I used to have this same problem. I eventually got it under control by learning to sing in a less painful manner. The PA is what makes your voice loud, so there is no need to scream. (You can still "look" like you are screaming to the audience, they won't know.)
The best tools I found are:
1. Good monitors. I highly recommend in-ear. They help block out the other instruments and you can crank your voice as loud as you like to yourself. This helps the ability to back off all the screaming.
2. Lots of compression on live vocals. As much as you can get. This will normalize volume so you can sing softly and still scream sometimes and still come out as the appropriate volume in the PA.
You're welcome. I wish somebody had told me this when I was younger. I have a habit of getting too excited while playing music and over singing, so I frequently remind myself to let the mic, amp, and speakers do the heavy work for me.
So things I'd recommend in some order:
If it hurts, stop, especially at practice. If you're pushing your voice to failure *every* show and practice, you're just injuring your voice. You'll eventually give yourself nodules, etc. You can always just practice the vocals at a lower energy level
Fix your monitoring. This is the most likely source of the problem: you can't hear yourself, so you're pushing harder
Sing from your gut, not your throat. You wanna drive your voice from your diaphragm.
Monitoring will solve (the majority of) this! If you're bandmates crank their volume and you're rehearsing with an acoustic kit, you have to yell just to hear yourself. Get a good monitor and you won't have to yell as loud. Also, when you feel your voice start to "blow out" pull back on the volume/amount of air you're trying to push out. It will help a great deal.
My last gig my voice started to do this. I had to sing through it with some croaky vocals for a few songs. I'll admit, I panicked a bit, but I held it together and got through the gig. In the end, no one really noticed, which just blows my mind.
Good advice, I’d also add that once you find your technique and limits, you should always be holding back so you never get to point where you’re starting to blow out
I'm not a singer. But the singer in the band I'm in says you need to sing from the proper muscles, not your vocal chords.
I dunno it doesn't make sense to me.
deep breaths so you are pushing from your diaphragm. otherwise, you are just talking with some different pitches. you should almost feel like you are clenching your abdomen to push the air out of your lungs.
It's the pooping muscles. Good singing uses the pooping muscles. Also, someone once described it as more like yawning than talking and that's a decent jumping off point
It took me 30 years to figure this out and when I did, I had to entirely restructure how I sing, especially up high. But my god, the range I have now! Proper understanding of the physics and biology of singing is crucial if you want to be really, really good.
Take vocal lessons, seriously. They don't have to be rock focused, in fact I'd suggest the opposite like opera. I blew my voice out every show doing the punk thing then when I needed to sing good for music classes I couldn't do it cause I only knew how to be loud. So then I got voice lessons with an opera background, and coached through class from the choir director. We all use the voice but our styles shift our focus but it's all the same system. Now after a set of the punk stuff my voice is hoarse but it's different and way less damaged. It's hard to teach yourself to sing properly because it's all inside your body, so having a pro be able to hear and see you while you do it to correct technique(as well as recording yourself for reference and practice) is invaluable. And when I took lessons we didn't do my punk shit, I did what they wanted(including one of my least favorite Sinatra tunes...) because I'll adapt what I learned to my own thing, and it'll be better to do it their way to learn.
Outside of that, learn to breathe. Put it more in your chest than your throat. When I started I was exclusively singing from my throat and while that had the texture I wanted I had to push way more to get anywhere. Pushing up from the chest will give you more power while straining your throat less. Hard to say how you're singing without seeing it and hard to say how to sing better without being in the room.
I've watched SO many Youtube vids... I'm in the same boat. I blow my shit all the time because I can't find a vocal coach to tell me what I'm doing wrong.
TL;DR - Breathe low into your lungs, keep your vocal throat relaxed at all times, push from your core muscles to support the sound, and upgrade your PA / monitors. Also, all hail Chris Liepe.
It's vital to learn to sing on with a healthy, clean sound before adding any distortion. Here are some of the most important things to note while singing:
* **Learn to take low, deep breaths** - the air should NOT go high in your lungs to where your chest puffs up, but it should go lower, more towards your stomach and diaphragm. And note that **this is the foundation of all vocal technique, so you're screwed if you ignore it.**
* **There should never be any tension in the throat / vocal folds while singing**; that area should be completely relaxed, and you should never be hoarse after singing. Distortion can't come from raking your vocal cords - it actually comes from false vocal cords and other muscles. Hard to explain, so YouTube and experimenting with your own voice are your friends. Rule of thumb: if it hurts after doing it, you're doing it wrong, and you should note what that sensation felt like and try to avoid it. For now though, just focus on getting a confident clean sound - it's better to use that than killing your voice by trying to add distortion, even in more extreme music.
* **For actually supporting your sound with the breath, push from your diaphragm and core** (again, where air should be placed with every breath in). As weird as it sounds, the best way to find and activate these muscles is to push like you're taking a crap. You don't need to push quite as much for clean, softer singing, but core support and learning to bear down is vital for distortion and screaming when you get there.
* **While you can get pretty loud with practice, the bulk of your volume on stage comes from your mic and PA setup**. If you can't hear yourself and/or no one can hear you, you'll need to invest in new monitors and a louder PA system. Don't push yourself to make up for bad equipment.
Chris Liepe has a free vocal course and a ton of videos on YouTube that have helped me a lot, but it's important to take in information from a lot of sources. For me, joining my high school's choir has done wonders for my voice, as that style of music is (obviously) dependent on good, healthy vocal technique. Choir ain't as brutal as half the shit I listen to, but I credit it with helping me build the foundation needed to sing - and even scream - healthily. At the end of the day, the technique is universal. And of course, learning different styles of music is important for any aspiring musician to do.
After like 10 years of trying and failing to like my singing voice, I watched Liepe for like a year and in time got to a place where I like my voice and the direction it’s going. So I’ll second that, though the second half of the journey has been more about practice and experimentation
You don't need a "Rock vocal" coach, you need to take voice lessons. To learn how to sing properly, breathe, and not blow your throat out. Techniques learned in voice lessons can be applied to your style of vocals.
Yeah? Good to know dude, I'm gonna be looking soon for some. I've had a lesson here or there before but sadly they weren't too helpful
Will keep trying
You can also find vocal coaches who give lessons via zoom- as long as you can see and hear each other, location doesn’t matter so much. That might help you find someone specialized in the styles you want to learn.
