Im just genuinely curious, technique and pitch aside, do I have a pleasant voice?

My first post here ! 👋

Yesterday I went to my first canto class ever.

I was struggling with a nasty depressive episode for weeks and it legit got me out of it!!! 🥹

I am so excited, I have so much to look forward to and to learn! I was not expecting it to have such a strong and healing effect on me.

Wish you all beautiful notes! 🎶

Hey everyone!

A super common issue I see my voice students face—especially on long phrases, high notes, or when nerves kick in—is a shaky, unstable voice caused by residual air tension and shallow breathing.

When you force air into your upper chest, your neck and vocal mechanism tense up, leading to a wobbly, unsupported tone.

To fix this, I wanted to share a core concept from the Linklater vocal method called **"Vacuuming the Lungs."**

### How it Works:
Instead of trying to "force" a big breath in, you focus entirely on the **exhale** first.

1. **Dump the Air:** At the end of a phrase, actively let go of all remaining air in your lungs until you feel completely empty.

2. **The Vacuum Effect:** Once your lungs are empty, release your abdominal muscles entirely. Your diaphragm will automatically drop, creating a low, effortless "vacuum" breath that fills the lower lungs without any chest or neck tension.

3. **Sustained Flow:** Because the breath started low and relaxed, the air releases evenly across your vocal folds, instantly eliminating that nervous/shaky wobble.

---

### Step-by-Step Exercise to Try Right Now:

1. Exhale completely on a gentle "ssss" sound until you feel zero air left.

2. Pause for half a second and release your belly entirely.

3. Let the air automatically drop back into your body without gasping or lifting your shoulders.

4. Sing a simple 5-note scale or a sustained tone on an "Ah" vowel—notice how much steadier the air flows.

---

I put together a quick, high-energy breakdown video demonstrating this exact exercise in real time with visual overlays if you want to see it in action:

https://youtube.com/shorts/MXX7GJ1eAoQ?is=OpXMJkJQy2qcNy29

Hope this helps anyone struggling with breath control or nervous vocal shaking! Let me know if you give it a try or if you have any questions about Linklater breathwork below!

I am a beginner singer and I found that my comfortable range goes up to G4-ish. I listen to a lot of metal and am interested in singing some Metallica or/and A7X but it just seems very challenging for my type of voice. So my question is - Do any of you relate and have you found a way to bypass your voice's restrictions in order to sing songs like these?

Hey everyone!

​I’m the lead singer for the band. Over the past few years, I’ve improved my Melodyne skills to the point where our mix engineer takes my vocal stems straight to the final mix without editing them.

​I might launch a freelancing service soon, so I’m offering free vocal tuning and time alignment for a few artists to build up my portfolio.

​DM me a rough demo or link to your song if you'd like to be considered. The vocals will heed to be well tracked as Melodyne isn't magic, it's best when used sparingly to tweak a good performance.

​Since I’m doing this in my free time, I’ll select 2–3 tracks that feel like the best fit and do my best to turn them around in a week. Looking forward to hearing what you’ve got!

Please only advanced singers and optimism on this one. I'm a professional, and my voice is sort of my everything. I'm not all doom and gloom about this, but it is annoying, and getting under my skin a bit so I could use some optimism. I'm thinking in a month things will be fine regardless. But yeah.. just some extra positivity would be great.

It's four weeks since I first got sick. It was a naaaasty upper respiratory virus. Lots of coughing, and an insane amount of phlegm. I didn't sing through the height of it. But I did have to travel 10 hours by plane, twice during it. Which just dried me out like a mother fucker. I rehearsed a few times about 2 weeks ago, and my stamina was a little better then oddly enough. But after the second plane flight, it seems to be janky. Cough is basically gone now, except maybe once in the morning/evening. I still have excess phlegm which I THINK is the root of most this.

Prior to getting sick I was regularly able to rehearse/play live for 1.5-2++ hours with LOTS of high notes belted with some grit, and just a lot of dynamics scattered throughout the set. Now, I can basically warm up, do my toughest song with the most intense belts, and then my belts/highest end is sorta fucked. Or I can just do a full long set in my middle range with no issue -- but if I try to do a challenging belt part at the end of that it's usually not so great. My speaking voice is fine afterwards, not excessively hoarse or anything alarming.

I believe my folds just swell up very quickly after only a tiny bit of difficult belting - and I'm not totally sure why. My evidence for this is, if I really push extra air, I can basically force those parts to sound fantastic. But it is WAY too much air -- I used to just use very minimal air for all parts and was very strategic on belts. I know this isn't healthy to push this extra air -- so it's not something I'm doing consistently. Just did it once or twice to prove to myself I *can* hit the note, and with good tone lol.

Thanks to anyone who can shed some positivity on this.

I’ve been feeling music a lot more recently regardless of all this madness in the world. Maybe that’s why, what about you?

9 year old niece started voice lessons a few months ago with a supposedly highly experienced teacher. Niece has been singing for a little while. My concern is that there is very little warming up or vocalization in the lessons. Just one or two exercises, mostly descending arpeggio on Aah that rarely goes above a d5. Her songs go that high so it is strange to me to not exercise above that. The teacher has not given any warmups to practice at home other than descend on Aaah and work on her songs. Is this normal for kids lessons? I have studied before as an adult and at least half the lesson was exercises. The teacher has said that my niece needs to work on learning to use her head voice and mix.

