This! Whether it’s music, acting, public speaking, or any other performance, reviewing a recording is hugely educational. Forces one to take stock of the reality instead of what we picture inside our heads…
1 Like
If you can hit and hold notes in pitch, you have a good voice. Tweaking the tone of your voice is a physical exercise; it can be learned.
Don’t sell yourself short. Find, or better yet, write a song that is in your wheelhouse, and record it phrase by phrase if necessary, and comp a good vocal track. Singing with good phrasing is 90% of the battle. It doesn’t matter if it takes 50 takes. Prove to yourself you are a singer.
Attitude with a little aptitude has sold millions of records. Convince yourself and go for it.
Mick Jagger, Jim Morrison, Eddie Vedder, Kurt Cobain, Bon Scott, Dave Grohl, Elvis Costello, Jon Hiatt, Jon Prine, Johnny Cash, etc. etc. etc.
All those famous guys would have been kicked out of Glee Club.
Sing what you feel and let it rip. After social distancing, if you are in a room with 100 people, you will be one of maybe 3 who can sing in tune. The other 97 will love you.
5 Likes
This should be printed on a plaque somewhere 
2 Likes
Say what you will about @StylesBitchley - the man knows how to motivate a fellow. Thanks brother - I feel like that advice might just apply to any part of anyone’s life. I’ll make you a promise - the next time there’s an opportunity to sing - I’m going to take it. Much appreciated advice!
2 Likes
The list goes on,
I mean… Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Lou Reed…
I know my voice isn’t particularly interesting, but I can sing in tune more or less, I can us my sense of rythm to make my phrasing stand out. I’m an emotional person, so I know I come across as real. My biggest worry is that I can’t go very high, and rock music tends to be just that. I’m still scared shitless the first few minutes on stage even at my age (63) and despite quite a lot of experience as a public speaker. Just go for it, feel the adrenalin rush and conquer your own fear. Because that’s all it is… And conquering that fear, getting a bit of applause for the effort, it’s still worth it all.
You know, I’m not sure I even really enjoy the moment, even if I’m playing well and my audience loves what I do. But I wouldn’t want to miss it. Being a musician is such a big part of who I am, even if I never got any further than playing local bars, even if people take me a lot more seriously in my professional career.
Just go for it and, shout out loud:
4 Likes
It’s been cool to see this thread coming back up again. I still haven’t worked up the courage to personally let anyone hear me, but hopefully I’ll get there. Lol
3 Likes
If you need it tweeked for mutt notes, I’m getting pretty good at finding flat notes and overhauling them with Melodyne. I don’t use the standard pop into place procedure. I take the snap off and gently nudge. I can make you sound pretty darn good. Pretty safe to say that seeing that I haven’t heard you sing. I f you did sing and I said that, you would put a contract out on me. It’s all good bud
1 Like
I think there is a one to one ratio of how much one cares what others think about themselves to how much they fear doing anything in public. There are people who cant’ sing and they don’t care what anyone things of them, they sink in bands all the time. My friends wife sings incredibly well but won’t ever sing in front of anyone. I just listened to a playlist of surf/indie/pop songs and more than half can’t sing at all. I mean not at all, but they have over a million views. I think of all the bands that out there today where they can’t sing at all and everyone loves them anyway. It kind of has paved the way for anyone to sing now. I would rather have sang and been laughed at then have to live with the regret that I never did.
1 Like
I do the same. I try to go even more subtle, by tweaking just the “arrival” at the note, my weakest link. Once I get to a note I can hold it OK, but unlike a real singer, I sliiiiiide into it too slowly. Adjusting with Melodyne retains a very natural sound (and of course makes it sound like I can sing better than I actually can!).
2 Likes
Wow Dave total honesty. I guess there was a time when scooping was cool. Not anymore. I have the exact problem locking in to a note. I hear this everywhere. We were watching TV the other night and when a commercial came on Roz said woah that is awful. The gal was so far off especially when she tried to do some fast high and lows. I am thinkin, doesn’t anybody else hear that.
My band wants to practice this week. I will set up in my garage with the doors open and 12 feet between us. We are old now and can’t afford to get sick. (I am the oldest and taught them guitar on my lunch hour while teaching school) Anyhow to the point. I can’t sing on key if I can’t hear myself singing. Floor monitors don’t help much. My wife frowns a bit when I buy electronics, so I am giving my buddy some cash to get those ear monitoring devices. Also when singing in low volumes and notes, is the toughest for me. Campfire singing is the best. Wouldn’t it be cool if we could all get together and go at it? ha ha keep nudging the mutts bud
2 Likes
I’ve never pretended to not be using help in the studio on my vocals… hope nobody thought otherwise!
Absolutely, same here. I always have headphones on when I’m tracking (vocals or otherwise).
That would be SO much fun. Part of gaining the courage over the years was the seemingly simple realization that nobody really cares in a campfire or “guy with the guitar” setting if the performance is less that perfect. It’s much more about just enjoying ourselves.
Here’s a rendition I did a few weeks ago of one of my favorite songs to play and sing, “Dry River” written by Dave Alvin. No tricks here, just a bit of a high-pass filter and a touch of reverb on the single-mic recording (AT4040) of the live-in-studio performance, so it’s “campfire” style, complete with some flat notes… 
5 Likes
Oh so Fun. How the heck did you get that balance between the acoustic and the vocal. I think I can see an overhead mic. I harmonized thru the chorus someday it’s gonna rain…what fun. Can’t read the guitar name. Sure has an bright bite.
