How to Make It in the Music Industry

Straining when singing is a common problem. It is usually caused by trying too hard, which in turn may be caused by any number of factors. Strain usually manifests itself in poor vocal tone, poor tuning, pops, squeeks and discomfort in the vocal chords.

Most strain can be reduced almost instantly, and any remaining strain can often be fixed with long-term singing practice.

The most common causes of strain are:

• Notes that are too high or sung with a chest voice instead of falsetto (high/head) voice.
• Trying to get increased volume in the belief it will sound better.
• Trying to make a song sound more emotional than it is.
• Trying too hard to be a rock star (when you aren’t).

I’ve experienced (and still frequently experience) all four of these sources of strain. The trick is to beat it.

Notes Too High

Where notes are too high, unfortunately, you not be able to sing them, no matter how hard you try. If you can’t hit the note easily, it will sound terrible if you just ‘go for it’. Trust me. The only solution is to make the note lower, and this is best achieved either by changing the melody for this bit, or transposing the whole song down a couple of steps. It will sound much better if each note is in your range.

Increased Volume

Many people believe that if you sing harder, you will be singing louder. This is true, but the increase in volume will be accompanied by a nasty (as opposed to well controlled) ’shouty’ quality to the music. Increasing volume is better achieved by using your mind and projecting the sound, this way your vocal chords and breathing will naturally do the right things to increase your volume. With a little practice, doing this will become second nature.

Increased Emotion

Some singers will try and make a song sound more emotional than it is. The emotion of the song is best conveyed when it ‘just comes out’. If you try adding artifacts or accents to the vocal, it will sound naff, and less emotional. Listeners are not stupid, they can spot the difference. Spine tingling performances are completely effortless to pull off. If, when you perform, you aren’t enjoying it totally, and it feels like a lot of hard work, then you need to sit back and relax and not get so worked up about it. Remember, effortless i.e. don’t try and put in emotion that isn’t there.

Trying Too Hard to Be A Rock Star

Now we all want to be rockstars, and we all can be, if we find our niche. However, if you idolise the Foo Fighters but have an emotional, quiet listener kind of voice, don’t try and sing like your idol. Accept what you sound like and make the most of it. Maybe you would make a better Radiohead or Coldplay.

It is worth pointing out that on most recorded vocal performances there is a lot of processing done on the vocals which make them sound extrememly loud compared with roaring guitars and crashing drums. A voice without this kind of processing will sound much weaker- in other words, they didn’t have to sing like that to get that sound, so don’t try and copy it exactly.

Remember what you can’t see about yourself, if you are trying too hard, the audience will see this, and label you as a ‘try hard, fail often’. This, is a bad thing.

I Don’t Know If I’m Straining

Sit down and play a friend your song, and ask for an honest opinion on whether your voice sounds strained. It doesn’t require a music degree to spot.

Conclusion

Don’t try too hard, and don’t worry about it.  Strain is something every singer will run into as they explore different parts of their voice. Learn what your individual voice is capable of, and what it isn’t, and maximise what you have. And always, avoiding straining.

Many musical people cannot sing like a pro. The reason for this is because, unlike the instruments they play, which are well practiced, often they will have neglected to pay as much attention to their singing as they did to learn their instrument.

Singing is like any skill. Some are born with it, but everybody can learn to do it. The learning of proper technique will correct the vast majority of ‘poor singing’ ailments, notably strain, squeeking, duff tuning or exhaustion. To develop control over your voice, like any instrument, skill, or sport, requires a lot of time and effort, especially to reach a professional level. This is true even of rock and roll singers, such as Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters. Grohl uses his voice in an agressive way but it will never squeeks, pops or sounds strained, and this is because he has learnt to use his voice in this way over a number of years.

The development of the voice is two fold: partially developing the skills (an exercise of the mind and ears), and developing of the muscles. With practice, both will be improved and so will the singing.

How to Improve Your Vocal Range

Improving your vocal range is easy but takes effort. Every day, you should sing notes on a scale, going up, and going down, and listening very carefully to your voice and how it sounds. Use a piano or guitar if you can. You want to eliminate all signs of strain, and make it sound controlled and even throughout the range, right up to as high or low as you can get.

Keep doing this and you will find your range substantially extended in both directions after several weeks, as your muscles develop and you gain new control over them.

Remember, do these exercises slowly. The purpose is to develop control and accuracy. Try and relax. Too much effort will only work against you.
If you have the facility, also try doing this with a microphone and headphones to listen back to yourself simultaneously. This is a very different experience from doing it acoustically and benefits people who make recordings.

