Been listening to James Cotton, Rice Miller, Little Walt and BigBroWalt.
All throaty singing voices, their depth and tone affected!
Miller managed to cement a legacy as one of the true blues stylists, not only as a harmonicist, but as a vocalist aswell. The man was something else...
Anyway, I'm rambling, must have it on my mind...
There's a conspiracy going on. All of you bastards are aware of this, but not one of you has the guts, balls or downright integrity to admit it.
A singer seriously compromises himself,tone and depth-wise, if he chooses to make harmonica his priority.
Look fellas, I've a Joe Spiers C MB on its way to me in the next week or so, If I can't fin a way to play soft, relaxed and from the boots then I guess I'm gonna hafta give it all up!
Look, friend. I'm not approaching this in a witless academic sort of fashion. All of my ideas are based on assumptions and privately nurture intuitions.
I suspect a lot of singers who aren't Beyonce or Pavarotti pick up the harp to make up for the fact they aren't Beyonce or Pavarotti. And, of course, there is a certain style of blues vocal that a lot of blues vocalists try to imitate.
Harp has helped my singing, but then my better range is low and throaty. (I used to have a nice light voice sound too, but my asthma medication actually has a side effect of slightly lowering my voice.)
I can also sound like an operatic bass if the need arises, but I can't think of why I'd do that singing the blues. (Actually, I have one partially finished song where I do it, but it is REALLY deep and I can only sing it first thing in the morning and only during allergy season.)
I don't believe in portents and such, but this was a funny captcha to come up with since I'm supposed to meet someone tomorrow or Friday about putting together an anarcho-folk-punk band.
My vocal hero is Van the Man Morrison and I've spent the past two years or so attempting to blend my own style, starting to get some good results actually, thank the Good Lord. But yes, I too find myself entering that operatic zone at time - I put it down to having found two John McCormack records, the great Irish tenor. He was made a papal count! Great singer, he sang old ballads and such as well as the classical craic, great great artist, well worth checking out!
But yes, a strange thing I've found, is that different strands of this style I'm trying to meld together will manifest themselves audibly in the presence of different kinds of listeners, and maybe even different areas/venues. Strange strange mystical stuff but hey isn't that what music's all about?
Last Edited by DirtyDeck on Jun 01, 2016 12:36 PM
If you listen to Paul deLay, Curtis Salgado, or (dare I say it?) John Popper, you'll hear voices that are not throaty or otherwise affected by playing the harmonica. Then there's Stevie Wonder. =========== Winslow
I think singing and harmonica playing complement each other. People more knowledgeable than I (me?) say that bad vocal technique can damage the vocal cords etc., by using the throat as a kind of squeezing device rather than a conduit for the sound. I hope that my vocal studies and techniques I am studying (breath control, relaxing the throat, filling the room with resonance, not volume) will aid on the harp playing as well.
If the singing voices of the aforementioned harp players changed over the course of their careers it was booze and other things, not playing harmonica.
I sing and play harp, both pretty damned well. Harp 44 years, vocals about 22. You can't do both at once. What's this supposed problem you see? The Walters, Wolf, Cotton, Sonnyboy I, Rice Miller,, and many others have informed both my harp playing AND my singing style. Key to this whole thing for me has been learning to breathe and then sing and then play from my real depth. My voice has always been pretty deep and bass-y and maybe it gets bassier if we play on the street and I have to project more. So what?
You may do well to think before identifying a so-called problem. To me there ain't one. ---------- Reverbnation
Well DirtyDeck calling us all a pack of Bastards over a 'problem' that most of us have never even contemplated is not a good way to start a thread imo. (Unless you are Australian then i know that it is just a term of endearment)
A term of endearment! Yes, of course I mean it so. This is something that has troubled me many years, I guess it comes down to my technique, I play very hard TB. Hoping that this new super-slinky plays-like-butter harp will help me in my my quest for lighter breath-force and what not.
Thankyou all for commenting. A wee discussion started was all I wanted.
Stevie Wonder's a good call, but then again, he plays chromatic, less bending et all. I'll be back in approxamitely 7 days with a fresh outloook, God-willing. Cheers again, lads
Do you play/sing amped? Because once acoustic progress is made it can be a very different thing to amp up. Subtlety becomes the name of the game. I find both methods to be both effective and fulfilling depending on what's needed. Really definitely at the root of the matter, to me, is depth and control of breathing. I am a mix of lip and tb playing. I spent many years lip blocking and 16 years ago, as I discovered 3rd position, I also discovered tb style. In either case we become one with our instruments, both voice and harmonica.
