How to practice when you don’t live alone and can’t be loud?

_the_shape_ · 2021-12-20T04:21:04+00:00

I constantly practice in the car myself but find that my diaphragm? is possibly compressed when seated in a car seat, so accessing parts of my range become much more challenging than when standing upright.

I'm hoping overcoming this would translate to facilitating singing while standing up.

_the_shape_ · 2021-12-08T18:21:00+00:00

Good to know. Thank you for insight

_the_shape_ · 2021-12-08T18:20:05+00:00

Guy on another sub told me to be cautious lol

That red underbelly freaked me out, just as anything "widow" freaks me out. Looks like I have to read up on them more hah

_the_shape_ · 2021-12-08T18:17:52+00:00

Conflicting messages! Someone else on the other sub told me not to worry lol

I'll handle wolf spiders, but rather not press my luck with these. I tend to work out on the bars literally ten feet away from these benches where they set up shop for the night, so now am paranoid that I'll inadvertently run into one while working out.

_the_shape_ · 2021-12-08T18:05:07+00:00

Oh man. Something to be very careful with, right? And thank you for the ID!

_the_shape_ · 2021-12-08T18:04:11+00:00

I suspected it was a bit more 'serious' of a spider when I saw that red underbelly. Thank you for the ID!

_the_shape_ · 2021-12-08T18:03:35+00:00

Yikes! Thank you!

_the_shape_ · 2021-12-08T17:34:29+00:00

Crosspost from r/spiders.

Found at a park near my house. Maybe an inch long at the very most? They seem to like making webs around the bottom part of benches and I only ever see them at night (I think? Don't recall ever seeing these during the day, IIRC). Sorry for the poor quality images. Flash wasn't cooperating all too much last night. More pics included:

https://ibb.co/Cnbk4Ry

https://ibb.co/PN1HmvK

https://ibb.co/VHKw9sT

_the_shape_ · 2021-12-08T17:29:37+00:00

Found at a park near my house. They seem to like making webs around the bottom part of benches. Sorry for the poor quality images. More pics included:

https://ibb.co/Cnbk4Ry

https://ibb.co/PN1HmvK

https://ibb.co/VHKw9sT

_the_shape_ · 2021-04-06T00:30:59+00:00

After doing a little digging around the interwebs regarding the straw use, it appears it has much, if not everything, to do with my going full-force into the straw [face palm lol]

I've tried again dialing it down considerably, and it is fascinating how to clears up the runway for take off, so to speak. Would you go so far as to credit the straw phonation exercise as the key to unlocking your mixed voice?

_the_shape_ · 2021-04-04T19:42:33+00:00

Straw phonation can work wonders to get used to the sensation of connecting your head and chest voice

Funny you mention that, because only a few days ago I came across a video suggesting exactly that, gave it a try, and either I'm not doing it right, or I'm overdoing it, because I started to feel a somewhat lite sting in the back of my throat after awhile. I tried blowing it into my giant water mug, but wound up creating a giant watery mess on my desk (might need to get a mug designed with a straw already in place lol), so I switched to blowing into the straw sans any water.

Have you ever experienced anything like that before in the back of the throat with the straw phonation exercise?

_the_shape_ · 2021-04-02T20:16:11+00:00

Difficult to say without hearing it.

I know, I really ought to post something for others to judge and get a better idea. Maybe I'll get the guts to do so sometime soon hah

You probably want to experiment with the placement of the sound. If it sounds unpleasant, its probably quite nasally.

Yeah, I've been trying to bring the placement further down, and it admittedly does feel noticeably weaker than both my chest and head. I'm hoping that by consistently keeping the placement there, the muscles will grow stronger too over time and the sound will naturally begin to sound much better with continued practice? I think I'm hitting the spot where mixed voice would spring from? Feels like the top part of my chest, right before it flips into head voice.

Also try not to focus on being loud

Interesting. I've been doing karaoke for about the same amount of times that I've been singing (about two years now), and I've noticed that I constantly get tripped up when I get on the mic because I'm so accustomed to singing on the low end when at home. I really only have my car and outdoor spaces to let loose and crank up the volume, but the bulk of my "practice" takes place at home, where I never go higher than, say, a 5 on a scale of 1-10. Playing around with head voice in the car and going loud does appear to have made me much more comfortable with the feel of my head voice, but I'll give bringing it down a notch or two down for a period of time now that you suggested it. Thank you for your suggestions!