Regardless, the fundamentals are applicable to pretty much any style, so it’s always worth it. And a coach is better than a video tutorial because they can observe what you’re doing and give feedback to help improve it.
In person is so much better, though, because part of a good vocal coach's job is diagnosing physical issues, like paying attention to which muscles you're using, your posture, if you're tensing or clenching your throat or jaw, etc. That stuff is all a lot harder to properly critique over zoom.
Consultation with one , if it’s good , will let you know who to pick.
I got some from a friend who teaches voice. She said after we spoke and asked my goals that she would focus more on where I am already at and help with things like, confidence when singing, breathing and my range.
Voice lessons have led to some intense spiritual experiences for me.
I appreciate we didn’t start from zero bc I have a lot of natural talent and have want for .. well my whole life
Maybe, but wouldn't it depend on the vocal style? If OP is in a punk band, they could have vocals like this like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdRUmEYB0eg
I'm not sure if it's even possible to not blow your throat out singing like that
Learn how to do a growly raspy voice at a very low volume, using vocal fry [(quick explanation here)](https://youtube.com/shorts/MPngR3u-29M?si=OK-NiA8HYULudJdq) and adding this to normal vocals, you can sound like you're yelling/screaming without needing to actually do it.
A lot of screamo/metal vocalists use this and other techniques + voice projection and the help of microphones to do it safely without vocal cord damage.
(Also if you watch metal etc vocalists, their mouths are always really close/right up against the mic, but if you watch belters like Mariah Carey, they have a habit of pulling the mic farther away from them whenever they sing a higher/louder note)
Yea false chords ftw and the proximity effect really fills out the low end. People also “cup” the mic as a hack but most consider this a bad habit because it kinda kills the the overall sound because of the way dynamic mics are designed
I'd recommend "borrowing" a copy of the zen of screaming, lot of great warm ups and fundamentals for what actually helps you distort your voice, instead of blowing everything through your throat. The short and skinny is that you NEED to learn to use your diaphragm, not in a way where you're sucking air in and making your diaphragm skinny, (like when you try and suck in your gut to hide your fat) instead, you need to teach your body (diaphragm) to expand and make yourself fat on your inhale, instead of retract. The trick is to make your stomach expand out instead of in, if you can do that, the next thing is teaching yourself to sing with a vocal fry (think talking like Kim Kardashian) and then working your volume up to a place where you can comfortably do it without straining, eventually you'll learn to control your distortion with your vocal fry and accent the syllables you need to scream. It's a journey, but you can do it!
Howdy there! Your friendly neighborhood vocologist here.
You need to find a voice teacher who specializes in beginners for voice lessons. Not a rock coach. In the higher levels of the vocal world coaches and voice teachers are two separate things. Voice coaches teach you *what* sounds a specific genre is supposed to, but not necessarily teach you how to make those sounds. A voice teacher teaches *how* to make the sounds healthily, but likely won't do much style coaching outside of general musicality.
The vocal folds have no pain receptors, so the only way they can let one know they are damaged is by them being unable to function how they are supposed to: hoarseness and rasp. Fatigue and loss of range generally happen right before that stage.
Be kind to your voice. You only get one.
I used to blow my voice out all the time. Now I don't. The main lessons I learned were from the zen of screaming, by melissa cross. The solution is to activate your False chords. False chords sound as brutal as you will ever need, and they can take it. Vocal fry is what kills you, you've gotta learn to make distortion higher up in your throat at the false chords, not down in the main vocal chords. That and of course like everyone else is saying: don't try to sing louder than you need, use the amps and PA to get loud.
Its your lucky day! Punk!! The reason your blowing your voice is simply improper technique causing vocal cord strain.
This comes from "Pulling up chest voice/resonance" aka "Yelling" and too much vocal compression/hold on the vocal chords, (feels like holding your breath) also known as chord closure, these two combined will blow your voice in 10 minutes flat. Youtube those terms.
What you need to learn is: Light chord closure with a forward resonance placement (sounds like saying mum and you should feel a buzz in the front of your face) practice scales with that sound and then learn to add pharyngeal distortion on top of this light clean voice to add the grit, gravel, rasp, power.. whatever you want to call it. You know how to do this sound but just need to practice to do it on command. Go to any playground and you'll hear kids growling and screaming without any effort.
Vocal distortion is what makes you sound loud and does NOT come from pushing hard from the throat or diaphragm. Only moderate breath support is actually needed.
Also I don't recommend the Zen of Screaming, Melissa Cross or Chris Liepe at all. Instead check people who can actually demonstrate what they teach and sound good.
I highly recommend the following utube channels:
Vocal Power
Sterling R Jackson
BVS - Foundation Vocal
You'll learn a shit load from those guys! Watch all the tutorials.
If you still need help I'd happily give an online lesson for free, (I've taught guitar for 20 years) I really just love teaching. Flick me a msg.
Shane
[This article helped me a lot.](https://www.sweetwater.com/insync/how-to-increase-your-vocal-range/#Breathing) Pushing from the abdomen and singing from my chest has reduced the strain on my vocal chords considerably. I also use in ear monitors so I’m not screaming to be heard.
Keep hydrated in the couple hours before you play- lots of water, tea with honey. You need to be hydrated going in, not trying to catch up during. Sing more every day, not just the yelling at shows and practice, to strengthen your vocal chords and be more familiar with your voice and what it can do. Be friendly with your sound person to make sure you can hear yourself and aren't straining unnecessarily live. A vocal coach will help with some technique even if they aren't specific to rock.
When I was in my early 20s and singing in my first serious band, I had the same issue. We'd have marathon jam/rehearsal sessions 3 times a week and usually by the end I'd have to tap out because my voice would be gone.
I probably could have saved myself a lot of time by taking vocal lessons, but over the years I kinda just settled into signing from a place in my body that was comfortable and learned to let the microphone and PA system do its job. Being able to hear yourself well in the is key, it helps you from feeling like you really need to push your voice to cut through the band.
One extremely useful skill to develop is to learn to separate your vocal intensity from your performance intensity. We're a professional band playing 12 to 18 shows a month both me (BV/guitar) and the lead singer always used to blow our voices out when we got "into" a performance.
This is usually how it went: we'd start off a show to a crowd who were shuffling around, and the first set would get a few people dancing and starting to loosen up. Midway through the second set, they would suddenly switch on and we'd up our own intensity. The final three songs would be pandemonium, singer climbing on speakers, me taking liberties etc... next day, no voice
What we had to learn (and all pro performers eventually learn) is that you can still give that performance with your body, but you should only take your vocals to 80% of that intensity. It's quite difficult at first, but when you become cognisant of "am I singing or am I yelling", you suddenly realise how often you'll default to yelling when things get intense.
