Singing Distortions, Rough Effects and Your Vocal Health
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00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:36 Exploring Leipzig's Culture
02:52 Tony's Musical Journey
07:11 Teaching and Vocal Techniques
14:18 The Science of Vocal Effects
23:32 Balancing Air Pressure in Singing
29:14 Understanding Vocal Sensations
30:05 Debunking Vocal Myths
31:10 Exploring Vocal Techniques
32:10 The Complexity of Vocal Terms
38:07 Noise Makers and Vocal Effects
46:01 Practical Singing Tips
49:59 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
Introduction and Guest Welcome
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Philippe: Hello and welcome to The Voice Vibe. I'm your host, Philippe Hall, and today I'm joined by my special guest from Germany, Tony Link. Hi Tony, how are you doing today? I'm doing well, thanks for asking. Sometimes I say hello and welcome to The Voice Vibe, and I do live close to Las Vegas, so sometimes I feel like, hey, you've got your announcer voice on, maybe that's good, and maybe, you know, people are just laughing at you, but I can't help it.
I was on stage for 30 years. So when it's showtime, it's showtime. So tell me, uh, you're in Berlin or not?
Toni: No, I'm, I'm in Leipzig. Leipzig
Philippe: is beautiful. It is, it is one of the coolest cities in Germany, especially as a tourist. If you've never been there and you go to the city and walk around, it's like, wow, this place is cool.
Toni: Yeah. There's also nice underground culture. Uh, I go to the opera pretty often, which is not what I mean by underground culture, but, uh, I, yeah, I actually prefer the underground culture.
Philippe: Cool. I remember going to some, yeah, cellar restaurant, um, or a bar. I don't know, but it was so, it was just so cool. It just felt like this is, this must've been just the most amazing city in medieval times. It was just, It's just the vibe was so cool and don't you have like your own special like black beer over?
Yeah,
Toni: yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but I I'm I usually only drink in Combination with soda so it's like lemon Beer, whatever you call it.
Philippe: Yeah I don't know that Americans do that very much, but I know Europeans will mix
Toni: Yeah, especially Germans
Philippe: Well, you know we're not promoting drinking on this podcast that to say but there's a lot of what else is great about life say
Toni: Um, yeah, so we have a pretty nice culture. We have, I guess we have nice food, but I don't know a lot about food or drinking. So, um, what else do we have? We have relatively cheap rent compared to the rest of Germany.
Uh, yeah, I like it here. It's, it's not too big, not too small. Lots of nice music. Uh, we have the music university, uh, where I spent a couple of years. Uh, uh, it's a good place to live.
Philippe: You didn't know I was going to interview you about Leipzig, did you?
Toni: No.
Philippe: Well, Tony and I were just having a discussion about, you know, the, um, the things that happened, you know, years ago now, can you believe it's been like almost four years, but.
When everything was shut down and, and how, um, we, we both got really busy during the pandemic and lockdowns. So a lot of things have evolved for you the last four years.
Tony's Musical Journey
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Philippe: Tell us a little bit about your, your past. Um, Your music evolution and then your singing journey and how you, uh, when you decided to teach and, uh, I, I've, I've followed a little bit of, uh, we've been loosely in contact here and there for a few years via a lot of the masterclasses and live streams I was doing.
And I noticed you were following and asking very good questions. So like this guy's hungry and he's, he's quite intelligent about his questions. He's, he is researching, but how did you get into music? I see, I mean, just behind you, I know you have a plethora of instruments. So, yeah, tell us a little bit about it.
Toni: So, um, I started playing violin at age six. Um, and that's my oldest instrument, so to say. Uh, the, the one I have spent most of the time on. Uh, it's not the one I play best though. Um. I've also tried to teach myself, uh, playing the guitar, the drums. So, uh, my, uh, auto didactical socialization has started pretty early too.
Um, and then I think roughly 15 years ago, I started singing and it's, it's always hard to tell when exactly does it start because, uh, I did sing as a child, but this conscious thing. I'm going to practice a song now. I think that started at about age 12, maybe. Right. So, um, that was an interesting time because, uh, I had just, uh, gone through, uh, the voice drop, so to say.
And, uh, I never had singing lessons until I started, uh, Uh, studying, um, as a teacher in schools, just a teacher training program, um, with a musical focus. Uh, and before that I never had singing lessons. So while I did learn to sing well enough to get accepted for music university, uh, it was not a very linear journey.
Um, I don't know if it would have been more linear, faster, more efficient, whatever. Um, if I had had a teacher, but, uh, that's still the way I kind of learned, even though I've, uh, taken a lot of lessons, um, in the university context, outside of it, um, uh, I've, Watched a lot of, uh, singing content. I've read a lot of papers.
