MARY ZIMMER: Saving a Vocal Session, Safe Screaming Techniques, and Vocal Coaching for Producers

Speaker 1 (00:00:00):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast, brought to you by Focus, right supplying hardware and software products used by professional and amateur musicians, which enables the high quality production of music Focus. Right? Sound is everything. And now your host, Joey Sturgis, Joel Wanasek, and Eyal

Speaker 2 (00:00:22):

Levi. Hey everybody. Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast. I am your host, Joel Wanasek. And with me is Mr. Eyal, the legend Levi.

Speaker 3 (00:00:33):

Hi.

Speaker 2 (00:00:33):

And hi. We have a special guest with us today, Mary Zimmer from voice hacks.net. And Mary is an old friend of mine, somebody I went to college with, and it's kind of funny and ironic because Mary and I stay in touch, but all the people that we went to school with, none of 'em ever really ended up making a career in music. And Mary and I are still here kicking away, kicking ass and taking names. So

Speaker 3 (00:00:57):

Want to know something funny?

Speaker 2 (00:00:59):

Yes, I do.

Speaker 3 (00:00:59):

See, I didn't realize you guys went to college together. I've kind of known Mary forever as well, since 2009 actually.

Speaker 2 (00:01:08):

Oh, oh wait, I go back to what, 2003, two,

Speaker 4 (00:01:13):

Maybe more than that. How much do we want to admit to It's going to date ourselves.

Speaker 3 (00:01:20):

Yeah, I'll just stick with the 2009 thing. Yeah, we win. You lose.

Speaker 2 (00:01:25):

Yeah.

Speaker 4 (00:01:25):

Me and Ayal were at the very first revolver, golden gods, and we did a hilarious interview on the black carpet, talking to the metal injection guys about how much we partied the night before. We didn't really have much going on to talk about at that time. Wait, Al parties

Speaker 3 (00:01:41):

I did. I used to.

Speaker 2 (00:01:43):

We went to Steel Panther.

Speaker 3 (00:01:44):

That's right.

Speaker 2 (00:01:45):

I've been trying to get him to drink a beer with me at a bar. More than one for more than 10 minutes for since we started this company.

Speaker 3 (00:01:52):

Dude, I have partied for eight lifetimes. I'm really over it at this point.

Speaker 2 (00:02:00):

I'm just playing catch up. I just worked the whole time while everybody else is partying, but I'll cry about it later.

Speaker 3 (00:02:06):

It was work. I was in a band and I was networking, so it was all work, even though those trips were fun, going to the golden gods and all that shit, that to me was work. That was valuable work shit. And the partying was just to overcome massive

Speaker 2 (00:02:23):

Social

Speaker 3 (00:02:23):

Anxiety. That's

Speaker 2 (00:02:25):

A good way to do it. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:02:26):

Totally. But I don't really get social anxiety like that anymore, and I don't like partying, so fuck you, bro. Just kidding. I love you. I'm just going to cry. Just kidding. I love you. Yeah, no, Mary and I went to this, we hung out and we were signed to the same label, right?

Speaker 4 (00:02:46):

No, it wasn't doth on Roadrunner and I was on

Speaker 3 (00:02:51):

Media.

Speaker 4 (00:02:51):

Yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:02:51):

But we You

Speaker 4 (00:02:52):

Guys switched.

Speaker 3 (00:02:53):

We got switched.

Speaker 4 (00:02:55):

Oh, I see.

Speaker 3 (00:02:56):

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, I knew from the beginning that there's no way that doth could ever sell enough records to do more than one record on Roadrunner. So we got moved to Century Media and also we both recorded with Soff, and so we were both on the same label and we had both worked with Soff and so we both knew George and so we just met and yes, that's the story.

Speaker 4 (00:03:21):

Yes.

Speaker 2 (00:03:22):

And here we are today.

Speaker 4 (00:03:23):

That's the story. Morning Glory. I got a better story

Speaker 2 (00:03:25):

Than that. Once me and Mary walked around downtown Milwaukee and hung out flyers for our really crappy local bands at the time. We got much better as time went on, but at the time, our bands were terrible. We hung outliers for the show and I don't think anybody cared. It came,

Speaker 4 (00:03:38):

It was great. We were literally canvassing on feet. And then another time when you very first started recording, because back in the day I was a recording nerd at UW Whitewater that I learned, I do not have the patience or the skill for it, but I had a bunch of sound foam and I brought it over to you at your very first studio at your house. That's right. I remember that.

Speaker 3 (00:04:01):

Did you hang it up or did you burn it?

Speaker 4 (00:04:03):

No, we hung it up.

Speaker 2 (00:04:05):

We hung it up. It was Oral X or a knockoff, so I don't think it actually did anything, but you know, whatever. Right. But when you first starting, you're just like, I got this stuff.

Speaker 4 (00:04:15):

It's funny.

Speaker 2 (00:04:16):

Yeah. That's the first hallmark of being a legit studio was your first two by four foam panel that you put on your wall. You're like, alright, we in the studio now motherfuckers, let's go. Right, right.

Speaker 3 (00:04:25):

I have an entire basement filled with that shit. Like a room, well, not an entire basement, but the room that it's in is the size of some people's basements and it's filled from floor to ceiling with foam. And if anyone wants to buy it off me, hit me up AAL at URM Academy, EYAL at U RM Academy. I just realized that I need to get rid of that shit. But I covered my entire old studio in four by four and four inch thick foam and base traps, foam base traps. So much of it, so much. It literally is floor to ceiling taking up an entire huge room. And let's talk about why Mary's here.

Speaker 2 (00:05:14):

Nah, we're talking about foam, but if you want to do that, that's fine.

Speaker 3 (00:05:17):

Well, there's a reason you're here. Besides that, we think you're cool. Mary is actually a really great vocalist. She's been a vocalist in various bands and started voice hacks.net, which is basically tutorials and lessons for singers and screamers. And I'd like to say that it's kind of more modern day Melissa Cross type stuff for people who are familiar with that. And we, I mean, it's not the same, but I'm just trying to give people a

Speaker 4 (00:05:51):

Reference. No, I'm all for it. I studied with Melissa, so I definitely give her props in all areas.

Speaker 3 (00:05:58):

And well, I think that she helped bring the concept of vocal health for screamers and proper technique to a forefront where before her, that wasn't even a thing, right?

Speaker 4 (00:06:08):

No. Oh

Speaker 2 (00:06:08):

Yeah. You just blew out your throat and then left the studio in defeat. No one knew why.

Speaker 4 (00:06:12):

Yes. I mean, I remember I discovered Melissa K. Cross actually when I was recording in the studio at UW Whitewater. I used to live in there. I mean, when I really liked recording, I was the only person who was in the studio at Whitewater. I learned on their very, very first Pro Tools rig, which I still had to use a DATs and all that crap. I remember setting. Are

Speaker 3 (00:06:34):

You sure this was 2003 and not 1993?

Speaker 4 (00:06:36):

No, UW Whitewater was really behind. We got our first Pro Tools rig in 2001 and it was with a grant and we were running it on the old Mac with the blue shell. So

Speaker 2 (00:06:52):

That's why I went for business.

Speaker 4 (00:06:53):

Yeah, it was great. It was unbelievable. But I lived in there. I recorded metal bands in there all the time. And one of my things that I love to do, you guys, and your recording audience will nerd out on this, is I had a subscription to tape hop. So I was like, ah, I love tape hop. Everything they say is the best. And I would just be geeking out on that and nerding out and recording people. And I came running into the studio one day when I was working with the Ottoman Empire, AKA Luna Mortis, the band that a lot of you guys know me for. I was recording poorly, some of our earliest stuff, and I came in the studio, I was pointing to tape up. They did an article about Melissa Cross and she was talking about the screaming techniques. And I had been screaming, but I hadn't really quite figured out what was happening.