STME, I stand corrected. MOST of us mortals can do one thing at a time with any proficiency!
One of the guys who informed my playing in a big way was Carey Bell. My impression of his style was a kind of laid back competence infused with a relaxed sort of sonic love. In other words he just eased forward through a given song and laid some great licks in there. His harp always accented his vocals well. At the same time his playing stood on its own, however he accomplished his unique style.
Personally I like to see a singing harp player- or a harp playing singer- as a force to be reckoned with on a stage. IF they do both well. A balance must be struck. Remember too, the end result is in the ear of the beholder.
Well I used to be a guitarer first and foremost, then suffered some strange curse that put me out of action for four or five years, I made sure the time wasn't wasn't and worked on my vocals non-stop. Nowadays I'm a singer, a bandleader, who picks up the axe for the occasional tune to give it more balls and bluesy roots, same with the harp, just a few tunes, here and there, rather than blast out all three showin' off like an oulde eejit.
The difference in what I once did and what I now do is that I play for other people, not myself. That's the road I'm taking...
1) I am not a bastard. 2) I don't sing, and it's because of my deep voice.
The latter is something that only harmonica players could understand.
I'm convinced that my voice has deepened in good measure due to practicing and playing harmonicas so much over the last 15 years. [Truth be known, I used to smoke cigarettes long ago and I have consumed my share of ganja (now legal in Colorado!). Those factors have undoubtedly contributed.]
I don't know how to manage my singing voice and it's embarrassing when I try. I used to have a much more feminine voice but it has gradually lowered in pitch since I started playing harp (at the age of 50; I'm now 65 y/o so age is also a factor). I introduce myself by name on every phone call to help avoid confusion.
I believe that it is because of all the time I've held my throat in the "yawn" position while playing harmonicas. I think my larynx has gradually either grown in size because it's been stretched so often or it's just slowly and permanently assumed that yawn configuration. I suspect I have Olympic caliber throat muscles. Too bad there isn't an Olympic yawn event.
I wish I could find a good singing coach in my rural area. I'm trying to sound more like Mavis Staples and less like Paul Robeson, but I need a lot more work. ;)
Michelle
---------- SilverWing Leather - Custom leather creations for musicians and other eccentrics.
I'm going to totally kick the notion that playing harmonica changes the pitch of a human voice to the curb because no human voice stays the same over a long period of time. Most voices will undergo a change NATURALLY on a roughly every 5 year basis and it all happens very gradually. With male voices and many female voices, the range and timbre of the voice drops downward in range, where the top end of the human voice you had when you were in your 20's gets lost but on the other end, you gain a bottom end by the time you get closer to your 40's and later that back when you were in your 20's, you were naturally unable to produce.
Going to a reputable vocal coach taught me these things and the harmonica has damned close to nothing to do with it at all and it's just a total myth with no reality or science to fully back up that assumption.
How you take care of your voice is another factor, including, eating, sleeping, drinking habits, plus if you smoke.
Also not everyone's voice can do certain things and at times imitating singers with a natural raspiness to their voices but when trying to imitate that and that's not where your voice is at physically, you WILL do some damage to your vocal chords, and sometimes it can be EXTREMELY serious.
For female voices, for example, singers like Aretha Franklin and Mariah Carey have deepened on their own naturally and so as they got older, they did the smart thing that Frank Sinatra HAD to learn, and that was to adjust the keys on certain tunes because their voices lost some high end on its own, but the bottom end of their range got enlarged and so by making those adjustments, they were able to cope and continue their careers. They all do practice and with a piano, they check where their vocal range is from lows to highs, and that was something I learned from taking vocal lessons many years ago.
Taking care of the voice also means that you gotta really be careful with alcoholic beverages, like beer, just because of the high sodium content in it alone, which makes you more thirsty and too much can make things a helluva lot worse and too many sugary drinks doesn't help either and drinking water, or water with lemon and NO sugar at all will help one get thru a gig without a problem because it helps eases the throat muscles and if you have to gig in a really smoky room, it helps you navigate successfully thru it and I know from personal experience this certainly has helped me quite often over the years.
Pot smoking as well as smoking crack can definitely have negative effects on the voice over the long haul and I do know plenty of big name pro musicians where they've done both and it's hurt them later in life, and they shall not be named.