You sing very much on key. You play the A chord different than me. Interesting. Ok, I just capo’d up and played along. Not a minor chord in their anywhere. Never heard that song before. Perfect for the campfire. I am considering trying to get a video of you and me adding some higher acoustic and harmony. ha ha I am not at all tech savy, but I have a ton of time to try. This was so great. The personal touch is so much better than all text. heading out to shop…a little nervous again
1 Like
Aw, many thanks Paul! I would absolutely love to collab with you! I’ve done it with several folks here, most often Jonathan with keyboards, and it’s no problem, I can handle all the final assembly and all that if you can just get tracks recorded at the relevant beats per minute. “We have the technology” as the saying goes…
To answer your questions:
The mic in the background was not in use. That’s my ADK Vienna Mk8 condenser, which is what I almost always use when tracking vocals by themselves in the usual way. That’s just where I sit it when not in use.
All I did for this was set up my cellphone to do the recording, and sit the AT4040 condenser, which is my go-to mic for recording my acoustic guitars and mandolin, just out of view of the shot, and play & sing the tune. I sat the mic to my left, and was more concerned about keeping it out of view than anything else. I recorded the audio at the same time in my DAW (Mixcraft Pro Studio v9), and after I was done, just dropped the video from the phone into a Mixcraft video track. The program automatically splits the audio & video into separate tracks, so I just replaced the cellphone audio with what I recorded with the mic. [Edit: I first said a “low pass filter” was applied, I meant a high-pass, that’s corrected in the previous post.]
[Another edit: I goofed-- I didn’t replace the cellphone audio, I just added the mic track. I panned the phone-recorded audio on one side and the mic on the other at 50% each, and tweaked the levels so they are equivalent. Then treated them the same in terms of EQ and reverb. Sorry for the omission.]
Those condensers are really sensitive and pick up the sound really well. Literally the only thing I did after placing the mic was dial the input on the interface so that it was at a good level. So if the balance etc came out well, it’s pretty much dumb luck. That said, I do have substantial sound absorption in the studio, as you can see behind me, and I’m very happy with how the recordings come out in there. Maybe that’s the real answer.
That’s my primary acoustic, a Martin DCPA-1. It was my treat to myself after I first got hired by NASA in '09, it’s a wonderful guitar. Here’s a photo I took right after I brought her home:
When I’m in first position, I almost always play it with second finger on the E of the 4th string, ring finger on the A of the 3rd, and pinky on the C# of the 2nd string (all on the second fret of course). I do a lot of pull-offs with the pinky when I play the A that way. (I’ll also do a partial barre with my index finger across the notes in other circumstances.)
I tend to take a similar approach with E and G chords, leaving my index finger free to move to whatever is coming next… you can see it in my G chords on this tune, my free index finger lets me do the Gadd11 really easily.
Dave Alvin’s original version of this song is great, but I learned it by covering the version James McMurtry did on his 2002 release St. Mary of the Woods. I recorded a full cover back in 2015 that was bashed by this august group back in the RR days. Those are here:
My cover (featuring my lovely bride on bg vox):
Paul, I’ll send you a PM, I have some ideas of how we can do a collab… stay tuned! (tuned, geddit? I’m a laugh riot)
Stay safe out there while shopping!
1 Like
Really good to see you playing a song on video, Dave. Enjoyed this!
That’s how I’ve been playing open A major for many years now also. I occasionally play open A using my index, middle and ring finger but I find it a bit easier using my pinky because it’s smaller and my 3 fingers feel less cramped together playing that way.
1 Like
Thanks Mister W! I’m going to link to this set of a few posts over in the thread about getting acoustic guitar tones recorded, so that we can stick to discussing singing here. 
1 Like
Somehow I missed this, Dave! This is great. You have such a warm, inviting tone to your voice. Just the right amount of rasp too. You have the kind of voice that just sounds appealing to the ear in terms of tone.
It’s funny, but when I find when I hear a voice like yours I tend to be less sensitive to pitch discrepancies - (and I don’t mean that as a back-handed compliment, btw.). Whereas, when someone has a tone that grates, any pitch problems seem to be magnified.
Nice video - the overall sound is good too!
1 Like
Wow, thank you Andrew! I’m very flattered. I really appreciate the encouragement and kind words.
One last post on my video, then back to the original topic! I edited my post with how I mixed the audio, I had forgotten that I used both the phone’s audio and the mic audio, panned opposite. Sorry for the omission, and now back to our regularly scheduled topic…
1 Like
I’ve had a “thing” about my singing for a long time. A LONG long time. Lots of people telling me not to. Close friends telling me to my face, “Don’t bother trying, you’ll never be more than a backup singer.” and “Your voice isn’t right for this type of music.”
It was a struggle to get to the point of ignoring them. I had to record my stuff, figure out how to mix it, make it sound the way I wanted it to sound, and finally succumb to using tuning plugins to “fix” my stuff on my records. But I finally realized that, yeah, if I’m in tune, I like what I hear when I sing.
A year ago, I hadn’t sung in front of people. And then a friend convinced me that after I released my record, I had ought to stream live performances on Twitch. So I learned how to sing and play guitar on the songs at the same time, and I’ve been streaming performances a couple times a week since then.
I think it might be a little easier, because there aren’t people in the room, even though there are people in chat. But the twice weekly performances have really been helpful with improving my ability to hit my notes, and now I’m looking for some musicians to work with so I can REALLY play live once this virus insanity is over.
I don’t know how to solve anxiety issues, but just kind of doing it and recording myself and proving to myself that I like what I’m doing has been the trick.
Oh, one other thing - every singer I really admire and remember are the ones that have unique voices, not necessarily the best voices. Keeping that in mind has been helpful, too.
7 Likes
Some of my favorite singers aren’t always in tune but they’re singing with feeling and that counts for a lot in my book.
1 Like