Remembering Marty Robbins: He Sings "Beyond the Reef"

Marty Robbins would be in my top five of all time favorite male singers.  He had a magnificent voice, great tone and range.  In this video clip, Marty sings one of my favorite Hawaiian ballads, "Beyond the Reef."  He is accompanied by the great Jerry Byrd on the steel guitar.  Marty had a very strong, clear and beautiful voice, and for those learning to sing, he is an example of what a great singer can be.

A Plan for Learning to Sing With the Band

Being a good musician isn't enough if you want to have a steady source of gigs.  You have to sing.  You don't have to be the lead singer, but you must contribute vocally.  That raises considerably your value as a band member.

Here are some ways to go about it.

1.  Buy a book about singing and learn what it is all about:  the different kinds of voices, the myths and the facts about singing, common problems and solutions, posture, breathing and vocal exercises.  Any good book on singing will come with a CD of vocal exercises.  You can't learn to sing by reading about it, but reading about it will help you form an effective practice plan.  I recommend Singing For Dummies by Pamelia Phillips and Set Your Voice Free by Roger Love.

2.  Avail yourself of free online resources, like eHow's series on singing, to learn about singing.  Watch this while waiting for your books to arrive from Amazon.  (The series instructor has some great tips on things to do and to look out for.)

3. Choose the vocal exercises from the CD's that you want to practice on a daily basis.  I used iTunes to store copies of all of the exercises, then segregated out those that I intend to practice daily.  I made a CD of just these exercises for practicing while driving.  When not driving, I just play the iTunes playlist from my laptop and sing along with them at home.

4.  Keep a practice log, to keep track of what you have done and to plan for what you want to do.  I just use Word in my computer to do this.  Writing down accomplishments and goals keeps them in your subconscious which targets those goals like a heat-seeking missile.

5.  Practice singing to karaoke recordings.  To do this, you need karaoke files, and you can buy them from many different sites on the net (see sidebar for some links).  These files are usually mp3 or mp4 files, and readily play in Windows.  The best karaoke files are those that scroll the lyrics while the music plays, highlighting the lyrics to sing at any given moment (these are mp4 files).  Other karaoke files (mp3 files) merely provide the backing instrumentals and backing vocals, and the lyrics are all up to you.

You can get a lot of free karaoke files off of YouTube.  Search for "karaoke" and a lot of them will queue up. You can download these as MP4 files using keepvid.com.  (Copy and paste the YouTube URL into keepvid and it will download the videos onto your own computer.)

6.  Record yourself singing along to the karoake files, for playback and analysis.  While singing along to the karaoke files, you can simultaneously record your voice using free recording software from the net.  The best of these is probably Audacity.  Once you've recorded your singing with Audacity, you can export it to an mp3 file.  An mp3 file (if you don't know) is a music file that plays once you click on it.  You can save it to disk or even email it to other band members for comments, criticism and suggestions.

You can even embed mp3 files into a website, as I have done previously in this blog, using a third party website that hosts these files.

Although it is shocking the first time you hear yourself singing, don't be discouraged.  Everyone feels that way.  They hear their own voice and say "Ugh!"  However, keep at it and the recordings will improve over time.  These recordings help you to know when you're ready to sing before an audience.

More About Learning to Sing

I left my band in San Jose to join one in my own home town of Hollister, exchanging an hour commute for one less than ten minutes.  This new band wants all members to contribute vocally, so I have been studying books and CD's on singing and practicing daily.  I have never sung before, except some minor backing vocals.  I am having fun with it.  My former band was very weak vocally, but the new band is quite strong with beautiful singing voices. My goal is to provide excellent backing vocals for the band, and sing a few songs as lead.

I have been scouring the net for song material:  chords and lyrics, karaoke files with which to practice singing, and trying to get my audio mixer to work with my laptop for better recording.  It looks like I will have to get a Sound Blaster soundcard, to allow simultaneous recording and playback from the soundcard (as opposed to recording from the speakers and picking up background noise, computer hum, etc).

I have been gathering my favorite songs of all time, and have found it to be an emotional experience.  Listening to these old songs brings many memories to life:  lost loves, lost youth, the time I courted my wife and the songs that helped me propose, and of course, a feeling of sorrow for great musical performers who have since died, like Elvis, Kui Lee and Vince Guaraldi.  Singing some cherished ballads is almost a spiritual experience, and puts me in a meditative mood, pondering the questions of life and death.


I've sung myself hoarse from yesterday's practicing, so I will give my vocal chords a day off today.

Singing "Big River" (an Old Johnny Cash Tune)

Many years ago, when I was a freshman in high school, a friend of ours, one Jim Miller, loaned us a few Sun label records of Johnny Cash.  One of the songs was "Big River."

Funny how almost every song I hear reminds me of some woman or girl.  This one reminded me of Marcia Willis, a little blonde from Oklahoma who had a southern accent, and Johnny Cash's experience with a similar female (as told on "Big River") closely mirrored my own, at least in emotion.

