False Cord Tutorial IV - False Fold Over Falsetto - Vocal Distortion Tutorials by Aliki Katriou
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- Опубліковано 23 вер 2020
- The fourth tutorial in a series about false vocal fold distortion. This video focuses on developing and achieving vocal fry through a breath shift rather than squeezing your true vocal folds.
If you'd like a lesson please visit my website www.aliki.katriou.com :)
If you'd like to sign up to my ACCs: landing.mailerlite.com/webfor...
If you're interested in exploring distortions, check out my false cord & vocal fry tutorial series!
If you have any questions please leave them in the comments section and I will get back to you ^.^
I'm a metal singer and singing teacher. I specialize in distortions - what people would call false cord, vocal fry, screaming, growling, grunting, grit, rasp, yelling. Basically, vocal texture!
Find me on social media:
Instagram - / aliki.katriou_vocals
Facebook - / alikikatriouvocals
Also, check out my own band and other music projects:
Eight Lives Down - www.eightlivesdown.com/
Desolate Plains
Facebook - / desolateplainsband
UA-cam - / @desolateplainsband
Tattered Pages
Facebook - / tatteredpagesgroup
UA-cam - / @tatteredpages5763
AKKT
akkt.bandcamp.com/releases
![[柴犬ASMR]曼玉Manyu&小白Bai 毛发护理Spa asmr](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/0TsXQ7z2Dh4/mqdefault.jpg)
My favorite human being is back!!!!!
O.O oooo
👍👍
Learning that metal vocalists sing in falsetto is absolutely mindblowing
Also, it's funny to think how it'd sound without the distortion
You should hear my band's rehearsals when we're just being lazy and I decide to do everything clean xD
@@AlikiKatriou :)))))
I’ve been screaming four years and decided to do a complete vocal over haul, you’re a legend for these, they’re the best on UA-cam !
:D aww thank you ^^
by far the best youtube channel about screaming...
and that specific lesson made it A LOT clearer on my mind! thanks!
*joy* Thank you ^^
wow, that bit at 7:50 is such a great demonstration of how the distortion works
thank you ^^
I just want to thank you, I've been wanting to learn how to use my false chords and scream for over a decade, since I was a teenager. I've watched dozens of tutorials, and you finally made it make sense to me. You're a legend, and I'll recommend your videos to anyone who wants to learn! Thank you again!
Good man!! Go spread the word! XD
Thank you so much ^^ I hope it's making more sense and beginning to work for you :)
I just gotta let you know, I was just in a google hole trying figure out how exactly to use false vocal folds and this video popped up just as I was getting really god damn frustrated that nothing would explain it. Not only did you explain the question I had, but also a lot of other ones I've had over the years, and I can't thank you enough 🙏🙏🙏
Oh I feel for being in a google hole trying to figure this stuff out XD I'm glad it answered some questions ^.^
Did you at 7:50 just switch from chest voice to falsetto range all while keeping your false chords perfectly activated? That's insaaaaaane.
Yup, took some time to learn but it's useful to demonstrate so people can hear the difference :)
No idea how this happened, but I just kept practicing my false chords and after half a year I am now able to activate my false chords on falcetto! I am so thankful to you for these tutorials!
Woohooo - good job :D
This is like finishing a season in netflix of a very good show and now you have to wait for the next season...
You're incredibly strange and I'm all for it. Great tutorial series, it's really helped with my distortion. Cheers!
That 7:50 sections is incredible.
Activating each vocal set one after the other and then going from constriction to full release on each vocal chord "set" separatly.
I had a lot of fun discovering and practicing that XD
I made it this far into your lovely tutorial series and finally around the 2:56 mark my dog started to cry at my singing/screaming LOL I love the metal community
XD hehehe
Holy fuck...i had no clue such a source existed for this. I was certain it was a topic to be factually explored, but like...what a great day c:
:D
The gauntlet is thrown down on this one. I'll be back in a month or two 😆
That "na-hah" at 10:14 is probably the second cutest thing on UA-cam right after the video with the huge labrador retriever being friends with the kitten... you know, that one video.
XD
You are the Aurora of Metal ❤️ Really love the energy
This was mind blowing for me, as a self taught I always had troubles with the power and the pitch.
Now I now the secret of the falsetto, thank you very much
Haha, thank you. Yeah, figuring out falsetto was a game changer to my tone and how dynamic it could sound ^^
7:00 to 8:00 and 9:53 omg .. that's IT. Totally makes sense! Finally after a few years of trying to figure it out. I knew I was missing something. Thank you for sharing this. Thank the metal gods for UA-cam otherwise I'd forever sound like a dying pig like at 9:10
XD Dying pigs can sound pretty awesome I'm sure...
THANK YOU 🤘, as someone who was classically trained 1st tenor, I was struggling Soo much with false cord without killing my voice, as soon as you mentioned activating false cord from falsetto.. it was natural and effortless!🤘 And sickly guttural🤘🤘 and I was sliding from R&B singer to DEMON quickly 🤘. Thank you soo much!🤘
Wooohoo!!! :D
You just blew my mind, I knew regular range exercises was a reason I wasn’t hitting certain screams all the time but this just explained it, with hand motions to help my fold / mind coordination sync up 😊 thank you!!!!
Yaaay, I'm glad it clicked :D
@@AlikiKatriou I need lessons from you soon, tour coming 😬
@@officialhush Oooo fun times!!
Dude, you've saved my ass right when I need it. I had the sound right, good false chord engagement, I'd been working on my mixed voice/blending/bridging, but I couldn't figure out how to incorporate my chest voice into plain distortion and growls, but you made it click in my head. Basically I just use more of my Nick Cave/soul/country voice with a heap more air 😂 thank you so so much!! Being a Contralto who's really good with low airy free vocals, it's technically and physically not so difficult, but without the right information I could never achieve my full potential 🤟🏻
Yaaay, congratulations 😁
OH MY GOOOD!!! Finaly I understand it. You are the best teacher out there for sure, congratulations!
Isn't she just?!
thank you ^^
@@to_boldly_roll XD
I love the way it is explained! It’s super helpful!!!❤ 🤘🏽
You are amazing!!!! Your tips helping me soo much!!😊
^.^ glad to hear it ^.^
Holy shit so much thanks for those videos! I have learned screaming and growling vocals a few times over already, but everytime after I take a bit of a break in practising(because life gets in the way or something or other) they just vanish from my muscle memory and I have to spend a few painful days relearning them from ground up, thanks to your tutorials those few days were reduced to a few hours and they are almost completely back :D
Yaaay!! I remember trying to get back into harsh vocals after breaks years ago; it's really difficult if you just rely on feel rather than knowing what's really going on. I hope this helps!
