Really fucked up. I hope all the mapz brethren and their friends/families are safe.

Yarr, Ben is up in the area, as well as Chris, but I don't see him as a marathony guy. Runner or spectator, well he's hasn't mentioned running as a sport of his anyway. Hope his family and friends are ok, along with yours Chris. I am going up there this weekend to play at Hennesy's.

Would love to add another step and a half of comfortable singing range going up in my head voice, that would be swell. Kthxbai.

Would love to surpass whatever mental barrier I have to singing in a serious manner, even if it turns out whatever voice I can sing with is unfit to record

It is a tough one, for sure. I think you might really benefit from making a steady effort at breaking it in case you find yourself pleasantly surprised by the results. I myself am quite much more of a happy person since coming into doing habitually most all the time. Now, I doubt the result would be so dramatic in terms of your mental/emotional response but the shit is sick, dawg.

It's well worth it. And everyone hates their own voice at first, especially recorded. After a while, it just becomes another instrument- I'm forever developing my own style. And we know you have some range and ability; it's just a matter of voice training, really.

To Cam: the extremes of one's range are the hardest. On a good day I have a very big range, but the highest and lowest notes are inconsistent. I've been emphasizing the upper end of it lately and I think I've Achieved Results; I've certainly opened up the octave above middle C in a way that sounds rocking vs. falsetto- and not like Brian Johnson.

I have been trying really to hard to adjust mine in the same manner myself, actually. Sort of forcing the top of my head voice into some previously uncomfortable areas. This particular song I am always trying to sing in the same register as the d00d singing it:



It is just out of my comfort zone by a whole bunch, maybe even a couple steps for one of the melodies that really hops up there. I can sort of force some of it out by just pushing a bunch of air and hoping to get on top of the note. Shit is hard though, man. Singing is still a little bit of an odd thing. I have a really weird voice, IMO. I have a large range, but the whole bottom part of it is usually useless to me as I don't really too often need any bari/bass choir style vocal (which is really the only way I can do that sort of thing besides as a sang growly thing). Kind of retarded, because it is the only conventionally pleasant vocal style I am capable of.

As a whole other self indulgent aside because the memory popped into my head the other day: I recall one time when our choir teacher in 9th grade has a clinician who specialized in male voices come in and work with our class. In the middle of warm ups or singing a piece we were working on, I don't remember, he stopped the whole class and asked anyone to guess who was the loudest kid in the room. A few guesses were shot off, but then dooder pointed at me and made some joke about watching out for the little guys. It is true I can project very loudly, but I have come to realize it comes at the price of lack of sustain. I can't growl or sing long phrases without pausing for breath well at all, lemme tell ya.

Still hate my voice, after years of recording it. It is a thin high sort of thing, and i seem as tied to it as i think Geoff finds himself to the cartman thing. Just can't do it another way.

In troof, when i very first heard Animal Collective, i at first responded to the dudes voice being of a somewhat similar range/flavor but being used for what my brain found a much more decent result.

But i still don't do it that way at all. At least half of my voice problems are stubbornness-based. I never like leaving something i once thought was a good idea, meaning truly leaving it, behind.

Also, Cam'r'n, long phrases at volume is a muscle thing as much as anything. The more you do it, the more you can do. Kind of like range actually. There are limits you will hit, but there is definitely room there to expand into. Like, right now my range is decent-to-okay, but i know forfact that if i tried to do it bandvolume on stage, i would lose my voice rapid and run out of air continually. But there was a time when i could just endlessly crank volume out of my face. It is, at least in part, a lungs and muscles thing.

Chris is entirely correct. You run into phyiscal limits, but within those it's all practice. For the longest time, I felt tied to the gothrock baritone/Jim Morrison thing as it was what I knew how to do, and could do passably. It's a cool sound, but it's limiting and bears little resemblance to my actual voice. And I don't have the lung capacity to push out the really, really low notes- which I can hit, but... at any sort of bandvolume wherein I won't have to eat the mic most of the time. A bass, I am not. In normal human range, I can be heard without a mic. Not well, mind, but audible, over a kit. That's pretty loud. I do have a tendency to blow my voice out and sound rather... equine ...after doing the loud raspy thing Mr. Cam has expressed his fondness for after a few hours. I would take voice lessons could I afford it.

I can belt out low very well. I have a voluminous low voice. I think I've only spoken to two of you who can confirm my deep voice, which would be Cam a few years back over the phone and Rob who I met in person. The only vocal I think I have posted on here was the Waits cover which was not a true example of my voice, and I've not posted any audio book examples I have done. I guess I prolly should. Bad thing withe a low voice, it's rarely used in rock or pop. It's great when I have to hit them, but out of need I've had to expand my range very high, so many times I am called on to hit the very high screamy parts, (highest note in the vocal arpeggio in Twist and Shout, etc...) Mostly I think it's just a matter of practicing over and over and getting used to hearing your voice. Also, in-ears help. I love to use them in practice as well.

