Hey y'all. I go by Breebs (buhreebs on Youtube) on the internet, or Slow Start if you've ever seen me in any other vocal forums like TMV in the past. Shoutouts to Owen, jens, KillerKu, Tommy, jco, gerand, Martin and all the other familiar names I've seen a bunch before! I was decently active for a while, spending many nights reading until the sun was about to come up... until I forgot my password. I too noticed the weird trends in what jco5055 humorously calls "mental masturbation" and kind of backed away from reading some forums for a while, electing to work more on my own. This forum seems pretty cool and I enjoy seeing lots of old names and faces! Like Owen, I find myself a little tired of having to sort through copious misinformation thrown around by those who know they are not experts on certain subjects in some places... especially when Marnell, Phil, Felipe, and Dan were telling it as it is and getting backlash lol

I started out with severe social conditioning to not sing out and make loud noises as well as extreme tension issues. I had no idea how to breathe correctly, support, or stand best for singing. When I asked my first classical voice teacher to teach me to breathe correctly and support, he even told me it was not important as I was already breathing... which was rather sad/wrong because I now know I definitely did not know how to breathe properly after growing up as an asthmatic.

I took multiple years of classical voice (and also violin) as a non-major while in university and am now about to start medical school in Texas. I have a background of nearing two decades of classical piano and violin experience as well as ~8 years of guitar and frequently accompany myself when I sing. I feel my classical music and scientific study background transfer well to studying details, interpretation, as well as mechanics and technique in voice. When I first started taking classical voice from a grad assistant, I was originally labeled a low baritone (teacher would even focus my lower extension down to D2) and was told I would not be able to sing past F#4 where I was hitting a ceiling. After lots of researching and work put in while learning from various methods (listed below), I have been able to find a connection that goes past C5 in a rather chesty phonation that has become more balanced with some work but remains a bit heavy for my liking. I did get considered a tenor at that time though I feel my resonance shifts seem to lie more in high bari areas.

The methods I have encountered, looked into, and learned from in the past include SLS/Singing For The Stars, SS, TVS (back when the book was under 75 pages long), Arceneaux Approach (2.0, so long ago!), CVT (strong information, interesting ideas), and most recently KTVA and Breaking The Chains. I am also a huge fan of Dan Formica, Phil, Marnell, and Felipe, frequently watching their videos as soon as they are uploaded, applying what i learn, and commenting with how awesome their insight is and how appreciative I am for their generosity with instruction. I hope to be able to learn to develop more versatility and control of dynamics in my voice.

I have found KTVA to be the most helpful in helping me overcome my strong predisposition/fear of singing out while teaching me to modify and sing rather powerfully, but now find that I am more chesty than I would like to be and am trying to learn to back off more in order to have more options. So far, trying to round the embouchure a bit more and go for a less huge mouth opening that is a bit more vertical than horizontal seem to be valid steps to take in learning to lighten up the mass and use gentler breath management and onsets in my practicing. I would like to learn to improve my control over compression and breath management.

Singers I would like to be able to sound like include Al Green, Brian Mcknight, Marvin Gaye, Jason Mraz, Luther Vandross, Dan Formica, Sam Smith, Allen Stone, Ed Sheeran, and Gabe Bondoc. Yeah Dan is between Luther and Sam lmao

I hope to engage in educational and meaningful discussions on this forum to learn from those who I trust to not lead me astray. I could go on and on and on, but elect to stop myself here. My work and progress can be found at my soundcloud, here:

Ok....I'm not new here and already have an intro somewhere in this thread but I haven't been around in a year or more. I really don't do the Internet anymore...I don't own a tablet, or iPad or smartphone or none of that and I'm not much into technology. For that reason I also haven't recorded anything in a very long time. My recording skills always sucked (my lack of interest or knowledge of technology and unwillingness to learn) so I gave it up. I'd rather just sing live anyway rather than make a perfect recording. Live is real. Unfortunately I don't do a whole lot of that either.... maybe every few months. Speaking of being "technical" I'm that way in my singing also. Not very "technical." Well, I know the techniques but not the names or terms. If you want me to learn how to tie my shoe then show me. I don't need to know that this is called a shoelace and this is a loop and this is a knot and that is a small loop etc etc. Just show me what to do.

So anyway, I thought I'd drop by and see if anything is happening here lately. I haven't much to offer but let's see where this goes.

Tommy

Hey 🙂 I'm a vocalist from Britain, and my ultimate singing goal would essentially just be to inspire people, and make a living I guess haha!
I mainly sing rock/folk/soul/pop, depending on the way the song sounds, as my voice is most compatible with modern folk-pop type stuff, Alex clare, lumineers, Tom Odell, etc. Except personally i listen to a lot of weird and wonderful artists too but I don't sing their songs all that well, such as Matisyahu, Alabama shakes, MGMT, daedelus, all kinds of stuff including heavy metal. 😛

My YouTube channel where I share my voice, multiple instruments, and humble opinions. 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFS8YTB42PVcxoHHf6hrsFg

I would like to use this forum as a means to both aiding fellow and more so beginners than myself in what ways I can, and also as a means to grow my YouTube channel as in the future my content will be improving a lot and I'd like to stop bedroom singing and start sharing my voice and getting honest and informative feedback. 🙂