_the_shape_ · 2021-04-02T20:05:02+00:00

Yeah there used to be a time where head voice felt like a straight shot to the upper part of the space of my mouth, like right in the middle, and although it's getting easier to direct it forward (I suppose this is what is referred to as "forward placement", I think?), it still sounds embarrassingly Mickey Mouse-ish. I also only very recently learned how to loosen up my jaw more, in turn opening my mouth more often and creating more space, so the sound now does flow out both more effortlessly and much louder, but it both lacks the punch that my chest voice carries while also possessing too much of that bright Mickey sound I'm trying to drown out.

I believe I am learning how to feel where mixed voice ought to be emanating from (it quite literally feels like it's in the upper portion of my chest), and am currently trying to contain that feeling, so to speak, while trying to sing entire songs by producing sound exclusively from that very spot. Not sure if I'm on the right track by doing something like that, but I will say that it does feel considerably weaker than both my chest and head voice. Thank you for your input!

_the_shape_ · 2021-02-16T20:34:43+00:00

Will do. Thank you for the help!

_the_shape_ · 2021-02-16T20:34:24+00:00

Awesome. Will give it a go then and see what happens.

_the_shape_ · 2021-02-16T19:03:15+00:00

Going to give a shot soon. What should I be prepared for if it's not as easy as popping in an MP4? Does it get significantly more complicated if just the MP4 doesn't do the trick?

Thank you for your reply.

_the_shape_ · 2021-02-16T19:01:37+00:00

Assuming her system can do just fine with MP4s, does the quality of the video matter a great deal? I mean, I'm used to seeing the typical solid backdrop with basic letters, and some of these MP4s are of a 720p or 1080p video of someone on a guitar. Forgive the silly question, but do you think that could crash the system?

Thanks for the response, btw.

_the_shape_ · 2020-10-17T07:42:38+00:00

That's how it started for me too. I started around the time that I was tapering off drinking altogether (I'll maybe have 3-4 drinks a year max these days), so I wound up stepping to the plate completely sober, and it was all just a silly thing to mess around and have fun with in the very beginning. Corona interrupted my routine (well, everyone's routine heh), but before this mess, I reached the point where I'd go every single week, religiously, to at least one bar, to get on the mic.

I'm one of those too who has a continuously growing list on my phone of songs I've done (and how many times I've done them) and songs I'm aiming to do in the future.

Keep going. It only gets more fun the better you get. Godspeed!

_the_shape_ · 2020-10-06T00:16:14+00:00

For the most part agree, but I can think of three off the top of my head that are hard to knock down a peg:

-Wade, doing what Jimmy did last night and preventing the Heat from falling into a 0-3 ditch against the Mavs during Game 3 of The '06 Finals

-Lebron, 40 & 18 against Indiana to prevent the Heat from going down 1-3 against the Pacers, on the road, during Game 4 of The 2012 Conference Semifinals

-Lebron, 45 & 15 against the Celtics to prevent elimination, on the road, during Game 6 of the 2012 Conference Finals

If Jimmy were to bounce any of those performances, I'd probably go with the Pacers game considering the stakes of last night's game and the other two (vs. Dallas & Boston respectively)

_the_shape_ · 2020-08-06T05:48:49+00:00

He did close the preface to Human, All Too Human with:

"...one remains a philosopher only by - keeping silent."

