanted to reach (think Daniel Heiman from Lost Horizons and Miljenko Matijevic from Steelheart for cleans and Phil Bozeman from Whitechapel and Alex Terrible for screams - though i'm more concerned about my cleans). Do you have the same problem?
Amazing insight. Thank you so much for sharing this. I have one question - where and when do you recommend we practice? I live in an urban area with many neighbors who I'm sure do not appreciate my vocal practice. How can I put in the work that's needed to improve my vocals without disturbing others? Thanks again, and love the video series.
You're better off listening to bro on this video. I *used* to be able to do all kinds of pretty crazy vocals... but I was never happy with what I could do. I decided I could probably just try mixing in the more damaging stuff as well... and then when I did that I messed up big. Through trying to imitate vocal sounds that are clearly not healthy (think Corey Taylor on IOWA etc...). Now, years later I still can't ''find'' my easy, painless growls (that never got me hoarse) like I used to and will actually visit a doc since I'm losing my voice more and more often even just talking. And trust me: *re-learning* and getting rid of bad habits, especially with things that aren't under direct individual muscular control (like specific throat muscles) is hell... absolute hell. It's a lot harder than re-learning how to do a physical exercise for instance if you've done it with bad form.
I’ve only been practicing for about 3 months on my own, but I’m getting a hold on vocal fry. I’m still suckish cause I just started. But when I get the sound I want I get so stocked.
It gets extremely hard to pace yourself when you start getting some noticeable improvement. I’m still a novice but have noticed a little improvement and have to force myself to stop before my throat begins feeling stressed so that I can maximize the benefit of the work I put in.
Hello this is Sheldon Cooper and welcome to 'Fun with screams'! kind of vibe in the beginning :D just kissing, love your stuff dude! Did I just write 'just kissing'? You heard me!!!!!!!!
That definitely varies from person to person and the situation. If you’re frustrated with other things and go to practice it could lead to frustration with practice or it could be cathartic. The important thing is to read your body and make sure you don’t overdo it if you’re feeling particularly emotional!
@@ExtremeVocalInstitute wow, I did not expect a reply haha. Thanks. Definitely more cathartic than anything else. I and one of my buddies kinda realised my main problem is that I try to hard. When I had a bad day though I kinda just stop trying too hard and just go by "feel" I guess. It legitimately sound better in my opinion, especially my highs.
Any tips how to work on my highs? Usually it feels easier for me in the lower register and powerful but with highs that power is lacking and it’s very frustrating. Also how to project properly. Your content is very educational, I’ve been practicing harsh vocal for around 7-8 months and I’ve got a lot better thanks to your videos. Keep it up and keep spittin’ xd
Hi! Glad you’re enjoying the content, here’s a video about high screams! ua-cam.com/video/VwrhD8Ia_VM/v-deo.html We also have a couple videos on projection you can check this out here: vm.tiktok.com/ZMRRhn2SC/ We also have courses on both high screams and projection as part of our EVI Now program. You can learn more about that here: extremevocalinstitute.com/evi-now
I’m definitely guilty of just screaming along in my car without warming up, so I’m glad I found this to remind me how important warming up is
Me too😂
Haha yeah same. Idk how I haven't done permanent vocal damage yet given how much my throat ends up hurting. I guess I'm at least doing SOMETHING right if that's not happening lol
Me too. Tough to find spaces where I feel comfortable enough to do it honestly
Early on I found I was best when I first started when everything was fresh for all styles. Nowadays I definitely find higher heights by warming things up. Growls can still sound good without warmups but if I warm up clean voice first I MUST also warm up growls or it doesn’t work. Weird.
So whiskey and Marlboro reds aren’t a good warm up for some lows?
haha sure if you wanna be completely unable to speak when you're 50
not good for your voice but i vape so i cant say shit. just make sure you drink plenty of water
I’m crying🤣
Lol OK phil Anselmo
@@ij_misir1965 vaping was even worse for me than smoking, I haven't been able to scream or sing for 2 weeks because of vaping.. so now that im not vaping anymore I can finally get back to screaming
This has to be the most important video when it comes to screaming
Practice is definitely important! 😊 Thanks for watching!