I'm a bit of a nerd, uh, about this. Uh, and, uh, this is started before music uni actually, because I was interested, especially in, uh, The metal stuff, the rough vocal effects, as I call it. Um, when there wasn't a lot of information around on that, I mean, there were a couple of YouTube tutorials. I think I've watched all of them.
Uh, uh, there was complete vocal technique, but I didn't know about it. Uh, back then. Uh, so I remember coming up with these categorizations at like age 15 and most of them are, you know, like. Um, but, uh, so this process had started quite early and then through music university, um, I came in contact with Esther voice training, for example, other, uh, let's, let's call them deconstructive, uh, vocal methods, like complete vocal technique also.
Um, and.
Teaching and Vocal Techniques
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Toni: In 2019, I started teaching a bit on the side, just, you know, normal popular singing lessons, uh, very cheap, uh, not very ambitious, but then, so now I'm actually starting to answer your question, um, in 2020, um, when, uh, We all didn't really know what the next couple of months would look like. Um, I started finally recording my Rafocal Effects tutorial series, which I had thought about doing for a couple of years.
Um, not in order to attract a lot of students, but just to, you know, finally do it and to not be bored in my apartment and so on. So that seems to have, uh, attracted a lot of students, uh, because, uh, in 2020 and 2021 also, um, my teaching focus has shifted from real life lessons in person lessons to mostly online.
Um, from. You know, general singing lessons to mostly this niche of rough vocal effects. I still do teach normal singing. I actually also teach a bit of classical now because I've done, um, a couple of classical, uh, covers, if you want to call them that. Uh, and I don't really see myself as a classical singer, but so what I'm saying is I basically teach everything now and the focus on rough vocal effects is still there.
Uh, and now. Uh, during the last couple of years, I've also done workshops and, uh, uh, I like it very much. I'm very happy to be able to live from
Philippe: teaching. Yeah. Congratulations. It's, it's a great evolution. Uh, some things I'd just like to point out from my point of view, didn't happen overnight, right? Which is important because singer is singer is like myself when I was, and I, I continue to learn.
I mean, I, I've basically been studying singing for maybe 33 years. Right. And I've sung before that as a child and it's a continuous journey and that's that's nice. It's it's nice for me It's what I've wanted to do. I was also Somebody that wanted to learn how to do everything. Of course, I've realized over 33 years You can do a lot of things very well, but you you just never can do everything At the same level.
I like to tell my kids, you can do everything in life, just not at the same time. So you've got to have your phases and, and you develop through and continue to learn and progress. Um, I think it's really interesting. There's a, when I, I don't in my teaching, teach a lot of. What I consider music theory or, uh, musicality, even though I do in coaching performances, but it's, you started out as an instrumentalist.
I started out learning to play piano and some things. I'm not a great pianist by any means, but this, a very important element of the ear training of learning how to hear music, listen to music. And I think it's very, very valuable. Some people do that with the non traditional way. They just listen so much and mimic so much that they're training themselves without even knowing it.
Most of us do. Most of the society is listening to music. So there, there's some ear training there. Otherwise we wouldn't know if somebody was singing off, right? We wouldn't even recognize if they were off key or flat or anything, but we, we do hear a ton of music as just everyday citizens in our world.
And even if you go to countries like I've been in some, uh, countries that didn't have as much, I've been in, uh, what does amaze me in Cuba, Was everybody's listening to music? They're mostly listening. We're listening to classical music, but they were listening to music. They have their own music style They're singing people love music.
So getting exposed to music. I think is great. I would recommend every singer to To spend some time, uh, at least getting some basic skills in keyboarding in, in pianos and guitar. Guitar is just a great instrument you can take everywhere. And I see you have a, a variety of different instruments and I love it.
That has
Toni: been my special interest for the last, uh, couple of months. Uh, I've accumulated around. 30 stringed instruments here. I swear I don't have a problem.
Philippe: Yeah, no, it's really cool. It's really cool because they all have different sounds. Maybe we can segue with that into what we want to talk about, or especially want to talk about, uh, with you is.
Just how all of these instruments look. I see the ones I can see. I know there are more, but they look different, don't they? They look different. They're built in many ways, the same way, at least the, the string guitar style, but they're all giving a different sound. And that has so much, it's just a great image for people to, to see the different instrument shapes, know, they make a different sound.
Most people recognize that and realize we have that built in to our, our voice, our sound making machine, and we. I call this a fixed state instrument, a guitar. Every one of those instruments you have has a different shape, but it's fixed. It's always going to sound like that. So for me, that's the sound design of the instrument.
And I like to talk about sound designs in singing. So we, as vocalists and singers, you get to change your shape to create different sound designs. I find that incredibly fascinating. I've always loved, I mean, I, I was a, I would say successful musical theater artists internationally. And I transitioned into opera because I wanted to in, in between, I sing rock concerts, a lot of pop concerts, but I, I often said, and I still say in my next life.