You should make playlists! Great tutorials by the way. I've seen my fair share of tutorials all over the place and yours seem to be clearer than most. Specially the "Breath Distortion vs False Cords" one. Also you've got some personality. I've already recommended you lots! Keep the good content going!
+1 on all you said! :)
Thank you ^^
You are one of the best teachers!
Tried this exercise and it worked like a charm.
yaaaaaay :D
Love your work Aliki!
Thank you!
Loving this channel so much, best explanations I have seen, can't wait for more of the fry videos
coming up next!
Amazing video series on this dude. And I have watched many!❤
Thank you!!
This was really helpful! Thank you!
Thank you soooo much your toturials are the best an the most use full
The best! :D Thank you for your videos, Aliki. :) Your explanations are always so clear and easy. Step by step, I love it.
Incredible channel! It is helping me a lot... Thanks for the great content!
:D
Returning back to this video after a lot of experience with this. Here is a tip for anyone struggling with false fold over falsetto.... instead of falsetto just try taking voice out of your false fold/throat singing. So instead of full voice you use for throat singing try to remove voice like you are going to whisper the words instead of speaking them. This will help you get a metal style growl. Once you get that growl by using a whisper coordination, keep THAT coordination and add back your voice as much as you can while maintaining your metal growls. The more voice you can add back in will give it more power and loudness. Thinking of false cord as a whisper coordination instead of a falsetto coordination really helped me pinpoint it and then you just practice as much voice back as you can and work on different amounts of airflow and resonance in different areas to adjust the sound. Whats cool is once you get this you can change your voice under the distortion in unique ways to get cool variations on your vocal distortion. I also would note that if you use more voice you will use less air, and if you use more air you will use less voice with this and this can change your style in cool ways.
Yes to this. I didn't opt for whispering because different people whisper in very different ways physiologically. I am curious: how long did you experiment on a whisper? Did you have a preferred vowel? Did you work your whisper clean or was it always simultaneously with the false vocal folds?
@@AlikiKatriou The whisper coordination for me being more apparent as I got better at throat singing because I was having trouble switching between throat singing and growling while keeping the false cords engaged AND not having fry/vocal folds take over in the process. Initially I try to just take voice out but when I added voice back in it was hard to maintain the false cord with voice instead of doing more fry. So learning to keep voice and keep the false cords it eventually clicked that I needed to vocalize the words but just less than normal chest voice. So that's where whispering came in instead of taking voice out entirely.
Now to be very clear, we don't want to whisper growl, but his is kind of a bridge between throat singing and the more fully voiced death metal growl . It's learning the coordination of the growl from throat singing without going in very loud and shouty first but learning the ratio of voice to air you need and keeping the false cords engaged. You can start with the whsiper then push more air / more voice to build that coordination louder and stronger over time.
Finally, after building a louder stronger growl up from that, I then learned to go in from full singing or shouting the words and simply layering the false cord distortion over it. So in the end you are just layering the distortion over a louder singing / shouting voice.... I just worked UP TO THAT by strengthening the coordination needed for it through the initial whisper coordination.
So step by step:
1) throat singing
2) throat singing -> "whisper" growl
3) "whisper growl" + more air/voice/breath support = loud growl
4) sing + layering loud growl = final growl
5) scream/shout growl - this is beyond what you should normally do but ok sparingly. basically you can full on shout loudly and layer the growl into it. it's the same as shouting so its taxing to the voice and should not be attempted all the time or you will hurt your voice.
@@AlikiKatriou Wrote you a novel, but forgot to answer your question about vowel to use. An "ooooo" sound works well. like the "oo" in the word food. It's also fun to add in r sound like "rrrr" from the "oo" because that engages more arytenoid cartilage and changes the tone which sounds pretty cool, hehe.
@@XwoooahX Thank you for the detailed response! I love that you opted for an "oo" vowel, that's probably a really good choice!
You are amazing! Thank you
Omg that octave higher tip was the best advice! I mean i perfected all previous steps and still didnt get that metal sound. And then i try octave higher and suddenly i can do it. Thanks!
Wooohooo :D Thank you!
i love your personality so much and your tutorials are actually very useful!!! thank you very very much
thank you!
She's back!
^^
So funny, I tried this waking up this morning and got it. It suddenly clicked with me that I had been doing my false cord harsh vocals this way for the past few days already because it was the only way I could get proper air flow and make a harsh vocal sound as opposed to Mongolian throat singing sound. But before watching this I had no way to understand what I was actually doing. :)
What's cool is I figured out how to go from clean singing falsetto directly into false cord falsetto and it just works so much better to get the cleanest growls without as much trial and error. So even though I was doing it, understanding the pitch and falsetto is extremely helpful. I'm not a singer and I have no vocal training so I would never know how to describe it until watching this. I just am learning this as a hobby. But anyway, thank you!
I'm so in shock to know how this works! thank you thank you thank you! you are the best at teaching, i've seen other videos but they aren't very helpful, yours are on another great level
Thank you very much ^^
Great, now I'm ready. Thanks.
:D
Yay I’m the thousandth “Like”! Thank you for your work :) 🙏
Hi, I really like your work here, thanks for everything, thanks to you I might be able to do Flase Cord, I just activated them
My fry scream are great, but I need more low, and you offer great explanations, so thank you
yaaaay, thank you :D
I love you 🖤 thanks
the oooo was the winner for sure! Looking forward to some grit tutorials, I can do the fry but I am afraid of not putting it correctly to my singing and I don't want to hurt my voice, I am never sure how you add it, I do it, but not always pain free hehe, I need a sure road towards it, I bet you would be really good at explaining.
"Grit" is light false fold. I'm planning on making tutorials for that but I need to build the false fold tutorials first as they are a necessary step :)
@@AlikiKatriou that is a revelation... Will be waiting then... Thank you! ❤️
So Many Things To Learn Whoa
When my nephew experienced surprise+admiration at the age of 2 years old, he used to growl spontaneously kind of "WAaAaaaAaAaaow" very fat over his tiny baby voice .... That was Amazing ! so easy !
XD
I love your videos, thank you so much for what youre doing.