I have probably seen most of the videos on youtube teaching screaming at this point, and the stuff you're releasing has been absolutely the best and most useful out there. Keep em' coming!
Thank you so much! We appreciate it!
Want to share the others that you got the most out of? I'm a life time metal fan but would like to learn the basics
Hi! If you are interested in extreme vocal lessons, welcome to my channel - ua-cam.com/channels/KR-bNKj5wSHo4nuuBrbnPw.html
I don’t know why more singers are learning this gold 😆 I’ve been singing choral music for 10 years (listening to slipknot, asking.. ect..) and I never thought I could do this… until learned and then practiced 😂 I have even MORE control with my vocals! What singer would value that??
You have such a calm, gentle voice. I keep having to remind myself you make screaming tutorials lol
You are criminally underrated. The algorithm gets to decide who pops off and not the quality of the videos, sad innit.
Much appreciated, glad you enjoy the content!
I'm practicing screaming since 2014 (for my own) and I a never saw a such informative video like this, this channel is gold for those people that practice screams 🤘🏻🔥
Thank you so much! We appreciate the compliment and thanks for watching!
Your emphasis on not just GO GO GOing is so important for me to hear. I'm super excited to get to where I need to be and rushing has been resulting is disappointing outcomes so you've made it clear that it's time to step back and refocus my efforts on learning how to walk before sprinting at 200bpm
I'm getting back into this after 10 years, recording at home and hit a wall hard. Got extremely frustrated and ended up throwing out my voice. Your videos have helped me so much getting me back on track, not only the break down of techniques and warm ups but just the advice to just chill out 🤙
Hell yeah! Glad to hear it, thanks for watching 😊
I’m trying to develop The Old School Death Metal. Vocals and kind of like that dissection Blackend death metal sound.
I came to learn how to distort my voice, crying with appreciation from the life advice ❤
I love this. I know in vocal therapy they didn't want more than an hour of vocal exercise a day. You got me to subscribe! You clearly know how to do it safe and healthy way
Absolutely, generally less is more if you’ve got a specific goal and have exercises in place to accomplish the goal! Obviously, there are instances like recording where you may have to bend the rules if you’re on a time crunch or have a limited amount of time but that’s also why we suggest people prep for that
Thanks for the subscribe and for watching! 😊
As someone with a Theatre degree, I'm surprised with how much of the techniques used for extreme vocals is very similar to all my acting and choir practices! When COVID hit I wasn't practicing a lot of breath support and am no longer in tune with my body. My goal for right now is to improve my breathing and relax more.
No.1 extreme vocals teacher in the galaxy! What a skill!
Appreciate the kind words, thank you!
This was THE video that got me to unlock my screams! I've always been a guitarist but tonight for the first time ever my vocals stood out as being good. Thank you 😊
I used to practice every day or at least 5 times a week. But I eventually learned that it's enough for me to practice two times a week that I give at least two days rest in between. Every since I started doing that I felt that I did way more progression in a shorter amount of time than I did when I was practicing every day.
So glad to hear you’ve seen more progression! That’s amazing! It’s truly awesome what structured time and rest can do for the body! 😊 Keep up the good work!
Your view on practicing little bits at a time and letting it strengthen and improve reminds me of training in the gym. People who thrash 2hr sessions every day in the gym tend to struggle to progress whereas taking it back to an hour a few days a week allows the body to recover. I guess the vocal muscles aren't any different from hitting the muscles in the gym.
Love the videos man keep it up 🔥
Yep! Same concept exactly. We use that comparison a LOT. Recovery is equally if not more important and being prepared to practice (warming up) is the equivalent of stretching and prepping your body in the gym for work!
The problem with that analogy is that most people who go to the gym aren’t working hard enough to progress, despite being there for 2 hours. If anything they are “too recovered” as much as that isn’t really a thing.
There is a minimum amount of effort you have to do to progress, as well as an upper limit you should stop short of.
To anyone interested in exercise, you can pretty much replace everything he said about training vocals with training your body. Your vocal chords are trained like any other muscle. Don't train too frequently, don't take long breaks from session to session (be as consistent as life allows), and do NOT train to failure. Blowing out your vocals from overtraining is the same concept as blowing out your shoulders from bench pressing too often.
