TC-Helicon - The Ultimate Guide to Singing: Gigs, Sound, Money and Health

The Ultimate Guide to Singing:

Gigs, Sound, Money & Health

Contributions from over 100 Singing Stars, Producers, Engineers, Coaches, Doctors, Agents, Managers and Social

Media Gurus

with Gregory A. Barker and Kathy Alexander

2014 by TC-Helicon

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-9920344-0-5

eISBN: 9780992034412

Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, V8Z 3E9

TC-Helicon is an individual in TC Group, a collective of individuals passionate about sound.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

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Cover design and illustrations by Stuart Meredith
Chapter icons by Peter James Field
Print book design by Joel Friedlander

The number of Grammy Awards and Grammy nominations received...

The number of books...

1,772.

The number of albums...

280,000,000.

The number of YouTube views...

...by the contributors to this book.

What We Discovered

We bought and read most of the major books available for singers today. In fact, my shelves are sagging under their weight. Two factors quickly jumped out at us:

Some of these books are excellent (so we asked those authors to contribute to this book!).

All of these books face huge limitations. (Can you expect a voice researcher to offer guidance on using a sound system?)

We thought: wouldnt it be great to have a book where an ear, nose & throat specialist reveals how a singer can best cope with the flu and a microphone manufacturer gives guidance on choosing a mic? What about Grammy award winning sound engineer discussing how to get the best vocal recordings at home, a social media guru on how to grow a Facebook page and a voice scientist on healthy vocal technique? Thus, this book was conceived.

Full stop. Whos the we that conceived? TC-Helicon. For years they have pursued single-mindedly the mission to bring singers creative control over their sound. This has led to building relationships with more contemporary vocalists than any other company in the world. So, youll understand my excitement when they asked me to partner with them on this project; they had the resources and connections to produce a truly extraordinary book.

Just to make sure we were on the right track, we polled one thousand rock, heavy metal, R & B, pop and jazz singers from all over the world. What they revealed to us about their struggles and dreams are pivotal to what we decided to address and you can see the actual results of this survey in every chapter.

Two features we all love in how-to books are concrete actions and frequently asked questions (especially when these are real). So, we organized our entire work around Actions and FAQs and ensured that each one was brief, relevant and to the point.

Youll see that the author of some pieces is The Ultimate Team; these are a group of TC-Helicon employees working in fields as diverse as technological development and artist relations who are in close contact with each other. You can read more about this group in the Acknowledgements.

Now, we were ready to get the best people in the industry to reveal what made them the best. Nearly every single piece we gathered has been written FRESH for this book (an exception being the quote in FAQ 4 of Chapter 1 and youll soon see why we did that). We were blown away by the eminence, professionalism and quality of each contributor and think you will be too.

How to Read This

You can read this book straight through or choose a chapter that interests you.

Weve laid it out so that the content follows a singers life from getting gigs (Section 1) to working with gear at those gigs and at home (Section 2), to improving technique, health and relationships (section 3) and, finally, by looking at money matters and markets for ones voice (section 4). After each section youll find an essay that summarizes all of the wisdom shared, relating it to a single, powerful word.

Or, just choose a topic you want to work on: vocal health, looping or how to handle money at live gigs there are 18 focus areas, covering all of the challenges facing todays singers.

Now, Im looking over at that huge stack of books for singers on my sagging shelf and feeling just a little jealous of you. After all, you now hold a world of insights from singers, doctors, media consultants, coaches, producers and sound engineers and it fits in your hand.

Gregory A. Barker

Editor, with Kathy Alexander,

The Ultimate Guide for Singing: Gigs, Sound, Money and Health

Acknowledgements

At the heart of this book are the insights of 135 big-hearted industry professionals and specialists who care deeply about the challenges facing vocalists. The best way to thank them is to point you to their Bios in the final pages of this book. Youll see how their insights emerge from years of valuable experience.

But Id like to take you behind the scenes. This book is the result of three and a half years of glorious arguments. Anyone can have a fight, bruise some egos and walk away. What made these arguments special were that a team of gifted people haggled, fought, laughed, tweaked, fought some more, had another coffee and didnt get up from the table until something incredible had emerged.

This could have never happened without the vision (and patience) of TC-Helicon and their generosity in sharing industry contacts built over many years. In particular, Kevin Alexander, CEO, championed this project, offering the rare kind of wit and grace that put glorious into all of the fights.

This project was also made possible by a team whose knowledge spans from singing in pubs and stadiums to designing the latest technology for singers. Tom Lang is a phenomenally gifted singer-songwriter who is also the consummate communicator of leading edge technology. We simply couldnt have addressed vocal effects and looping without him. But we had so many areas to address, even after consulting 135 experts, that we needed a team to check details, fill in blanks and tweak text: a heartfelt thanks to TC-Helicon staff David Hilderman, Laura Clapp Davidson and Craig Fraser. Joey Elkins offered important advice when we first outlined the project and Jes Vang and Tobias Weltzer made invaluable connections to accomplished contributors with something to say. Thanks too to Carri-Lynne Eldergill for making connections to artists. We appreciate the careful work of Christopher Ashton and Aled Thomas in looking over (and over!) the manuscript before publication.

There is one person who fought beyond all others for this book to be rooted in relevance and depth: my co-editor, Kathy Alexander. Kathy spoke with leading professionals all over the world, transformed complicated ideas into compelling text, and tirelessly presented strategies to make this book even better even after we thought we were done. She also spent hours pouring over one thousand survey responses, ensuring that each chapter stayed on track with addressing what singers most want to know. This book is at the heart of her vision for singers and her personal stamp on its contents is a major reason why it turned out so well.