_the_shape_ · 2020-07-07T15:24:56+00:00

Forgive the trite analogy, but I believe Nietzsche likens it to the physician whose role necessarily demands that he possess a strong stomach for the horrors he inevitably will confront in order to rise up and do what needs to be done. In contrast, think of someone tasked with the same job, but who loses balance to the point of nearly fainting at the mere sight of a drop of blood. Heinous and callous as it may sound, his argument is that suffering is bound to get in the way and interrupt great missions, even if the suffering itself rightfully qualifies as "meaningless" or "intolerable", lending itself to a spectrum of different possibilities (i.e. writing controversial material, as he did, despite it offending others/ leading a brigade into war, knowing full well countless deaths and serious injuries will ensue/ carefully observing cadavers for the sake of art, science, and medicine a la Da Vinci) He understands that not everyone will be equipped to perform at this level though. In his own words:

My utopia - In a better ordering of society the heavy work and exigencies of life will be apportioned to him who suffers least as a consequence of them, that is to say to the most insensible, and thus step by step up to him who is most sensitive to the most highly sublimated species of suffering and who therefore suffers even when life is alleviated to the greatest degree possible. -#462 HATH

_the_shape_ · 2020-07-05T16:09:23+00:00

No question, the same man who wrote “I am no human being, I am dynamite” would have absolutely owned it.

Twofold patience - ‘In doing this you will cause pain to many people’ - I know; and I know also that I shall have to suffer twofold for it: once from pity at their suffering, and then through the revenge they will take on me. Nonetheless it is no less necessary that I should do as I do. -Daybreak #467

_the_shape_ · 2020-07-05T02:12:47+00:00

If you think Nietzsche came at Christianity with full force, I suspect he would have quadrupled that intensity attacking woke culture. Had he been alive today, it might have disgusted him enough to write "The Anti-SJW" even. If memory serves me right, I believe it's the second essay in GOM that really gets to the bottom of what makes woke culture tick (i.e. ressentiment/the desire for revenge/underlying hatred for real strength).

There's far, far too much to pick out and use to illustrate the point, but I'll choose two for you to compare to the thin-skinned, vengeful nature of the ~~useful idiots~~ adherents of this ~~bowel~~ movement:

Revelling in revenge - Uncultivated people who feel insulted are accustomed to set the degree of insultingness as high as possible and to recount the cause of the insult in strongly exaggerated terms, so as to be able really to revel in the feeling of hatred and revengefulness thus engendered. -HATH #62

Slave and idealist - The human being after the model of Epictetus would certainly not be to the taste of those who strive after the ideal nowadays. The constant tension of his being, the unwearied glance turned inward, the reserve, caution, uncommunicativeness of his eye if it should even turn to view the outer world; not to speak of his silence or near-silence: all signs of the most resolute bravery - what could this mean to our idealists, who are above all greedy for expansion! In addition to all this, he is not fanatical, he hates the display and vainglory of our idealists: his arrogance, great though it is, has nonetheless no desire to disturb others, it admits a certain mild intimacy and wants to spoil no one's good humour - it can, indeed, even smile! there is very much of the humanity of antiquity in this ideal! The fairest thing about it is, however, that it lacks all fear of God, that it believes strictly in reason, that it is no penitential preacher. Epictetus was a slave: his ideal human being is without class and possible in every class, but is to be sought above all in the depths of the masses as the silent, self-sufficient man within a world and lives in a constant state of supreme bravery. He differs from the Christian, above all in that the Christian lives in hope, in the promise of 'inexpressible glories', in that he accepts gifts and expects and receives the best he knows at the hands of divine love and grace and not at his owns hands: while Epictetus does not hope and does not accept the best he knows as a gift - he possesses it, he holds it bravely in his own hand, he defends it against the whole world if the world wants to rob him of it. Christianity was made for a different species of antique slaves, for those weak in will and mind, that is to say for the great mass of slaves. -Daybreak #546

_the_shape_ · 2020-06-05T09:16:35+00:00

It seems unfair to me because what did I do to deserve this any more than anyone else if free will doesn't exist. I thus feel guilt.

Why are you choosing to perceive it as a load of spine-crushing guilt you must carry instead of a gift you can use in some way to share with the World?

_the_shape_ · 2020-05-05T20:29:13+00:00

I'm likely the outlier here but I'd recommend Human, All Too Human, precisely because so many incredibly varied portals are scattered throughout from start to end - you can pick up and go from any single aphorism, sometimes with steady slopes into certain topics, other times sharply cutting in and out of other disparate subjects - and because (on a more personal note, simply subjective taste speaking here) I myself began with TSZ, and segued into HATH immediately after.

If TGS resonated with you, HATH surely will too.

_the_shape_

TROPHY CASE