Nailed it!
Excellent videos. Best content for extreme vocals in UA-cam. Love the structure of these videos, so detailed.
Thank you so much, we appreciate it! 😊
12 years of hardcore vocal and I’m self taught I learned over the years what your saying and I just seen this video and from my experience this knowledge your are teaching has helped me ten fold !!!!! Thank you so much brother 🙏
You could have a millions subscribers and I'd still say you were underrated. The way you talk and explain things is so nice and I'm looking forward to watching more of your videos! Already have like 5 saved! I'm an aspiring vocalist and can't wait to break into the scene! Keep up the great work!
I’m so glad I found this video, especially for free. Can’t thank you enough
So glad you enjoy the content, thank you for the kind words! 😁
First 2 min buddy has my exact routine down and I feel exactly like what he described
returning back to harsh vocals after about 3 years off them, you have helped a tonne, ill be watching all your vids as this is solid info and has helped me nip in the butt some bad practice habits
First video I've watched from y'all, and the first few minutes have already impressed me immensely with the presentation and mindfulness of the whole-body care approach. Excellent instruction!
Relearning everything again properly. You're an inspiration.
This guy is the Bob Ross of metal. Metal dudes are always the chillest dudes off the mic.
There is a huge amount of practical, general life advice packed into the structure of this video. My mind is blown.
This guy is really good at articulating his words and explaining things in a way that is easy to follow. I have add, and have no problem listening to him
The advice on not deleting your recordings that you aren't pleased with it to keep it and use that later to see how much you have improved. I taught myself this and it's clearer to see where you're improving ECT. That's why I choose a handful of different levels of difficulty to constantly improve and have past examples of where I was at compared to where my development grew. It's a great book mark on where your progress is! Great advice.
I mean the same group of variety of style songs to practice *
it’s definitely good to be able to reference back to see your improvement! even if you never show anyone, it’s cool for your own personal satisfaction 😁
@@ExtremeVocalInstitute right!!! I even ended up having older recordings grow on me after I listened to it a few times. Especially , when you think about how well you did for how many attempts you made. Sometimes I don't catch that unless I got listen to it a few times. I didn't even think about the fact I was doing that until I saw your video and was like "he's totally right! That makes so much sense!" Lol
Bro you speak with the heart. I feel it. Thanks for being yourself, you are amazing!
You could be a motivational speaker of some sort for people with mental health issues, when you said the thing about seeing how far you’ve come and not deleting old recordings. I started to think about life and started crying legit. I’m never proud of how far I’ve come. Lessons for the future.
This is great advice in general! I'm trying to learn metal vocals and guitar. Much more frustrated with guitar than vocals and the talk about getting stuck, and trying something different absolutely resonated with me.
Thanks David! Solid advice 👍🙂
you're amazing thank you.
Incredibly essential video that covers one of the most important things - mindset. Because the only way you can become a good singer is to practice regularly for YEARS. The most hard thing to do is to not burn out to what you're doing, especially when you're thirsty of being able to do things that your favorite musicians are doing, not seeing that they are professionals who are showing their best of what they managed to accomplish in 5,6, 10 and even more years.
these are really good tips, tips that no one or videos out there have gave me. Taking it slow and being patience. This is gold
Thank you
I love all of your videos so much in how informative they are and how much you genuinely care about the safety and health care that goes into practicing and performing safe vocals ive been trudging and struggling for the last 3 years and doing some for a couple days then forget for several months but for about the past 3 months when I stumbled upon this channel and watching and absorbing all of this stuff it’s making me more positive about my vocals and I’m still trying to find my sound but I think with what I’ve learned I’ll be closer sooner then I would be if I had not found you
Ps.... I was the 666 like for the video 🤟🏻
I'm thankful for people like you who is super insightful and knows how to keep an honest voice for practice. I've been wanting to get better at singing ever since I was 14 but never truly seen my worth. I think this video will help me go a long way. Thank you again for this awesome video!
Thanks for the kind words!!