I'll come back with long hair and be a metalhead. I just love, I really have a love for metal and I'm definitely, I would say probably I'm a good teacher of vocal effects, but it's, I have not taken it to the level you've taken it to. And so when I have people, you're, you're on the short list of. Of teachers that I'd actually, uh, refer people to.
I haven't done that yet. It just happens to be at the moment. Not a lot of people are contacting me for, for effects. Three years ago, I had quite a few people. It just kind of goes in phases, but let's talk about it.
The Science of Vocal Effects
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Philippe: Uh, I think I remember thinking nobody can sing like that and maintain their vocal health.
I always thought that I thought they were always trashing their voices and yet. I was really fascinated and really wanted to make those sounds, but I was afraid, you know, here I am a professional musical theater, uh, theater singer, opera singer. The last thing I want to do was trash my voice. I had to perform that week.
So, and many times a week. So there was a big concern. I was very, uh, timid in the beginning going into that. So if you're doing heavy metal effects, uh, if they're light distortions, which we hear all over in all kinds of music today, uh, And if we want to get into the rough effects to just sound awesome, I love it.
Uh, are we going to trash our voices? Is there a way to do this healthily?
Toni: There's definitely a way to do it. Um, I like to say sustainably. I mean, you're the native speaker. Um, it's great. Yeah. Health is always an interesting topic because, um, it's not healthy to make these sounds the way that it's healthy to whatever, eat an apple a day.
I mean, apart from maybe, you know, psychological. Uh, mental health, um, being improved by vocalizing a lot, but, uh, it's also not inherently unhealthy. Uh, the question is how efficiently do we do it? Uh, how long can our voice sustain these sounds? And of course we want to do it as long as possible. Um, which we get by finding out which ways work well, which ways feel comfortable, uh, which ways are more reliable, uh, which ways can we do more consistently?
Um, and for some people it's quite intuitive. I always meet, uh, these other people. Self taught, uh, rock and punk singers who can scream and do like pretty extreme sounds. I mean, I teach rough vocal effects, but sounds that I would call extreme, um, they can do that for a while and, uh, they don't have any complaints.
Uh, any Uncomfort, discomfort, but, uh, for other people, it's not that intuitive. So it is possible to hurt yourself with rough vocal effects. I don't know if, you know, the chance of risking vocal damage is actually higher, uh, than in any other singing style. Um, but it is there. So for rough vocal effects, as well as for any other kind of voice usage, we always have to trust our body.
And of course it's not just, you know, this intuitive search for, okay, which coordination does not feel bad. Um, but there's also some logic to it. And, um, you don't have to be a nerd about vocal effects to use them, but you can, uh, come to my lesson, uh, to any other, uh, vocal effects, um, Expert, because they usually have these recipes, let's say, uh, that tend to work better.
It's still your personal responsibility to listen to your body feedback because it's not like, okay, use this amount of twang and you're totally safe. Uh, right. Um, it's more like your chance of being safe is much higher if you do that. Now let's try. And, uh, interestingly, I also meet people who break these rules, uh, and apparently they're a bit more resilient.
So it's, it's a very personal thing. This, this health topic.
Philippe: Yeah, I do. I, I, I get on, I can get on board with what you're saying, uh, to, to promote your vocal effect, our rough vocal effects going. Promote your vocal health. Our rough vocal effects going to be helpful. It's not like eating healthy. Yes I get that so we want to do it sustainably And so you can switch back and forth and like I said, you're doing some classical covers because you obviously enjoy that and And and you're doing a good job with it.
You are I mean, I think that's part of my profession so I hear differently than other people, but you're doing a really good job with that and And I enjoy that And we get, I think there's, I've noticed, um, some singers, well, what helped me personally, let's just say me personally, when I was growing up, me and my friends, we would basically mimic sounds all the time.
We would be in the forest trying to mimic sounds of birds and other animals and, um, and fool our friends. Into thinking that it was that we would watch the the ancient lord of the rings, uh cartoon version And make the orc sounds and we just we we made so many sounds we were constantly experimenting with our voice Our voices and I feel like that really helped me gain an awareness of Of how, how to position things, this impersonal perception, like mapping out inside of your mouth, what does which, and how, and what this feels like.
And of course, we messed up many times, right? You start coughing, it hurts, and that's your first signal to stop. But I think it, it's uh, experimenting with sound is really fun. My daughter, she's, she's a sweet little girl, you know, she's just feminine, she's sweet. When she was a little girl learning how to speak, she would sit at the, at the lunch table and she would just go, and make these weird sounds, experimenting with her voice.
And my wife would get so upset, she's like, no, no, don't make that sound, honey. I'm like, go girl.
Toni: I've just today, uh, seen a short video of how, I don't know actually what the profession was, but like, uh, um, voice scientists and the, the first, the first sense, um, talked about how babies, um, Don't actually make random noises. They sing those are rhythmical or melodic exercises. It's an exploration of registration and so on.