One question: for how many minutes do you recomend a beguinner practising fals chord distortion?
señora la amo
Hi! Thank you very much for this tutorials! You are the one and only metal vocalist on youtube, that actually helped with your in-depth explanations (especially breath distortion video). By any chance, will there be in future tutorial for deathcore wet gutturals ( Like Austin Dickey, Dickey Allen and Ben Duerr do) ?
Oooo, I would love to do videos about that. I'll make a note and see if I can build up to them ^^
@@AlikiKatriou Thanks a lot!
Your tutorials are so helpful! I've finally been able to isolate and use my false chords for the first time.
I do have one question though. When I try to use falsetto and then add the false chords, I feel a sort of vocal "break" in a downward motion. As if I abruptly went over the passagio. My voice abruptly drops down the octave without my larynx moving at all really. Is this normal, or is there something else I should be doing?
Yup, that's normal! Welcome to the muscle fibers shared between your true vocal folds and your false vocal folds - it's annoying isn't it >.< You'll have to figure out how to stay on pitch... That being said, the next set of false fold tutorials is really going to focus on this, so don't worry too much!
Wow! Falsetto! This works for my false cord. It does not hurt. Thanks a lot miss pretty. Btw you look like Dawn Zulueta, a famous female movie actress in the Philippines.
:D thank you ^^
You should have millions of subscribers. I’m a very high baritone /tenor. I sing uplifting songs, but want to add false cords to my voice. I’ve been trying this and it it seems to come from my chest.bis this right or wrong? I save all your videos.
Thank you :) If it feels ok to you, I wouldn't worry about it. Most sensations we feel when singing are sympathetic vibrations (for example our chest isn't a resonance space because it isn't empty but our bones vibrate in response so we feel stuff in our chest sometimes). Because of this, they aren't necessarily giving us particularly useful information on the level of ""right/wrong". If it's working for you, it's feeling ok and you have no loss of range, that's a good sign.
Hi Aliki! Apologies for my newbie question, but does this mainly apply to the kind of distortion you get from the heavy exasperated sigh, or does it also apply to throat singing/kargyraa style death metal vocals? I know some of the guys on the FB vocal groups tend to refer to the throat singing distortion as slam vocals, which is pretty much what I'm doing these days. Any help would be awesome!
P.s. I'd love to book a lesson with you some time in the future to clear up a few little niggles I'm having. Keep up the awesome work!
Yeah, make a note of any and all questions you have and we'll see how many we can answer in a lesson XD
I'm not sure what kind of tone you have in mind but unless you're thinking the Hu & Tengger Cavalry I can't think of anyone using kargyraa tone... However, it applies to both in a way. It's less an exercise about tone and more an exercise requiring skill. If you can find this sound you can learn healthy lows, if you can't find it you're likely to get "stuck" in your lows. That's quite oversimplified but I don't know if it gives you a hint of the answer...
@@AlikiKatriou ah I think I've confidently got the kargyraa sound down. I like to compress it so it sounds more like Phil Bozeman or Alex Terrible's lows. But yeah, I'll write down some questions. Looking forward to a lesson with you 😁🤘
@@HarryTadayon Sounds like fun! ^^
At 10:44 you say that low tones require you to be "very good at your falsetto down there." I'm not from a singing background, so in this case are you using falsetto to mean just decompressed cords, or is there something more to it? I've never heard falsetto applied to anything other than very high head voice. Thanks!
Hopefully this will makes sense. We can talk about vocal registers in 2 main ways: as a sound quality and as a physiological/anatomical event. Most singing teachers are doing the sound quality one. I go for anatomy. For something to qualify as a vocal register it needs to a) engage the vocal folds in a different way muscularly and b) the mucosal wave pattern formed by the vocal folds must change. So register can be independent from pitch. You can take your chest voice to the top of your range & falsetto to the bottom. When we talk about ranges it's just about what pitches these registers tend to be happy to exist in in the average population. Did that make any sense or was that clear as mud?
Hello Aliki! Could you possibly give some advice please...do you know what technique Burzum uses on his first albums? I'm struggling to develop such sound and nothing really helps... Is this falsetto combined with false vocal folds? I showed my samples to one guy and he said it's like instead of false vocal folds I use epiglottis, and this is no good at all, maybe you know how to do this? :)
Yes, falsetto + false vocal folds for Burzum. If you're going into an epiglottic distortion by mistake you can try a) sticking out your tongue, b) sticking out your tongue and pointing it down towards the floor, c) lowering your larynx position slightly. The epiglottis is mostly triggered muscularly by the back of our tongues, so the goal would be to get your tongue not to move or tense etc.
Hey!
Your tutorials are really helpful! :)
Do you know what kind of technique the singer of In Flames is using in chorus of their song "Deliver Us"? And do you teach that technique?
Well that was interesting to listen to recorded and live... Honestly, apart from the universe of layered vocals and backing track live etc etc... He's doing different things. Primarily his vocal folds are usually in a falsetto vibration (there's 1 line that's chest sometimes live), he's holding an ary-epiglottic shape (so, twang) and he's just doing light false fold.
I do teach this. It can take longer to learn than other styles/tones.
@@AlikiKatriou Thanks for quick reply. I also find difficult to hear what the singer is doing on recordings and live. But there is a video of him where he records vocals for another album and the audio is from camera. It is much clearer to hear there. It starts at 0:58. It sounds like a chest voice with a false folds but it does not sound like a Mongolian throat singing somehow. At 1:58 the distortion has the same quality (so also false folds?) but the note is higher so it is a head or a mixed voice?
ua-cam.com/video/rvKdWyEg4yA/v-deo.html
@@ztz1775 Sounds like chest voice but there's so much shaping going on that I don't know if it really matters or makes much of a difference if you're in chest or head voice. It would depend more on your voice type... Sounding like a singer has more to do with knowing your own instrument rather than doing exactly what the singer is doing.
Chest voice doesn't equal Mongolian throat singing tone necessarily :) We just want to start with that tone and find that tone. I would say he's doing a very light false fold distortion. Mongolian throat singing is a heavy false fold distortion usually.
I'm really eager to start practicing with this video series. I've actually binge watched all the video in the series just now.
I have some questions. Does Randy Blythe from Lamb Of God use fry or false cord? I think it's false cord right? Also, in the chorus & bridge of their song "Redneck", you can hear his pitch underneath the screams (of course, the melody is reinforced by clean background vocals but you can hear it in his screaming too). How can one achieve that?