Thank you very much for these videos. I'm going to be starting the process of learning how to sing/scream properly and this video has been a big help, especially on the mental side of things. THANK YOU
Hi! If you are interested in extreme vocal lessons, welcome to my channel - ua-cam.com/channels/KR-bNKj5wSHo4nuuBrbnPw.html
I'm a beginner and very grateful for ur videos cuz they are easy for me to understand. Now I have something I can practice with and thanks to You I know how to start ☺️
Thanks for the info man, appreciate it
Having been that idiot who almost wrecked his chords back in the day (I started coughing up blood during a garage performance with a band I was trying to join.)
I gotta say your videos would’ve been a huge benefit when I was in my early teens. but what you said about the body’s ability to heal is too true.
It actually took me over a decade to be able to do roars and screams again. (I was 13 when I injured myself and I couldn’t do extremes again till mid last year when I was 27. so literally just over a decade).
but it’s strange cuz now my vocals have a particular sound to them that I struggle to describe.
I’ve also noticed that my vocals are easier to initiate than ever.
another thing is that i’ve found a way to use them in voiceover work. like how i’ve been developing a character that uses my deep roaring vocals to add emphasis when that character gets angry.
p.s. one very VERY good Wind-Down exercise is vocal yawning. if your students struggle to yawn, you can have them just look at videos of people yawning and their instinct to yawn will trigger. :)
Congrats on 80K!
You are definitely the best vocal teacher by fair that i found!!!
did not saw the the video yet but i read the comments. a bit more than a month ago i thought i had to get to a point where i can practice/scream at least half an hour every day. i also did a lot of other stuff that includes a lot of voice too and guess what - my muscels gave in. just about to start practicing again im so glad i found your videos :)
Your videos have helped me take my screams to the next level and I am so grateful!! I absolutely love pushing my range and hearing all the weird ass noises I can make. Metal has saved my life and I will always be here. Now to make it out of Wyoming and find kindred souls
I’m a sprinter and needed to see this video
I’ve been doing false chords for 16ish years and I’ve picked up some bad habits along the way. I’m glad there are videos like yours out now. I’m starting to retrain my body and voce with better techniques and habits. We didn’t have very good videos in the early 2010’s haha I think I was in 8th grade at the time of learning, so I was between 13-14. I can say, one thing I’ve never been able to comprehend was fry screams and your videos have helped me make more progress in the past 4 days than I have in all of this time. I forget which video exactly, but you made a simple hand gesture and sound and it made sense. Seeing as I’ve been doing vocals for this long, it immediately made me realize that I had been adding tension/comprehension in the wrong area and a light went off in my head. I’ve already got a solid fry down now I’ve made the proper adjustments and got my body used to what it should actually be like and not whatever it was that I was doing before. Now I just have to spend the time slowly chipping away at it until it feels natural like my false chords. Tbh, a lot of my bad habits came from leaving my band, moving across the country and barely practicing after. Maybe I’d jam to a song here and there, but I can definitely feel and hear that don’t sound as good and it takes a little more effort now. I stopped using my diaphragm a lot so I gotta get that back in check lol but anyway, dude, thanks for making things so simple and right to the point.
Oh man the apparent lack of progress sure is frustrating sometimes. That why I started uploading my stuff, just so I have an easy way to compare where I am now to where I was before. And sometimes it sure feels like I'm stuck at the same spot, but looking back 6, 3 and sometimes even one month there's a big contrast haha. And everybody's different and progresses differently, so if you want to compare yourself to someone else, it should definitely be you from the past, there's no use in comparing you at day 30 with your favorite singer who's at 15 years of experience. So I highly recommend to keep absolutely everything you do!
The tips you have here are excellent, not just for screaming and singing but honestly anything. I teach dance/fitness and this totally applies to that as well. Good stuff. Thanks
I've found my clean singing has actually improved due to my growl-focus practice, and vice versa. It's a bit synergistic, which feels great.
I'm curious to hear your take on inhale vocals, if you haven't made a video on that (I haven't looked).