So my song for today is "Big River."  I sang from my middle voice in order to avoid a nasal sound.  Here it is:



I notice that I am just a little sharp on the low notes that come at the end of a lyric, e.g. "I'm gonna sit right here until I die," with "die" being the low note.  I can easily hit that low note in my chest voice, but I am singing the song in my middle voice.  Transitioning smoothly from one voice to another is a skill acquired through practice.  I should be able to instantly transition from middle voice to chest voice in order to hit that note.  My vocal exercises cover this skill.  Now that I am aware of it I can work on it.

I Begin Singing Practice

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I decided earlier this week to begin practicing some of the singing exercises in "Singing for Dummies," a book that comes with a CD.  I didn't want to start at the beginning, so I chose two chapters with the most potential for improving my vocals.  They are Chapter 11, "Developing the Parts of Your Singing Voice" and Chapter 12, "Expanding Your Flexibility and Range."  I found the tracks on the CD that cover these two chapters and burned them to a CD using iTunes.

Today I had an hour's drive to San Jose to have lunch with a friend.  A car is a great place to practice singing exercises, because no one else can hear you.  So I sang Tracks 15-48, covering both chapters above.  I sang them as well as I could with sincere effort, even repeating some that I didn't quite get on the first time through.

I paid attention to how the exercises sounded and how they made me feel.  I became more conscious of my head voice, middle voice and chest voice, all of which are exercised by these recordings.

By the time I arrived at the restaurant in San Jose, I had finished all of the tracks and my voice was feeling a bit tired, like a muscle that has been exercised.  That's a good thing.

I now have a singing practice routine.  Knowing what to do is half the battle.

Stogie Sings "It's Now or Never" (Eat Your Heart Out, Elvis)

My efforts to learn how to sing continue.  In an effort to make sure no one ever, at any time, visits this blog, I have embedded my latest effort below.  It is "Now or Never," made popular by the great Elvis Presley.

One of the biggest challenges to this song is that it is in a relatively high key, and the singer must go to his head voice or higher register.  In spite of this, I think I managed to stay on key throughout.

Here it is:

Bro Sings "Scotch and Soda" and I Do Too

Bro, my older brother, tried his chops on "Scotch and Soda" and it sounds quite nice.  Here it is:



I noticed that Bro's voice is much better balanced with the instrumental portion, and his added touch of echo gives it a professional feel.  I don't have the software and equipment yet to match that, but I did re-record the song and used a somewhat softer voice.  I think it is an improvement over my first attempt:

Tom Shaw Trio: Class in Tuxedos

I like this trio.  They are what I aspire to be.  Well, actually, I don't aspire to be a trio, just a bass player in a jazz trio or quartet.

Setting Your Goals for Music

It's always a good idea to write down your goals.  Writing them down helps you to understand what those goals are and gives your subconscious a target to aim at.  You should also identify the time period in which the goals are to be achieved.  Having open-ended goals means that they won't be achieved.

My goals (right now) over the next year (to the end of 20120 are these:

1.  To know my string bass neck thoroughly by feel, and to be able to play every major and minor scale and major and minor arpeggio instantly and accurately, including modes.  This will develop my ear and muscle memory to a fine point.  To do this, I must practice for an hour or more every day and make it a regular "must do," like brushing my teeth.

2.  To become much more adept at reading sheet music and charts, so as to learn and play new songs more quickly and accurately.

3.  To play my string bass in practice and gigs; not to replace my bass guitar, but to augment my musical effort.  To do this I must practice my string bass more and learn the best way to amplify it for gigs.

4.  To understand and apply voice leading techniques to bass playing.  This means dissecting the chords in all blues keys and standards that I know, and arranging the arpeggios to produce smooth bass lines.

5.  To play at least 50 top jazz standards well on string bass.  (If I learn one new standard a week, this won't be difficult.)

6.  To develop my singing voice well enough to support the band's vocal efforts, and to be able to sing without fear or shame because I will actually sound good!  This means I must practice singing every day as well as practicing bass, and must devise a practice plan for doing so.

7.  To gig weekly for pay, using my string bass, my bass guitar, and my singing voice.

Well those are my goals for right now.  What are yours?

My First Vocal Efforts: "Scotch and Soda" and "All of Me"

I have been reading about learning to sing, and one of the first things you must do is lose your fear and your shyness. Let it all hang out, baby. Putting a recording of your own amateur singing voice on the web is like mooning a band of mad Apaches...with bows and arrows!

Nevertheless, here's my first effort, recorded after many unrecorded trial runs, using only my laptop's built in microphone to record it...but enough excuses, have a listen.

Here's "Scotch and Soda":



The balance isn't great -- my voice is too loud compared to the instrumentals.  I will work on getting a better balance.

Here's "All of Me":



My feeling is that it's a start, but only a start to build on.  I need better recording equipment and software.  My voice is too loud in these recordings and seems blaring and harsh.  I'd love to turn my own volume down a bit and add a touch of bass.    Anyone know of any good and not too expensive solutions to these problems?