Categories: Music

How to Properly Scream Hardcore Vocals

You’ve seen it all over the place, you’ve tried it yourself, only to find that you can’t speak for a few days afterwards. That’s right – I’m talking about vocal techniques of hardcore music(AKA: “Screaming”).

So how DO the vocalist of all these bands do hour long sets and walk away able to talk just fine? This is a question asked by the listeners of hardcore/metal music everywhere – and it’s a great question. Are we to assume that these people are just born with bodies that can produce these sounds and we aren’t? Well, this may be part of it, but you too can produce a scream without hurting yourself as well – in fact, it should almost feel relaxing when you’re doing it the right way. That’s right – relaxing! You should consult a doctor about any and all health concerns. Now that that’s said, let’s get to it…

When properly doing this type of vocal work, at first, do no more than a few minutes a day. As soon as it hurts, STOP! That means you are straining and damaging your vocal chords. When you produce the sound, you shouldn’t “push” anything out, it should come out easily and your mouth, neck, throat, tongue should all be relaxed. Your breathing should always come from the diaphram, no matter what.

Those are a few preresiquites of screaming. Now that tha’s out of the way, how the sound is produced is by the outer part of your vocal chords putting an acoustic barrier on your actual vocal chords. These are called “False Chords.” The sound is formed by air being pushed from your diaphram through your vocal chords off this acoustic barrier, and thus we have the scream. It should in no way feel like it sounds, if it does, you’re most definitely doing something wrong!

What I’m going to do is give you a few ideas and exercises to work on so that you’ll be able to produce these sounds for an up of at least 30 minutes with no trouble at all, then in the next article, I will give exact specifics to keep going and going and going in an endless manner, making any scream that you wish to make.

First, know that the sound comes from your palette(the roof of your mouth that you can touch if you pull your tongue back and touch it). For a few moments, try to hum. Hum, and feel the vibration on the roof of your mouth. Continue to do this for a few moments, then, ‘push down’ with your diaphram – and this next part is very important! – do this lightly. What this will do is turn your hum into a nice growl. Work on this until you can do it for 3- 7 minutes without it hurting, then start saying your ABC’s, words, etc until that also does not hurt.

I know, simple, right? Well, it should be. In the next article we will have a superload of screaming sounds and techniques for you to do so you should definitely look forward to it! For more information about screaming, you should check out The Zen of Screaming(I have a review of it on my blog at: ilovemusicandgames.com/zen-of-screaming-review-pt-1 which I most definitely welcome you to check out)