ok, so I've been "singing" for about 1 year.

Right now I cannot do full songs consistently. My voice opened up about 6 months ago and I really started to get some nice range and things that I felt had some potential. I really wanted to learn softer singing and be able to consistently do things that really felt like I was a SINGER. (my campfire "fantasy" lol)  not just this really loud and aggressive tense thing that forces notes to go where I want and always be singing full blast.

We were talking about this chorus over on Youtube and I found a loop of different performances of Layne doing it...so I thought I'd do a few passes of it. You'll hear each version is a little different. The first 3 attempts I am just kind of stretching my voice and finding the spot with the least tension. There's a short break and then I think the 4th one I actually do it where I'm actually trying to sing the part like Layne does. Then I kind of do a few more just screwing with tonality and some grit.

None are great but we all have to start somewhere. I mainly wanted to post to support the other singers here who might be too shy to share a sample. I think everyone benefits from us losing the ego and actually getting down to learning and developing our voices. If we share ideas and things that we are working on and what is moving us forward, we all win!

Big shout out to Marc and Samuel!!

Rich (3/20/2025)

my apologies for the lyrics drifting.  Every time I'd hop in he would be on a different verse then I'd start so you'll hear me shift words trying to guess where Layne was at.

So I'm so excited because after a week of really getting into practice of getting loud I started findind those cool "well, it does not sound good but it's not bad either" moments day by day in my singing! 

https://voca.ro/1k4ljTDlhLeh

here I don't like the lack of smoothness in the transitions and also I chickened out a bit when I got in the chorus cause I heard my neighbours complaining lmao so I'm not satisfied with the loudness of it, but I'm completely sure I will get better with practice!

Songs are ALL 100% a cappella and no tweaks. I did this all in one take (recording at about 7:30 in the morning with NO warm up)

 I am sitting in an office chair and singing into my phone...that is it.  I did this for myself but figured I'd just share it. 

 I think having an open dialogue about this process is really important and I said fuck my ego and pride.  I want to sing.

the songs were literally all picked at random as I was finishing the tune I was messing with.

"Show me how to Live" Audioslave 

"oh you Pretty Things" David Bowie: this song is so freaking hard for me. 

"Cold As Ice" Foreigner 

"Whole Lotta Love" Led Zeppelin I think I was doing some things with the Zeppelin stuff that had potential. It's not good now...but I could see this coming together. I never even would attempt Zeppelin it was so far out of my range before but honestly something kind of clicked with these Zeppelin tunes

"Dazed and Confused"  (what I did was something I have NEVER been able to do which is to do soft and actually kind of weave in and out of sounds..so this was a pleasant surprise)

"How Many More Times" (more Zeppelin)

"I Don't Know" Ozzy Osbourne  I have never been able to sing Ozzy and never tried this song...but here we are. Not great but this literally would have been impossible for me without a M2 focused concept. I would have been trying to mix and pull M1 any chance I got.

"Say Hello 2 Heaven" , Temple of the Dog 

" Last In Line" Dio.  Dio would have been impossible for me to sing because I believed he sang in M1 with the balls of Thor to support him!! You'll hear quite a bit of experimenting on this one as I try to play with the fullness of my sound and Dio like "distortion.

"Helter Skelter" The Beatles (sung in the Dio voice on purpose.) I was enjoying the sounds of Dio and just tried this...you'll hear a second version that is a bit cleaner.

ok so here's a link...it's 16 minutes but a lot of different things.

thanks for reading and especially thanks to anyone who checks it out.  I hope it's interesting and somehow helps you, or inspires you to not be timid about sharing your voice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5t84Vv3jpOQ

This is a one take practice I did for "war paint" by Richie Kotzen. I think most of his work is darn good for practicing, he's a master at m2 singing!

https://voca.ro/1fYOGveiCDR4

Damn that rooster, he won't let me record anything LMAO 

https://voca.ro/14dPq8YsJ2vh

https://voca.ro/104ssbPyfVqO

This is the second time I sing this into the mic and this is the first time I feel I can go on and on, I did a take and wanted to share it like that!

I think this time I felt something interesting because I let myself go a bit, just focused on the present moment, not caring about the neighbours or whatever, just did it and it feels good, the voice is not tired. There are a lot of little things to improve and other things to practice, but anyway I have this feeling of relief knowing that most of the things that need to be practiced are just musical and normal, like when you're learning a song on the guitar and you don't know the right fingering and stuff, and not something that makes me go "oh shit, my throat is hoarse and bleeding"

I swear we got real similar music taste with Samuel so he keeps reminding me of old songs I loved but gave up on. Remember trying to yell this one back in the day and concluding Serj must've been some sort of alien because I could only get it by... shouting like a maniac and it wasn't even worth it singing like that sounded awful ahhaha plus it was insanely demanding challenge #overcame

acapella and into my phone: https://youtu.be/wuZkJiPwDWo

just a couple quick things so I keep posting examples.  I think it's not only important for myself but helps other people feel encouraged to jump in and share things. I apologize I was gone for a week or two...I have been working a LOT.   I didn't really have time to warm up or do a session today. I'll probably sing for "real" around 4PM my time today...it's still kind of early in the day.  But these are kinda fun...not sure they are in the exact original keys...but I took the one thing up to around D#5 my top note right now generally is the F#5 so I am definitely doing something wrong in terms of hitting that ceiling but I'll figure it out. I have bad habit of keeping my mouth kind of closed when I sing and also think my mouth shapes I think can be lazy. 

Hey m2 brothers, how is it going? I'm sharing with you a record I made with my phone. I'm happy to be able to sing crazy shit without tilting my head or popping my veins, it is cool to be able to go back and forth to M1 after a G5 or something without running out of air! This course works like magic (M2 wizards are cool🤘) 

https://voca.ro/1m5QjLw1lwrn

Some soundgarden! Early Cornell stuff is so fun to sing and to mess around a bit, he was so free with his M2!

https://voca.ro/1hvD5RQFYftI