That’s great to hear! All of our students work on melodic singing and screaming at the same time for exactly that reason 😊
Short answer about inhale vocals is they’re not safe and it’s not a matter of “if” you hurt yourself but “when”. You can’t control the amount of air pressure over your vocal cords when inhaling like you can when exhaling.
We’ve had many a discussion about this in our community group so if you’re looking for a longer answer you can find it there!
All I've ever been able to do is inhales and I agree it's not a matter of "if" it's definitely "when" . I thought I was on top of the world with my inhales and one day the "when" hit me and I ended up tearing my throat all to shit . And now I sound horrible and it hurts any time I try to scream be it inhale or exhale😞😞
@@codylittle4018 I've been doing very crazy inhales for 18 years now. It should never ever hurt, you might get a dry feeling and need water because of the inward air flow, but you aren't using real vocal chords so you can't really damage anything unless you are doing them completely wrong. I can scream for hours and hours and my throat has never hurt. Maybe the first year when I started I had some scratchyness going on, but once you get control you aren't going to hurt yourself
@@ExtremeVocalInstitute 18 years inhaling and never had a problem. In fact I can do inwards better than some outward vocalists, annunciation is the hardest part, that's what took the longest. But inhaling hard literally makes a false vocal that doesn't use your chords or throat, it's the sound of the air. Maybe I got lucky on my abilities but I find it hard to find a perfect outward range, I'm more chesty and less heady when I do vocals.
Thank you for high quality in depths lessons best help I’ve found online
for one fucking year didnt understand how to even fry scream and now i am trying to discover the false chord for the art i love
Dude the way you explain things is spot on ! Definitely been through my fair amount of videos around vocal training,keep them coming dude ! 😁
appreciate it! glad you dig the videos!
Hi! If you are interested in extreme vocal lessons, welcome to my channel - ua-cam.com/channels/KR-bNKj5wSHo4nuuBrbnPw.html
I just wanna say, regardless of if you see this or not...This has been excellent help mentally and physically. Your positive outlook and advice is absolutely excellent and I can see myself applying it to more things than just vocals...This type of mentality works wonders for art or writing. I'll be revisiting this again that's for certain! Thank you again for the excellent opportunity to learn!
This is amazing, you're amazing. I'm so motivated to do this!
Amazing person, thanks so much man..
Thank you for this video, it was like therapy
Thank you for the video broni
Best vocal coach on UA-cam
That’s why it’s very good to learn an instrument next to singing, if you’re passionate about making music. You can divide practice up into blocks of singing and blocks of practicing guitar (for instance, not saying I’m addicted to guitar or anything, really, I can easily go a few days without, well, hours at least 😅). Save the voice one day, save the hands another. If all the focus goes to the vocals only, it’s really easy to go too far and burn out your vocal chords. You could also buy a nintendo switch (again, not saying I’m addicted, I take breaks for food… sometimes 😂).
Hahaha easy to lose track of time with the Switch for sure 🥲
When I finally make a go of this, I'm going to head your way. This was an excellent video. Thank you for the advice and tips. I look forward to the day when I can make it to your institute. Peace bro.
hell yeah thanks for taking the time to watch!
It's cool to talk about vocal technique for metal and heavy rock. How does one create a sound that has a physical, animalistic core without riding this tiny set of muscles into tension and ultimate oblivion?
Id like to figure out how to make a wider range of sounds. I have this notion that I don't actually sing with muscles or even with my vocal chords; I sing with my mind and breath and the vocal chords and voice box is the aperture through which the sound flows and is coloured.
I'm always warming up hours before I record or even on the days I'm not recording, I mean I warm up melodically first in every free 5 mins I have during work hours, also spend as many hrs quite or just resting whenever my body tells me to
Great video! Thank you.
This was extremely insightful. Thank you!
Im 5 minutes in amd already so helpful. I ruin my vibrato concentrating to hard on controlling my fry to attempt tje high screams and pop my throat every day almost. Been wrecking the voice i started with trying metal aye. Not going back though im hooked
Metal screamers are some of the most chill people in the world!
Im too nervous to practice at home so i warm up while walking to my motorbike and scream numberplates and signs untill i reach my destination 😅
Hahaha, @00:23 for a second I thought you said "what the fuck it should be on," I was like, "damn, calm down a bit..." lol!
glad i ended up watching this, great discussion to have
Amazing video, amazing articulation and I'm glad that I'm subbed now. Thank you!