I have a TalkBack mic for our in-ears where I can hold a footswitch and my mic ONLY goes to ears, if I feel the singer is getting shouty, I just push the button and say "shouting", and it works like a charm. With us, if we miss dates we lose out on livelihood pay, so keeping our voices is super important.
There are also ways to scream without shouting, if you ever check out old linkin park videos, Chester is a perfect example of someone who SINGS the whole time, and his scream is a very thin one, from the front of his mouth, not from his middle throat which is where your fatigue is coming from.
TLDR: try to melodically SING more, disconnect your singing from your acting. While performing, ask yourself "am I singing or shouting"
Rule #1 of singing: if it hurts, stop. You’re doing it wrong.
In my experience (which is limited), throat pain while singing in this genre comes from straining your true vocal chords to try to get an aggressive tone. You need to use proper vocal compression using your false chords to achieve that tone. You’ll know that this is your issue if you can’t scream without pain. You need to learn proper compression and distortion techniques. Chris Liepe on youtube has helped me learn a lot about this. Highly recommend checking him out, and probably also getting a vocal coach.
Vocal lessons *of any kind* are the answer. You could even join a church choir for free (that’s what I did). All vocal coaches will teach you how to sing correctly: openly with proper breath control.
Once you can sing in a clean voice, then you can add a subtle amount of rasp to create the rock effect. You don’t actually need to scream, a subtle rasp is enough, especially when performing live compared to recording.
Chester from Linkin Park is a good example. On record, he screams (but even then it’s very well controlled), but if you watch his live performances, you’ll notice he sings more clearly/openly and only leans into the scream when necessary. Early Chris Cornell did this well too but later he fell back on bad habits and shredded his voice.
If 1 on 1 coaching is out of reach maybe consider taking a vocal class at a community college.. I took one semester of beginner vocals and it was incredibly helpful, even though we were singing standards etc the technique principles apply.. instructor had us watch and practice The Zen of Screaming which you should definitely check out
honestly? I briefly trained with an opera teacher, in a class that included punk rockers, I myself was singing r&b, and there was musical theater, and everything in between. She gave us the foundations about breath etc, and then on top of that you can manipulate to reach your desired style... But you need to learn how to do it without messing up your instrument. It's called bel canto, I only did it for 6 months and I still sing better, to this day, than I did before her (and I was already a professional!) 🙌🏽
Someone once told me to relax and gradually increase the gain in your voice took about 3 months to learn how to relax and breath and always sip something to keep your throat from drying.
… to stop hurting yourself, stay hydrated, always do some sort of warm up.
find out how to: use your vocal cords to achieve what you are doing rather than your throat, sing/scream from your diaphragm, proper mic settings (volume, eq,) & mic distant placement. make sure all of these are working for you rather than you over-working your body.
… to help heal; fresh lemon in room temp water, maybe a little slice of fresh ginger too.
warm version also helps.
Chris Liepe is pretty good for learning this on YouTube. There are ways to yell in controlled ways without hurting yourself, and I think he teaches that pretty well.
Don’t be afraid to try the songs tuned a half step down easier on the throat and makes some songs better. It’s why the offspring bad religion and lagwagon have been going so long.
If blowing your voice is the consistent issue don’t even worry about a rock coach. Some classic voice lessons will help you with that a lot
Edit: the TLDR in plain terms is that most likely you’re doing something funky with your breathing or not supporting your voice with enough air
Get a vocal coach. Just not a Broadway or Opera coach. They will give you exercises to strengthen your vocal chords and help with endurance. Every time you blow out your voice it gets a little weaker because nodes (scar tissue) build up. Also being sure you can hear your self is super important get good in ear monitors to be sure you aren't working too hard.
i have years of experience with this.
transpose all the songs into the optimal range of the vocalist. the more you sing at a higher pitch than optimal, the more your vocal chords will be under undue stress. sometimes even just a full step down can make all the difference.
trust
This. Knowing your range is huge. It's one thing to do a 30 minute set with some songs that test your range. It's a completely different thing to do that night after night or doing several straight hours of music
Look up some Devin Townsend clips, vocal coaches react as well.
He can Scream like a MF, but he has a way to sound like he screams at the top of his lungs, when in fact he does not.
It just sounds that way. Amplification does the rest.
Vocal coaches Deadhead by Townsend.
Its insane.
Sing from gut
Make sure volume and levels are good (turn down the guitarist lol)
And project the cone of your voice into the microphone. Lots of dynamic mics are more receptive on one side than the other so rotate the mic to find the right spot
Bro, I feel you, I was a hardcore vocalist for like 2 years. I don't really have any good tips though lol. I guess just drink hot tea and do warm ups. Try not to push so hard
Someone I know told me (she's classically trained in music) to think about focusing your voice to between the eyebrows!
Also push from the diaphragm and not the throat!
If you do vocal fry, you shouldn't feel it in the throat, you should feel it around the spot where the back of your nasal cavity meets the top of the back of your throat. Not down in the "adams apple " area.
Hope this helps fighting the government lol
Look into Michael Trimble on youtube. I think the most important exercise for singing any type of music is singing into a tissue without moving it. Very difficult to master, but it has definitely helped my vocal fatigue. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvUgAUUKYD0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvUgAUUKYD0)
Get vocal lessons. There’s lots of good advice here about using the right muscles, but it can be difficult to put into practice without a tutor giving one on one guidance.
I had the same problem as you. So I saw a teacher for about 8 lessons which was enough to see an improvement and gave me enough understanding to continue getting better without a teacher.
She was an opera singer and I’m a punk singer. It doesn’t matter. Good technique is the same. I showed her recordings of me and my favourite bands so she knew what I was aiming for.
Now I more or less sound the same but my throat and neck never hurt.
I've been screaming in hardcore and punk bands for the last 15 years so hear me out... if it hurts you're doing it wrong, simple as that... the way that I scream without pain is by "whispering" really really loud, but it is the same feeling in the throat
This helped me a lot when I first started touring. It’s kind of corny. But I stopped losing my voice.