And when they do, uh, and it's like, okay. Uh, I mean, I do that all the time. Um, and it's, it's not that different. So maybe we've started singing before we've started talking. And I think actually before we started singing, we started screaming. That's the first thing that we, uh, hopefully did. Uh, but yeah, I think.
The people who usually come to vocal lessons aren't the ones who find it extremely intuitive. The people who can just do it without any problems don't need vocal lessons. Uh, I mean, they could come to a teacher to work on repertoire, but, uh, what I do, and I think it's similar to what you described, is I work on technique with people.
I'm not really looking that much into songs and expression and so on. Uh, it's more of a side topic. And Usually, the stuff that makes people cough, or even just have the scratchy or even just tickly feeling, it doesn't always have to feel, you know, super uncomfortable, but anything that's different from what you're used to.
Voice usually feels like the neutral sensation. Um, that usually comes from an imbalance of airflow and air pressure. And now this sounds a bit theoretical, but I can use a very high airflow if I use a low pressure and a low volume. So I can make breathy sounds. And I can even make breathy distortions without wrecking my voice.
But if I tried to do that too loudly, I'm going to do it just once. Yeah. This is not going to feel too good. I mean, I cannot do loud distortions though. I just have to reduce my flow. I can have a high pressure in Germany, especially you often learn and singing lessons that you shouldn't use too much pressure, but you know, the question is what is too much?
It's kind of a non statement too much is too much, but you know, you can actually use high levels of pressure. If the flow is not high, you could do this thing. And it feels totally fine. It's pretty loud, but you don't hear any breathiness in it. So that's just one example of what I usually work on with people who, uh, tell me they, um, get tired very quickly.
Uh, they sometimes have to cough. Uh, it's not the only thing that could be wrong that could, uh, make it less efficient, but that's a big one.
Philippe: Yeah.
Balancing Air Pressure in Singing
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Philippe: I'm glad you mentioned that because I just wrapped up the first big five coordinations of singing training, which is. Just a new, uh, intensive training series. I started, um, thinking about everything.
My own singing got the five. I got to get my hand in the picture here, but five coordinations of singing. There's five main elements for me and singing in. And I, I believe in my experience, they're involved in every style of singing. So you've got your air pressure management, air flow, air pressure, the vocal folds themselves, the pharynx.
That includes for me, the soft palate and the larynx that anything that changes the shape of that too, but the connects our nose to our, to our larynx behind the tongue, then we've got the tongue and finally the embouchure. So those are the big five coordinations in every, every singing, every sound we make is a combination of, of exact amounts of that.
And that's really fascinating. And one thing I, one class I gave was. Uh, on air pressure and people are, seem to be very against pressure in, in singing, in let's say our traditional singing teaching. However, if you have no pressure, you're going to have very little sound at all. And you just, like you said, you need the balance.
It's the right amount for the sound. And it is, it is a coordination. I think it's really important to learn. And I discovered even, I'm still discovering things, but some, sometimes it's amazing how much the good kind of pressure is involved to create some kinds of sounds, singing can be very athletic, a lot more costing, a lot more energy than what seems to be promoted that.
And I think this comes a lot from the speech level singing that don't work hard don't press don't push don't I understand why That can be negative but it ultimately leads to you're just making the same volume sound All the time throughout your entire range
Toni: And
Philippe: that's a great skill to develop But we need air pressure and we're definitely going to need to understand that to make a variety Of sounds effects.
Toni: Also, I think that you can have this feeling of flow, effortlessness, um, even with high effort or pressed, or, um, you know, for me push, I associate with too much airflow, um, for the amount of air pressure. So that's my personal association with the word, but you can make very pressed sounds. Yeah, that's very pressed.
Yeah. Um, you can make very loud sounds. Uh, I don't have to tell you that as an opera singer. Um, and they will have high pressure levels if you just objectively measure. Um, but they don't have to feel very hard. Uh, usually I think what people feel when they say it's so squeeze, it's so press, it's so effortful is, uh, the feeling of inefficiency.
Not the feeling of work, right?
Philippe: Yeah, that's so important. I totally agree because well, what can I share on this? So I often it will become very clear for you on your singing journey. What is high pressure and low pressure? what is high compression adduction and low and High airflow low airflow it becomes very clear But I believe that also it seems to be people have a misconception of that They're putting on a scale of one to a hundred And they just keep thinking this is max pressure.
This is light pressure. Those are the extremes of the pressure, but really where we live and everything we're doing singing where it feels good. Is actually probably for me within the center 10 percent range. It's definitely more pressure, but it's not 90 percent more pressure. It seems to me to be about 7 percent more or 5 percent more.
And sometimes just 1 percent difference makes all the difference. So it's, it's much more subtle, but I like, I like the singers to explore the max range. So they figure out, okay. This is where you don't go because it doesn't work and let's get let's get you centered in on here So in your exploration it for in your singing Don't be afraid of pressure but realize that it might you might only need one percent or 1.