The vocal breathing and relaxation exercises they will teach you will not only improve vocals, it also will for harmonica, especially for the long haul so you can avoid abusing your voice.
I know my own voice has dropped in pitch naturally and when I was in my 20's, there was no way in hell I could sing my old boss Jimmy Rogers classic tune Walking By Myself, which he did in the key of A, in the very same key he sang it in because my voice couldn't naturally hit those low notes, but now that I'm closing in on getting near 61 years of age, I can now do it pretty easily and I've noticed some top end loss but with more bottom end range happening now.
Now, once and for all, the idea that playing harmonica is gonna change the pitch of your voice nothing but absolute total nonsense. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
I started as a singer, and have been playing harp for only about 2 years, but I feel it has improved my voice. IMHO, I think this has to mainly do with how I am learning to control my breathing, but also the many little nuanced effects, such as throat vibrato for example (haven't gotten it to come from any deeper than my throat yet, but working on it), that demand certain control of both the muscular and respiratory system in conjunction with each other.
"A singer seriously compromises himself,tone and depth-wise, if he chooses to make harmonica his priority"
Where do you get that? I do both. They have nothing to do with each other (except that singing phrasing is helpful wen playing the harp.)
Moreover - there are plenty of successful singing harp players with VERY unconventional voices that would sure as hell never make it on the opera circuit - like Musselwhite, Estrin, even Popper. Singing, especially blues singing is about delivering a story. It isn't so much about the timber of one's voice. ---------- *************************************************** /Greg
Holy Moley, Frank. When I was younger it was no problem, but now I'm wondering how the heck I'm ever going to reach my recommended daily sodium intake... especially with work getting in the way ;)
Takin up harp has done wonders for my singing, in that I never, ever would have sung in front of anyone, ever, until I picked up the harp. Now I do. Good singing? Don't matter. I'm singing. I'm on key. People don't leave. I feel liberated when I sing those few songs. Got some tips about warming up and breathing from Heather Crosse at Jon Gondick's jam camp. Helped my singing...and my harping. Someone above said something like it''s about telling a story. That makes sense to me. I'm perilously close to 70 and wish I'd started 50 years ago. ---------- Phil Pennington ---------- Phil Pennington
As long as we're on the subject, some 4 years ago I noticed my voice was getting uneven and beginning to fail. Mostly it was due to trying to sing louder than I could. The guy with the p.a. simply refused to give me the volume I needed to take care of my voice. That's part of why I quit him. I went to a voice doc and she showed me pics of the polyp on my larynx. 3 months of no singing or shouting or talking much at all and it finally was reabsorbed. When I began singing again my voice was better than ever and has remained so since. I'm with Bob on this, our voices are one of many things which change over time. It's not always to the bad either. ---------- Reverbnation
The one thing all pro vocalists worry about is getting nodes on their vocal chords from abuse like trying to sing too loud physically and tho the surgery has gotten better just in terms o0f outcome alone, it's something one wants to avoid because sometimes there's permanent damage that gets done from abuse and if you smoke and/or drink alcohol (and this certainly DOES include beer because the high sodium content makes thing WORSE, and NOT better despite any of the BS you hear), it exacerbates the problem 100 fold.
Stevie Nicks of Fleetwood Mac had to go thru this and learn how to sing all over again and many big name singers have had problems like Adele. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
A node on the vocal cord is a buildup of scar tissue. The cord then has to work around it and the problem gets worse. Best option in my case was to let go of strain for a time and let my body absorb the scar tissue. No singing or shouting or even really TALKING LOUD! It worked on more than one level. I realized how hard I had been on my voice and vowed to take better care so it would not reoccur. I discovered also that my voice sounded better than it ever had, consistently. I took more and better control of our new p.a. to keep from stressing my cords out. I sing just only so loud acoustically in public. Anybody who wants to hear can come in closer.
So I'm singing better the past few years and I'm confident I'll have my voice for a long time to come! ---------- Reverbnation
My post from an hour or so ago disappeared and isn't back yet, so I will post again. Moderator(s), if the first one comes back please delete it.
If you look at the figures above you will see that one can of beer contains 0.60% (zero point sixty percent) of the USDA's recommended daily sodium intake. Beer is NOT high in sodium. Beer is low in sodium. No need to take my word for it, just google beer, sodium and "recommended daily sodium".
Old time guys used to soak their harps in beer but I do not recommend that as it makes the harp sticky and contaminates the delicious (and healthful!) beverage.