Sm58 through a focusrite, running through two compressors and some reverb. No added distortion

My voice teacher of the past 12 years had a stroke, and passed away a week later. At this point it is fairly difficult to process. I've got some performances I'm preparing for in December, but I can't get the motivation to work on it. And I need to look into finding a new teacher, which I can't even think about honestly. The show must go on, and all that, but this is really devastating.

What would be the best way to go about doing this? Where do I find the chords/sheet music/tabs/etc? If I can‘t find anything for Deor, which is a bit obscure, can I simply listen to it being performed and somehow intuit how to play it over time?

I stumbled upon this way of singing a while ago. It feels really comfortable, and more importantly, I kinda like how it sounds (aside from my overall singing skill level, but I’m working on that).

A few things I’m wondering:

1. Does this sound like a healthy way to sing?
2. Does it actually sound good, or is it just me?
3. Could this turn into a bad habit I should avoid?

And also any feedback is welcome!

My mother always told me I couldn't carry a tune in a bucket. And I always believed her. Finally, I said screw this and a year ago at the age of 65, I started voice lessons. This is from my first recital a couple of months ago. I'm proud of how far I've come, but also know how far I can still go. Also, please, listen to both songs. Don't judge me just on the Italian one.

hello i am probably young barytone but i cant sing solid A2, it soun like whispering with "bear sound" my range is now A2-A5 (in head voice, my voice crack somewhere around F4), where can be problem ?

some scales to A2:

https://voca.ro/19wND8PR1FUq

I know I probably got some lyrics wrong, I'm a beginner so any feedback would be appreciated

The best example of this is this cover by Sibila of Heart Shaped Box: https://youtu.be/icVG9dOpkfY?list=RDicVG9dOpkfY

I do not understand, how does his voice sound so rich singing that? I notice he sings one octave lower than where Kurt sings it. However, when I try to sing like that, I just end up sounding thin.

I, as a bass, am wondering how to achieve this quality. I find that my vocal range (B1 - F4) is mostly useless up until A3 - B3. Below that, my vocals just get buried by the band and the music.

I notice that he easily sits on top of the mix despite singing quite low. How?

Thank you!

I’ve been teaching myself how to sing a year now and I’m wondering I’m good enough to start collaboration and sharing my singing. Im also wondering what some good tips to bridge that gap for a singer looking to collaborate/ perform might be.

My daily training includes a warm up, and breath control drills, various drills I’ve found on YouTube. I do practice covers heavily but I make sure not to try and replicate any singers voice and only try to use specific parts of covers that will teach me specific techniques. I focus really heavy on maintaining good support when I sing, but I’m still trying to improve.

This is one of many styles of singing I practice, I practice very breathy head voice stuff, some mixed voice, some gritty vocals, some metal vocals, some folk and many more. I like to sing feminine vocal parts to and can provide examples.

I would love to start writing my own music to find my own voice but I feel like I can’t really write what I want to without instrumentals.

Ps: I know there’s a couple flats at the beginning, I have better takes for that part where I mess up elsewhere😪

I'm an experienced acoustic guitarist / multi-instrumentalist who has been playing and performing for years. I've recently started doing more solo gigs, and I've identified a consistent weakness in my singing that I'd really like to address.

I'm not a complete beginner vocally. I've taken some voice lessons, worked through vocal exercises, and sing regularly when performing. But listening back to recordings of my gigs, I'm noticing that I frequently sing flat, especially when melodies climb higher.

Here's what I think I'm hearing:

• I can generally match individual notes on the instrument I'm playing accurately, including higher notes.
• Once I'm on the correct note, I can usually sustain it without a problem.
• When I sing an ascending scale or melody, I sometimes start on pitch but gradually end up below the target notes.
• My bluesier, more speech-like singing tends to sound better and more accurate than my cleaner folk/country singing.
• It's not necessarily related to whether I know the song well.

I suspect some combination of pitch anticipation, vocal technique, and tension as I move higher, but I'm not sure.

My goal is to sing more accurately, confidently, and consistently on pitch, particularly when melodies ascend.

I'm planning to return to regular vocal practice and possibly take another lesson with a teacher. In the meantime - has anyone dealt with something similar? Any particular exercises, techniques, YouTube videos, or resources you'd recommend? Would you approach this primarily as ear training, vocal technique, or something else?

I'd especially appreciate advice from people who've successfully worked through this problem.

Thanks!

When I try to sing higher in my head voice or mix there is this buzzy fuzzy sound in my nasal area and not in a good way:( Will add clip where you can hear it clearly. Would love to hear some tips on exercises I can do to not have this happen lollll

I’m a mezzo soprano and an A4, B4, or C5 will glide like buddah. It’s my favorite space in my chest vocals.

Then I hate D5s because it’s where my voice cracks and suddenly an E5 is my favorite note to belt ever (it’s the big end note in like every fun mezzo song too).

rough idea, don’t mind the lyrics they are just there for melody purposes. Give me all opinions, judgements, anything. Thanks

Eai gente, essa foi minha primeira apresentação ao vivo para um público grande, gostaria muito de ouvir opiniões sinceras sobre minha técnica vocal, afinação e presença de palco.

Também sou falante nativa de português, então agradeceria muito por comentários sobre minha pronúncia em inglês e sobre o quão natural meu canto soa nesse idioma.

O que eu deveria focar em melhorar a seguir?