Karaoke Forums

Well, now you're talking. That's the only brand I ever buy.  :yum:

So.... we'd either:

A: Get along just fine partying together

OR

B: Fight over who got the last drop in the bottle

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♥ Laugh your heart out, dance in the rain. Cherish the memories, ignore the pain. Love and learn, forget and forgive. Because you only have one life to live. ♥

It was probably your classic case of "prior physicist turned bar hopper" who was drinking along with his pals one day, drunkenly discussing beer foam (I HAVE heard such discussions before between drunken men....)

And then he says "Hey...  :idea: ... We could probably make money doing this".

And they DO get paid. All in the name of "scientific research".  LOL

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♥ Laugh your heart out, dance in the rain. Cherish the memories, ignore the pain. Love and learn, forget and forgive. Because you only have one life to live. ♥

Hey Perry, quitting smoking is a piece of cake...

the wall street journal had an article one time about how over 1 billion has gone into research to make the cigarette as addictive as possible. There are engineers who get up every day, make 100,000 a year,  and their job is to make sure you stay with it!!!!

Now, i quit smoking, and it a breeze. First 4 days climbing the walls and most unpleasant ot be around, followed by 6 months of hacking and coughing much much worse than when I smoked, followed by gaining 50lbs which i lost after quitting drinking all alcohol and working out frequently, coupled with 30 years of wanting one every time i see a pack of marlboro reds.....geeez....I want one now just typing this!!!!!!

so you see, iz-a piece of cake!!!!!!!

Hey Perry, quitting smoking is a piece of cake...

the wall street journal had an article one time about how over 1 billion has gone into research to make the cigarette as addictive as possible. There are engineers who get up every day, make 100,000 a year,  and their job is to make sure you stay with it!!!!

Now, i quit smoking, and it a breeze. First 4 days climbing the walls and most unpleasant ot be around, followed by 6 months of hacking and coughing much much worse than when I smoked, followed by gaining 50lbs which i lost after quitting drinking all alcohol and working out frequently, coupled with 30 years of wanting one every time i see a pack of marlboro reds.....geeez....I want one now just typing this!!!!!!

so you see, iz-a piece of cake!!!!!!!

Russ, you're too funny!!
I've heard about the hacking and coughing worse for many months afterwards, but it seems that once the nicotine finally leaves one's system, there wouldn't be a craving any longer...unless we're talking about habit of enjoyment?
Which is what this karaoke thing is for me now. How will I ever be able to kick this habit?

But from what I gather here, quitting smoking is never going to be easy. Even if I get the patch, I'll still be introducing myself to nicotine, but maybe not the other harmful habit inducing chemicals that these researchers are using to keep us hooked forever. Let's see........$40.00 for a 2 week's supply of nicotine patches vs. $100.00 in 2 weeks for just my cigarettes...not counting my wife's. I could save some money while clearing out my lungs at the same time....it might be a good deal!!
Right now, I'm spending about $400.00 per month for mine and my wife's smoke habit.......as much as my car payment!!  :shock:
Something's gotta give, and I'm thinking it'll be my life if I don't wise up soon enough.
This computer stuff doesn't help either....I smoke like a freight train while sitting here typing.  :(
Glad you told me your story though....I see it is possible, but still as difficult to forget about as being addicted to heroin?  :(

A:  I think we'd have a blast

AND

B:  No fighting necessary if we each have our own bottle!!!!

hehehehehehehe

I got a quick question, whatever happened to the USE of YOUR DIAPHRAM for singing? it's not just your lungs and vocal tract that are needed. I always got repremended in my voice lessons and with my instruments about using my diaphram and not to use my lungs to take breathes for singing/ or playing an instrument. Guess everyone is taught differently? or maybe I missunderstood what you said.

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[shadow=red][glow=violet]
~Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent. - Victor Hugo

~When God finished the creation of Adam, He stepped back, scratched his head, and said, "I can do better than that!"
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We were talking about overall, total body health, so of course your lungs would be part of that. That's one of the reasons smoking is bad for singers, too.

You can't take a real breath without your lungs.  You can only take shallow breaths, which don't last long and are not good for effective singing.

I don't like to use the word "diaphragm", but it, your lungs and your vocal cords all work together to produce sound (ideally).

Take a goof deep breath and you can see that the area below your rib cage expands (your diaphragm).  You are using your lungs to take that breath.  The trick is to take a big enough breath and then let the air out slowly as you sing.  That's called "breath support" because the action of your lungs works to support the breath that goes through your vocal cords and out your mouth.  That's the hard part and it can take many years of practice to get good breath support.


It can be very confusing. You might ask your voice teacher to explain more or suggest some reading materials.  If you still don't get it, you might want to find a new voice teacher. Sometimes it's not a matter of whether the teacher is "good" or not, it's a matter of the connection, the communication between your teacher and you.  If you don't have that, the teacher might not help as much as another might.  I had teachers explain the process to me for years, but it didn't help until I finally found the one who was able to get through to me about how to actually make all this work at all. Not that I'm great, but at least I have a basis now to work from.