Why do this- it’s not very rock and roll

Granted, vocal training is not the same as snorting cocaine off toilet seats. It isn’t rock and roll. But it will make you sound a like a pro, not like an amateur. If you want to be a pro, then you need to put in the work.

I must admit  I still find this difficult. I am not a natural singer, but I have come along way from sounding like a juvenile in a punk band and it has been 100% rewarding all the way. I’m taking vocal training as seriously as any other instrument now and I hope my voice will improve further over time.

Performing can be difficult. Everybody has bad nights, and every so often a night will be a disaster, where you hang your head in shame, and leave quickly and silently. When you start out, it’s the most difficult because this tends to happen more often, and lessens as you improve with performance experience.

Performing is a skill that is only learnt by doing; it isn’t something you can learn from a book. The only way to become a good performer is to start by being a rubbish performer and improve. It’s not often that you will be the best performer of the night, and if it is, often enough somebody will come along and show you up. It’s just the way art works.

The ‘Edge’ - Experience

There are dreamers, and there are do-ers. Getting experience means going on stage, swallowing the nerves, cocking up royally, taking the abuse and lack of applause, and then going back and doing it again. This can be a relatively traumatic process, but it can be made relatively painless if you see it as a means to an end. Unfortunately, you have to go through this process to go from a bad performer to a good performer.

Eventually, after having done enough shows like this, you will become much more able and develop a thicker skin, so when things go wrong, you can just laugh at yourself and forget about it.

Experience Will Make You Better than Everybody Else

People who are born with talent annoy me. The rest of us have to work at it. It is, however, what you do with it that counts, and by playing more, you will gain something that they do not have, so even if they are better musicians than you, play more instruments, write more songs or whatever, you will be able to upstage them with your performance. The ability to do this is essential to being singed.

Conclusion

The simple conclusion of this article is to dream less, play more. If you haven’t played many shows, do it. It is scary at first, but it won’t kill you. Do it a few times and you’ll wonder what you worried about. If it all goes horribly wrong, don’t worry, just book another gig and try again. Success comes from unwillingness to give up, so that if you can make that a virtue of yourself, all will be well.

Should you quit your job so you can focus on your music? Well, the answer is probably not, but I have. I kidded myself into starting my own business, but that didn’t work. Really I quit just to work on music. I’ve not seen any tangible results yet (as in million dollar royalties), and nobody’s invited me to any awards shows, but it’s early days.

Quitting Your Job To Work on Music

This, actually, in retrospect, is double ended sword. My reasoning is this:

You get a lot more time to do music stuff. Practice is very time consuming, and it helps greatly to have the time to do it. Few people start an instrument in their 20’s and progress to professional level- society has made it too late for them- they had their chance when they were young.

On the flipside, however, I found because I play guitar and write every single day now, I have far fewer ideas than I did when I had to go to work every day and forget about music. Some days I find myself even needing to take a break from music and do other things (like this blog). I think you can also get stuck in the nitty gritty of song writing when you’re thinking about it continuosly, and not see the bigger picture.

It’s worth pointing out that inspiration does not come out continously during the hours of 9-5, and it’s often that inspiration strikes when you least expect it, or when it’s least convenient (e.g. on the motorway). Consequently, if you intend to spend all day writing songs, this is very unlikely to happen.

Depression

I heard a statistic on the television yesterday that said 50% of long term unemployed people suffer from clinical depression or anxiety. Having been unemployed myself, I can relate to this, and I think others can too, and would say it is a danger of being sat inside after a while. If you do decide to concentrate on music, but end up sat inside watching television/internet/smoking all day, you ought to get some kind of other activity, even volunteering. In my bitter experience, being depressed does not help you write music, it rather hinders it (and anything else you might want to do), and is consequently worth avoiding.

Being Responsible About Money

Everybody needs money. Music doesn’t pay. It might pay, but as a general rule it doesn’t. The smart thing to do is to keep earning, even on a part time basis, and push your music hard until you can start earn something from it. That is, after all, the struggle of this entire blog.

Don’t Listen to Me

I should point out that I hated my previous job anyway, and worked long, stressful hours, so probably would have quit anyway.

This article is unfortunately a little bit ‘preachy’. That’s not my intent. It’s only my intent to share my opinion on the matter. Do let me know though what you get up to!

I’d say 90% of the people you see at the amateur open mic nights look really happy to be there, and to be playing, doing what they love. 10% of people are tense, distant, antisocial, and knobheads. Those guys are tough to strike a lasting conversation with, and they care intensley about their music, without an objective point of view. Often this will lead to a person with complicated instrument parts, but the songs are ultimately not very entertaining.  Such a person focusses on the details and not on the bigger picture.