Man, I hear you on this one for sure. I could spare the dough, I'm just not motivated enough at the moment to pursue such a thing due to the social aspects of it. Dealing with people and whatnot.

In other news, I am feeling pretty good about how my guitar playing is coming along.

I am listening to the multitracks, or some vague semblance thereof, for Spoonman. Good goddamn.

Opeth tonight. Swans is coming in July; that should be fun. Tickets are teh cheap, too.

Opeth kicked ass. Even Chris's wife liked them. Katatonia were pretty alright, though I'm iffy on them. I am neither a fan nor not, but they are okay enough; there's a few songs of theirs I enjoy.

I don't remember the exact setlist, but they opened with Devil's Orchard and ended with Blackwater Park. Unsurprisingly, the setlist leaned toward their lighter side, but they did bust out the heavy (the aforementioned closer, Deliverance, White Cluster, Ghost Of Perdition, Harlequin Forest). They did play Demon Of The Fall, of course... An acoustic version. It works.

The keyboardist is my new hero for touring with a pair of Mellotrons. And a Hammond, Nord Electro 3 (for piano and Rhodes sounds), and Moog Voyager. Fuck yes.

Guitar rigs were Marshalls, a pair of straight 4x12s each, with the heads in the back. Last I knew it was Vintage Modern for Mikael and JVM for Fredrik. They had one rack, with a bunch of pedals in a rack tray, a Crybaby rack wah, and a TC G-Force, with a GCX controller as well. As Fredrik had the Ground Control and a wah of some kind (and a TC Polytune) I assume the pedals are his. Mikael had a controller Chris recognized but forgot the name of, so the TC and Crybaby rack are likely his. Martin Mendez had a few random pedals- looked like a 3-button Sansamp, some kind of fuzz... Fender 8x10; no idea what amp. Last time I saw them, he had an SVT; the 4 Pro, I believe. He played the same Fender Jazz throughout, even for the D-tuned stuff. Mikael and Fredrik switched out guitars a few times, PRSs, all, for standard, drop D and open D. Mikael mostly played his PRS sig model, a black one for open D and a Mira with a Bigsby for drop D. Martin Axenrot had some sort of electronic drum whatnot he played with his hands, not sticks, but I couldn't tell what it was. Korg Wavedrum, maybe?

Katatonia had no amps at all. A pair of AxeFXs, a pair of Digi 003s- a lot of backing tracks; all keys. There was a guitar synth moment in one of the songs, which was cool. and a pair of laptops + a few other pieces in a bigass rack. I went right up front toward the end of their set to czech their pedalboards and they were just controllers of some sort. No stage volume at all; I was right in front of a PA cab (with plugs in, of course) and there was nothing coming off that stage. Opeth sounded like they have a fair bit of stage volume. I've played that venue and seen a lot of things there over the years, so it's easy to tell, even in a room that size. Packed house.

No one had monitors; all in-ears.

There was no local opener. Both bands were very polished. Both of them had lovely backdrops, too, we all decided we would put up in our living rooms.

Correction on the guitar setups: Fredrik, the lead player stage right, is the one with the G-Force, just as a reverb + delay with tap tempo. The rack has an MXR Phase 90, Carbon Copy, Micro Amp, some other thing I don't recognize- Micro Flanger, maybe? and a Dunlop Uni-Vibe.

Akerfeldt is using the AxeFX, AFAIK. At least, as far as I can find out. The pedal compliment sounds accurate to what I could see in the rack tray.

Aaaaand, I have finally figured how to make spending most the day in lazy stoner mode into something truly productive. I have watched inexcusable/shameful hours of time watching Dragon Ball Z and Naruto and just noodling and repeating dexterity exercises. Shit is really paying off, my playing and timing are cleaning up a good bit.

That's the way to do it, really. Just fucking off with a guitar or bass in my hands or a keyboard in front of me has done wonders over the years. It helps keep my chops up, too, as my lazy ass rarely practices, like practices practices save for vocals (or drums, if there's a kit handy) unless there's a particular part I need to get down.

yeah, just sitting around with a guitar in your hands all the time is great. When I'm home and sitting with the kids, maybe watching a movie, I always have a guitar in hand, just noodling, riffing, working on timing, not even really thinking about what I'm doing. It just kinda melds into practice and works...

It won't make me great, but it will keep me from sucking, which I suppose is enough.