Dope
i used to work in loaders and dump trucks a few years back, over the course of a year i self taught myself how to do the vocals but never knowing how to warm up for such things, ill definitely be paying more attention to this kind of thing going on. but from what i learned on my own over time id say im not too bad, i have sang many songs to the tune of a growl my favourite song to practice with is arch enemy - war eternal. its definitely my favourite song by these guys but its also the only one i actually learned the words to so naturally i sang this one hundreds of times. one cool thing i found out is i can imitate a mountain lion's scream almost perfectly. ive scared a couple people because of this lmao. once was completely by accident. i found out if i practised too much i would get bad headaches, sometimes theyd get bad enough theyd become migraines. ill be following your channel from now on and hope to hear some more really good tips on practicing properly.
great instructional video bro thank you!🤘😎
Thanks for the content! 👍👍👍
Wow! Thank you so much!
My goal lately is to get through 1 song every time I practice. If I can make it through 1 brand of sacrifice song or 1 shadow of intent song (they're in an easier register for me) then I've done well. I don't have the endurance to do harsh vocals for much longer than that yet but I'm working towards it. For now this is okay and better than I used to.
dude. so helpful. thank you
I always try to practice in the car with out music. I always record it on my phone/pc (if I’m at home) so I can hear it played back instead of in my head.
Really great tips here! I just a quick question, so these aren't really harsh vocals but how would someone do a thrash metal vocal style like singing raspy? (Metallica, Slayer, Testament, Overkill)
I lost my voice after trying to get my scream out right, ive taken so long trying to get a fry scream but i cant seem to get it out so i might just have to stick with my false chord for now but im so thankful i found this because it got to the point my throat felt scabby and thats when i would stop.
Thanks man, i needed that ;)
I used to sing in a metal band 10years ago, and im getting back to it now. I used to scream the hell out of myself in my car at each oportunity i had. Thats not good.... but now i have à 15min. Car ride to get home. Would that be a good moment like 3 to 5 time per week-end to practice warm ups and all the exercices you talk about?
Is making a setlist that’s about an hour and 15 minutes long (with interludes every 3-4 songs) a decent way to practice? I warm up first and then the first few songs on the list are more singing cleanly and gritty to make sure I’m warmed up completely
Is there someone here that practices both Screams and Clean vocals at a regular basis? If so, can you talk about your routine and overall experience about it?
A year late but I think I can; I usually practice a few clean warm up exercises first and then a few heavy/scream exercises. I then use specific songs to warm up and train my voice more (for heavy vocals, that is. I use Dragula by Rob Zombie because of the variance in using your false chords, there's some lighter distortion in the verses and some heavy stuff - not screaming - in the chorus, so it helps to warm up that kind of rough, growling sound you need for false chord screaming.
I then start practicing with songs that either have a small amount of screaming, or have a manageable level of screaming (in terms of pitch, tone, intensity etc). Particularly I usually start with Blind by Korn because there are only 3 real screams in the song and the rest is distortion, and The Void by Parkway Drive, because it's a lower pitch throughout the song with a few pitch ups in the choruses and towards the end, but it's completely distorted throughout the whole song, which really warms up your false chords and by the end of the song they should be sufficiently warmed up and you can hold more extended screams.
Now saying that, since I'm warmed up, I focus on strengthening; I try out songs I either know completely or are at least familiar with (a lot of Slipknot,Parkway Drive, I Prevail, Linkin Park etc). Those bands usually have a mix of clean and heavy vocals which I think is important because you can familiarise yourself with the transition between clean and heavy vocals. I also have singing lessons midweek and am part of an ensemble too, so I get *plenty* of practice with my clean vocals, so that helps with keeping my normal singing voice strong, which you will need for screaming.
In my experience, you *really* should not push yourself in the early stages of your vocal development, especially with screaming. Learn to distort your voice first, get confident with that and then start practicing screaming. If you can tell you've potentially done some damage, stop but don't panic; you haven't trashed your voice, just overworked it. Take a few days off (3-4; your throat will kind of feel like it's covered in sandpaper and you'll want to constantly clear your throat, that's fine. If you can taste iron/blood, definitely stop, but again don't panic. Just take a few days off and let your voice/throat recover.)