:) Randy Blythe uses both false fold and fry at different times. He's mostly doing false fold. Allowing the clean pitch to be audible underneath the distortion is all about balancing the volume of the clean singing and the approximation of the false vocal folds. You'll need to engage your aryepiglottic folds (aka twang) to assist in this balance. Depending on how things go, I'll make a video on this eventually ^^
@@AlikiKatriou Awesome. Your videos are are really helpful.
What a nice surprise to see a new video:)
I tried but I get sore throat immediately (somewhere like on the soft palate?), what I am doing wrong?
It could be two things, it could be the force of the air you're using in which case, less air... It could also be that you're successfully getting a rough epiglottic distortion instead, in which case you'll need to be anatomically "lower down" within your larynx... so you'll have to aim "lower" while trying to maintain the right pitch.
Very interesting, thanks. I've seen some people on youtube talk about subharmonic singing, which supposedly mixes fry with a low note to drop it an octave. Is there a relation between this and the false cords being one octave lower?
Oooo, I'd have to check what the people on youtube are saying. It could relate to it or be something completely different... Pretty much all vocal distortions are undertone techniques, so the perceived roughness occurs at a lower pitch than the frequency the true vocal folds are vibrating at.
@@AlikiKatriou the channels I ran into (while searching for throat singing) were Bass2Yang and BillyTheBard11. I saw another one by Geoff Castellucci which seems to cover both false cord and vocal fry. Seems ultra-low singing is another rabbit hole one could get lost in, but I'm trying to get some basic death metal growl going here, that's hard enough for me at this point :-P
@@hareksu Ok, checked out the channels and information. Ultra-low singing is a rabbit hole, yes :) For a basic death metal growl, ultra-low singing and fry are not the typical direction one would go in. I would climb up in pitch in the falsetto register. That being said I don't know what kind of bands/singers you have in mind ^^
@@AlikiKatriou it just triggered my science-nerd curiosity. Always loved the throat singing stuff, but I'm not going to start a Huun Huur Tu cover band any time soon :-P For metal love the old Paradise Lost/Vallenfyre/MDB vibe. Your videos have been a real help, and particularly this one, the 'sing high, it drops an octave' thing really clicked (clouds opening and heavenly choirs sounding :-P ).
@@hareksu Yup, makes sense. Life kicks in my nerd curiosity... XD The only "issue" with the subharmonic use of vocal fry is that it isn't quite the way distortion vocalists use vocal fry...
Hi Aliki, sounds very professional, it does leave me confused though - I do guttural growls for 14 years and never had anything to do with my falsetto (I do know what it is and can control it quite well). When I switch from growl to clean my clean pitch is very low and that gives me very intense and strong sounds, am I missing something here? Cheers
Hey Sebastian, I like your singing!! You are using a false fold over chest voice. Some singers do this, Behemoth is the first example that comes to mind. It depends on what genre and what sound you're aiming for. As a nerd who teaches this stuff, my goal is for people to be able to choose what the vocal folds are doing underneath the false folds, so falsetto is a huge target... If you like the sound you make, I wouldn't stress about it too much but if you'd like to widen the range of sounds you're capable of then falsetto is going to be a game changer ^^
I'm not sure i'm doing it right. When i think i'v gotten pretty good at engaging my false chords (i can do this with all vowels, i can go between vowels and i can even sustain it so sing entire lines without it hurting, i do feel it vibrate but i can do it for quite a while without going hoarse) But when i try to use my falsetto and engage my false chord to say for example ''Oh'' or ''I'' (think of Slipknot before i forget) eventually it starts to itch to a point where i have to cough. Is this a normal sign to stop for the day or am i doing it wrong? I'm an male with a higher than average voice (alto/tenor range) btw.
Always take good breaks in between false vocal fold attempts to begin with. Itching is usually related to a bit of excess tension in the larynx. My guess would be that your body is either not used to the coordination or that you might be using the same or more effort for false fold over falsetto (it's lazier & "easier" muscularly than the Mongolian throat singing).
Wondering if you would be comfortable singing a song without microphone? So we can see how it sounds and looks? Not sure how much singers rely on their microphones to create certain sounds . If that makes sense
Yes, if we're talking about me just standing in front of camera and singing, no issues, happy to do that. I can't entirely bypass microphones but only in the sense of I have to record the sound somehow in order to upload it but there's little to no processing going on on my channel. Happy to do something raw though, it'll sound the same XD
@@AlikiKatriou oh no no! Not in that sense! It's mostly so we could see how it looks and sounds without a microphone.
Purely for the idea that when I practice singing I'm not using a microphone and get judgemental with my voice because it doesn't sound the way I think it should be
@@MaxRyderDragKing Cool, sure, I can aim for that :D
Hey Aliki, this video was really helpful! it would be so awesome to see a tutorial on combining false fold and fry to get the "power fry"
I used this video to activate the false folds on a falsetto note, then add compression (I think?) to get vocal fry. It seems like it might be working for the false fold + fry sound, but feels really strained. When I do it, the false fold still sounds like Mongolian throat singing, not like the low metal screams.
Ah, fun... an interesting thought. Question for you: do you have any examples of the kind of low metal screams you have in mind?
Will it be a little disjointed and bad sounding at first? I'm assuming me hitting it for the first time won't sound nearly like yours. I haven't nailed the smooth transition between vocal folds and false folds yet also, so I imagine I hit stuff that shouldn't be used since I haven't gotten that coordination down, causing a wonky unclear sound and pain. (Don't worry I'll back off and make sure I get it down.) I'm just unclear on how it should feel since I don't think it really clicked yet after a few days of small attempts.
Love the videos!
Yup, wonky, unclear, all the above are really common when trying to find the coordination.
Hello! I just found your channel and i loved all your videos. Very educational, you can transmit perfect pictures of what is happening and teach complex things in simple manner. Awesome really! I am going to start practicing from the first video now that i "know" how to hehehe we'll see. Now for a question... I never had singing classes nor can i get most tones right when i try singing with my normal voice although when i was young metal found me, black/death/doom/etc, and i would constantly try to growl but it hurt like hell and tried different things. One that seems to work for me is breathing in air while putting out sound, i can do it fairly easy because i love the sound of it and do it almost daily for a couple of minutes just for fun but the words i try to say aren't clear, as in i can't understand most words i say... Can you enlighten me on what i am doing? I have no idea really, i just trial and errored while i was young lol
Edit: damn that is a long message, hope i don't bother you so much with it xD
:D It sounds like you're doing an inhale distortion or phonation. Would you say that sounds accurate? You said you're breathing in air... So I guess it's an inhale :) If you're doing an inhale phonation you'll need to use your articulators a bit differently because the air will be flowing differently. Try keeping your tongue closer to the roof of your mouth to close the space in this case.