(00:07:35):

I just knew something was right because I knew that it wasn't making me hoarse. And that there were a lot of singers even at that time who had been doing it for 10 or 15 years. And I was like, you can't do something for that long without if you're hurting yourself. So there has to be a right way to do it, whether people know it or not. And I read her articles and I came running in and I was like, you guys, this is what I'm talking about. Melissa Cross is saying what I've been saying, and they just looked at me like, huh. Then went back to their own thing. They could care less about it, but I was like Nerd city. And she was the first person to really translate classical stuff into screaming.

Speaker 3 (00:08:15):

And I could say that really works. The singer from doth was like a devotee to her methods, and long before he got in the band, he went to her as well and studied with her. And basically since him, I've never encountered a vocalist, a screamer who had that kind of stamina. He could do eight hour sessions for a month straight and not get tired. It was crazy. We would get off the road, go right to recording. I had a studio and literally eight hours a day, 30 days straight in the studio with him and he wouldn't get horse, nothing. He'd be totally cool.

Speaker 2 (00:08:55):

Imagine that practice and training correctly.

Speaker 4 (00:08:58):

Yeah, I mean that's really the idea, right?

Speaker 3 (00:09:00):

Yeah. Well, I mean maybe he's a freak. I think that there's a little bit of freakish genetics going on with him, but still you can definitely get to close to that level of screaming your fucking lungs out without hurting yourself if the technique's right.

Speaker 2 (00:09:19):

Absolutely. So let's talk about why it's important for a producer to understand the mechanics, because I think that's a good conversation piece and the reason why we wanted to have Mary on. So first and foremost, I'm going to ask you, Mary, why is it important for a producer to understand this stuff? But then we'll break down some of the mechanics of singing and some of the practical things that you can do as a producer, because a lot of vocalists are going to come into the studio and they're not going to know shit. They're not going to know how to not blow out their voice and when they're going too hard, when they're not going too hard. So it'd be cool to address all of those topics, but let's start out at the top.

Speaker 4 (00:09:51):

Okay, well, it's important because it's a totally different instrument. It's a totally unique instrument, and if you don't understand what's going on with it, I think maybe you'll have a really hard time getting the guy or girl on the other end of the microphone to do what it is you're trying to get them to do. And if you say, a lot of producers will do this kind of stuff and be like, well do it like this guy or do it like this person. And that's just unfortunately not specific enough. And it might even behoove a producer to kind of watch some of my tutorials or take some lessons or something so that they themselves understand what are some really practical suggestions they could give people.

Speaker 3 (00:10:31):

Real quick, sorry to cut you off. All you guys listening. If you want to check out her tutorials, we are going to put links in the show notes. So just check the show notes and we'll have links to her site and tutorials and all that good stuff.

Speaker 4 (00:10:46):

So one thing is that I find that a lot of producers will have you do takes and just not explain what it is that you need to change from takes to take. So a good place to start for producers is even if you don't know any vocal technique and you're kind of devoid of suggestions, you're not sure what to say, start by telling them what it is that they need to fix. Don't just hit the space bar. No, no, no. Again, no

Speaker 2 (00:11:14):

Garbage. No.

Speaker 4 (00:11:17):

And it's so funny because I interned for a guy like that back when I was learning to record and I learned that doesn't really, it just frustrates the musicians. So you have to be like, okay, well that was flat, that was sharp. Sometimes you have to ask the singer if they have any training, if they play any other instruments, they might not actually even know what that means. So if they're like don't know anything, you might have to explain to them, well, your pitch is a little lower than it should be. That's what I mean by flat. We have to try. You could even sing it to them. If you have a good ear. For example, after going in the studio with Sue k, talk about a guy with a crazy good ear, he would stop me and then he would sing it perfectly in the center of the pitch to me, make sure that I could hear the difference between what I was doing and where I was falling short a little bit. So if you're a good vocalist, you could sing it to them, show them, illustrate to them. If you're not, you need to really be specific. I'd really like to hear that in an angrier tone or just with more energy, you need to be specific. If you just keep hitting it and stuff, you're not going to get results. So

Speaker 3 (00:12:26):

I found that one thing that helped me because I'm not a vocalist, is to try to understand a little bit of the mechanics. So where they should be singing from, how they should shape their mouth, how it should feel in their throat, things like that so that I can try to give specific things to do to achieve a certain sound because it's not like I could say, just match me.

Speaker 4 (00:12:51):

Yes, yes. And that's really the core of how I teach, is by telling people, this is what you need to do to make this sound. And I separate it into different actions for different sounds, and I make it very specific and very clear, and it really is effective because people get straight to the point. So there's a few things I can tell people to suggest to their singers that would come from a lesson standpoint as far as breathing and tone placement. There's some real quick fixes people can learn to do and some really fast tips that we can talk about as well.

Speaker 3 (00:13:27):

What are some of them just offhand?

Speaker 4 (00:13:29):

So first thing is you just want to make sure, one time I was tracking in a studio where in the ISO booth they had this air conditioning duct just blasting right above where the microphone is, which on one hand makes kind of sense because you don't might get hot in the ISO booth, but what's counterproductive about that is air conditioning or any sort of ventilation is going to cause dryness in the vocal cords. So I was just having the hardest time, and this was way into my training. This was only three years ago, and I told him, my friend Don Dbis, this producer from Cleveland, I told him, I said, buddy, you got to turn the AC off in that ISO booth because I'm dying in here. It's so dry. So if you really have to put it on because it's hot in there, or just like there's dry conditions winter and the person seems kind of crackly, the first thing you can do is just make sure the vocal cords are moisturized and that the tissues inside the trachea are moisturized.

(00:14:24):

That even if nobody knows anything else about singing, that's going to improve it right away. It's like putting an oil in an engine or not. Even if you don't know anything about cars, it's going to improve the whole thing immediately when you add oil to it. So what you need to do is get some mint tea, mint herbal tea with no green or black tea in it because green and black tea will really dry everything out. The tannins. Some mint tea will help Rico lozenges. You want all natural herbal lozenges that don't have chemicals or alcohol in them, or a facial steamer or just a cup of steam with just hot water that you're breathing in. Just always be careful. You can burn yourself with steam. So go carefully into that one. But there's the Vix facial steamers you can put your face in. So first step is moisture. That will improve a lot for a singer, just drink the tea or a screamer.

Speaker 3 (00:15:15):

That's a step of complexity beyond just drinking water though. Steaming the tea.