5 More than you're using and you will feel it in your body But that will give you a sense of Open throat, and I, I love and hate that term because it causes people to open to make their throat bigger, but that's not at all what it means. It means basically the sensation of squeeze and compression and struggle is gone.
It feels open, it feels free, and you can have that feeling, you can have that feeling in metal rough effects as well, can't you?
Toni: Yes, totally. Um, I think it also depends a bit on what the rest of the body does, how well we distribute the energy we put in. Uh, there are certain sounds where I think it will feel a lot easier.
Finding the Easiest Way to Sing
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Toni: And we always search for the easiest way to do it. The easiest feeling way also, if you move a lot. So this might seem a bit paradoxical because, uh, the more you move, the more muscle engagement you have. but you don't necessarily feel it. And especially you don't feel it as much in your throat.
Understanding Vocal Sensations
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Toni: Um, sometimes people ask me, what am I supposed to feel?
And it's a bit tricky because other vocal coaches might answer, you should feel it up in your skull or whatever. Uh, Frye is behind my, whatever, eyes, cheeks. And it's, uh, these placement sensations that are usually, um, A consequence of a successful coordination, but they're not the way they're, and they're super subjective also.
I mean, uh, I remember in vocal lessons that I took, uh, people telling me to put my sound forward.
Debunking Vocal Myths
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Toni: That's a big, uh, thing, I guess, internationally also. Um, and then there's very different understandings of what exactly brings the sound forward. Is it, uh, twang? Oh no, twang is a constriction. We don't want to constrict.
Is it nasality? Oh no, we call that nasal resonance. It's totally different from nasality. It's like very confusing.
Exploring Vocal Techniques
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Toni: Um, and, uh, then eventually I remembered that the sound I, made that the teacher called forward and successful. Uh, it felt very backward to me, but it's kind of like, if you tell me to think about the taste of salt, I will taste it.
So you can also kind of make me feel something in the front or in the back. And I might be a bit weird, but, uh, what I'm saying is I cannot tell students where to put the sound. I cannot tell them what to feel. I can, um, Tell them that they should search for the easiest possible feeling. Um, uh, but for some of the distortion effects, especially if there's very low rumbling sounds there, you will feel an extra vibration.
The same, you feel a lower vibration when you speak very low in your chest range. I mean, uh, that's where probably the association of thick vocal folds with chest. And then vocal folds with head comes from because usually for low pitches, um, bigger bones, uh, sympathetically vibrate. I mean, that's just the theory, but you might have this extra sympathetic vibration, even if you're in a very high range and then you add what they call rattle and you have this low rumble.
And now you feel it up here and down there. Um, as long as it's not uncomfortable, it's not wrong,
Philippe: right?
Toni: Yeah,
Philippe: yeah, I love that. It's a great explanation.
The Role of Vocal Coaches
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Philippe: Very important to point out the way you feel singing is going to be pretty individual to you. You might find that you're describing things in a similar way that, that other teachers or other singers might describe it.
We, we, we know that the higher frequencies, higher frequencies. are basically faster movements of the vocal folds. And we do physically feel higher frequencies up higher in our head. It's like we have the nerve endings. That's where we feel those vibrations. So that's where the whole term head voice comes from.
And then chest, as you mentioned, chest voice, basically because we're feeling the lower vibrations. Lower in the body.
Mapping Vocal Effects
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Philippe: So it is just kind of a body mapping, but, uh, it's an evolution. I remember people saying in opera, really good opera singers, they, they, uh, I was can't, it was in the cafeteria and one guy was going on stage and everybody's like, I'll go put it in the nose, put it in the nose.
I'm like. At that point I thought, why would you want to put it in the nose? If I put my sound in my nose, it's like this, and then it's not a real opera sound, but for, but they kept saying, put it in the nose. So what do they mean? You know, I know now they were, they were talking about activating more of that high resonance, getting more of that focus up there.
So like you said, nasal resonance. And what does that mean to put in the nose? You described that getting it forward, uh, some other teachers. And I understand the feeling of, Hey, I got to keep it back. So it can get forward. It's it's very subjective. So there's a lot of terms in singing that don't really mean anything concrete.
It's just, we have tricks. references, things we do as coaches to help a singer find the right sound. And then I think it's a real big responsibility when they find the right sound, we give them a confirmation, we say, that was it. Did it feel good? They say, yes. Great. Can you do it again? They do it again. We say, where do you feel it?
How are you making this happen? And that's helping the singer then identify their personal sensation of how this is happening. Like you said, it can be very different. From singer to singer. And it can also change over time. Yes.
Toni: My perception of what is, let's call it chest voice versus head modal versus falsetto, I think the terms I used back then were mechanism one, mechanism two.
