Hey guys, great to be here!

I'm a singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and recording engineer. Of all of these skills, singing came the least naturally so I had to get a lot more and better quality training in it than my other musical skills. I'm also a student at Berklee College of Music so my music studies are ongoing there as well.

I am in a few musical projects.
-My solo project has been completely DIY so far (I currently play, sing, record everything, but I plan to expand outside of this in the future) and I make it whatever I want musically and most people are loving what they are hearing! I'll definitely be putting a link to that in my signature. This is the musical project I want to grow with the widest reach I can.

-I'm also a multi-instrumentalist in an experimental duo called El Planador where we do a lot of Animal Collective and They Might Be Giants covers (we just love these bands a LOT!!) as well as a few other covers and originals.

-Lastly I'm in a top 40 cover band called the Wildfire Band, playing bass and singing backups on lots of awesome dance and rock music, gigging out every weekend.

As for vocal training, I've had a whole bunch of teachers, most of them not so great, but I am currently training with Phil and making my best progress with him. Combining all the training I've had, it's about 2 and half years worth.

I still have many vocal areas for improvement (I don't like calling them "problems" lol!) and the most important one for me to conquer right now is definitely singing EE and OO vowels high in full voice with more consistency and ease without having to rely on over-modifying them. It's been a challenge for months but just as I think I'm stuck on it I get a tiny breakthrough and improve on it little by little. There are many many other things I have to work on like how I approach consonants, reducing strain, vibrato, continuing to improve on support, etc. etc. but i KNOW it will all come in time. That's the cool part of training one on one regularly with a great coach - it gives you confidence in your own future!

I would like this forum to be a place where we can discuss vocal technique and style as serious, passionate singers (and vocalists in general - it might be cool to get some screamers/rappers/public speakers etc involved!) who are out there DOING it (or aspire to be) rather than armchair theorists playing around with weird sounds and really not learning anything. That was me several years ago so I know it happens, but I just don't think it's ultimately helpful for anyone. Nowadays I see too many vocal forums plagued with those self-taught students at that phase just distributing incorrect information to absolute beginners. And then the teachers come bring in brilliant information but it seems to always go to waste because the students receiving it don't seem to be emotionally hooked on actually singing yet.

I often don't feel I fit in on vocal forums because they somehow end up with that big gap between the teacher and students, with a shortage of intermediate singers like myself who have gotten somewhere but are still looking to improve further. The "like-minded singers" as you say, that I'd love to chat with. But I'm sure singers of other skill levels feel the same way so I would be thrilled if we could fill the gaps and get a nice blend of vocalists of ALL skill levels in here!

Besides that, I would enjoy getting into the idea of being healthy as a person and how that impacts us as vocalists. For instance, I like to run a few miles every day and I feel this greatly increases the quality of my life and singing. It seems we already have a section of the forum for that kind of stuff

Cheers to an awesome forum in the making,
Owen

Hi everyone!

My name is Ian. I'm a singer, screamer and guitarist, specializing in heavy/ugly/angry/sad/weird music.
I'm a veteran screamer. I've been playing this type of music since youth, and have a grasp on false-fold voice distortion.
I'm very happy to have been invited to this community, and look forward to discussing voice with people of like passion.

But my passion is not limited to screaming, no no! I've been singing "clean" on the side for many years just for fun, but have recently found myself in a position that requires it professionally. So after discovering his videos on Youtube, and perusing http://www.grow-the-voice.com I hooked up with Mr. Moufarrege and have been working his plan for me for close to 6 months now. I've come a long way since day one. Phil's guidance, along with my practice and study, have been instrumental in building and developing my "clean" voice. To boot, we're beginning to get into a bit of distortion via glottal compression, which is a sound that has eluded me for years. Big thanks to Phil for assisting in my development.

I'd also like to take a moment to thank both Phil, and Marnell Sample, for posting their informative videos.

Hey my singing companions

I'm Ugi, 24 years old and from Switzerland.

I'm playing in two bands, a symphonic power metal band and an Irish Folk band. In both bands I play a few instruments and I am the main vocalist.

When I was 21 I had a few singing lessons with a teacher who basically told me that my full voice range ends with a G4 (which was a huge struggle to sing already). Then at the end of 2012 I heard the term "mixed voice" for the first time and finally saw a way to expand my range so I can sing as full and high as all my favourite singers. "Unfortunately" I ended up with Speech Level Singing and the Singing Success program - which is great to break some bad habits like pulling your larynx up and release some tension. I did practice the lip rolls, the nays, the mums and everything for over a year. I think my overall tone improved a bit and I was now able to have a connected voice ... but here it comes: In a very weak, rather airy and not full way at all which was unusable for the stuff I wanted to thing. And I conditioned my chest voice to feel strained around a C4 ...

I worked with several SLS teachers, some of them good, some of them rather counter-productive. The frustration built up until I saw a video by Phil when browsing youtube for some newer vids on Mixed Voice. And the way he explained things just made soo much more sense. I dropped all the Singing Success dogmas and started taking lessons with him.

My progress has been excellent and I learned more from him in one lesson than in half a year of pure Brett Manning-like Speech Level Singing lessons (and daily practice).

I'm really looking forward to be able to sing how I always wanted to sing and I'm more than thankful for having found Phil

And I'm looking forward to participating here

Hey guys, Wabba here! You can also call me Eric if you like

I'm fairly active on a few vocal forums like therangeplace and Modern Vocalist forums and some of you may have seen me barge in sporadically from time to time, and I have absolutely no qualms about joining a new one! Especially one founded by the likes of Phil and Marnell.

Well about a year ago is when I started taking singing seriously and I first purchased Jaime Vendera's Raise Your Voice just to get my feet wet. The book had some great tips and information I still use to this day and if Jaime joined here that would make my day. I finished the book after a month of careful reading and studying and I soon after found Ken Tamplin and took the next step to developing my voice about a few months ago. I'm currently on volume 1 working on bridging w/out an audible speed bump. It's hard to work out every little break but it is getting easier and easier every day and I can DEFINITELY feel the results happening. As far as my influences go, I like all kinds of classic rock/metal/soul vocalists like Ian Gillan, David Coverdale, Robert Plant, Graham Bonnet, Ronnie James Dio, Burton Cummings, Tom Jones, Gino Vannelli, Aretha Franklin, Ann Wilson, and many others, just to name a few

On another note, I just wanted to say that to people like Marnell, Phil, Felipe and others, I was just browsing the Singing Success forum and I could not believe my eyes as some users (you know the ones) kept ridiculing you guys just for supplying a wealth of alternate information and knowledge on how to grow the voice. I personally thank all of you for giving out some great free information and pointers, whether if its "classical talk" or not. There are multiple ways of growing the voice and any beginner like me can benefit from trying out ALL methods and seeing which one resonates the best (like Phil says) with me.

Anyways, I'm thrilled to be here. Nice to meet all of you!

Hi everybody,

I'm glad to be a member of this new serious vocal forum.

I'm a speech-pathology student and musical actor from Denmark. Looking forward to interact with all of you.

Thanks Phill

No it's from a show I did back in 2010 called "The Producers" where I played the character "Roger De Bris".