@@AlikiKatriou that's it! an inhale,yes. I didn't remember that word at the time i wrote it seems hehe thank you for the tip,i will try it when i get home :) have a nice day.
@@Infernal_Nipple Did it make any difference? XD I'm curious...
@@AlikiKatriou hehehe yes it did. Let me see if i can describe what i feel... It somewhat alllows me to pitch higher, since the inhale i do is pretty deep, and resonates more inside the mouth. I really enjoyed that tip, now i'm trying to make the words understandable... It's quite a challenge xD thanks for the follow up!
@@Infernal_Nipple Thank you for the info ^^ Making words clear on an inhale can be very challenging...
Okay, so I didn't get it. Control on the higher pitch of false cords comes first because it's a stronger exercise of the muscle that adducts them?
Do you mean the higher pitch as in falsetto or the fact that we find the initial sound in a high chest voice pitch?
The high chest voice pitch is because it requires more skill to do and you have to actively squeeze the right muscle. If you're lower, you might just be flapping stuff in the wind.
The falsetto pitch is in order to promote abduction of the false folds. The false folds need to come together loosely in metal usually. That being said, it is important that the vocal folds don't squeeze too much under the false folds. Falsetto is the best way to attempt this.
@@AlikiKatriou Okay, so I'm right now just trying to gain control on the tuvan throat sound. Indeed I first managed to nail the low sound and it took me a few tries to adduct the false cords in the "upper" position. But under the false cords, my vocal fold is loose all the time, in a position that can be described as falsetto from an adduction perspective but not necessarily from a pitch perspective. I booked a lesson with you to go into this fascinating topic. See you next week!
Grazie ❤️
^^
Asmr vocal 🤣 i enjoyed shes talking at the same time sleepy 🤣
I love your tutorials 💚 Quick question. Most people seem to believe you should practise false cord 'voiceless' (meaning not using your vocal cords). Why is it you do include voice/pitch? (I mean I can see why you should do so while playing with a band. Being on pitch and all. But I get confused by the difference, if that makes any sense?)
Yup :) I include pitch because your true vocal folds have a huge effect on the tone of your distortion, I would say 90% of the foundation tone is done by the true vocal folds, not the false folds.
Your false folds and vocal folds share muscle fibers so the likelihood that you'll sustain a false fold distortion without vocal fold approximation is close to 0 (I have heard 1 person do it properly, everyone else basically has their vocal folds in a whisper which is not ideal). Your vocal folds determine the volume of the distortion, so unless you want to be in a quiet wheeze you'll need to use your vocal folds and the difficult skill with false fold distortion is obtaining the agility and relative independence between the true and false folds :)
Hopefully, that isn't too nerdy or overly simplified and makes sense ^^
That makes sense! I was taught that whispering can lead to more damage than normal speech/singing (since a lot of people put more strain on the vocal cords when whispering). And I've been unable to get a fuller sound like that, while maintaining a healthy feeling in my throat. So I guess it's time to practise throat singing again 🙃
@@elke2747 Yeah, whispering gets mixed reviews XD If you ask most teachers they'll say it's bad, if you ask laryngologists they often say it's no issue as long as it isn't loud. The "problem" with whispering is that everyone does it a bit differently and even the same person might be shifting things around from whisper to whisper so you could be whispering "perfectly" and suddenly feel strain for a second...
Yup, throat singing is the way to go XD
is it normal to feel the false vocal cord zone kinda "weird"??? idk how to explain it but i feel like it's kinda irritated and i know it's that area because my voice works fine and i don't want to cough or something and it feels right after that little bell thingy in the throat
Yes, irritation is normal. Annoying but normal. It's usually either because of the tension needed on the muscles and this being a new sensation or because of chaotic breathflow through the system. Over time, your brain should figure out the precise muscle and also the right balance of air so irritation should go away. I would say, if you're doing 30 seconds-1 minute a day, the goal would be 0 irritation after 2 months.
Hey! absolutely love these tutorials. A big fan of your vocals on Fractured (always on my playlist) and I am the Voice. Saw you discussing ultra low singing and death metal growls; and wondered about your thoughts on Randy Blythe. Maybe you could do a (a kind request) Lamb of God cover while analyzing/breaking it down for us in the captions.
PS keep these videos coming. Its every bit helpful.
Aww, Eight Lives Down and Tattered Pages all in one sentence! Awesome ^^ My thoughts on Randy Blythe are pretty weird to be honest XD Off the top of my head and based on lessons with students who wanted to get more of that tone to their sound, I would say false fold distortion but with almost vocal fry-like breathflow, so the breathflow is noticeably low/little and that's the weird part...
@@AlikiKatriou Something tell me you aren't a fan. Anyways so tell me who are your all time favorites based upon tone, range, style, texture (BTW can we control it?), technique... ?
PS is there anyway that I can convince you to make a LOG cover?
@@prashanttiwary78 Haha, I actually like the vocals and a lot of their riffs, I'm just not a fan on an album-basis.
My all time favourites in terms of tone etc. Oooo, off the top of my head, I really like Death, Cattle Decapitation Fit For An Autopsy, Whitechapel, Napalm Death, Morbid Angel, Anti-materia, Carach Angren... Soilwork has some lovely tones but is a different category in my mind XD
I'm not sure about your question? You can control the tone, range and style. In terms of texture do you mean the texture of the clean tone or the distortion itself? Depending on exactly what you have in mind, yes probably.
I had originally wanted to do a LOG cover but couldn't pick a song. I really care about lyrics and if I don't like the lyrics I struggle to motivate myself to put in the amount of work that equals a cover - because you know I'm going to be bashing the song out every day for months... Maybe suggest some songs that have good lyrics? XD
@@AlikiKatriou I have always admired LOG for being a compete perfect unit. Best riffs (so much groove), amazing vocals, solid lyrics and class apart drums. Moreover, they seem to be getting better every time they release a new record.
Cattle Decap has great pig squeals and grunts. And who doesn't love trailblazers like Death. Now that you've mentioned Death, I was curious about Schuldiner's style and technique? Maybe you could comment on his work from an expert's eyeview?