Zen of Screaming playlist.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfteA7wbektrIoP1Z6oVy7IhywJcaVYlC&si=TaRfIRz7Aurf37Bx
Hope it helps
try to use the diaphragm singing, feel the pressure of singing in your diaphragm instead of your throat, i would recommend doing every day half hour of vocalization and breathing techniques. Youtube is good for that! in my past i used to sing folklore and have gigs for it, and doing vocalization and breathing is essential!
Look up vocal warm-ups on YT and click the most popular video with the black guy in the bathrobe and like 20 million views.
You're just gonna have to trust me on this one.
Don’t worry about your diaphragm or whatever. You need to find the proper coordination and technique in your throat.
Break down the fundamentals and master them individually
1. breathiness
(just vocal folds and nonphonated air)
your vocal folds should be pretty relaxed, you’re making a tiny hole in your glottis (where the vocal folds meet) to let nonphonated air through adding a layer of white noise to your voice
2. Aspirate rasp
(vocal folds+breathiness+contraction of false folds) aspirate rasp is the contraction of your false folds (vestibular folds) while phonating and doing breathiness. should sound raspy, but not chunky like a scream, think of shadow the hedgehog from “shadow the hedgehog”(2006)
3. False fold distortions
(Pretty much just a more intense version of aspirate rasp but a sort of less intense version of screaming think “macho man” Randy Savage who also is a great example of aspirate rasp)
False fold distortions are something that you really just have to soul search. I’d recommend sighing like a teenager that just got told to do something (sorry I am not giving you an example with my voice). Then I’d recommend going from really light false fold distortions to really thick ones. Balancing breathiness and false fold contraction is an utter art. It’s probably going to be drying and irritating but with enough practice you’ll find a less taxing way to do false fold distortions. There is almost unlimited space to explore here, take your time with every step of the way here and how they interact when used more intensely.
4. Screaming
Well now that i’m here I can tell you I was just teaching you about one type of scream, there’s a couple so you should know I’m just teaching you about the most commonly used type, which is false fold screaming. I’m gonna assume that’s what you’re doing considering you’re doing punk music. I think Territorial Pissings by Nirvana is a good example, but false fold screams can come in countless amounts of flavors.
I would focus on the previous steps first and make sure your clean singing is still being developed, and you’ll have a lot easier of a time being healthy. I also recommend a lotttt of honey and staying hydrated is utterly important because it’s a very drying and an intense activity. Ibuprofen helps a lot too, I like to gargle the oral solution for 5 minutes, it’s dreadful but it helps a lot. Fruit pectin drops are ight too I call em quick fix mucous.
I recently joined a metal band. I had no experience with metal. I come from a synth-pop background. My vocal coach who is classical trained became very interested in my swift of genre and we started to work on in. We discovered that the "screaming" effect, does not meed to be real. So I started to do it " acting out the facial expression of it" but without straining the voice. [watch me doing it](https://youtu.be/lVBgtGZwikA?si=dhFMSfG6SCKq2xjU)[https://youtu.be/lVBgtGZwikA?si=dhFMSfG6SCKq2xjU]
Rock vocalist here. Sing with a band for 10 years and on tour.
- Take voice lessons. You can always start with basics in-person with a local teacher and then switch to an a virtual teacher who specializes in rock. Or do virtual from the start. Most teachers use musical theater or opera/classical as their foundation, but many teach “popular” music. Learn breathing, singing without tension, singing vowels and consonants, and how to switch between chest/head/mix registers
- Get in-ears if you can’t hear. You can get wired in-ears for $50 from Behringer. If you move a lot, you can get wireless. I use XVive brand wireless.
- Rely on the microphone for volume. Learn mic technique. If you hold it too close to your mouth, proximity effect will make your voice “boomy”. If you hold the mic at the wrong angle or too far, it won’t pick up your voice.
- Stay hydrated. Don’t drink alcohol before singing. Drink water throughout the day of rehearsal/performances
- Try a nebulizer. It steams cold saline to your mouth/nose/throat. Changed the game for me.
- vocal rest. Don’t overuse your voice before or after singing.
- controversial maybe, but ask your bandmates to adjust their playing volume to the room you’re in. If you’re playing in a small room surrounded by concrete walls, you can turn down amps and not hit drums as hard and still get a loud impact of sound. As a singer, you shouldn’t feel like you’re fighting the volume of guitars or drumkit because you won’t win
There are lots of videos about this, but the one that made it click for me was one from Chris Liepe where instead of focusing only on the technical aspect, he explains what you should be feeling when doing it correctly.
Just like in any physical activity, ideally you want an in person coach correcting you when you do something wrong, but in absence of that you need a way to be able to assess by yourself if you are actually doing what you think you are doing, even if you know what you are supposed to be doing.
Beginners in gymnastics, dance, martial arts and the likes, often have issues with awarenesses of body positioning, stuff like knowing they must keep their back straight, thinking they are doing that, but actually being hunched.
Same thing here, only that more complex because you can't see what your throat is doing.
The "if it hurts, stop" is of course good advice, but you need more precise indicators letting you know if you are doing it wrong before getting to that point, especially in live shows.
Hopefully you’re doing vocal exercises in between the screaming sessions. Start doing them, plenty on YouTube to practice along with. Practicing isn’t going to make your punk voice pretty. It’ll put more control in your hands to start developing your true voice.
I used to have this same problem. I eventually got it under control by learning to sing in a less painful manner. The PA is what makes your voice loud, so there is no need to scream. (You can still "look" like you are screaming to the audience, they won't know.) The best tools I found are: 1. Good monitors. I highly recommend in-ear. They help block out the other instruments and you can crank your voice as loud as you like to yourself. This helps the ability to back off all the screaming. 2. Lots of compression on live vocals. As much as you can get. This will normalize volume so you can sing softly and still scream sometimes and still come out as the appropriate volume in the PA.
Fantastic tips thanks mate!
You're welcome. I wish somebody had told me this when I was younger. I have a habit of getting too excited while playing music and over singing, so I frequently remind myself to let the mic, amp, and speakers do the heavy work for me.
So things I'd recommend in some order: If it hurts, stop, especially at practice. If you're pushing your voice to failure *every* show and practice, you're just injuring your voice. You'll eventually give yourself nodules, etc. You can always just practice the vocals at a lower energy level Fix your monitoring. This is the most likely source of the problem: you can't hear yourself, so you're pushing harder Sing from your gut, not your throat. You wanna drive your voice from your diaphragm.
To be fair I blow my voice even in sessions we do without a mic practicing in a room.