Speaker 4 (00:15:21):

Yes. Yes. Because you think about the physiology, your vocal cords and the related folds for creating harsh sounds are all in the trachea and the epicon of funnel, they're not in the food pipe, so you need to inhale. You can't drink water onto that. You can drink water and it will go through your bloodstream and get up to your throat. It will moisturize like your soft palate a little bit, but you want to moisturize the tissues through the entire respiratory tract. So that's why inhaling steam and drinking like a mint tea because you're going to inhale the menthol vapors, which are also anti-inflammatory. When we get untrained singers who aren't using good air support or screamers, their vocal folds tend to slam together. They get hoarse the farther along they go. So mint, we are looking at an anti-inflammatory thing here because actually taking oral anti-inflammatories like ibuprofen and things can actually put someone at risk for vocal hemorrhaging, and you don't really want that. So Mary,

Speaker 2 (00:16:19):

What do you think about turmeric? Because I have a certain anti-inflammatory tea that I've made that's really helped me a lot. Not with vocals, but just in general with a small carpal tunnel from editing and typing and tendonitis from over guitar playing for many, many years. So what I do is I take fresh turmeric root organic and I grate it. Then I take fresh ginger root and I grate it. You have to have black peppercorns in with the turmeric to increase absorption. And then usually I throw in a cinnamon stick and then I boil water, make tea out of it, and it's really spicy, but it's really helps me with anytime I have joint stiffness or anything like that, and it's just general good health. Yeah,

Speaker 4 (00:16:58):

I think that's fabulous. I mean, any sort of anti-inflammatory benefits you can get from a dietary things, whether it be a more plant-based diet or a ginger, turmeric, those kind of things, those are all fine. It's just synthetic anti-inflammatories, NSAIDs, they call them. So your Aleve and ibuprofen, and of course aspirin, which is a blood thinner. These things can put people at risk for vocal hemorrhaging, and it's pretty easy to hemorrhage your vocal cord, burst the blood vessel because it's just like your eye. It's a very thin membrane. When we're singing really aggressively and screaming, the blood is rushing to that area. And so we really want to try to mitigate that if we can, those risks. But I don't want people to get too neurotic about that. It is what it is, but always the more natural option is going to be the safer option always.

Speaker 3 (00:17:53):

Awesome. Okay, so what was the second tip before I interrupted you?

Speaker 4 (00:17:57):

No, that's fine. I'll keep talking. No, no, you have to. Or this will just be me talking for like 30 minutes. She's

Speaker 2 (00:18:02):

Fired. It's okay. Yeah, gone.

Speaker 4 (00:18:04):

I'm sometimes I think of the wealth of information that I give my students during the lessons. They can't understand why I only do hour lessons. I'm like, you guys would never, I'd have so much information. It goes on forever. So one thing is for breathing, right? So whether it's a singer or a screamer or an opera singer for that matter, you should try to get them to breathe correctly. 99% of the problems people are having in the studio are breathing. But if you tell somebody breathe with your diaphragm, that doesn't mean anything to them. It's completely confusing and doesn't help. Is that what is happening when we breathe correctly? Certainly, but your diaphragm is the muscle that automates your breathing. It's also the muscle that spasms. When you have a hiccup and you can't consciously control it. You have no control over this muscle whatsoever.

(00:18:51):

So it only moves because you've inhaled fully and you're exhaling and you don't actually sing with that. You sing with the abdominis. You're six pack muscle in the front of the stomach that you have conscious control over. If I say I'm going to punch you in the stomach, you can tighten it up voluntarily. You can tighten it up for crunches. So then basic mechanics for good saying and screaming is to fill the lungs fully and to squeeze them from underneath. And I have a few videos about how to do this and how to train yourself to do it. But the easiest way, if you're in the studio and somebody is like just not hitting the mark, they're always flat, they're lacking energy, or maybe their screams are just weak or they're getting tired, whatever the issue is, try the breathing trick. And what you do is you ask them to just stand up a little taller, fill the lungs fully by taking a deep breath through the mouth, and then as they begin to sing or scream, doesn't matter, whatever they're doing, tell them to imagine they have a string tied to their sternum, their chest plate, their chest plate right in the middle of their chest that's sort of just lifting up the sternum.

(00:19:51):

And you guys can kind of try it yourselves and feel that you want to use your back to lift you up. You don't want to tighten up the shoulders either. Explain that to them, but just tell 'em, just lift the sternum as you begin to sing. So when I do that, you notice an extraordinary amount of release of pressure off of your vocal chords because then you're not getting the big raising and lowering of the shoulders where all the air comes out at once. That kind of crap. You guys know it. You've heard that a million times. And so you can even try it just with speaking. If I just do it now, I fill my lungs and I lift my sternum as I go to speak. Hey, hi, how are you? I feel a certain effortlessness in my voice. You guys can try it if you want. Hey, hi. How are you? Welcome

Speaker 2 (00:20:36):

To the Unstoppable Vocal Training Podcast.

Speaker 3 (00:20:39):

Hey, hi, how are you? Welcome to my show, the Al Show.

Speaker 4 (00:20:44):

You should feel as you lift the sternum and begin to speak. As you keep it lifted, your abdomen will start to automatically contract underneath just by lifting it. That's all you have to do. So if I'm going to sing and I'm just falling short of it and somebody says, just fill the lungs and just lift the chest as you sing your first note, it will set the air pressure up for the whole rest of the sentence. Hey, very effortless sounding, rock singing. Then there's no tension in my throat there because I'm using the air. So the sternum lift is a very simple, very quick, very easy way to get somebody to do something without giving them some weird esoteric kind of instruction that they don't understand

Speaker 2 (00:21:26):

Over the pencil.

Speaker 4 (00:21:29):

That actually works too. Melissa crosses over the pencil technique, right? Tone placement. But I have a little bit more specific tone placement, things that I would suggest in the studio for rock, singing a little bit more specific than over the pencil. I don't if you guys want to talk about those, but I want to go where you want to go with the show.

Speaker 3 (00:21:47):

Well, crickets. Just kidding. Crickets, Joel. Sure, sure. I was waiting for Joel to answer and then I didn't answer, and then I realized, crickets,

Speaker 2 (00:21:57):

My Skype cut out for a second. I'm sorry. I'm having a little bit of technical difficulties, but let me say this. So about a year ago, I was doing a lot of my now well-known and loved and sometimes maybe hated by some people Facebook Live rants. And you go on and you're intensely talking passionately for an hour to two hours. And I was really getting dried out and I was really struggling a lot with my vocals and I just was killing my voice and I was losing my voice. And then I went to Nam last year killer, which would be, yes, so about a year ago, and I just killed my whole voice. I don't know, I was just, because I talk way too damn much and I never listened to anybody else. So I was just, and I blew it out on day two, and then that was it for the rest of Nam.

(00:22:43):

I couldn't talk and it took me months to get it back. And then of course I come back right away and I'm like, all right, Facebook live two hours, let's go. Boom, boom, boom, podcast. One thing after another. And I'll tell you, man, I really kicked my ass. So I hit up Mary. I'm like, Mary, what the hell can I do? I got some really great advice from Mary, which she just told you quite a bit of the peppermint tea and steaming and good loins and stuff. I also got some good advice from Rob Flynn from Machine Head, and Rob had told me to talk through my nose and adjust my vocal apparatus to be kind of more like how the Brits talk with the rising intonation. I'm not going to do it and embarrass myself. Sorry, that was horrible. But you know what I mean. They're projecting through kind of almost like the nasal cavity and not so much through the throat. Is that correct, Mary?

Speaker 4 (00:23:32):

Yeah, I mean, so what Rob was really expertly explaining to you was the concept of tone placement. So this is the next thing that I was going to talk about is another thing that we do to get good vocal production is tone placement. So what he was saying when he was saying kind of give it this British lilting feeling oring or speak kind of through the nose, he's trying to direct you into tone placement, placing your tone somewhere else directly focusing on sending it in a different direction. And that will create a different sound. And the reason why that works is because the weirdest thing is this is unlike any other instrument. The voice and all of the things that control the voice are not neurologically connected to your brain in the same way as your hands. There are no tactile nerve endings in the entire structure really on the outside.

(00:24:28):

And when we feel pain or tension, it's usually not from our swollen vocal cords, it's from the extrinsic muscles around the larynx. We can't actually feel them slamming together. We just lose our voice. And we do feel like the soreness kind of, but it's not the same as if we could actually feel them slamming together. I think it would be quite painful. But we're wired that way because abstract thought needs to control your expression. It's evolutionary. So you need to be able to yell for help automatically without thinking about it. You need to be able to say something and communicate with the other humans around you in the appropriate tones, whether you say something sarcastically or meanly or whatever. So that's great when you're speaking, but when you're singing or you want to do controlled speaking, so you can be like a public speaker, you have to use tone placement, you need to control that abstract thought.

