Vocal preservational methods

[chmaaoges]

Hello everyone,

 

I thought I'd start a topic about this since I haven't seen this subject to be discussed as often as I first thought.

 

Chester has many vocal abilities and using those over the years if not maintained well can definetly lead to the loss of some of the abilities he has or had.

 

In this topic I'm simply expressing my honest opinion based on what I hear of his voice over the years in studio envirement and live performances.

 

It has been obvious to everyone that Chester has multiple "voices" in his voice.

 

- His normal clean singing range which goes from fairly low to his high singing voice.

- His raw tone of singing, such as in the chorus of "Runaway", "Crawling", "Easier To Run", etc.

- His high screaming tone, such as the bridge of "One Step Closer", "By Myself", "APFMH", etc.

- His growling tone, which he used a lot around 2003/2004 and probably most in songs like "QWERTY".

 

 

Chester showed to be cabable of these techniques and he has been maintaining most of them to date. However I do noticed that from 2004 to present or at least I have the feeling that keeping up these "voices" almost every night has made him vomit back in the early days so I would take that as a sign that he wasn't excersising them with cause. However he has been keeping it up and I'm sure at least some consequenses came with that.

 

Chester himself made it clear through his Twitter account that he has never under went any form of surgery to his vocal chords. This is to say the least more then impressive. Most singers his age and length of career either changed their technique or indeed had to undergo surgery.

 

What is your opinion on this and how do you think Chester has been keeping this up? I'm curious about your opinions.

 

 

[MONDREUS240]

When a vocalist "screams" they are basically tearing their vocal chords. The reason why Chester has held back on singing aggressively live for the past years is probably because he needs to preserve his voice, due to the longer shows and of course, age.

[chmaaoges]

That is a good possibility, I hope for him he finds another way to not hold back because sometimes some parts of songs are not what they used to be. But ofcourse you this with every band and song being performed over the years.

[thedamian58c]

Very good topic!

 

In my opinion his voice got much worse over the years, it's cracking more and more, and Chester's ability to hit high notes and holding a note in the higher spectrum (like in Faint last chorus for instance) has decreased. When it comes to "screaming sentences" with short rests (like in Faint bridge), it has also gotten worse. However, his "normal" screaming is still amazing. Another thing that decreased in his voice, is rasp, an example of that may be Bleed It Out outro, when he sings/screams "I bleed it ooooooooouuuuut" he does it with his entirely clean voice, while before 2013 he did it with rasp. What got better, are his growls/low pitched screams, he did them very well until 2007, then his lows became great again in 2014. Even if Chester's voice got worse over time, both because of the tension he puts on his voice and age, he has still a very great voice, and I still consider him as one of the best vocalists. I think that getting a vocal coach would help, as well as trying new techniques.

[Chris]

...whoever said screaming is essentially tearing your vocal cords is wrong.

 

Proper screaming technique severely limits vocal cord damage, as it is produced in the diaphragm instead of the throat. It is shaped in the throat.

 

ANY kind of vocal strain can damage the throat, and singing is included in that.

Edited July 11, 2015 by UnpopularOpinionPuffin

[Astat]

...whoever said screaming is essentially tearing your vocal cords is wrong.

 

Proper screaming technique severely limits vocal cord damage, as it is produced in the diaphragm instead of the throat. It is shaped in the throat.

 

ANY kind of vocal strain can damage the throat, and singing is included in that.

Thank you. Chester is an avid user of the fry screaming technique, which produces almost NO tension in the throat when executed properly. Purely a manipulation of air flow, and it's not even that loud. A singer with good mic technique can make a fry scream sound like the most intense thing ever, but the sound actually coming out might be about as quiet as his normal talking voice. I think in the early days Chester might have been "real screaming," for lack of a better word, which can produce a more aggressive sound, but it's harder to control it, it uses up your air a lot quicker, and it's just REALLY bad for your voice.

 

Chester's voice is sounding more strained these days because he sings at the absolute top of his range more often. When the band stopped tuning their guitars down half a step on most songs post-Meteora, all of those G# and A notes Chester was singing in the old tuning suddenly became A's and Bb's. And then as time went on, they started writing stuff in keys that pushed him even higher, he has numerous high B notes all over songs from 2009-present, with a few C's mixed in. This is all without going into his falsetto register, by the way. The chorus of Crawling may be high, but it's 3 or 4 notes lower than some of the stuff Chester's done more recently. And unfortunately, singing more of those extreme high notes, particularly on a nightly basis (Given Up, New Divide, Waiting for the End...) has put enough of a strain on his voice that he struggles to hit stuff like the chorus of Crawling these days, when he used to sing those parts just fine a decade ago.

 

And of course, there's always the fact that your voice just changes throughout your life no matter what you do with it. I don't sound the same as I did in my early 20s either...and that was only a few years ago for me.

[chmaaoges]

Indeed no matter what you do and no matter how well you preserve your voice: It will always mature somehow.

In the old days of performing Chester indeed simply "screamed" most parts and was doing so for like 12 years before he even joined Linkin Park. And I believe he smoked quite a lot in those days and that does something to your voice too

 

However I do believe that Chester is quite cabable of knowing what he can and can't do at the moment and I also believe that's how they create their set.

 

I also think that if Chester is still cabable of doing the growls and screams but purely out of preservation of his voice he holds back at some parts which is quite understandable. But as he is a fry chord user when he warms up properly and does the right excercises with this voice then he should be able to get back to the sound his screaming had around 2003/2004.

 

I would like to state that I'm not a vocal coach in anyway and that any of my statements are either purely my opinion or based on my experience as a vocalist.

 

Who agrees that Chester should consult a vocal coach of some sort if he hasn't already?