By texture I meant something like being husky (like Chris Stapelton or better yet 24 year old Colter Wall); or smooth (like Enrique Iglesias and Jeff Buckley). So yeah, that. My mind tells me what we cannot control it and that we are born with it, but you know more than I do and could always enlighten me.
You did? ^^ Were you able to shortlist a few? I am not sure about the kind of lyrics you like or what would motivate you. You could try Omerta, Vigil, 11th Hour, Gears, Embers, Again We Rise. Let me know if any of 'em work for you.
PS I had to edit & add this. Its admirable that you are taking time out of your busy schedule and not only reading but also replying to every comment. I didn't expect you to do this. Much respect.
@@prashanttiwary78 I really want to do a Death cover, it's just difficult to find a song that people can play XD but I might have found a solution for that...
Out of those lyrics I would consider Vigil and Gears only. (I know, I'm ridiculously picky... >
I can get a slight compression of the false cords on my falsetto range. I actually found my false cords, activating around F4 which is high in my pure chest range, but in falsetto. I found it with an OO vowel ( U ) and not too much air, controlling it instead, not blasting it. I can move it down to my mid chest range, and a bit on the low range ( im good at using decompressed falsetto cleanly on all my range ) and also move it a bit higher, like to a B4, but higher than that the flapping disappears. I can't make it more brutal for now, though, the activation is too slight.
I have never used false cords IN MY ENTIRE LIFE.
I just want to know if this will develop over time, and if my muscles are just too weak for now.
I think I'm on the right track.
I've been using arytenoid distortion for screams, but I hit a plateau, I can't get more distortion/noise or volume with this approach, nor access my high range with it to sing with rasp, or to make black metal type screams. So im trying to learn false cord now, which appears more versatile and more flexible.
I love this!! So, in order to strengthen your false folds you'll want to unlock the Mongolian throat singing tone, even though you probably won't use it in its pure form in a metal song. In order to go higher in your range, sing the clean pitches first then add distortion. Vary the volume of the clean singing to find if you need a certain volume to unlock the higher false fold to begin with. Because you've been using arytenoid distortion, try to keep any & all vibrato out of your voice and "stabilize" the straight tone a bit to decrease likelihood of arytenoids jumping in for a combo false fold + arytenoid distortion XD
@@AlikiKatriou hahaha although the combo would sound cool haha. I can do vestibular distortion up on my high range, but I need quite a bit of air and volume, and the distorsion sounds more "symmetrical" not as chaotic as lower in my range. It also sounds deeper, like the folds touching a lot more, and it also sounds an octave lower, just like you explain in your videos.
Does the fold activation becomes "deeper" with time, just like vocal fold compression? I've noticed that a lot of growlers need little air and it sound very meaty and gurgly, and the highs very demonic, with not much air leaking through. I need to use a ton of air if I want to increase the noise, and I run out of air completely in two seconds haha, but if I make it like a rattle, I can hold it for a few seconds
@@sebarhap Speaking in general terms, a long term goal in singing all styles is to use less air/be more efficient with the air. Yes, over time this will happen, you just need to let your brain not believe that the air is necessary.
Generally, the more relaxed you are muscularly, the lower the distortion tends to sound. It depends on what kind of dudes you think have a "gurgly" sound, sometimes this sound comes from the false folds but usually it comes from the mouth/tongue or larynx position.
@@AlikiKatriou Oh I see. By gurgly I mean that the distortion sounds thicker and slower, not fast and thin, like sand, like what fry scream sounds. For example Phil Bozeman sounds very gurgly and with a lot of meat in the distortion, versus a high fry scream from Devin Townsend, for example. ( There's people that have thick distortion on their high screams, probably very false cord oriented )
I have been using my false cords quite a bit lately, and it's noticeable that they get stronger. Now it's not just a rattle, now it sounds with more white noise, like the air is not vibrating just the edges, but more skin around the vocal folds
I would love to upload videos of the progress, but I can't always record at home.
@@sebarhap Yay!! I find Phil Bozeman to be quite close to a Mongolian throat singing tone in his foundation, so yup, definitely more false fold engagement there. It's all about the skill of adducting (pulling in) the false folds. That's what we're trying to develop, so that we can control how rough or light the distortion sounds :)
When i do it i get pian but its foor my fals coords i mean i feel pian but not in my vocal coords i but it goes after 5 mins pleas upload some exersises to strengthen fals vocal foolds/choords thank you
You don't need to strengthen your false vocal folds - they are insanely strong!! All these exercises are trying to get the false folds working in more subtle, "weaker" ways :)
@@AlikiKatriou thank you so much you are so lovely and cute and so nice💙💙
I love you
So basically if a man wants to hit a very strong growl he actually needs to be pretty high with his falsetto, did i get it right? I mean not as high as a woman but still high. Then i suppose before this i would need to learn clean singing and falsetto so i can hit higher notes in falsetto right?
You'd need to be somewhere in falsetto, I would say D4, F4 and A4 are very common pitches in growls. If you only like deathcore, those guys tend to stay a but lower - think around A3 to E4. As long as you can pitch your falsetto you basically have what you need, but putting 2-5min into your falsetto practice will benefit you :)
I definitely came at false cord a completely different way lol. I feel like I can go pretty easily from chest voice to that growly tone, especially if I start on lower notes, and a lot more easily than getting that throat singing tone. Also more easily than going from high falsetto into false cord, though that's not too tricky. If I try both on the same note, feels like the chest voice one gets me the grittier false cord, and falsetto gets me more of what you previously called a breath distortion sorta vibe, though the more I overthink it, the weirder results I end up getting hahaha. I guess this is what I get for being self-taught so long, I feel like I'm the opposite of the things you're saying and it's super confusing lol. Anatomically though, I think what you're saying makes sense to my brain, if I go at it from an academic rather than practical understanding. Definitely a more scientific approach than how I started lmao, back when the only workable advice out there was just to bark like a big dog! 🐶
Like you were hesitating? Hmm never heard that one before. Feels to me like a method that'd be better for fry tbh, can't imagine it applied to false cord, interesting.