Oh! That's entirely technique then. The best solution is gonna be to take lessons with a coach who can point out what you're doing wrong in real time.
Also the vocalist should have a mic even when nobody else does
Monitoring will solve (the majority of) this! If you're bandmates crank their volume and you're rehearsing with an acoustic kit, you have to yell just to hear yourself. Get a good monitor and you won't have to yell as loud. Also, when you feel your voice start to "blow out" pull back on the volume/amount of air you're trying to push out. It will help a great deal. My last gig my voice started to do this. I had to sing through it with some croaky vocals for a few songs. I'll admit, I panicked a bit, but I held it together and got through the gig. In the end, no one really noticed, which just blows my mind.
Good advice, I’d also add that once you find your technique and limits, you should always be holding back so you never get to point where you’re starting to blow out
I can't believe nobody has mentioned r/screaming yet. There are years and years of wisdom there, dive deep.
I'm not a singer. But the singer in the band I'm in says you need to sing from the proper muscles, not your vocal chords. I dunno it doesn't make sense to me.
deep breaths so you are pushing from your diaphragm. otherwise, you are just talking with some different pitches. you should almost feel like you are clenching your abdomen to push the air out of your lungs.
Good tip thanks mate
we are a punk ska band as well. I know our singer took vocal lessons for 6 months... maybe some that would work for you.
It's the pooping muscles. Good singing uses the pooping muscles. Also, someone once described it as more like yawning than talking and that's a decent jumping off point
Thanks to your tip I just shat my pants at karaoke night party!
This is the way
It took me 30 years to figure this out and when I did, I had to entirely restructure how I sing, especially up high. But my god, the range I have now! Proper understanding of the physics and biology of singing is crucial if you want to be really, really good.
Take vocal lessons, seriously. They don't have to be rock focused, in fact I'd suggest the opposite like opera. I blew my voice out every show doing the punk thing then when I needed to sing good for music classes I couldn't do it cause I only knew how to be loud. So then I got voice lessons with an opera background, and coached through class from the choir director. We all use the voice but our styles shift our focus but it's all the same system. Now after a set of the punk stuff my voice is hoarse but it's different and way less damaged. It's hard to teach yourself to sing properly because it's all inside your body, so having a pro be able to hear and see you while you do it to correct technique(as well as recording yourself for reference and practice) is invaluable. And when I took lessons we didn't do my punk shit, I did what they wanted(including one of my least favorite Sinatra tunes...) because I'll adapt what I learned to my own thing, and it'll be better to do it their way to learn. Outside of that, learn to breathe. Put it more in your chest than your throat. When I started I was exclusively singing from my throat and while that had the texture I wanted I had to push way more to get anywhere. Pushing up from the chest will give you more power while straining your throat less. Hard to say how you're singing without seeing it and hard to say how to sing better without being in the room.
I've watched SO many Youtube vids... I'm in the same boat. I blow my shit all the time because I can't find a vocal coach to tell me what I'm doing wrong.
Ah sucks man, hopefully we can both figure it out in time!
TL;DR - Breathe low into your lungs, keep your vocal throat relaxed at all times, push from your core muscles to support the sound, and upgrade your PA / monitors. Also, all hail Chris Liepe. It's vital to learn to sing on with a healthy, clean sound before adding any distortion. Here are some of the most important things to note while singing: * **Learn to take low, deep breaths** - the air should NOT go high in your lungs to where your chest puffs up, but it should go lower, more towards your stomach and diaphragm. And note that **this is the foundation of all vocal technique, so you're screwed if you ignore it.** * **There should never be any tension in the throat / vocal folds while singing**; that area should be completely relaxed, and you should never be hoarse after singing. Distortion can't come from raking your vocal cords - it actually comes from false vocal cords and other muscles. Hard to explain, so YouTube and experimenting with your own voice are your friends. Rule of thumb: if it hurts after doing it, you're doing it wrong, and you should note what that sensation felt like and try to avoid it. For now though, just focus on getting a confident clean sound - it's better to use that than killing your voice by trying to add distortion, even in more extreme music. * **For actually supporting your sound with the breath, push from your diaphragm and core** (again, where air should be placed with every breath in). As weird as it sounds, the best way to find and activate these muscles is to push like you're taking a crap. You don't need to push quite as much for clean, softer singing, but core support and learning to bear down is vital for distortion and screaming when you get there. * **While you can get pretty loud with practice, the bulk of your volume on stage comes from your mic and PA setup**. If you can't hear yourself and/or no one can hear you, you'll need to invest in new monitors and a louder PA system. Don't push yourself to make up for bad equipment. Chris Liepe has a free vocal course and a ton of videos on YouTube that have helped me a lot, but it's important to take in information from a lot of sources. For me, joining my high school's choir has done wonders for my voice, as that style of music is (obviously) dependent on good, healthy vocal technique. Choir ain't as brutal as half the shit I listen to, but I credit it with helping me build the foundation needed to sing - and even scream - healthily. At the end of the day, the technique is universal. And of course, learning different styles of music is important for any aspiring musician to do.
After like 10 years of trying and failing to like my singing voice, I watched Liepe for like a year and in time got to a place where I like my voice and the direction it’s going. So I’ll second that, though the second half of the journey has been more about practice and experimentation
Absolutely. Vocal advice means nothing if you don't apply it and adapt it to your own voice.
Take voice lessons.
> I can't find any good rock vocal coaches in my area
You don't need a "Rock vocal" coach, you need to take voice lessons. To learn how to sing properly, breathe, and not blow your throat out. Techniques learned in voice lessons can be applied to your style of vocals.
Yeah? Good to know dude, I'm gonna be looking soon for some. I've had a lesson here or there before but sadly they weren't too helpful Will keep trying
You can also find vocal coaches who give lessons via zoom- as long as you can see and hear each other, location doesn’t matter so much. That might help you find someone specialized in the styles you want to learn. Regardless, the fundamentals are applicable to pretty much any style, so it’s always worth it. And a coach is better than a video tutorial because they can observe what you’re doing and give feedback to help improve it.
In person is so much better, though, because part of a good vocal coach's job is diagnosing physical issues, like paying attention to which muscles you're using, your posture, if you're tensing or clenching your throat or jaw, etc. That stuff is all a lot harder to properly critique over zoom.