My perception of where exactly the borders has changed quite a lot. I, uh, used to. Um, obsessively try and hit very powerful high notes, stuff that I haven't practiced for a while because I figured out I only needed up to, you know, let's say the higher middle range. Uh, I mean, how many songs do I have a C5?
I still practice the C, but I don't really practice the G sharp five anymore, but I used to, I used to spend my whole day. Yeah. And then, Oh, that was a flip. That means when I have a flip up there, everything before that flip must've been chest voice. So that was my understanding back then, because if I have a flip there and instability, that, that must mean that's the border.
Yeah. Uh, so that was the sounds I made all day long. Uh, sorry, neighbors. Right now it's actually more acceptable sounds now it's and all that. And it's, it's. It sounds maybe a bit more aggressive, but it's not as loud, but now my, my mapping has shifted. Um, I don't think about these as, you know, typical in one arm to anymore.
I don't really think about it as chest voice. You could call it a mixed voice. I understand if you say mix is kind of misleading because you're not mixing anything, but it's like, uh, there's many different lenses through which you could view these towns is what I'm saying. And probably my understanding of.
Uh, how am I approaching the high range will change within the next couple of years and you know, always
Philippe: Yes, it's an evolution. So as you're learning to sing as you're working. I mean as you're Coaching it gets I think it's a great thing to have guidance It gives you some security. It gives you some peace of mind.
It gives you another set of years Give you some confirmation to help you progress faster. Yeah, you can, you can figure out a lot of things on your own. There's a lot of information out there, but most people don't figure everything out on their own. And why should we even try? I mean, it's just going to be so much nicer if you have some, a good guide, a good coach to, to just give you feedback and help you and help you avoid the pitfalls.
that are common. The other singers make the pitfalls that the coach has made and, and that can be just so beneficial to accelerate you on your journey. It's still going to take time, definitely going to take time for your perceptions going to evolve, how you feel things is going to evolve. And it takes time just to sort through all this terminology, understand that You know, if somebody is saying mix and someone's saying head belt and someone's saying curbing and someone's saying reinforced falsetto, then it might all be the same thing.
But in the beginning, it's like, uh, I got to find my mix. Well, to this day, if you ask 10 different really leading coaches, you're going to get nearly 10 different answers.
Toni: You're going to get 12 different answers.
Philippe: So it's really like, depending on the day
Toni: also.
Philippe: Yeah. So it's, it's very interesting.
Noise Makers in the Vocal Tract
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Philippe: So also with, with our effects, you know, we have a lot of noisemakers.
I like to just call them noisemakers, you know, so let's Kim, maybe we can just talk about this because I'm sure you and I, we can, we can enjoy a nice conversation. For probably another six hours, we can, we can, we can really get into this, enjoy this, but I think it might be valuable to just map out very quickly.
This is going to be superficial. What noise makers we can get moving in the vocal track to create varieties of. Distortions and maybe some of the common names they have again, they're not going to be, these names are not, you know, in, in a dictionary and agreed on internationally, but it might help some people realize, okay, I've got different noisemakers.
So let's go from the top down. So from the top down, going, going, going in. You know, the first noise maker, you've got all, I'll just start. You've got your tongue, right? You could have, you've got the. That's a noise. You've got the back that's interacting with the uvula. Okay. Those are, so I'm starting at the top and I'm going to let Tony take over from there.
So, you could
Toni: have your epiglottis, um, interacting with either the back of the pharynx, which actually Gregory West has found out. It's not well researched yet, but you can have the epiglottis vibrate against the back of your pharynx, and it will make a very low rumbling sound. Um, I don't hear that in music very often.
Is it kind of like the back, back,
Philippe: ah,
Toni: or is that a tongue uvula? Yeah, I hear my uvula and the, the epiglottis versus pharynx thing, it has a lot of airflow. Uh, it's like a very annoyed sign. It might've been in there. It's a bit hard to tell because we don't have the endoscope, right? But, um, I've seen endoscopies of it before and, um, So that's one effect, but it's not a very widespread one.
Um, usually what we see when people make sounds with the epiglottis is that the epiglottis tilts back towards the arytenoid cartilages, which are, uh, at Back end of the larynx and uh, they all vibrate against each other and that sounds like this It's very similar, but it has kind of this kermit sound to it And if you add voice if you add the vocal fold vibration to it, you've got what some people would call growl.
Hey And you can hear that in christina aguilera um louis armstrong, of course Um, so that would be something that people have done for a long time Uh way before rock music Um If we only vibrate the arytenoid cartilages against each other, we get a slightly higher sound like that. Um, it's a bit hard to tell exactly which one is which with these low rumbling sounds, unless you look, but for me, I can feel.
It doesn't require the Kermit forest, so I know my epiglottis is not involved. And if I put true fold, um, vibration, uh, I would, I wanted to say on top of it, but it's actually below it. It kind of gives this rattly sound. So some people call it rattle. Um, if you go even one level. Further down you have the ventricular folds or false vocal folds.
