Sing And Shred Like Van Halen

VAN HALEN’S VOCAL COACH GIVES US GUITARISTS THE ESSENTIALS FOR BETTER SINGING TECHNIQUE.

As a musician, you should treat your voice with the same care as your guitar, whether you’re a leader singer or just contributing the odd backup harmony. And it’s especially easy to overlook good technique when you’ve got two jobs to do at once.

Voice coach (and guitarist, bassist, luthier, producer, etcetera) Peter Strobl has worked with musicians including Eddie and Wolfgang Van

Halen, and Clutch’s Neil Fallon, on improving their technique as playing singers. Now he’s here to offer us a no‑nonsense set of essential tips you can start using now.

1 THE WHOLE PROCESS STARTS WITH YOUR BREATH

“Learn how to breathe properly. There appears to be massive confusion about this basic process. ‘Should my stomach go out? In? Should my lower back expand? Should my kidneys explode?’

“Breathing is what happens when you just relax and do nothing at all. Otherwise we would die when we fall asleep. Inhaling is actually a passive activity that happens when your abdominal muscles relax. Exhaling happens when your abs tighten. Once you understand that process, you can use that knowledge to breathe more effectively as a singer. If your chest rises and falls, you are doing it all wrong.

“Try this simple exercise: stand with your feet shoulder‑width apart. Bend slightly over at the waist and place your hands on your knees, as if you dropped a tortoiseshell guitar pick on a brown shag rug.

“Blow out any residual air while pulling your stomach muscles (yes, they’re in there somewhere) in toward your spine. Now, let your stomach relax and fall toward the floor.

“Unless someone has duct‑taped your face, you will notice that air enters your body through the holes in your face. Now push your stomach in again toward your spine to expel the air. Notice that you have to work harder to exhale than to inhale. Inhaling is passive.

“Many singers start a phrase with residual breath in the lungs, sing until they run out, and then take a quick breath that is more to catch up than it is to prepare for the next phrase. The voice is a reed instrument. Watch any woodwind player – they breathe before the phrase, not after. Think of the breath as a pickup to the phrase. Breathe, play the phrase, breathe, play the next phrase. The breath is a setup for the phrase you’re going to sing, not a catch‑up for the phrase you just completed.”

2 YOUR GUITAR CAN BE A PART OF YOUR TRAINING

“If you play guitar or bass, the sooner you integrate your singing with your instrument, the better. I started working with Wolfgang Van Halen at 17 years old – him, not me. From the very beginning, I had him strap on a bass, play descending five‑note exercises, 5‑4‑3‑2‑1, and sing the notes as he played them. Musicians tend to shortchange vocal development in favour of their instrument.

“But when you find yourself standing in front of a vocal mic, the average listener relates to you as a singer first. As the sessions progressed, I used various vowels and consonants in order to address specific areas of development. The scales became more difficult as his strength, stamina, and range developed. Learning to sing what you play and play what you sing will improve your musicianship as both a singer and a player.

“No matter how accomplished a player you are, there is always someone out there better. But

there is no one who can possibly sing exactly like you. Your voice is unique. Work hard and use your instrument as a tool to support and develop your skills as a vocalist.”

3 LEAN WITH YOUR FOREHEAD, NOT YOUR CHIN

“If you look into a mirror and rock your head up and down, back and forth, you will see the muscles of your neck and throat flexing with each movement. Each movement represents tension that could have an effect on your vocal performance and could cause problems over time. The most relaxed head position is when you’re looking forward toward an imaginary horizon.

“If you think about letting your forehead be the first part of your body to enter a room, you will have the idea. Microphone placement for guitar and bass players is hugely important. Many guitar players have a yard sale of pedals at their feet and put the mic stand on the other side. They have to reach out with their neck and shoulders in order to get to the mic . Distorting the architecture of your vocal instrument compromises everything to do with singing.

“When I started working with Eddie and Wolf Van Halen, their vocal mics were high and pointed down so they had to sing up into them from below – sort of a Lemmy posture. We moved the mics so that they could look down the barrel of the mic and see the floor about six to eight feet away. In many live situations, this is where the audience is in relation to the vocal mic. If they can see your nose hairs, your mic is too high.

“We also moved Ed’s mic stand to the side of his effects pedals and used a long boom to place the microphone exactly where his face would be when he was singing. This eliminated the need to reach out with his neck to get to the mic.”