(00:25:19):

You have to put a very specific picture in your head while singing or speaking depending on what you're doing. And there's different ones for screaming that I use, but I'm going to talk about the singing one right now. It really applies more to rock singing and speaking. So I kind of have developed my own system of tone placement, which is a little different than classical tone placement. I learned the concept from classical singers and from Melissa Cross, she talked about the above the pencil. That's actually a really old classical technique that she adapted for rock singing called Dynamic Registration. And when we have the correct tone placement in our head, it makes things move in our voice. So I can't tell you, Joel, hold your larynx in place, move it up and down, do all this crap. You can't do any of that.

Speaker 2 (00:26:03):

I'd be like, whatever. I don't understand.

Speaker 4 (00:26:06):

Yeah, you can't. You can't though. I

Speaker 2 (00:26:08):

Can ignore my larynx though and talk like this,

Speaker 4 (00:26:11):

But you have to think of a certain sound or making a certain voice or something, you know what I mean? You're not really thinking about when you think about moving your hands, it's a much more direct command. I can do a low larynx like that, but when I do that, I am just thinking about making that sound and then my larynx gets pushed down and that's really what it is. So if I am rock singing, so mostly you're going to have a rock singer in the studio, heavy metal singer. And even if they're singing with kind of grit like yeah, your James Hetfield and all that, you want to direct them to imagine that all of their notes are going forward. So I have a set of three laser positions. I tell people to imagine their sound going in. I tell them to imagine their sound is a laser cannon from the back of the mouth.

(00:26:58):

It's on a pivot and you can point it in several directions and what direction you pointed in is going to change the style. And it's how I teach people to sing opera versus rock sing. Our tone placement for rock sing is forward tone placement. So if you imagine your laser beam of sound coming right out through the rum, that's that thing right below your nose that a lot of people get pierced. It's also you can imagine a piece of floss or your two front teeth and you want to send all notes through there, whether they're high or low. So hey, that's forward. That's why it doesn't sound like opera singing. When I have a specific picture in my head, my throat relaxes, my larynx goes into, it's a neutral position, and I get the most resonant sound and the most breath connection. So if you're just hearing somebody Biff their high notes, tell 'em, I want you to imagine that you're sending that high note forward provided they're not trying to do hair metal falsetto type of things.

(00:27:53):

I'm talking about specific because that's a different tone placement. I'm talking about specifically rock singing like Bruce Dickinson when he is not going up into the super high notes, but if you're hearing somebody belt real high like a Lizzie Hail or something and they're just biffing it, send it forward, they need to picture, it's not a specific enough picture to say, sing like this person or imitate me or whatever. Tell them, imagine those notes going forward with a lot of power and that will trick the brain. A lot of times when you think about going up, your larynx shoots up and then you can't really sing the note. So sending the sound forward, having a very specific picture in your mind, and that would be the tone placement for rocking or speaking, hi, hello. And you combine that with the breathing. We've got a magic trick there.

Speaker 3 (00:28:38):

So that makes me think of a situation that I've encountered quite a bit, which is dealing with screamers who don't practice and come to the studio and they don't have a good warmup, they don't have anything. They just scream on stage or band practice and then doing a vocal session starts to really tax them. And then I've had situations where by the second or third day they were shot. And there were some cases where I didn't know how to avoid that other than just making them sing less and getting my assistant to

Speaker 4 (00:29:27):

Tune it up. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:29:28):

No, no, no, no. To track it for them.

Speaker 4 (00:29:30):

Oh my God, really?

Speaker 3 (00:29:32):

Yeah, because the choice was either blow them out completely and don't finish or figure out a way to finish. And the reason I started doing that was because I did have a situation where a band on a label came in, the singer was like that, and within two days he blew himself out completely and was out of commission for six weeks. And so I realized also that you can't just start giving a vocalist who's never practiced like Melissa Cross exercises. They won't know what they're doing. They'll hurt themselves if they suddenly go from nothing to being all nervous about the studio and trying to do Melissa Cross for four hours a day. So I guess what I'm getting at is how would you approach having to deal with a vocalist who has no background or knowledge of how to do it properly, how to not get them to blow themselves out? What can you give them that they could pick up quickly?

Speaker 2 (00:30:27):

Hold on one second. I just want to rudely interrupt and reiterate the importance of this. I'll give you an example. A lot of times a vocalist will come into the studio and because they're in the studio, they're like, okay, I got to go extra hard because this is forever. This is my recording. I had a guy once come in and within the first hour, he was given that extra 15% on his vocals, and I was not experienced enough at the time to understand this, and he blew out his vocal for five months. So imagine recording a whole CD with a band, getting the guy in and in one hour, okay, I'll see you in many months from now, and he had to go have rehab and vocal coaching and stuff like that. God, his voice was never the same. So that is a prime example of how important this is. And listen up. So sorry. Go ahead, Mary.

Speaker 4 (00:31:11):

No, no, I love it. I love hearing what you guys are saying because I coach a lot of people. I only coach adults now and most of them are professional singers or screamers in bands in active things. So I hear this stuff all the time, or I hear like, I used to be able to do this and then I blew up my voice doing this. So if you have a guy who's like that first thing first, you really want to encourage them to lay off the talking, that's one thing they can do. They need to understand that when they're going to be in the studio that day, they need vocal rest and they need it after the studio as well to reduce the swelling. A lot of people don't understand, you can't just go around speaking with your instrument all the time. This is why a lot of times singers seem reclusive or standoffish on tour. Well, it's just a simple matter of the fact that you can't go around talking because that's your instrument. And when you talk, you generally do not use correct speaking techniques. So a lot of people who have injuries and nodules are just the people who will never shut up, tell them that they have to take a break that they have to God.

Speaker 3 (00:32:14):

That's true.

Speaker 4 (00:32:16):

And they need to, and I can cite certain singers, but I don't want to put anybody on blast, but I know a few big time guys who have vocal issues, they never shut up. They will not get off the phone. And I think they probably have permanent, and these are people who have training and stuff and people who are doing very well. So they probably have permanent nodules and damage and things like that. All the tissues and vocal cords can scar and callous and do all these crazy things, but we can prevent a lot of that by just keeping the inflammation down. So keep the sessions shorter. I mean, I know that was like an hour, so there's nothing you could do there, but try to keep them shorter, give them a couple hours of vocal rest between every hour of tracking, but really iterate to them that it needs to be actual vocal rest.

(00:33:01):

They need to text, they need to email, they need to write stuff on paper. They need to let everybody around them know that I am vocal resting and they need to seriously do that. That's one thing. The other thing is you can give them, tell them. I mean, if they just warm up for 10 minutes, one thing that happens with a lot of screaming is people just don't warm up the voice and then they hemorrhage a vocal cord. It kind of sounds like what maybe happened to the guy whose voice blew out after an hour when you're putting the effort into it. I noticed the blood rushed to my head when I fry scream especially. So I really, really notice this rushing of blood pressure. So again, it's very athletic and you're way more at risk to burst a vocal cord if you haven't primed the area and brought blood to the area and start to dilate those vessels.

(00:33:50):

So if you can find one very simple singing warmup. My singing vocalizing exercises are pretty simple. I have one that I can give you guys in a video that anybody can use on YouTube, but just if you get them to do one thing, maybe before they start, maybe just 10 minutes before they start, if they just haven't done anything at all, and if they're resistant, that's their own problem. But just that 10 minutes will dilate the blood vessels, even if they're not super keen on warming up, tell them just take a few deep breaths, lift the chest, do a few, like, Hey, hey, just some speaking. Just try to get them to warm up for 10 to 15 minutes. You don't want to do too much more than that because again, you have an hourglass on your instrument. You got to keep warmups to a minimum.