I used to sing all from my throat and head. I didn't realize that I already knew how to produce the right sound. I thought that method was "shouting" until finally we figured it out together.  Singing, in a way, is a form of sustained shouting.  If you go to yell or shout, you'll notice that you take a big breath before you do it, and then you project that sound out loudly. I'm not talking about the kind of shouting you do over loud music in a bar, or the kind of shouting you do that will hurt your voice. Just like, yelling at someone across the room or street.  Once I figured out that was a good, healthy sound and not something that would hurt me, it was like a lightbulb went off over my head.  Suddenly everything I had been told about breathing made sense.  Of course I still have to work hard to make that "shout" sustainable by not running out of breath too soon. When you just shout, you are using up all your breath at once.  With singing, you are making the  sound last longer.  

It's not easy! You have to warm up the muscles properly, not just in your voice and head but in your diaphragm as well. If you are out of shape, or you don't sing very often, those muscles will not work as well.  Sometimes if I am singing a particularly tough song, I have to stop and actually catch my breath, like I've been running or climbing stairs.  That tells me that I am out of shape and that I need to exercise those breathing muscles more.  Smokers probably have just as hard of a time at it.

Don't let anyone tell you that good singing is easy because it's not. I need to  sing more often (you should probably do it almost every day to keep those muscles in shape), but even when I do, it is hard work both mentally and physically.  Think of all the things you have to keep track of when you sing.  

-You have to be warmed up so you don't hurt yourself or sound bad.
-You have to get the notes (melody) and rhythm right (not that easy of a task sometimes to begin with!)  If it's really fast or there's a key change, even more difficult.  Of course the better you know the song, the easier it is!
-You have to put emotion or energy into the singing.
-You have to know when and where to breathe and make sure you don't run out of air.
-You have to keep your mouth in a good round shape but also open enough to let the sound out.
--You have to stand up straight and take deep breaths so that you can use the air at maximum efficiency and let it out right.
-You may have allergies or other impediments that mess with your song.
-You have to have a nice legato sound (for more songs) and have everything connected well, yet you still have to put emphasis on certain parts of the phrase and make sure the whole thing has enough strength and energy.
--Then if you are recording you have all that other technical stuff to worry about with your karaoke machine, the balance, echo etc.
WHEW! I am getting tired just reading it.  There are probably some other things I left out, too.

And with me, I have to warm up at least a half an hour to sound good enough to record, and then my time for sounding good, before I start to get tired breath-wise or my voice gets hoarse--maybe another hour.  This is just for recording, for sounding my best. If it's live then it's a whole other ballgame  And this is just for pop music, not hard stuff like really high showtunes or opera.  That is a whole other level of difficulty.

So, good luck and keep working at it!  Even though it seems hard, there are just so many joys and rewards with working on it.  Like people who work all their lives on their golf game.  You may never be as good as you want, if you are really picky, but you will see definite improvement if you keep working at it.  Trust me because I used to suck bad

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~Suzanne Lanoue~

I guess I expressed myself wrong. Being spanish is my 1st language I don't always come across the way I want too. Yes, you breathe with your lungs but you need diaphram support to make it last. You hold it there in your diaphram area should. Also my voice teacher was philipina, so it was hard to understand her at times but I also learned the diaphram support from playing 12 different instruments and 6 different instructors thru out my orchestra playing years. I suck at explaining things What you said is what I meant to say. Thing is , that it was not mentioned at all in the previous post and it puzzled me. I know that when you breathe your chest should not expand but your diaphram area should. Yes, smoking is bad for singers ...so why isnt smoking band from nightclubs?LOL that's how alot of professional singers lose t heir voice, or their voice becomes deeper and then need throat surgery for their vocal chords . I don't smoke but I have a roommate who does and in the past year, my voice has dropped an octave, I can still reach high notes but with difficulties and not as many as I did before grrr. Anyways, I no longer take voice lessons, this was like 13yrs ago when I was still in college and was taking courses in music education and voice. Wish I could find that voice teacher, she was awesome. Taught me to sing even when I had laryngitis Don't ask me how cuz I forgot how she taught me, I just do it automatically now without even thinking. I sing on a daily basis, keeps me sain Thanx for responding tho

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[shadow=red][glow=violet]
~Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent. - Victor Hugo

~When God finished the creation of Adam, He stepped back, scratched his head, and said, "I can do better than that!"
[/glow][/shadow]

I am so showing this to every person that laughs and tells me to get a "real" job when I tell them that I'm a singer and I make my money by singing at weddings, parties, fairs, festivals, etc. They think all you do is open your mouth and use something that comes natural to some people. That either you have it or you don't; you don't have to work at it every day and that it's hard work.

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Apparently so, because you are confused, and incorrect  

Time for Kappy's Kourse on how to take in some of the clear stuff.