4 PAY CLOSE ATTENTION TO YOUR POSTURE

“Nate Bergman fronts Lionize and plays a Gibson Les Paul. A solidbody guitar like that can weigh seven-to-ten pounds. This is why it’s so important to play vocal exercises at the same time as you sing them. Watch your posture, and make sure that what you felt from learning to breathe while bending at the waist is still happening when you’re in playing position. A gallon of water weighs about eight pounds, so if you hang a gallon of water on a clothes line around your neck and jump around on stage for an hour, that’s what’s happening with a guitar. It’s hard work on your back and legs.

“The first thing you must do is nail down what it feels like to breathe correctly. Then figure out how to maintain that sensation in the posture you assume when you’ve got this anchor hanging around your neck. It helps to be strong and physically fit. The moment the big muscles of your back, shoulders, and abdomen fail, the small muscles of your neck and throat will try to take over. The result is vocal tension, vocal strain, and a shorter career. The more you lean forward toward your microphone, the heavier the instrument feels, because it’s now suspended in mid-air. So posture and mic position are hugely important.

“Remember that gravity goes straight down into the centre of the Earth, so if you’re cantilevered, if you’re leaning over, the instrument is going to feel heavier than if you’re standing straight. This will bind up and overwork your back and stomach. And you must maintain elasticity in your abdomen in order to continue breathing efficiently.”

5 THERE IS NO CORRECT WAY TO SCREAM

“If you’re singing aggressive rock or metal, you must come to the honest realisation that you’re damaging a very fragile instrument, and take steps to do strict maintenance daily, and before and after gigs. Imagine a football player who beats the hell out of himself on game day. After suffering what amounts to a few dozen car crashes, he takes the rest of the week to rehab and fix things. You can’t practise being a lineman by just smashing your head into the garage wall for three sets of ten every day and then expect to be in top form for the game.

“There are those who claim to teach ‘rock screaming’, ‘metal screaming’, and other silliness as if there is some sort of legitimate pedagogy involved. Rock ’n’ roll is an art form of rebellion, so let’s just get real and face the facts: there is no ‘correct’ way to be aggressive. The very act of playing a guitar amp at distorted levels spits in the face of the original designs. Worn-out tubes and capacitors can be replaced. But once your voice is gone, it’s lunchtime.

“Accept the fact that you’re damaging your voice. Before every gig, and between gigs, you should do exercises that counteract what you’ve roasted during your gig. This is where singers get completely bullshitted by people in my business who say, ‘ This is the proper way to scream your guts out,’ or hand you a straw to sing through, pat you on the ass, and cash your cheque. Don’t waste your time. There’s no safe way to sing metal. You’ve got to scream, you’ve got to be aggressive, you’ve got to be honestly rebellious. Anything less is bullshit.

“Watch concert footage of Clutch to see what comes out of Neil Fallon in an hour-and-a-half show. Touring the new album, he is working harder, but singing with more freedom than ever. It is because he’s bought into the concept of taking care of himself before and between concerts if he expects to do this for another 25 years. He is putting in the reps doing very basic breathing and falsetto exercises that have nothing to do with his songs but everything to do with building and maintaining his most important instrument.

“Incidentally, Neil leans toward a feather-light Gibson ES-335 and actually gets a little rest when he straps on the guitar and stands at the mic f or a few songs.

“If you want to deliver your message forcefully and command every emotional nuance in an aggressive genre, learn to take care of your voice before, after, and between gigs so you can start every gig at ground zero and not in the hole.”

6 DON’T FORGET TO LEARN YOUR LYRICS

“Don’t expect to be taken seriously if you are reading lyrics from an iPad. The worst bloody item ever invented is the iPad/mic stand attachment. Reading on the gig screws with your posture and concentration and destroys any sense of connection with an audience. People don’t go to concerts to be read to. If that were the case, the biggest ticket in town would be Story Time at the Library.

“Have some respect for not only your audience, but for the art and craft of singing. Reading lyrics might be fine in a bar or a w edding band, when you’re taking requests and you can’t possibly know all the songs ever written. But you can’t consider yourself a serious concert musician if you’re doing that – unless, of course, you’re getting a monthly cheque for product placement. Otherwise, leave the tablet in the gigbag.”