(00:34:43):

Don't let people warm up for an hour before they sing for an hour. That's like running the marathon before you run the marathon. You want to do it 10 to 15 minutes, that's it. But that 10 to 15 minutes is necessary. So just explain to them, Hey, I had a guy literally blow out his voice. You can burst a vessel in your vocal cord and I don't want you to do that. Another thing is making sure their levels are good in their ears. A lot of times they go too far because they can't hear and just constantly checking with them about the levels. I find hearing in the studio is really tough for me because not only do I know that I have some hearing loss, but I also can't, it's so much to hear over all the distorted instruments and the guitars and drums for metal vocals especially. It's very challenging,

Speaker 3 (00:35:28):

Man. I guess lots of these vocalists that I've encountered who blow it out also didn't take me seriously when I told them about vocal rests and stuff. Maybe they're just not serious people.

Speaker 2 (00:35:40):

Yeah, I mean, you got to kick their ass.

Speaker 3 (00:35:42):

Yeah, well, there's some people just incorrigible, man. I do remember telling them to not speak and to write things down and to try to take the vocal rest and they just won't listen.

Speaker 2 (00:35:55):

Next time you fly me down and I'll yell at them for you and they'll do it.

Speaker 4 (00:36:00):

Joel will tell 'em how fast they're going to go work at pizza shuttle. If they don't,

Speaker 2 (00:36:05):

Absolutely.

Speaker 4 (00:36:05):

But you know, you're right. There are some people, and I've been coach, I've been teaching lessons for over a decade now, and I definitely know that some people just want to do what they want to do. They don't want to listen to you. You can't see the instrument. So it's really hard for people to assess the damage they've done to admit the damage they've done to admit the extra effort being like Joel and you guys are always saying no small time. So it's small time to be pouty about it and not want to be constructive with it, not take your instrument seriously. Would your guitar player just jam on his strings when he is not using it or whatever? When you start framing it like other instruments? Matt Barlow from my earth in an interview said he doesn't really party and stuff. And he told his guys, they were giving him a hard time about it, and he said, would you take your guitar to the bar and pour beer and smoke all over it every night? Yes, right. Depends on what kind of musician you are. But that's a good point is like, do you take this seriously? Do you want to be the best? Do you want to be a badass? You have to think of yourself like an athlete, maybe more than a musician.

Speaker 2 (00:37:11):

Yeah, that's very true. I mean, that's something Rob Flynn went on at length. I remember when they were on tour and we were doing vocals for, is there anybody out there? He blew out. He got sick for a while and then he was losing his voice. They were doing a night with Machine Head, which was like a two and a half hour set, four to six days a week. And we had a really bad sinus infection and all this stuff. And it was interesting because I'd be like, all right, he's going to record vocals this week. And then he'd be like, dude, blah, blah, blah. I got to the hotel and I needed my rest day. But he was telling me every day I'd get done with the show, I'd go to bed early, everybody else would go out and do this and that. But I, I'm the first one in to go to bed. I am absolutely not talking to anybody. I'm sitting down just completely strict regimen. And I think that's super important for vocalists on the road when you have to perform, but also vocalists in the studio. They have to take it to that level. And if you want to be one of the best and consider one of the best, you have to do what the best do.

Speaker 4 (00:38:05):

Yes. You have to be like an athlete and take it seriously. Like Michael Phelps body is your instrument. He can't go out and party. He has to sleep, he has to eat a certain way. He has to do all these specific things that make him the baddest of the bad, the best of the best. Same thing to the guy like Rob Flynn, he's been doing this for decades. He's got to really take it seriously, keep up his reputation he want to do. You want to go out on stage with certainty too. I try to give people specifics so that they don't go out on stage with this whole uncertainty like, oh, I hope I get it tonight. That is not a way so many singers do that though. They just, alright, well I hope I get it. And it's like, that's not a good feeling and it's not going to make you a consistent performer at all. And I've seen this all the way up to super high level professional vocalists where they're really ridiculously inconsistent. They don't want to do these things and it's not any fun. Maybe it's not as fun. I'll just say that. You don't get to quite live like the ego party crazy style, but it's again, what do you want to be? How do you want to feel on stage? Do you want to know you're going to get it or hope you're going to get it?

Speaker 2 (00:39:14):

Yeah. Plus your fans are expecting and paying for you to get it. So speaking of vocal health, because I think this is a great tangent, Mary, what are some great general tips for vocal health in the studio or prepping? So for example, let's just say I book the local band, they want to come in and I'm sitting there on the phone with them and I'm telling them how they can prepare. I feel like every producer should have a, here's what your vocalist needs to do before coming in to be healthy so we can have a kick ass session. So what would that perfect checklist be for vocal health?

Speaker 4 (00:39:45):

Okay, so I would say one, make sure that they have any acid reflux issues resolved before they get there. One thing people don't realize, even though that your vocal cords are in your windpipe, they are really close to the epiglottic funnel where the two tubes meet. So what happens is people with acid reflux, it splashes up out of the epiglottis when you're sleeping especially, and it goes into the windpipe and it erodes at the vocal cords. I mean, this heals if people treat it, but I have had countless vocalists, myself included, who've had acid reflux problems. So if they need to make sure that if they have heartburn or any sort of reflux, they need to be taking their Nexium or get a prescription or whatever they do before they get there, they need to make sure that that's resolved. You don't want to be like having to deal with acid a curable medical issue.

(00:40:37):

It's a very, very, very common issue with singers because people who are doing correct breathing are pushing on their stomach a lot and when that's happening, they can have, it's just super common. So that's one thing. Resolve any pending medical issues with your, make sure you bring your medication for acid reflux. If you have a chronic heartburn sufferer, you can't expect to go in the studio and do a great job. Second thing is make sure that they bring anti-inflammatory things like of course, like we talked about some mint tea or you guys could have some on hand, but try to get them to bring it their mint tea, maybe some ricos. So you want to have them to have some moisturizing and anti-inflammatory things. Then you want to make sure that they have a 10 to 15 minute somewhat of any type of warmup prepared to use.

(00:41:22):

Now you could suggest to them a couple of YouTube videos that you like, but explain to them that they need to have a prepared thing to do for 10 to 15 minutes every day before they go in there. So that will prevent and you can tell 'em to prevent vocal injury hemorrhaging these things that they don't really know about. The other thing you can get without warming up is polyps, like hemorrhoids on your vocal cords. It's the same reason people get hemorrhoids because the blood rushes to the area without preparation and it tends to pool. Then you're left with these polyps full of blood. And this happens with vocal chords as well. So you really want to make sure that they can maybe find a 10 to, I mean, really easy. It can just be one video of major chords, simple. It doesn't have to be much just 10 to 15 minutes to get them kind of doing something just vocalizing and bringing blood to the area.

(00:42:12):

It doesn't have to be too crazy. And then the other thing is be prepared for vocal rest. Tell them you will have to do a lot of singing and you will have to do a lot of takes. So do not think that you're going to be able to talk, prepare your schedule. Do not schedule meetings. Do not schedule conference calls, do not schedule interviews. Be prepared to let everyone in your team of band business know that you are going to be emailing and texting on those days and be prepared to be committed to vocal rest when you are done in the studio for the day and before, not just before, especially when you're done because that vocal rest will save people. Literally save people's whole thing. It will reduce the inflammation. And then of course, tell them to avoid things like ibuprofen, aspirin. If they are prescribed them and they can't get around that, then there's nothing you can do about that. But tell them to minimize, reduce, and avoid the use of all NSAIDs before they go in the studio. Aleve, ibuprofen. I think Tylenol is not an nsaid, so I think that's okay, but it's kind of bad for your liver.