I'm pretty happy with how my false cord sounds tho, especially some of the newer stuff I've been messing with, just find learning about other people's methods can give me new ideas on stuff to play with. Fry screaming's what I'd probably consider getting lessons for instead, coz I'm still not happy with that, but I'm also sceptical about how much can be achieved in my voice type anyway, so until I hear something convincing about it, I can't really justify the exchange rate and timezone juggle to convince me to go for it just yet. x_x
@DestroyerMariko, it's absolutely the same for me (i'm a female growler)! I felt kinda relieved when i saw this video, because that's what i always did without big effort, but at the same time i feel confused why is it that hard to do this false cord excercise in the mid tones. Everytime i try that, my throat tears apart as if i was first time growler. Soooo, Aliki once told me i probably use breath distortion technique (which at that time was meaning zero to me), but now I start getting this puzzle done! When used to breath distortion, it's difficult to unlearn this second step and come back to first one. And btw, when people ask how i do this, it is the easiest way to offer them barking like a dog - even if it's thaaat primitive, it was the first step for me and i guess for a lot of others:):)
@Juanthe3rd Ohh the exasperated sigh method. I wouldn't call that hesitating tho? It's a good method, but any time they say to put your voice into it, I think that's a bad way to explain how to take that next step. I think that's where the throat singing or learning to sing with grit can help. Even if you don't though, if you work on it as is you can get a nice breath distortion I reckon.
@@jazmineliai Yeah a few times trying to follow this advice, I felt like I was mucking up my throat too, overthinking and confusing myself about where to put things. Mid tones are okay for me though, it's the higher ones that feel weirdest with this method if I don't get my placement right the way I think about it for myself. Tbh I find the throat singing and falsetto method overall doesn't work for me as well as my own way?? My voice just doesn't feel right for a while after it.
And yeah, I also started out with dog bark breath distortion, but at some point I got better at putting grit onto my clean chest voice, and from there suddenly worked out how to combine that grit feeling into my false cord. That, plus playing with mouth shapes and chin position and the placement feeling etc. gave me the less breathy false cord distortion and also made it heaps easier to change pitch, especially lows. Got better at highs when I briefly joined a band that used to have a high fry screamer too haha. I was heaps surprised when I realised I could go so low tho, being a high female clean singer and then getting that growl sound, not something I expected! XD
But yeah heaps backwards vs this whole method. Like to do the throat singing, if I'm not focused enough, half the time I have to do the gritty growl and then tone it back to get that sound hahaha. Growling is so much easier for me, makes it hard for me to understand how you'd go about it the other way! Guess we all have our own journeys hey.
Here's your general run down and rule of thumb: Mongolian throat singing is pure false fold distortion, the sighing approach can be pure breath distortion. Most metal distortions are combo distortions of false fold and breath. Because we tend to exhale and use more air than we realize, it's sometimes easier to control the amount of air rather than have the skill to control the degree of compression directly on the false folds. Most people find it easier to do vocal fold adjustments in lower pitches. That's why I bypass the "easy comfort zone" and go into a falsetto A4 range - if you can activate your false folds up there, that takes more precision often :)
I really can't tell if I'm not tricking myself and while going into falsetto I'm doing fry scream instead of false cord
Ah, yes, that happens... Trying varying the volume of the distortion. If it's false fold it will get louder quite happily, if it's fry it tends to get "stuck" or vanish...
I am having trouble finding my false cord.. I find fry much easier to get a clean/sharp sound from. My false cords end up sounding really breathy/like an intense sigh. Does anyone have any tips on this? :)
I can think of options but not sure which would work best for you... The first thing that comes to mind is that loads of people are doing false cord when they think they're doing fry. An easy way to know if this is the case is noticing whether the vibrations increase during the distortion. If yes, it's probably false vocal folds, not fry.
Now, to the question!! Whatever is happening on your false folds, is probably happening on your true vocal folds and the solution is probably on your true vocal folds. Some options 1) increase the clean volume, 2) aim for consistent volume; no decrease, no increase when the distortion starts, 3) try increasing the volume of your true vocal folds underneath the "sigh" sound you're getting.
Most metal distortions are a combination of false vocal folds and breathiness, so having a sigh sound might not be bad, if that's the direction you want to move in. There are other options but if you can try to approach the issue from your true vocal folds, that's most efficient.
@@AlikiKatriou thank yo so much, I didn't expect such an elaborate response, this is super helpfull!
That was the first thing I was thinking as well, that I might be doing false cord instead of fry. The reason I thought it was fry was because I got the sound out by using the "kardasian voice". But I later learned that you kinda use the same vibrations for the false cords, so I am not sure anymore.
Thanks for the tips, I will get to practice! I was also planning on doing the False Cord Beginner video's again, step by step, to see if that has another effect :). Your video's are very informative.
And I might just book a lesson, hopefully an expert is able to hear what the f I am actually doing, haha
it's so nice knowing im not the only cartoony metal singer XD and yeah it's a compliment..
yaaaay :D ^^
An article said vodka helps out in vocal ,is it true to get this deep voice? Congrats from Brazil U are a good teacher.
No, not true. All food & drink never make contact directly with your vocal folds as they go straight into your stomach. Alcohol can get you drunk and drunk people often relax their muscles more so that would be my only guess for this odd hypothesis :)
Can you give some songs to train with? From beginning until advanced ?
@@surrealisticworld995 Ah, an interesting idea but it would be difficult to do because everyone struggles with different things and everyone has different goals...
@@AlikiKatriou I wanted sing a little bit like the guy from Killswitch engage.i accept any recommendations
@@surrealisticworld995 Jesse Leach or Howard Jones or both? I'm not sure what stage you're at, is all the clean stuff easy or is the clean stuff difficult?
Fine with chest voice swapping between them. Then just keep ending up in FRY with falsetto (after a few seconds of sounding like a cat choking).
If you're sounding like a cat choking, you are probably making the instrument narrow, lifting the larynx and squeezing. That is a good strategy for fry! For false fold high up, you'll actually need to think wide, loose, possibly a low larynx, with more air passing through the system.
can we summerize this way ?
air + space between floppy cords = falseto = growl
air + space between tight cords = opera voice
air + no space between cords = pain and damage
no air + no space bewteen floppy cords = fry
Oooo... maybe... I would do this:
falsetto + loose false folds = growl
low larynx + vocal folds = opera
loud + tight vocal folds + loads of pressure = high risk factor
floppy vocal folds + "no air" = fry
I don't think there is any coordination which will equal pain. Pain is an extremely odd, complex and unpredictable event within the larynx.