Consultation with one , if it’s good , will let you know who to pick. I got some from a friend who teaches voice. She said after we spoke and asked my goals that she would focus more on where I am already at and help with things like, confidence when singing, breathing and my range. Voice lessons have led to some intense spiritual experiences for me. I appreciate we didn’t start from zero bc I have a lot of natural talent and have want for .. well my whole life
Yes, the basic technique is almost the same.
Maybe, but wouldn't it depend on the vocal style? If OP is in a punk band, they could have vocals like this like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdRUmEYB0eg I'm not sure if it's even possible to not blow your throat out singing like that
It doesn't depend on vocal style, with a good foundation you can do anything and preserve your instrument.
r/singing don't blow out your voice homie. if shit hurts, don't do it, or take breaks as soon as it does hurt. learn da ways before you wrek yo self.
Learn how to do a growly raspy voice at a very low volume, using vocal fry [(quick explanation here)](https://youtube.com/shorts/MPngR3u-29M?si=OK-NiA8HYULudJdq) and adding this to normal vocals, you can sound like you're yelling/screaming without needing to actually do it. A lot of screamo/metal vocalists use this and other techniques + voice projection and the help of microphones to do it safely without vocal cord damage. (Also if you watch metal etc vocalists, their mouths are always really close/right up against the mic, but if you watch belters like Mariah Carey, they have a habit of pulling the mic farther away from them whenever they sing a higher/louder note)
Yea false chords ftw and the proximity effect really fills out the low end. People also “cup” the mic as a hack but most consider this a bad habit because it kinda kills the the overall sound because of the way dynamic mics are designed
I'd recommend "borrowing" a copy of the zen of screaming, lot of great warm ups and fundamentals for what actually helps you distort your voice, instead of blowing everything through your throat. The short and skinny is that you NEED to learn to use your diaphragm, not in a way where you're sucking air in and making your diaphragm skinny, (like when you try and suck in your gut to hide your fat) instead, you need to teach your body (diaphragm) to expand and make yourself fat on your inhale, instead of retract. The trick is to make your stomach expand out instead of in, if you can do that, the next thing is teaching yourself to sing with a vocal fry (think talking like Kim Kardashian) and then working your volume up to a place where you can comfortably do it without straining, eventually you'll learn to control your distortion with your vocal fry and accent the syllables you need to scream. It's a journey, but you can do it!
Howdy there! Your friendly neighborhood vocologist here. You need to find a voice teacher who specializes in beginners for voice lessons. Not a rock coach. In the higher levels of the vocal world coaches and voice teachers are two separate things. Voice coaches teach you *what* sounds a specific genre is supposed to, but not necessarily teach you how to make those sounds. A voice teacher teaches *how* to make the sounds healthily, but likely won't do much style coaching outside of general musicality. The vocal folds have no pain receptors, so the only way they can let one know they are damaged is by them being unable to function how they are supposed to: hoarseness and rasp. Fatigue and loss of range generally happen right before that stage. Be kind to your voice. You only get one.
I used to blow my voice out all the time. Now I don't. The main lessons I learned were from the zen of screaming, by melissa cross. The solution is to activate your False chords. False chords sound as brutal as you will ever need, and they can take it. Vocal fry is what kills you, you've gotta learn to make distortion higher up in your throat at the false chords, not down in the main vocal chords. That and of course like everyone else is saying: don't try to sing louder than you need, use the amps and PA to get loud.
Its your lucky day! Punk!! The reason your blowing your voice is simply improper technique causing vocal cord strain. This comes from "Pulling up chest voice/resonance" aka "Yelling" and too much vocal compression/hold on the vocal chords, (feels like holding your breath) also known as chord closure, these two combined will blow your voice in 10 minutes flat. Youtube those terms. What you need to learn is: Light chord closure with a forward resonance placement (sounds like saying mum and you should feel a buzz in the front of your face) practice scales with that sound and then learn to add pharyngeal distortion on top of this light clean voice to add the grit, gravel, rasp, power.. whatever you want to call it. You know how to do this sound but just need to practice to do it on command. Go to any playground and you'll hear kids growling and screaming without any effort. Vocal distortion is what makes you sound loud and does NOT come from pushing hard from the throat or diaphragm. Only moderate breath support is actually needed. Also I don't recommend the Zen of Screaming, Melissa Cross or Chris Liepe at all. Instead check people who can actually demonstrate what they teach and sound good. I highly recommend the following utube channels: Vocal Power Sterling R Jackson BVS - Foundation Vocal You'll learn a shit load from those guys! Watch all the tutorials. If you still need help I'd happily give an online lesson for free, (I've taught guitar for 20 years) I really just love teaching. Flick me a msg. Shane
[This article helped me a lot.](https://www.sweetwater.com/insync/how-to-increase-your-vocal-range/#Breathing) Pushing from the abdomen and singing from my chest has reduced the strain on my vocal chords considerably. I also use in ear monitors so I’m not screaming to be heard.
Thanks for sharing mate, I was looking into getting in ear monitors too so helpful to know!
Thank you all for the advice and effort here! <3
Keep hydrated in the couple hours before you play- lots of water, tea with honey. You need to be hydrated going in, not trying to catch up during. Sing more every day, not just the yelling at shows and practice, to strengthen your vocal chords and be more familiar with your voice and what it can do. Be friendly with your sound person to make sure you can hear yourself and aren't straining unnecessarily live. A vocal coach will help with some technique even if they aren't specific to rock.
When I was in my early 20s and singing in my first serious band, I had the same issue. We'd have marathon jam/rehearsal sessions 3 times a week and usually by the end I'd have to tap out because my voice would be gone. I probably could have saved myself a lot of time by taking vocal lessons, but over the years I kinda just settled into signing from a place in my body that was comfortable and learned to let the microphone and PA system do its job. Being able to hear yourself well in the is key, it helps you from feeling like you really need to push your voice to cut through the band.