Speaker 3 (00:43:18):

It's not.

Speaker 4 (00:43:19):

Yeah. And aspirin is an nsaid, so you really want to minimize the use of those because that will prevent the hemorrhaging scenario and tell them, this is another request that a lot of people aren't going to honor, but try to minimize your smoking or switch to vaping for the time that you're in the studio. Try to minimize the exposure to the dryness, whatever kind of smoking they do. Because I will be the first one to say that pot smoke is way different on the voice than nicotine smoke because of what they do to it. However, they're both drying. So get people to vape. Just tell 'em you really going to want to maybe vape before you get to the studio. And of course have them practice. Tell them they need to know the songs and how they go before they get in the studio. If they're not practiced at these things, they're going to have more difficulty of course. And they could listen to you or not. They could tell you to go to hell or whatever, but you

Speaker 3 (00:44:16):

Can say, fuck off. Yeah,

Speaker 4 (00:44:17):

They could tell you to fuck off. Right? We don't have the FCC rules on this show. Oh no. I was wondering that. I used to work in commercial radio too, so I'm like, am I on F CCC rules? This

Speaker 3 (00:44:28):

Is not commercial radio. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,

Speaker 2 (00:44:31):

Fuck, fuck, fuck yeah. Don't give a fuck. That's the only rule.

Speaker 3 (00:44:34):

Okay, here's a good question. Sit there and just be like, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

Speaker 2 (00:44:39):

Here's a good question then. So Mary, as a studio owner, you have this vocal session coming up. What are some things you can do to prepare the space for a more productive vocal performance in terms of physical performance? So for example, humidity and stuff like that.

Speaker 4 (00:44:54):

Yeah. Okay. So if you have a big air vent in your ISO booth, you may want to just turn the knob and shut that bad boy off. Okay. It might get hot in there for the singer, but they're going to give a better performance if they don't have hot or cold air. Especially cold air though. Air conditioning is really the drying one more, but any forced air heat. So you might want to switch to a radiative heat or something like that, that will help. And then one thing is just you could put a humidifier in that room with maybe a drop of mint oil in it. You could put that right in the ISO booth because the steamier it is, even if it's, I mean you don't want it to be so wet that it interferes with the equipment or anything like that. But the steamier it is, the better it is.

(00:45:37):

You get a cool mist humidifier, so the temperature isn't so hot depending on the climate you live in. A cool mist humidifier will actually kind of take the place of air conditioning through evaporative cooling. People will feel comfortable. So that one's good. And again, you can drop a little drop of mint, like essential oil in there if you really want to get to it. Just keep some herbal mint tea on hand so that when they're struggling, you can be like, you're going to take an hour break, you're going to rest your voice and you're going to drink this cup of tea. That's what I do. I sit their ass down, this is what you're going to do. And you're not coming back in until you've not talked for at least an hour and you've drank in all that tea or whatever. They could also drink it while they're singing.

(00:46:15):

So have that. You may want to keep a facial steamer on hand, like I was saying, VIX and con air make them for colds. They just cover up the mouth and nose and you just put your face in there. And I think those are a cooler mist as well. And you won't burn yourself. So you could have a facial steamer and sit 'em down and be like, take a few puffs. It's kind of like vaping water. Take a few hits off of this facial steamer and then we're going to go back and try it again. And you could put a little drop of VIX in there too. Vix is fine. It's fairly natural and menthol or whatever that works as well. And then if they're just also, you may want to keep just some tums and some ant acids. If once you get people really and screaming and pushing on their stomach, they might start to have a heartburn.

(00:47:03):

And again, you really want to mitigate reflux when you're pushing up. It's going to splash, even if you're awake and standing up really tends to splash up over onto the vocal chords. It's a huge, huge thing with singers. Acid reflux. We hear professional singers all the time use it as an excuse for lips singing sinking, but it's that actual real thing. And it happened to me after I turned 18 and I started doing classical training and pushing on my stomach. I gave myself a hiatal hernia, which is what gives you indefinite acid reflux until you get it fixed. So basically a lot of people have that. So if you have some Tums or something, kind of mitigate that around that's not, that's fairly safe to use. Just really help people with the moisture and the acid reflux. Also, moisture is an amazing thing because the person may be completely untrained, but again, it's going to, well oil the instrument and prime the instrument. And when the vocal cords aren't moist and the other tissues like the soft palate, it'll actually make the surface rough. It can actually make the swelling more because it'll cause more friction. So even if the person doesn't do anything else, really moisturizing their environment and it really helps significantly.

Speaker 3 (00:48:14):

Nice.

Speaker 4 (00:48:15):

Fantastic.

Speaker 3 (00:48:16):

We have some questions from our audience now I would like to ask you, I'll try to make sure that we don't cover things that you already covered, but here we go. Here's one from Austin Brady, which is, I've had some vocalists that went from being kind of bad to actually being able to pull off the part better than before, at least after we had some food. But I've always been under the impression that you shouldn't eat or drink anything besides water while tracking. Think we could get some insight on this.

Speaker 4 (00:48:49):

Food provides you with energy and you need that when you're singing. It's just that you should probably think of it again like an athlete. If you have a full stomach and you're pushing up against your stomach, right, because you're singing and screaming the right way with a lot of energy, even if you're not the right trained singer, you don't necessarily know you're singing with the diaphragm. If you're screaming, you're probably going to be squeezing your abdomen pretty hard. And that is where people get the hiatal hernia or they get acid reflux because you're pushing against the full stomach, against the full pressure. So I mean, I think food is great. James Lere from Dream Theater in an interview about singing, he says he always eats something really healthy before he goes to bed at night because the vitamins and the nutrients help him heal his voice and move on to the next day.

(00:49:39):

So I think food is a great thing. I think though, like an athlete, just give yourself 30 minutes after the meal just to kind of move things through and move things along. Not to where you're hungry, because if you're hungry, you're going to be fatigued and you can drink a variety of beverages in the studio. I mean, if a person is just not a water drinking person and they just want to drink soda, I mean, it's not the end of the world. Will the caffeine and the sugar kind of dry things out? Absolutely. But if they're inhaling steam or in a moist environment, it'll kind of mitigate the specifics of what they need to be drinking. But yeah, I would just say just like an athlete, just wait 30 minutes. Otherwise, it's really no big deal. I mean, you probably don't want to eat something super spicy like super buffle hot wings or something. Other than that though, it is really not that big of a deal. If you eat something really mucusy, breathing in steam or drinking the mint tea will kind of mitigate that as well. So maybe avoid eating something ridiculously creamy, I guess. Anything that's going to make you more mucusy. But if you wait that 30 minutes, that effect usually goes away. It's really

Speaker 2 (00:50:50):

No chicken tika masala for me. Huh?

Speaker 4 (00:50:52):

It depends on how hot it is. I guess the only reason is I wouldn't want you to push on your stomach and push on the spices. I love spicy food too, but I mean, it's really not that big of a deal. I don't want people to get too neurotic about those things. I'd rather have them just eat whatever they want, make themselves happy, full, feel good, and just wait 30 minutes and we'll cure the rest with steam and breathing and mint and all that. All

Speaker 3 (00:51:18):

Right, here's one from Justin Kang, which is anybody zen screaming? I don't remember them taking different considerations between different screaming styles. Are there any specific warmup considerations for different screaming styles?