It actually for womens sounds pretty nice they have a higher pitch range so when they do the growl it's More low In falsetto
It depends on how you shape the resonators and the speed of the airflow. If the airflow is fast, it sounds very high pitched in falsetto. If you slow it down it sounds really low. It kind of bypasses biological sex... ^^
oh man, wish i could afford your lessons but i’m just a broke brazilian
:) Depending on how broke you are, maybe email or message me on facebook and I can recommend/suggest some people/options etc.
Aliki Katriou you’re so nice! I’ll definitely get in touch! thanks and keep doing videos, they’re amazing 💜
Br em todo lugar q isso
Almost everyone on the internet says that falsetto screaming is really damgerous even when performed well. Is there any other way to make it sound that good?
Who is everyone on the internet? Do we mean on UA-cam, on reddit, on discord, everywhere? Do they say why it is dangerous?
@@AlikiKatriou hi! Basically they just say it isn't really safe, that's all. So i was asking because i see 2 conflicting ideas.
@@spietato4990 I understand. It sometimes feels like singing is just conflicting ideas. From my side, I can say I have never seen any paper or source suggesting that any vibratory pattern on the vocal folds would be more damaging or problematic. However, I would also say don't trust anyone on the internet - myself included. Unless we've really discussed this in a lesson during which I can be sure I addressed your concern, I would take anything and everything in any video, or any distilled format, with a pinch of salt...
I found the falsetto and false cord but not strong when i push it s going to another register need gently but my problem not loud enough
Rather than pushing, try changing the volume of the falsetto foundation. So start in falsetto, add false fold. Then start again in falsetto but louder, then add false fold. See if that fixes the issue :)
@@AlikiKatriou alright its work 😍😍😍 thank you darling 😘
@@AlikiKatriou its like pulling the breath right?
@@akungame6600 In a nerdy way, you're coordinating everything differently. So yes you're using more air but more air doesn't make anything louder unless there is resistance. So your vocal folds need to lightly resist the air. If your brain sends the signal "louder" to your vocal folds, this will usually happen with few problems. The mistake we tend to make is that we send the signal "louder" to the distortion and that doesn't work XD
@@AlikiKatriou get it! Ma'am. thank you so much
Shout out to people like me who had to just do this blind with a whole 2 shitty tutorials on UA-cam over like the last 10 years
Yaaaay and yes, shout out to people like you, I don't think anyone can fully understand the lack of information on distortions that existed...
Awesome video. Really enjoying your approach to this. Curious how you read my scenario: I've been making some good progress with my false chord vocals via a vocal coach. We started moving into more advanced areas--compression mostly--and found out that I was still getting enough active true chord engagement to bang the lil guys around pretty good. We're now taking a few steps back to insure that doesn't happen again. it's frustrating though, and it requires some hefty coordination. Been baby steps. Do you have any tips for something like that? It seems like every time I want to make some fun noises, my true chords poke through underneath just enough to cause worry. I cannot divorce them from my false chords.
I was so close to sounding like the Ikea version of Phil Boseman too :(
Edit: Just tried your breathy falsetto tip in this vid and holy shit that placement feels really good. You fucking rock \m/
XD yay!
Yes, my next set of false fold tutorials is actually going to focus on this issue. That being said (just in case you've been instructed to remove your voice entirely from the equation), it is very unlikely that you'll be able to sustain a false fold distortion without your vocal folds vibrating.
A mini tip for you: start clean, make your clean voice a bit breathy. Try do this same movement underneath your false folds ^^
@@AlikiKatriou Will try that! I've played a bit more with the general tips in this video though, and so far it feels really good. May have been that little extra thing I needed.
Excited for the next video :)
@@dualwieldsoftware wooohoo :D
Hi, I would like to ask you, what do you think about this growl: ua-cam.com/video/4H5ym50mypI/v-deo.html (At time 1:42, 2:30 and 2:55)
I'm more of an alto singer so I should be able to imitate his voice, but how to make this kind of growl? Is this the same as the growls used in Metal?
Should I sing it an octave higher, as you taught?
At least at the end 2:55 that sounds like an epiglottic distortion to me. It isn't the same as a metal false fold distortion. You would need to push the root of your tongue back in order to get that kind of distortion and you wouldn't need to be an octave higher - what pitch do you hear it as?
@@AlikiKatriou Wow, you really answered me! *squeal* So great ^_^
But back to singing.
That scream he makes at 2:55 sounds about the same octave as the rest of the song.
It had the same trembling sound as growl plus it was called growl in the video description, so I thought it might be some type of growl. Do you think two different concepts were confused, when author of the video called this type of singing a growl?
If it is an Epiglottic distortion, could I learn this technique using your False Cord Tutorial series as basis?
Or have you made some tutorials specifically for this?
Thank you very much for answering me, you're a great tutor.
It looks fucking funny, but it REALLY works. thank you very much.
Funny and functional is the best of both worlds :P Thank you!
Can you pweaaase make lesson about writing lyrics for first timers🥺
Read a lot
I would suggest the same, read the lyrics of some of you’re favorite artist/lyricists. For me Jacob Bannon of Converge is my main influence for the lyrical approach I’ve taken in my writing. Also Chuck Schuldiner of Death is another big influencer in my lyrical tastes and appreciation
@ yea i have done it for over a year and it really hasn't helped me
I can help get you started on the right track. I have an on-line songwriting course that will give you a solid foundation. ZingliZh.com You'll see on my website that Aliki is one of my colleagues, my favorite person to collaborate with. She's awesome.
Based on the conversation below I would be curious to see your lyrics and figure out what you're struggling with. That being said, I second my colleague below: her online songwriting course will definitely give you solid tools and better awareness of the whole writing process. I've taken the course twice myself and it's worth it!
This is awesome thanks. Also... I'm watching this and thinking I'm sure I've had a random conversation with you somewhere in the past... Snobs, Eddie's or The Flapper? When they were open of course
Thank you. I'm not sure I've been to any of those places actually XD but a random conversation seems probable, depending on how long ago "the past" was ^^
@@AlikiKatriou could be any time in the last 30 years.. I have a bad memory for dates and useful stuff but always remember faces and accents 🤘
@@BadScullianz XD
So happy I found this channel, I love your personality too!
I never even thougth metal vocalists would be in falsetto, that's why I was singing so bad, omg
XD It depends on the vocalist but most of them are in falsetto...
Hahaa you wonderful kook
6:05 i usully practice for hours lmao
Can I assume you're not a complete beginner? XD Eh, if it works for you, it works for you :)
Roman numerals, nice