We’re going to change things up a little. Instead of discussing a singing tip, technique, or exercise, I’m going to talk about the way Ronnie Radke sings in his song,”I’m not A Vampire (revamped)” and how you can implement it in your own voice.
In this article you’ll discover:
– An EASY thing you can do to improve your range and expression
– The key to singing with CONSISTENT grit and distortion
– The opposite approach to singing that can add dynamic and uniqueness to your voice
Alright so let’s dive right into the song…
Getting Into Character
So the first thing I noticed right away is that Ronnie approaches this song with a sense of desperation and he really plays the role of his character.
You can feel what he sings and he really digs into the emotional aspect of his singing. When he does this, he really shows off his dynamics and range.
Most times when we sing, we’re thinking about all the nuances of the song and our voice. We begin paying too much attention to things like:
– Am I breathing properly?
– Where’s my larynx? Is it too high or low?
– Where do I feel it resonating?
– How’s my posture?
All this thinking, can really suppress your voice. So the next time you sing, just get into the character of the song.
Lose yourself in the song and forget about all the little things that you are doing. You’ll find that as you do this, you will notice a sense of freedom and ease. You might even discover a quality of your voice that you never knew you had.
Alright let’s talk about the second thing we can learn as we listen to Ronnie sing this song…
Speech Level Singing
There’s a section of the song where Ronnie is “speech-singing” or in other words he’s adding pitch as he’s speaking these emotional words.
This is a POWERFUL lesson for you as a singer and it’s a great exercise that you can use.
Here’s the lesson: The more you can connect your speaking voice with your singing voice, the better you can achieve MORE range and expression.
Alright here’s the last thing that caught my ears when listening to Ronnie…
Throw Yourself Into The Break
When listening to Ronnie do his screams, you can hear him just throw himself into it.
It sounds very uncontrolled because it kind of is, yet he knows what he’s going for and it adds to the emotion of the song.
If you want to learn more about how to specifically practice screaming and doing it correctly, check out this video here:
But to cover the technique real briefly, what you can do to get this ‘broken up’ sounding scream, is find where your voice breaks, and then pull back some air while adding support.
For example, I like to use Tarzan’s jungle cry to teach people how to do this. If you try to sound like Tarzan, you’ll notice your voice breaks. That’s the feeling and sound you’re going for.
Then what you’ll do is you’ll “lean into” it by adding more support and compression…NOT more
air.
As you do this you’ll feel yourself begin to get a broken up sounding scream. I encourage you to play around with this and practice it until you can achieve the sound on command and without pain.
In Conclusion
So there you have it. There’s so much that we can learn from listening and dissecting other singers’ voices.
If you want to watch my vocal analysis of Ronnie that I did, click play on the video below:
I hope you enjoyed the article and you were able to take something away from it.
Wish you all the best,
Chris