Some people call them. Um, And to my knowledge, they cannot vibrate in isolation I know some people say they can but i've never seen evidence of it. So, um I'm gonna demonstrate the false folds together with the true folds and it sounds like this. Hey Yeah, yeah, so you have it in both rock music. What? You have it in throat singing And it's a Slightly more, uh, you know, some people would say focused machine like sound than the others Uh, the vibration is actually higher, you know, it seems very low in comparison to our normal vocal folds, but Um, and
Philippe: it can create an illusion of of more intense volume, can't it?
Toni: Yes, it can. Um, It adds more partial tones because now we have two sources of phonation and that's true for all of the effects I mentioned so far. Uh, we have now twice the number of overtones. I mean, we have infinite overtones, so you can have two times infinite, but it's definitely a thicker sound, even if it's not louder.
The range of volume, especially with distortion, can vary quite a lot. The more pressed you make it, The more quiet it is. That was my speech volume right now. Uh, the more twangy you make it, The louder it gets. I mean, I'm going away from the microphone, so it's a bit hard to tell when you're not in the same room.
But, um, I believe you could do this on an operatic level. And actually I've heard opera singers use distortion or rattle on stage. For example, if they're in the fighting scene, this kind of stuff, it can be loud, right?
Combining Vocal Effects
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Toni: Um, so that would be all the, you could call them supra glottal effects above the vocal folds, but the vocal folds themselves can also vibrate, uh, In a more complex fashion, it doesn't always have to be irregular.
If we do it irregularly, whoa, we don't really hear a fundamental pitch. The only pitch perception we have is about bright and dark higher and lower. resonances. Wow. Just like when you have your toothbrush and you're, so that's how you create this illusion of high and low and, um, high and low fry screams, for example.
Uh, it can also be, um, regular, uh, that's an octave, but it's still only the vocal folds vibrating. Yeah,
Philippe: very cool.
Toni: So that would be the main effects. I also. Uh, have, you know, a couple of special effects, like what I call splitting. Where you have diplifonia basically, that's also vocal fold based, but it works a bit differently from creaking, but generally, um, you can combine.
And, uh, you know, also on a spectrum of. Regularity, irregularity, um, volume, uh, you know, other ways of creating intensity. You can vary all of these effects quite a lot. And then, you know, if we go into metal, people will combine creaking, the vocal fold, uh, uh, thing with supraglottic effects. And usually they'll call it fry screen.
They will combine, uh, The superglottic effect with more of a grunty sound and call it false court scream, which is not really an accurate name, but you know, we, we talked about how names in singing pedagogy aren't usually, uh, uh, accurate, you know, they just develop and then we're stuck with them. So that's a short overview of effects.
Philippe: Yeah. I love it. And one thing you mentioned that I think is really good for people to know. Amen. You, you've spent a lot of time isolating, isolating the coordination, which is great. It's great for developing control, but.
Practical Singing Tips
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Philippe: In reality, um, people are not trying to sing their songs with pure isolation effects.
They're letting other things move along there as well, right?
Toni: Yeah. Uh, I mean, if we look into a song where we know there's a bit of dirt going on there, that might be rock music, might be pop, might be jazz, might, you know, as I've mentioned even be classical. But, um, uh, it's usually. Not the whole phrase that's distorted.
We have these genres, but, uh, it's not the majority of songs with rough vocals. Usually it's one or two important syllables that we want to stress. We all came down. Like that. And then suddenly we're back to clean, but people don't notice because we've set the expression for the rest of the phrase. Uh, and in this case right now, I think I've overpushed my airflow slightly.
So if I did this exact sound for an hour, I can imagine it would actually be a bit harmful. But, you know, as it's just such a short instance, I make the decision as an artist right now to prioritize, uh, the sound. Over the most efficient way I could get my false false survivor. We are super efficient, but it also sounds a bit machine.
Like, so it's like. when I work on techniques with people, I don't care about how they sound because the nicest, the most brutal sounding distortion might not be the most efficient one. So we go for the efficient thing. And it doesn't sound too musical maybe. Um, but. If people are able to do the most efficient versions, they can be self reliant in a situation where they, where they notice, Oh, I'm a bit tired today.
Uh, or, um, my voice doesn't feel good. I I'm still a bit sick. In these cases, people can choose to go for 100 percent efficiency. And, um, that's what I wanted people to be empowered by, uh, in my lessons.
Philippe: I really appreciate that. And you'll notice. Uh, we shouldn't come studio singing is different than on tour singing.
And if you try and sing on tour, like you did those amazing sounds in the studio where you weren't so con, uh, concerned about efficiency, but rather about the sound, you might not have the same longevity. So again, the training and the coaching. It can be very, very valuable to keep you safe and give you develop your personal ability to, to have variations of the same thing for your best days.