How we breath and stuff 101.. <By Kappy>

Inhaling is a complex autonomic process that IS NOT done "with the lungs", it utilizes musculature and TWO MAJOR set's of chest area muscles in order to expand your chest cavity enabling the difference in outside air pressure and lowered internal air pressure to expand your lungs as air rushes in thru the throat and bronchi. To expand the chest cavity you DO USE the diaphragm and intercostal muscles (rib area thingies). This expansion lowers the pressure in the chest cavity below outside air pressure. Air then flows in through the "airways" (from high pressure to low pressure) and inflates the lungs. The lungs are smooth and elastic type organs that we DO NOT voluntarily control at all.. They just absorb air like a spong will absorb water.... When you exhale, the diaphragm and intercostal muscles relax and the chest cavity gets smaller.The cycle then repeats with each breath. As we decrease volume we increase air pressure above outside air pressure... and the cycle goes on and on 'n stuff....

It *IS* true that a person should learn to project "using the diaphram". As in proper exhalation technique.

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Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".

Not sure how a damn duplicate post got here, but it did so I'm deleting it.  If I can think of something else to replace this with, I will.  Likely it won't be hard for me to think of something to replace this current blathering inanity with either.  Stay tuned for something to come,  likely only a tad less useless than this current post.

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Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".

Steven:  What you said does not contradict what I said. You just offered a more scientific explanation. I wasn't saying that the lungs were the ONLY thing that you used when you breathed, just said you can't take a deep breath without using them. You said yourself that the lungs expand with air. That's all I was saying, that the lungs are involved!

And I wasn't saying the diaphragm was not involved, just that I don't like to use the term. I think the technical terms just confuse people more. Knowing what's going on underneath doesn't necessariy help you use it or learn to sing. You have to know how to control it yourself, physically and mentally, and that's not something that will necessarily happen just because you know the process. I know from personal experience because I had it explained to me many times for years until finally something clicked in my brain during voice lessons when I made the right sound and my voice teacher said, "yes, that's it!" and it had NOTHING to do with technical terms or knowing how the breathing mechanism works.

The person asking the question was clearly confused by what voice teachers had told him, so I was trying to help explain it in a way he could understand and internalize without further confusing him with technical terms

While it's true that singing is a physical process, it's also a mental one. It's not like playing a clarinet or something where a teacher can just show you or tell you where to put your mouth and your fingers on the keys. Your brain has to make sense of all of the physical sensations in your body and figure out how to use it to produce sound.  Some people are born knowing that, and others, like myself, take years before we figure out even a little bit of it.  Bad voice teachers or other experiences can slow the process down even further by teaching us bad vocal habits or giving us wrong information.

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~Suzanne Lanoue~

That I didn't know.  So Singing really ISN'T like playing ANY musical instrument in terms of just technique, and knowing how to physically use your voice as an instrument ?  
I suppose that's why not all instrumentalists have an easy time picking up vocals, I'm not doing too well.

As to the rest of the post we are discussing Suzanne I have to scroll back and reread what you stated, and what I stated, seemed like ages ago we were talking about the anatomical aspects..

I think when you stated "you don't like using the word diaphragm", I didn't understand why because that IS what you are technically doing, using several set's of muscles, and anything that happens as a result of "learning how to control musculature (is that correct ? don't recall) enables the lungs to work" so technically learning to control, or work the diaphragm and intercostal's is correct. Yet I do see your point, whatever makes it easier I suppose, I guess I thought you were stating something different such as "Use of diaphragm is misleading because you aren't using it, you are controlling your lungs and NOT the diaphragm",  so in response, I believed that if an action is autonomic as opposed to sympathetic we can't technically "use"/control that autonomic action (lungs)... But what you say isn't incorrect assuming use of the word "diaphragm" causes confusion in some individuals... learning the mechanical actions involved, either way without confusion is what matters. We can't physically tell the difference in this mechanical process anyway. A person can still drive the car without knowing how the engine intricately works, I won't disagree with you there.  So if that is what was hanging her up, I didn't mean to inundate her with an A&P course... I was just stressing that we don't in actuality have control of the lungs. We are actually using the diaphragm. I wasn't sure if you knew that..

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Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".

Remember !


We're getting into the hotter months now... Watch for DEHYDRATION...

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Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".

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This is so true! sometimes I tell my singers, don't be afraid to belt it out. I think when they are unsure of themselves and afraid of sounding bad they hold back which makes them sound worse. If people would worry a little less about what others thought and just sang like they didn't care they'd get a lot more out of their voice.
Of course that is easier said then done, especially if it's karaoke and all your friends are sitting there listening.

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[updown]~*~ MONKEY BUSINESS KARAOKE~*~ [/shadow][/updown][/glow]

I like to kick off my recording sessions with a stiff drink to losen the ole' vocal chords up  probably not the "healthiest" of remedies, but works for me....

...and I second that one, Kev  I think it not only loosens up the vocals, it also helps loosen up the emotions which we then project into the song and I definitely think that makes for a much better sing.

Yep,  I was a nervous wreck before performing in front of thousands just accompanying a vocalist (at a concert) on piano.  Stiff drink scared me however, I'd medicate with a few beers...Slower form of tranquilization, and dopamine rush.

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Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".

ghahahahahahha that's hilarious!!!