Singing differently: How to make throat work better!

[grant]

Over on the "benefit" thread, the following exchange took place:

John's voice was incredible that night; if I hadn't thought I had plans, I would've driven to Portland for the next show, in a heartbeat.

I thought maybe he was just having a 'good voice day', but I can vouch for the fact that it was incredible in PDX too. It would appear that break from touring has done it quite good.

I'm singing differently.

I want to know how the singing is different.

I want to know what vocal tricks people use.

I want to know what vocal coaches teach people.

I want to SING DIFFERENTLY.

[John]

I'm playing around with my singing, not singing as hard, not projecting every note to the back of the room, using falsetto more, and also improvising just slightly around in the melodies. I'm trying to have fun, but I want to sing differently too. I'm tired of singing the old way.

[leigh]

Oooh, more falsetto...does that mean we can look forward to a cover of "Mandinka" at a future show?!

[grant]

I was hoping for "Springtime in the Rockies," after Tiny Tim.

One of my favorite vocal things is when a voice (mine, someone I'm listening to) cracks into a falsetto register. Sort of like a Hank Williams yodel, really.

It's like singing guitar feedback.

(Off my own topic, but there's a great story in the latest TapeOp about how feedback was invented by the Yardbirds. Eric Clapton had to take a leak. He put his guitar down and left the room. This NOISE came out of the amp, the engineers went crazy, but the producer got really excited, going, "Can we record that without breaking the amps?" He had to coach Clapton how to do it again when he got back from the bathroom.)

[grant]

The original of this song does this, kinda:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjnGESlRNXk

But the Radiohead cover doesn't exactly.

[Kasper]

Yeah the original headmaster ritual is ridiculous, yodel-wise. I want to be able to do that. Then again i would also like to be able to sing the chorus harmonies in Stupid with just a hint of actual force but that isn't happening either.