And then when you just got to get through it, cause you're sick or, and you still have a gig, but learning that coordination training and spending time doing that, I think that's one of the biggest values is it just gives you more control. Singing is all about coordination. And balancing and staying in an optimal balance and then having fun, you know, being willing to just for the pleasure of it.
Maybe break the rules a little bit, but breaking the rules as a rule is just going to get you in trouble.
Toni: Yeah. And you have to know the rules in order to break them.
Philippe: Hey, yes, you do. You do. We've got to learn our limitations.
Conclusion and Upcoming Events
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Philippe: Um, Okay, I I want to keep going but we are going to hop on to a private call This is part of this is the vibe the vibe live stream vibe Voice vibe podcast and then we jump into the vibe private community at the end of these sessions and uh, then you have uh, the ability or the Opportunity to ask me and tony and other vibe guests Voice vibe guests your questions and we actually even do some coaching You So we're going to jump onto that private, uh, private session.
It's a zoom meeting. The details are in the description. If you'd like to join us. Uh, one thing I do want to, uh, promote is if you are looking for a good solid coach with that's easygoing and enjoyable to work with look up Tony, he is really good at what he does and, uh, I think you, you won't regret it.
Also, we are going to be doing a big five vocal effect training with, um, Aliki, Katriu, and Tony sometime in the future. And we're going to have a lot of fun for all of you who really just want to learn how to spend a whole month on fine tuning some effects, learning to get more control. I'm going to be of course teaching but also enjoying it myself and working Can as to wrap this up before we jump on, you know, there's there was a very popular song went all around The world and it was
Toni: And
Philippe: you break that down What is he doing?
Is it sound I mean you've got a distortion, but he's so good at this consistent timbre the whole time I'm sure you analyzed it. What what what's your opinion? Of of getting that because I noticed myself i'll get if i'm not If I can get it'll get too light on the distortion false focal side You And then it will get a little too dark into the growl rattle.
It like, and then it gets, it's just going to, so what would you say is a great approach to practice in that?
Toni: Yeah, so the tricky thing about this one is, we have a distortion from what I hear, but it's not the clichƩ, it's not the stereotypical, I JUST LEARNED DISTORTION! It's not this bright sound. It has a bit more darkness in it.
And I think this darkness it doesn't necessarily get from a very big boomy shapey, um, I think he gets that darkness from reducing the volume a bit, using a bit of the Uh, the weightlifting thing, which actually, um, takes away a bit of responsibility from the twang to make our distortion safe. So we have like 50 percent twang and we have like 50 percent of this.
And now instead of na na na na na na, this very bright sound we have na na na na na na and it's a bit darker. But it's also a bit quieter. So I think of that as a compressed 20 distortion, and then we have layering of strategies and so on. But with beginner students, I'm going to say, don't focus on the exact sound.
Focus on making the underlying effect. Comfortable and we're gonna make it easy and we're gonna be okay with it being a bit too bright in the beginning And then when that gets boring because you're so good at it, you can start adding compression
Philippe: I love that. That is a great tip. Maybe it's just in the german culture because one of my musical colleagues He would also say, uh, just sing the song with no riffs, with no variations, as pure as I can so many times that I'm so sick of it that I'm forced out of boredom to make my own variations.
Yeah. It was like really getting really good to the point where, okay, it's good. It's comfortable. I cannot stand to sing this straight anymore. I need to do something.
Toni: Yeah. That's also a way to make sure that any variation you come up with is right.
Philippe: Yeah.
Toni: Because you could like, put your love in hand out, and it's like, okay, this is still the expression of the song.
And, um, if you're not sure how much is too much, um, I mean, uh, it really depends on the context. I like music that is too much if you want to say like that, but, uh, if you're not sure, uh, I think that's actually really good advice. Make it as interesting as possible without using, um, special tricks.
Philippe: Yes. Yes.
Well, join us. We're going to do this again and we're definitely going to do a nice, uh, intensive online training sometime and maybe even in person. Last plug if you're in Germany and you want or near Germany want to come to a live event I'm actually going to be teaching in person in Germany in Wuppertal.
I'll be staying in Essen with some friends. And one of my former clients is now the music director of the school, uh, music academy in Wuppertal. So he's invited me to come work with his singers and it's an open intensive. Just send me a DM if you'd like the details. It'll be on the 27th and 28th of July.
Two days, two full days. It's going to be a group coaching, some individual coaching. You have an opportunity to do some private one on one coaching with me. So if you'd like to join us, send me a DM, uh, just message me and or comment on this video. Tony, thanks so much for being here. Thanks you to all of, all of the listeners who've been here and, um, don't forget to check out Tony and give him some love and give him some followers.
He's got some great videos on YouTube. Take care, everybody. Thanks for being on The Voice Vibe, Tony. Thank you. Thanks for having me. My pleasure.