Speaker 4 (00:51:32):

Yeah. Yeah, so I definitely, so I did do a few lessons back with Melissa Cross back a long time ago, and that was back when we were shopping to Roadrunner, believe it or not. And I was going to New York, so I understand her techniques a lot, but I've definitely taken a different approach and expanded upon them because there is a little bit different stuff going on with false cord screaming and fry, screaming fry screaming. We're making noise with the tissues in our throat by holding the vocal chords together. They don't sing or anything, they're just held together and then false chords screaming. They just sit open and we're using the same tissues.

Speaker 2 (00:52:08):

What is inhaling? How does that work? Like pig squeals and shit like that? Is there a technical term for that other than awesome, other

Speaker 4 (00:52:14):

Than I hate it. No, the thing about inhaling is you got to really shouldn't do it low for ice cream where the larynx is low and the vocal chords are together will create the same whistle tone. I have students doing low for ice creams and people think they're inhaling all the time and they're not.

Speaker 2 (00:52:31):

Do you want to demonstrate what one sounds like? Just so if anybody who doesn't know what it

Speaker 4 (00:52:35):

It's called, I'll try to do it, but I'm not that good at the low fry, but So a fry cream is like, yeah, and if I try to bring it low, you can kind of hear how it's starting to go towards the pig squi. Mine. Mine aren't that good. Mine aren't that good. I was actually

Speaker 2 (00:52:55):

Take two. Let's try that again, Mary. 20% more brutal.

Speaker 4 (00:52:59):

Okay. I was like, I can do it if you want me to, but the thing is right and just sitting here, I don't have the right energy. But when I was out live with Santa Marta in the Midwest not too long ago, my low fries were definitely sounding very pig squeaky like on stage when I had a lot of energy behind it. And I've got a few students that that's what they're doing. Inhale screaming is very dangerous because first of all, the vocal cords aren't meant to function that way. And we see a lot of hemorrhaging in inhale screamers because you're sucking against the vocal cords. They're built to withstand pressure from underneath and that works in their favor, but they are not built to withstand pressure from above. They don't have the right support mechanisms. So when you inhale scream, you actually really hurt yourself and most people don't get away with doing it for very long because the sucking in pulls on the vocal cords and it pulls on the blood vessels.

(00:53:50):

And we really, it's the same thing if you give someone a hickey, you draw the blood to the surface or whatever, and you can burst the blood vessels when you're inhaling, you're sucking on your vocal cords and you don't need to do that to create that sound. So I really need to record some examples of my students doing that. But the pig squeals that I teach people to do is just fry screaming. We're just moving the larynx lower to change the shape of the tube because when you're fry screaming, your vocal chords are sitting static. They're not singing and moving when you sing, there's no voice in it, but they are sitting closed, which creates a whistle tone. And so if you get really good at the fry, you can do the super high whistle tones like Danny Filth and Maria Brink, and then also you get the whistle tones in the lower end where you're literally whistling through your vocal cords. But it's sounds like a squeal because that's really how I think a pig squeal is produced is through an exhale in a certain shape, not through sucking inward. And I think that it's better to learn to do a low fry for sure, for that.

Speaker 2 (00:54:52):

Well, I'm stoked. If you guys want to start a 2008 or seven like grind core band I'm in, we'll get the whole CD done in 10 minutes, 74 songs. I'm just putting that out there.

Speaker 3 (00:55:04):

I'm down.

Speaker 4 (00:55:04):

And I have students who do better low fries than me so I can have somebody do some six pig squeals.

Speaker 3 (00:55:11):

All right, here's one from Glen Hilton. People here in Nashville, myself included, are always getting sick from singing downtown any remedies to help speed up the healing process. A lot of singers will drink hot tea with localized honey, and that helps, but it's not the be all, end all remedy. Also, a lot of singers will use their own mics instead of house mics to avoid catching anything. Any advice would be helpful.

Speaker 4 (00:55:35):

So hand sanitizer not sharing things, but a lot of singers in urban environments get ill because of the pollution. So again, watch the type of honey, not honey, local honey is raw. Honey is good because raw local honey would affect anybody who's having allergen related things. It boosts your immune system against local pollens and things like that. But to prevent the kind of pollution and germ illness we get, I mean it is fairly acidic, but you could drink a couple of emergency before you go there. Again, it has a little bit of acid to it, obviously it's almost pure vitamin C, but I don't really think that that would have too much of an adverse effect if you do it just like a half an hour before you sing to give time that you're not pushing it up back into your throat or anything. So maybe emergency an hour or a half an hour before you sing.

(00:56:31):

Mint is actually the Thai and Vietnamese people call it the green medicine. I know we have a totally different connotation for green medicine in America, but the green medicine is mint, so it is actually a great healing and protective for your immune system. So if you just bring a cup of mint tea with you to the venue, I find hand sanitizer. When I was living in LA and teaching a music school, hand sanitizer, hand sanitizer, hand sanitizer just really saved me from getting sick. I would get sick, but then once I started using hand sanitizer all the time, I was fine. So just be aware of who you're shaking hands with, who you're sharing the microphone with. And again, keeping your respiratory health in check venues, you will not have any control over the humidity or the climate, so the only thing you can do is bring a steamer.

(00:57:14):

For example, one group that I coached, I coached a whole band, a cover band, a really professional cover band out of San Diego. I coached everybody that sings in that band. They're called Hitman Honey. And the singer is the main singer. Melissa is amazing. And I saw them play when I was coaching them at a really smoke-filled casino, which I think would be akin to the pollution in downtown LA or downtown Nashville or wherever. And people really have problems with the respiratory and the pollution and the carbon. They don't realize it. And so in that smoky environment, they had to do three or four hour sets or something like that. And granted they do distribute the singer through the singers, but that's a hell of a lot. So what she was doing, she brought one of those Conair facial steamers with her to the venue and between the sets, she would get that steam going and breathe that in between the sets to protect her respiratory system from the smoke filled environment. So I would say again, moisture and steam and mint is going to help you a lot. Avoid green and black teas, those are going to dry you out. The honey is fine.

Speaker 3 (00:58:22):

Awesome. Alright, here's one from Jeffrey Erman, which is, sorry. Sorry, Jeffrey. I don't know if you actually pronounced your name. That was pretty good dude.

Speaker 4 (00:58:34):

He sitting there like, God

Speaker 3 (00:58:35):

Damnit, it just came out that way. So I got to mix a local band and I don't know, but I think their vocalist is using a wrong technique or something like that. His screams sound like he's not distorting them enough. Is there a way I can fix that in a mix? I guess Joel, that's more of a question for you. There's just too much of his voice in the screams. And personally me, this is al speaking. I know that when that's happening in the studio that the singer is just not ready to be screaming.

Speaker 4 (00:59:06):

Yes. So here's one thing. Of course you can go in afterwards and add some digital kind of overdrive.

Speaker 2 (00:59:14):

Distortion,

Speaker 4 (00:59:15):

Yeah, distortion pedal, whatever you want to do. But that never sounds as good as the real deal, right? Never, ever, ever, ever. It sounds like you do that, you put an effect on it. And I hate that personally. I don't like people to do anything to my screams. I like them to be raw because I do have enough distortion. I don't want people to add, I just want them to compress it and put some re on. That's it. I don't want them to do effects on it because I can actually do it. So yeah, you can make up for it with effects. I'm sure that, again, Joel would have a lot to say about that. But when you have a guy in the studio that isn't putting enough distortion, yeah, they're basically just yelling. Distortion comes from the other tissues in the trachea and in the epical funnel at the top of the mouth.

