11 Comments
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Nick Sakes's avatar

This is very helpful! I’m about to embark on a 5 day tour with my band Dazzling Killmen and I never used to have problems blowing out my vocal cords…but now I do. I’m 61 years old. This helps. Thank you.

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Jacob Bannon's avatar

Good luck with your shows. I imagine by show 3 you will feel 100%.

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March Of Dissent's avatar

Cool. This is super helpful and thorough. And It's especially cool coming from such a stalwart source. I will keep this in mind for touring...We are working in the studio atm, and I can't help but wonder how similar/dissimilar your approach to studio time is--where applicable, of course.

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AM's avatar

Very interesting and complete list of advice. Having worked in a somewhat related field (audio for film), it's cool that you mentioned the mic cleaning/maintenance which is crucial. You meant isopropyl alcohol?

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Jacob Bannon's avatar

Correct. Though anything that will sanitize will do the job in a pinch.

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ScenarioBen's avatar

Very informative and I’d say you’re a pretty trusted source. I’ve been trying to figure out a warm-up myself, it seems to take me half a song to get my voice where I want it to be

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Jacob Bannon's avatar

That is about the same for me as well. Take care.

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ScenarioBen's avatar

Well then I’m in good company 🫡

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Thomas Burø's avatar

Wonderful. Very helpful. I always find that quality sleep is the most critical part to keeping my voice resilient and I get so stressed out if I can’t sleep (by my own thoughts, snoring band mates, adrenaline or whatever).

Recently, when playing with Lack and Tvivler I tried doing 20 minutes of full body stretching and warm up (skipping rope, air squats, overhead squats with skipping rope, etc). I found it not only helps me tune in to stage time, but also warms up my vocal cords and core. Really helpful.

Thanks for the text, Jacob. Your way of doing vocals has always been an inspiration.

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Briar Moth's avatar

When touring, do you avoid coffee altogether for the duration or just before performing?

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Jacob Bannon's avatar

Altogether.

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