So, if you go up on stage, and tense and quiet, you won’t win many hearts. On the contrary, there is nothing more hypnotic than watching someone who adores playing and plays with a wide smile across their face. In other words,

• SMILE and be happy and bubbly, even if your songs are serious in nature.
• Chat with the audience.
• Thank them for clapping and listening.
• Laugh if you can.
• Enjoy yourself as much as you can, with a positive mental attitude, you will electrify an audience, even if the songs are only average.

Remember, nobody likes a miserable git, so be positive, be bold, be brave, and smile.

When showing off your art to family and friends, or even when you play a gig, you will always receive compliments. Very rare is it for somebody to tell you to your face what’s wrong with it. No art is perfect, people will always have opinions about it, good and bad, that they would prefer to keep to themselves. When you play somebody a piece, often they will want to compliment you whether it’s good or bad, because that’s what friends do. It’s being nice, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

The problem is this. Sometimes, it’s possible to fall into a false sense of security that what you are doing is in fact good, at a time when you really must objective about your art. Ask yourself the honest question about how good it is. Is it a good competitor amongst Jeff Buckley, John Lennon or David Bowie? Could you show them up with your tune and performance? The purpose of this question is not to belittle your music or your ego, but rather to continually remind you to keep pushing to the next level of writing and performance, one step further than the last. Do not let this discourage you, quite the opposite, you should be encouraged. And do not let you friends & family lull you into thinking you’re great. You may only be great by their standards, not by the standards of an A&R man at a record label.

So: Good is the friend who tells you the truth.

Being told you’re rubbish

This will probably also happen at some point. I’ve been told I can’t sing, my songwriting is rubbish and I can’t keep time. In retrospect, all of those things were true, though I didn’t see them at the time. I took it all with a pinch of salt (most of the time) and kept pushing harder and harder to improve. I still get negative feedback, but these days less of ‘give up’ and more constructive stuff like ‘don’t strain your voice’. Listen to what people say, and then act on it in a positive manner.

It is very common to hear aspiring musicians say “I want to concentrate on my own music.” Usually this has one of two consequences, the person ends up practicing endlessly in their bedroom, with no audience, and no band, or the musician ends up spending hours dilly dallying in front of the computer trying to record their songs, or a combination of the two.

Neither of these are a bad thing, BUT, few people succeed on their own. There’s a lot to be said to for getting the vibe when playing a band that suddenly fills people with inspiration. For example, the drummer will play a beat and suddenly the guitarist joins in with a fantastic part that just naturally fits. This sort of thing happens all the time when playing with others. It’s rarely possible for one person to have all the ideas, and often good musicians can take mediocre tunes and turn them into masterpieces.

A second reason for working with other people is that its social. Getting signed is as much a matter of who you know as how good you are. If there are two of you, the number of contacts you have has suddenly doubled, 5 of you, 5x time the contacts & opportunity. For example, here is what happened to me last week:

I replied to an ad on www.gumtree.com looking for an acoustic guitarist to play along with a soul singer. I thought why not, in the worst case I’ll meet an attractive girl and in the best case she’ll be an amazing singer too. Turns out she was amazing (and attractive though attached). While rehearsing, I played one of my songs to her and her flatmate. Turns out her flatmate is a p/a for a leading music law firm in London. What are the odds? A music law firm has a big interest in getting artists signed as they can recruit them as clients. She said the tune I played was top 40 for sure, and she’d take my demo and play it round. I know better than to take compliments like that easily, but now there is an opportunity which occurred just because I followed a social path and made a connection.

Another good reason for playing with other people is that they can be better than you. For example, I can play the guitar quite well; I’ve been playing for years. But I’m unlikely to be able to kick out a solo like Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Numb solo anyday soon. But somebody else certainly will be able to, and if they did it on my tunes, all the better. I like to surround myself with really good musicians who are better than me, they can make my tunes sound amazing. Usually they’re all too happy to play if I lead them and write the material.

Performing as a band is far more interesting than a solo performer. There is only so long that an anonymous solo artist, performing orginal material, can hold the interest of the audience. A band can let you explore territory that just isn’t possible on your own.

Recording as a band is also brilliant. Records that have been to a click, with sampled drums (even very good sampled drums) sound lifeless, and nothing like a live record, which usually sounds ‘hot’.

My compadres and I have realised (and voiced it) that no one of us is good enough to make it alone. We realise that if we help each other, and bring our particular skills together, we stand a much better chance. I’m more than happy to play other people’s songs if they write them!

In truth though, the best reason to play with others, more than any other, is that it’s damn good fun, and you will have many adventures together that will be memorable in years to come. I fill my life with colour and music and I love it for that reason.