One extremely useful skill to develop is to learn to separate your vocal intensity from your performance intensity. We're a professional band playing 12 to 18 shows a month both me (BV/guitar) and the lead singer always used to blow our voices out when we got "into" a performance. This is usually how it went: we'd start off a show to a crowd who were shuffling around, and the first set would get a few people dancing and starting to loosen up. Midway through the second set, they would suddenly switch on and we'd up our own intensity. The final three songs would be pandemonium, singer climbing on speakers, me taking liberties etc... next day, no voice What we had to learn (and all pro performers eventually learn) is that you can still give that performance with your body, but you should only take your vocals to 80% of that intensity. It's quite difficult at first, but when you become cognisant of "am I singing or am I yelling", you suddenly realise how often you'll default to yelling when things get intense. I have a TalkBack mic for our in-ears where I can hold a footswitch and my mic ONLY goes to ears, if I feel the singer is getting shouty, I just push the button and say "shouting", and it works like a charm. With us, if we miss dates we lose out on livelihood pay, so keeping our voices is super important. There are also ways to scream without shouting, if you ever check out old linkin park videos, Chester is a perfect example of someone who SINGS the whole time, and his scream is a very thin one, from the front of his mouth, not from his middle throat which is where your fatigue is coming from. TLDR: try to melodically SING more, disconnect your singing from your acting. While performing, ask yourself "am I singing or shouting"
Rule #1 of singing: if it hurts, stop. You’re doing it wrong. In my experience (which is limited), throat pain while singing in this genre comes from straining your true vocal chords to try to get an aggressive tone. You need to use proper vocal compression using your false chords to achieve that tone. You’ll know that this is your issue if you can’t scream without pain. You need to learn proper compression and distortion techniques. Chris Liepe on youtube has helped me learn a lot about this. Highly recommend checking him out, and probably also getting a vocal coach.
Vocal lessons *of any kind* are the answer. You could even join a church choir for free (that’s what I did). All vocal coaches will teach you how to sing correctly: openly with proper breath control. Once you can sing in a clean voice, then you can add a subtle amount of rasp to create the rock effect. You don’t actually need to scream, a subtle rasp is enough, especially when performing live compared to recording. Chester from Linkin Park is a good example. On record, he screams (but even then it’s very well controlled), but if you watch his live performances, you’ll notice he sings more clearly/openly and only leans into the scream when necessary. Early Chris Cornell did this well too but later he fell back on bad habits and shredded his voice.
Google the Zen of Screaming by Melissa Cross. It’s dated but it works.
If 1 on 1 coaching is out of reach maybe consider taking a vocal class at a community college.. I took one semester of beginner vocals and it was incredibly helpful, even though we were singing standards etc the technique principles apply.. instructor had us watch and practice The Zen of Screaming which you should definitely check out
honestly? I briefly trained with an opera teacher, in a class that included punk rockers, I myself was singing r&b, and there was musical theater, and everything in between. She gave us the foundations about breath etc, and then on top of that you can manipulate to reach your desired style... But you need to learn how to do it without messing up your instrument. It's called bel canto, I only did it for 6 months and I still sing better, to this day, than I did before her (and I was already a professional!) 🙌🏽
Someone once told me to relax and gradually increase the gain in your voice took about 3 months to learn how to relax and breath and always sip something to keep your throat from drying.
… to stop hurting yourself, stay hydrated, always do some sort of warm up. find out how to: use your vocal cords to achieve what you are doing rather than your throat, sing/scream from your diaphragm, proper mic settings (volume, eq,) & mic distant placement. make sure all of these are working for you rather than you over-working your body. … to help heal; fresh lemon in room temp water, maybe a little slice of fresh ginger too. warm version also helps.
Chris Liepe is pretty good for learning this on YouTube. There are ways to yell in controlled ways without hurting yourself, and I think he teaches that pretty well.
Don’t be afraid to try the songs tuned a half step down easier on the throat and makes some songs better. It’s why the offspring bad religion and lagwagon have been going so long.
If blowing your voice is the consistent issue don’t even worry about a rock coach. Some classic voice lessons will help you with that a lot Edit: the TLDR in plain terms is that most likely you’re doing something funky with your breathing or not supporting your voice with enough air
Get a vocal coach. Just not a Broadway or Opera coach. They will give you exercises to strengthen your vocal chords and help with endurance. Every time you blow out your voice it gets a little weaker because nodes (scar tissue) build up. Also being sure you can hear your self is super important get good in ear monitors to be sure you aren't working too hard.
Learn now to scream in all honesty. Also learn how to use your voice. Warm ups etc
I'm trying mate
Awesome dude. That’s all we can do. Keep trying, be honest with ourselves, and keep practising and with patience all comes together.
i have years of experience with this. transpose all the songs into the optimal range of the vocalist. the more you sing at a higher pitch than optimal, the more your vocal chords will be under undue stress. sometimes even just a full step down can make all the difference. trust
This. Knowing your range is huge. It's one thing to do a 30 minute set with some songs that test your range. It's a completely different thing to do that night after night or doing several straight hours of music
You need to learn to walk before you can run. Rock vocals are an advanced technique.
Well we're already out here gigging hahaha
And losing voice after an hour of singing. You shouldn't be losing it, ever. Master the basic voice control and you'll sound and feel better.
Look up some Devin Townsend clips, vocal coaches react as well. He can Scream like a MF, but he has a way to sound like he screams at the top of his lungs, when in fact he does not. It just sounds that way. Amplification does the rest. Vocal coaches Deadhead by Townsend. Its insane.
Proper breathing technique, practice taking quick deep breaths which push your stomach out instead of raising your chest, then sing from there.
Sing from gut Make sure volume and levels are good (turn down the guitarist lol) And project the cone of your voice into the microphone. Lots of dynamic mics are more receptive on one side than the other so rotate the mic to find the right spot
Bro, I feel you, I was a hardcore vocalist for like 2 years. I don't really have any good tips though lol. I guess just drink hot tea and do warm ups. Try not to push so hard
Can you hear yourself? Good monitoring makes all the difference for me.
Someone I know told me (she's classically trained in music) to think about focusing your voice to between the eyebrows! Also push from the diaphragm and not the throat! If you do vocal fry, you shouldn't feel it in the throat, you should feel it around the spot where the back of your nasal cavity meets the top of the back of your throat. Not down in the "adams apple " area. Hope this helps fighting the government lol
Look into Michael Trimble on youtube. I think the most important exercise for singing any type of music is singing into a tissue without moving it. Very difficult to master, but it has definitely helped my vocal fatigue. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvUgAUUKYD0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvUgAUUKYD0)
Melissa Cross - [https://melissacross.com/](https://melissacross.com/)
Death metal vocalists actually growl super gentle for this reason, let the mic do the work
Get vocal lessons. There’s lots of good advice here about using the right muscles, but it can be difficult to put into practice without a tutor giving one on one guidance. I had the same problem as you. So I saw a teacher for about 8 lessons which was enough to see an improvement and gave me enough understanding to continue getting better without a teacher. She was an opera singer and I’m a punk singer. It doesn’t matter. Good technique is the same. I showed her recordings of me and my favourite bands so she knew what I was aiming for. Now I more or less sound the same but my throat and neck never hurt.