@@Red_Beard2798 and do you think you're still evolving in both? that is my main struggle right now. I've been singing and screaming (false chord, couldn't learn fry scream yet, even though i tried a few times over the years) for several years now, i've reached a good level in both, but i slowly stopped evolving with just my normal routine, which consists on just casually singing/growling songs i like, which are usually the same 150 ones in my playlist. I feel i just can't get any better, even though i'm far from the level i wanted to reach (think Daniel Heiman from Lost Horizons and Miljenko Matijevic from Steelheart for cleans and Phil Bozeman from Whitechapel and Alex Terrible for screams - though i'm more concerned about my cleans). Do you have the same problem?
Amazing insight. Thank you so much for sharing this. I have one question - where and when do you recommend we practice? I live in an urban area with many neighbors who I'm sure do not appreciate my vocal practice. How can I put in the work that's needed to improve my vocals without disturbing others? Thanks again, and love the video series.
Bro are you psychologist? That was pretty professional gad dammit
Great advice and great video!
Hey great video man!
You're better off listening to bro on this video. I *used* to be able to do all kinds of pretty crazy vocals... but I was never happy with what I could do. I decided I could probably just try mixing in the more damaging stuff as well... and then when I did that I messed up big. Through trying to imitate vocal sounds that are clearly not healthy (think Corey Taylor on IOWA etc...). Now, years later I still can't ''find'' my easy, painless growls (that never got me hoarse) like I used to and will actually visit a doc since I'm losing my voice more and more often even just talking. And trust me: *re-learning* and getting rid of bad habits, especially with things that aren't under direct individual muscular control (like specific throat muscles) is hell... absolute hell. It's a lot harder than re-learning how to do a physical exercise for instance if you've done it with bad form.
Guru Jedi David is wise!
I’ve only been practicing for about 3 months on my own, but I’m getting a hold on vocal fry. I’m still suckish cause I just started. But when I get the sound I want I get so stocked.
this is solid advice
i abide this knowledge my dear lord.
Wonderful information friend
It gets extremely hard to pace yourself when you start getting some noticeable improvement. I’m still a novice but have noticed a little improvement and have to force myself to stop before my throat begins feeling stressed so that I can maximize the benefit of the work I put in.
Thanks, with the help of this video I achieved my Fry sream on the wait to school.😅
Hello this is Sheldon Cooper and welcome to 'Fun with screams'! kind of vibe in the beginning :D just kissing, love your stuff dude! Did I just write 'just kissing'? You heard me!!!!!!!!
"Your mental state helps"
So me practicing after having a mental breakdown is good or bad???
That definitely varies from person to person and the situation.
If you’re frustrated with other things and go to practice it could lead to frustration with practice or it could be cathartic. The important thing is to read your body and make sure you don’t overdo it if you’re feeling particularly emotional!
@@ExtremeVocalInstitute wow, I did not expect a reply haha. Thanks.
Definitely more cathartic than anything else. I and one of my buddies kinda realised my main problem is that I try to hard.
When I had a bad day though I kinda just stop trying too hard and just go by "feel" I guess. It legitimately sound better in my opinion, especially my highs.
@@__k9 you’re definitely not alone there, that happens to a lot of people!
Any tips how to work on my highs? Usually it feels easier for me in the lower register and powerful but with highs that power is lacking and it’s very frustrating. Also how to project properly. Your content is very educational, I’ve been practicing harsh vocal for around 7-8 months and I’ve got a lot better thanks to your videos. Keep it up and keep spittin’ xd
Hi! Glad you’re enjoying the content, here’s a video about high screams!
ua-cam.com/video/VwrhD8Ia_VM/v-deo.html
We also have a couple videos on projection you can check this out here:
vm.tiktok.com/ZMRRhn2SC/
We also have courses on both high screams and projection as part of our EVI Now program. You can learn more about that here: extremevocalinstitute.com/evi-now