(00:59:57):

So it really comes from just the friction of air flapping around the false cords, the soft palate, the uvula, and all these other glottal tissues in there. And that can't really hurt anything. But yelling and trying to scream without the flapping around of those tissues will just make you yell and make your vocal cords slam together like that just slam. And so for example, if I'm like, Hey, hey, that's really clean. There's not enough distortion. If I picture in my mind, I've associated the frictiony feeling of these tissues because it does make a scratchy feeling. The scratchy feeling is necessary to have enough white noise. If there's not enough white noise in the scream, then it doesn't sound good and you need to add distortion. Hey, fry scream, false cord scream. Those two have white noise without any voice in them. So it's really important to generate the white noise part of it that they have the scratchy feeling in their throat, which is different than a painful feeling.

(01:01:00):

It's not a sharp or aching pain. It's a scratchy gritty feeling. The way I get people to add more of that is I tell them imagine that you have at the beginning of the HBO O show and it has the TV static. It's like, and it brings up the TV static. Imagine you have the TV static. There's that white noise or soda spitting out kind of like a very white noise. Imagine that you've wrapped it up in a ball and you're going to set that right on top of your tongue while you're trying to scream. And then you can get sometimes people to do more of a hey or if you can always pull out the mils across above the pencil. Tell 'em to imagine that their screams are going up above the corners of their mouth and going forward. I do that with fry screamers a lot. Yeah, I get a lot more distortion out of it that way when I do that. So there are a couple pointers you can give to people and if also the chest lift the breathing, if they're not getting enough white noise, a lot of times if they just breathe more, they'll get it. So you could have 'em try the sternum lift. Also,

Speaker 2 (01:02:01):

This is the most metal podcast episode ever. Actually. We've never had sick vocals on podcast before. Yeah, I'm just

Speaker 4 (01:02:09):

Sitting here making horrible noises in my studio.

Speaker 2 (01:02:11):

Yeah, they're great. I hope you gained your mic correctly because when I mix this, I'm going to sit,

Speaker 4 (01:02:18):

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I set my levels on the recording. Good. But I'm sure the computer mic sounds awful. You just

Speaker 2 (01:02:25):

Knew you were going to breathe by your whole episode.

Speaker 4 (01:02:28):

Yeah, I know. I'm a super loud vocalist, and so I already know that it's going to go that way when I do examples. So

Speaker 3 (01:02:35):

We're going to have to wrap really soon. So let me just get a couple more questions out. There's some good ones here that I want to make sure we get. So here's one from Glenn Hilton and here it goes. I've seen many singers sing up the scale, right when their voice goes over into falsetto and their voice cracks, it doesn't sound smooth. Any advice or technique on how to seamlessly go from regular to falsetto?

Speaker 4 (01:03:00):

Yeah, so there's two different types of tone placement. We talked about imagining your sound going forward, your laser beam of notes, all your notes you're going to use. People call it like chest voice or head voice, but I hate those terms because chest voice, all low notes resonate in your chest. It's physics of sound, just like the way your speakers are set up. Bigger ones are your subwoofers, the smaller ones, your tweeters. All high notes are going to resonate in your sinuses and in your face, whether you're an opera singer or a rock singer. So chest voice and head voice are terms we want to throw out for the minute while we're talking about this, we're talking about rock singing versus your falsetto singing. So most people can belt and rock sing and keep that forward tone placement pretty consistently in my experience, for their first two octaves of their range relative to their personal range, whether they're a baritone, a bass, a tenor, a soprano, high voice or low voice, you get two octaves of belt range.

(01:03:52):

And sometimes with men, it's two and a half because they get a little bit on the low end. If they're a high voice guy, it's pretty much going to be two that last third octave. Most people have three octaves that they can get at, and the last third octave is going to be your falsetto, and you need to change your laser position in your mind. So to smoothly do that, you're going to imagine that your laser cannon is going to lift and it's going to point right between your eyes as one type of falsetto. So when you get to where you can't belt anymore, you could send the sound between your eyes. And that is really where we hear a lot of counter tenors sing, like the extremely high male voices. So a lot of guys live up there like Getty Lee, Robert Plant, Justin Timberlake, Pharrell, I just want to Love You baby, that kind of stuff.

(01:04:37):

That's right in the middle there. And same thing with Getty Lee fly by night, right in the middle of his eyes. He's not belting, he's not sending it forward. It's not fly by night. It's different. So I would imagine if I'm going to transition my laser just lifting right between my eyes and that picture in your mind will change. And if you really want to do, and that will give you control, it will give you control and it will change your voice. And it will reduce the crack for sure. Just imagining the specifics of it going there. Because remember, your abstract thought controls it, not direct thought. So the picture is actually going to make your voice do what you want it to do. If you want to do super high hair metal, you turn your laser all the way up and imagine it coming out through the top of your head. So like Phil Andos, cemetery gates, your super high falsetto gates straight through the top of the head, he's belting for the entire rest of the song, his lasers forward. Believe the word it's forward. But when he gets to that note, you turn your laser all the way up through the top of your head, send it up through the top of your head, and those laser positions will help you vastly transition up into your falsetto with ease, without straining or anything like that.

Speaker 3 (01:05:45):

Awesome. Okay. Here's one from Luke Menzel Ward, which is what happens when recording vocals at the top of a vocalist range. How do you approach this when a singer is struggling to hit the notes?

Speaker 4 (01:05:58):

Okay, that's again, breathing and tone placement. So tell them to fill the lungs by breathing through the mouth and lift the sternum as they begin to sing. And then they also need to imagine it going forward. If you're trying to belt a high range and not flip into your falsetto, there's two things you need to make sure your voice type is right. I have so many baritones who try to sing counter teer stuff. I have a lot of guys with medium low voices that are trying to sing audio slave well, Chris Cornell is a counter tenor, extremely high. So first of all, I would say don't ever be afraid to transpose. Transpose. I'm a contralto. I'm the lowest female voice type. I live in transposition, and a lot of people don't realize, a lot of professional people tune down a whole step live anyway. So don't have too much pride over it.

(01:06:48):

Transpose it if you can't do it. And if you're in the studio, you just can't transpose it because it's already written and it's already done. You need to work on the forward tone placement. If you think about reaching up for a note, which most people do, your larynx will move up. It responds to your abstract thought, which is why you need to give it a specific picture. So if you think up, it shoots up. When your larynx shoots out of its middle position, whether it goes too low or too high, your soft palate drags. You cut off your resonance and you can't sing the high note, you get that choking that sound because the larynx is literally choking you. So if you imagine your high note going forward or through the floor, I make a lot of people look at the floor when they try to go for, Hey, I am like, look at the floor and send your laser forward through the floor. Have them look down while they're trying to do it and make sure that they're taking in enough air and trick their mind as long as they're thinking about reaching up. Also, watch their head. If their head is really tilted up to the microphone, adjust it. Make it go down. Actually put it lower than them. If they're reaching up and up and up, it's going to cut them off. Try to get them to do it loudly and powerfully while thinking down.

Speaker 3 (01:07:56):

Wonderful. Well, Mary, thank you so much for coming on. I know that this could probably go on for hours, so I'm going to just say that we should probably do a part two at some point later on in the year. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (01:08:08):

That's fascinating. I learned a ton, dude. Thank you guys so much, Mary. Your depth of knowledge on vocal performance is astonishing.

Speaker 3 (01:08:16):

Yeah, seriously. And right when we got off here, stay on Skype for a second. I got to ask you a couple questions, but yeah, I'm blown away by how much I knew that you knew your shit, but you're clearly an encyclopedia of vocal knowledge, so thank you for sharing that. Thank you guys. And anybody listening who wants more from Mary, meaning tutorials, tips, tricks, whatever, check the show notes and we will include links to all her, her sites. Thanks

Speaker 4 (01:08:50):

Guys. I really appreciate it. Thank you for having me on.

Speaker 3 (01:08:52):

Thanks. The

Speaker 1 (01:08:54):

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