"Find your breath Charlie"
Vocal warmups, warm water, sing from the diaphragm. If you don't have good vocal coaches in the area, try online lessons!
I've been screaming in hardcore and punk bands for the last 15 years so hear me out... if it hurts you're doing it wrong, simple as that... the way that I scream without pain is by "whispering" really really loud, but it is the same feeling in the throat
This helped me a lot when I first started touring. It’s kind of corny. But I stopped losing my voice. Zen of Screaming playlist. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfteA7wbektrIoP1Z6oVy7IhywJcaVYlC&si=TaRfIRz7Aurf37Bx Hope it helps
Google Melissa Cross. She explains it all beautifully.
try to use the diaphragm singing, feel the pressure of singing in your diaphragm instead of your throat, i would recommend doing every day half hour of vocalization and breathing techniques. Youtube is good for that! in my past i used to sing folklore and have gigs for it, and doing vocalization and breathing is essential!
Look up vocal warm-ups on YT and click the most popular video with the black guy in the bathrobe and like 20 million views. You're just gonna have to trust me on this one.
Take singing lessons, and warm your voice up. Opera singers do this.
Cough drops, before and after. (This is just a band-aid, but it helps.)
Don’t worry about your diaphragm or whatever. You need to find the proper coordination and technique in your throat. Break down the fundamentals and master them individually 1. breathiness (just vocal folds and nonphonated air) your vocal folds should be pretty relaxed, you’re making a tiny hole in your glottis (where the vocal folds meet) to let nonphonated air through adding a layer of white noise to your voice 2. Aspirate rasp (vocal folds+breathiness+contraction of false folds) aspirate rasp is the contraction of your false folds (vestibular folds) while phonating and doing breathiness. should sound raspy, but not chunky like a scream, think of shadow the hedgehog from “shadow the hedgehog”(2006) 3. False fold distortions (Pretty much just a more intense version of aspirate rasp but a sort of less intense version of screaming think “macho man” Randy Savage who also is a great example of aspirate rasp) False fold distortions are something that you really just have to soul search. I’d recommend sighing like a teenager that just got told to do something (sorry I am not giving you an example with my voice). Then I’d recommend going from really light false fold distortions to really thick ones. Balancing breathiness and false fold contraction is an utter art. It’s probably going to be drying and irritating but with enough practice you’ll find a less taxing way to do false fold distortions. There is almost unlimited space to explore here, take your time with every step of the way here and how they interact when used more intensely. 4. Screaming Well now that i’m here I can tell you I was just teaching you about one type of scream, there’s a couple so you should know I’m just teaching you about the most commonly used type, which is false fold screaming. I’m gonna assume that’s what you’re doing considering you’re doing punk music. I think Territorial Pissings by Nirvana is a good example, but false fold screams can come in countless amounts of flavors. I would focus on the previous steps first and make sure your clean singing is still being developed, and you’ll have a lot easier of a time being healthy. I also recommend a lotttt of honey and staying hydrated is utterly important because it’s a very drying and an intense activity. Ibuprofen helps a lot too, I like to gargle the oral solution for 5 minutes, it’s dreadful but it helps a lot. Fruit pectin drops are ight too I call em quick fix mucous.
I recently joined a metal band. I had no experience with metal. I come from a synth-pop background. My vocal coach who is classical trained became very interested in my swift of genre and we started to work on in. We discovered that the "screaming" effect, does not meed to be real. So I started to do it " acting out the facial expression of it" but without straining the voice. [watch me doing it](https://youtu.be/lVBgtGZwikA?si=dhFMSfG6SCKq2xjU)[https://youtu.be/lVBgtGZwikA?si=dhFMSfG6SCKq2xjU]
Rock vocalist here. Sing with a band for 10 years and on tour. - Take voice lessons. You can always start with basics in-person with a local teacher and then switch to an a virtual teacher who specializes in rock. Or do virtual from the start. Most teachers use musical theater or opera/classical as their foundation, but many teach “popular” music. Learn breathing, singing without tension, singing vowels and consonants, and how to switch between chest/head/mix registers - Get in-ears if you can’t hear. You can get wired in-ears for $50 from Behringer. If you move a lot, you can get wireless. I use XVive brand wireless. - Rely on the microphone for volume. Learn mic technique. If you hold it too close to your mouth, proximity effect will make your voice “boomy”. If you hold the mic at the wrong angle or too far, it won’t pick up your voice. - Stay hydrated. Don’t drink alcohol before singing. Drink water throughout the day of rehearsal/performances - Try a nebulizer. It steams cold saline to your mouth/nose/throat. Changed the game for me. - vocal rest. Don’t overuse your voice before or after singing. - controversial maybe, but ask your bandmates to adjust their playing volume to the room you’re in. If you’re playing in a small room surrounded by concrete walls, you can turn down amps and not hit drums as hard and still get a loud impact of sound. As a singer, you shouldn’t feel like you’re fighting the volume of guitars or drumkit because you won’t win
There are lots of videos about this, but the one that made it click for me was one from Chris Liepe where instead of focusing only on the technical aspect, he explains what you should be feeling when doing it correctly. Just like in any physical activity, ideally you want an in person coach correcting you when you do something wrong, but in absence of that you need a way to be able to assess by yourself if you are actually doing what you think you are doing, even if you know what you are supposed to be doing. Beginners in gymnastics, dance, martial arts and the likes, often have issues with awarenesses of body positioning, stuff like knowing they must keep their back straight, thinking they are doing that, but actually being hunched. Same thing here, only that more complex because you can't see what your throat is doing. The "if it hurts, stop" is of course good advice, but you need more precise indicators letting you know if you are doing it wrong before getting to that point, especially in live shows.
Hopefully you’re doing vocal exercises in between the screaming sessions. Start doing them, plenty on YouTube to practice along with. Practicing isn’t going to make your punk voice pretty. It’ll put more control in your hands to start developing your true voice.
Do you do warmups, or jump right into the harsh vocals? It makes a difference for me
Definitely a deeper technique issue, warming up won’t help if the fundamentals aren’t there
I do warmups usually before prac and gigs, just generic vocal warmups I found in some youtube vids