Comments on Profile Post by Lyander

have you tried the reliable vocal muscle relaxant known as alcohol?

aka liquid courage

works for me, and I don't even try to sing.

Haha unfortunately I'm trying for a more delicate song that requires smoothness. My voice gets croaky pretty quickly with booze, otherwise that'd be fun

Maybe your off the cuff singing isn’t as good as you think it is. :P

Just keep the mic hot all the time till you don't even notice it. Go back later and edit.

@joch ... I should have thought of that sooner.

To be honest, it’s always jarring to hear my own recorded voice. My other advice: avoid being recorded.

It could be worse. You could be like me; utterly unable to carry a tune under the best of circumstances.

Maybe you need an audience. Arthur Rubinstein used to corral people into the studio when he was recording. Almost all of my best singing has been live. Protip: if you f**k up (say, your voice cracks), f**k up on purpose twice more in successive lines, and people will think it was intentional. I improvised that one when I was 16, and people complimented me afterward for "feeling so deeply."

FWIW: For several years, I played drums in 3-6 bands at a time, with maybe 3-5 gigs a month. I got so I was edging into semi-pro territory. But when it came time to *record*, the difference between me and a studio-ready drummer was all too apparent. Recording is putting an aural microscope to everything, including every little flub and deviation from pitch and time and intonation.

One can be an excellent performer and rock venue after venue and still be a poor studio musician. I've watched really strong singers realize they don't quite have studio chops, especially when singing harmonies with other people, where you realize that the mic will show up every tiny discrepancy in phrasing, mouth shape, vibrato, etc.

Probably not an earth-shattering statement here, but I think the only way to get better at recording is to... record yourself a lot. Then listen back with unsparing scrutiny and work to correct what doesn't gel "on tape." Inevitably, people sound stiffer and less spontaneous on record, but I think you can also work to eventually get back some of that looseness and "live" quality. But it takes practice.

Just to be clear I'm not really trying to make a career out of this, haha. I just like singing and felt like sharing some of it with friends, maybe post publicly now and again for fun. But yeah all the bits about how minutiae suddenly stand out on isolated vocals and how there's a strong element of performance anxiety still apply.

The flip side of this is that modern recording has also become obsessed with perfection, which means that many to most productions (especially chart pop) end up both pitch corrected and quantized to a grid and utterly bland. There's also an art to knowing when to leave in mistakes that sort of work anyway and to getting a take that, while not "perfect," ends up better serving the song.

Ha, yeah, I figured, but felt like reflecting, I guess.

Maybe a way to record yourself for fun but not have to highlight every little thing is to put the mic more into the room and make it feel more like a live thing, rather than up close recording.

Does it help you to be more expressive if you have a dog attached to one limb?

(Seriously: hope that has all healed up ok)

I've complained about not being able to use speakers because I live in a fairly population-dense spot. Not only are my neighbours noisy as hell on the regular, but I'm self-conscious about bothering them by playing music at levels I'd consider "immersive". I actually recorded this around midnight to show how it's impossible to get a "clean" sound where I am: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AjgGAjune4xyieUeyOpjPqNksa2Hcw?e=4Tqiou

@Thad E Ginathom Haha, all's good now! My one finger still can't fully extend all the way and aches when I use it a lot, but it's getting back up to spec. I got into indoor top rope climbing a while back and that's been helping with rehabilitation