Category: VST

Incoming!

We may be seeing more from Curtis yet.

I went from wanting to get on MAID somehow (for the second time) to being tentatively optimistic regarding the progress of my voice.

Simply, I’d noticed a great change in my voice not too long ago (relating to a state it had moved into). And if that wasn’t enough, (which it wasn’t) I donned the training cape once more, and I was struck by the results!

It’s been four days of hard training, and my falsetto is coming in clearer after each session (In fact, it had a bit of power just 10 min ago).

Of course, that doesn’t mean it sounds good; however, it’s ACTUALLY there after 13 years of practically nothing!

I have to make some recordings of the recordings I’d made now (because they’re on a voice recorder!)

————————
——————
————
——

I am so far away from believing it’ll only take a couple months to have the VE I was born with; however, that’s not going to stop me from keeping that window of time in my head!

——
————
——————
————————

They’re all on the computer, now. Now, I need to make them into a video, or put them on soundcl—maybe I’ll just do that!

I was inspired by Terrence Howard’s exchange with Eric Weinstein on JRE to take the time to do the next logical thing: put the only surviving recordings of my falsetto, what it was and what it (moodily) ‘can be’, back-to-back. And I threw in a recording done today, just to elaborate on what I mean by ‘moodily’ and ‘can be’.

Doug’s (my second vocal coach) family may still have the backing tracks + vocals going back to the days when he was helping me out. Of course, I don’t mean to assume he has passed, but it has been 15+ years. Wherever he is, I hope he’s doing what he loves doing! (Marvin Gaye – What’s Going On, The Spencer Davis Group – I’m a Man, Marvin Gaye – Funk Me, and The Spencer Davis Group – Midnight Train are all I believe were recorded.)

Have your pick from Rumble and YouTube!

Original recordings where clips are from are stated in video descriptions, but let’s put them here, too, for convenience: ‘Freeform Voice Progress Talk: The Joy of Falsetto’ and ‘The Mutual Re$pect Gang – It Feels Good (to Be Alive). The third appears online only in this video.

Provided you are the least bit piqued, consider reading this article:

The meaning of the final evolution of man

Provided you are still hanging on, consider jumping to this page of articles with (most) my inferences, speculations, and conclusions contained therein:

A little VST in order

PS: The changing of pitch in the first recorded clip is intentional, though the phenomenon, as a whole, is nothing but apparent when working with so little VE, i.e., it’ll change pitch on its own.

Whenever I see a production item taking place in a castle, I have a mix of feelings rush over me. A mix of amusement, melancholy (if that’s a good word for it), and a truer suspense of belief rush over me. For reasons herein, I will attempt to express.

They’re truly doing their job: acting. There isn’t anything here to the average user/viewer. How many times have you seen a scene playing out inside a castle with those pesky humans? Often, they’ll be involved in the transformation of motion to movements we recognize as medieval; however, not always! I can’t think of a time, but there surely, have been moments of abstract play too! I haven’t the slightest what I’m talking about in this regard, though I am sure most the goals have been to portray some element of an ancient life inside these castles, as they were originally built in an ancient time, and their role in modern society does leave one to speculate what other purpose they can have… Perhaps we’ll find something truly useful in castles in the future, utilizing AI robots to hold, for instance, the most elaborate instance of super ball competitions. The future is a web of infinite untapped potential, after all. Let’s see what happens!

The main topic of this article is something of a complex item for me. I have nothing but a respect for an actor who tries their best to share an idea in the only way befitting their expertise and experience, yet there is a kind of subtle multi-layered hate that seeps into my emotion at the exposure to a product of this kind. I hate that no one can see—except you, perhaps—that these actors are trying to mimic a lost natural art. A sense of loss is part of one of the layers of hate.

While it may be unavoidable, there is no doubt that modern reproductions of human interaction will lose much of how those who inhabited and visited these fortified masses following the years of their construction and in completion. I would like to point out, this is not for the reason you probably suspect however. No, I am not concerned about the arts that we’ve lost, per se. At least, though that may not necessarily true, surely, it isn’t what flares up my emotions in some dancing cocktail in this way!

I am affected by the loss of the VE these past citizens and nobility had. And if I were to compound its nuance, it is the forgetting and ignorance of the common nature. It is gone, and no one talks about it! And that drives me up the wall!

Think of how fleeting sound truly is for a second! Once it has ceased, it ceases, thusly, surely never to be as observed again. But let this not make you think I am so sentimental that we should be recording everything! There is a beauty to the loss of sound, too, in that humanity will ring out it’s wailing and weeping for some time yet, and that will make us evolved, still. No! That issue I have is the severance of time evident in the carrying on of the generations.

And it can be once again! It can! I am desperate to believe it can be for the first time in existence… in the universe! That a pocket of humanity will realize the meaning of the final evolution of man: control of the voice.

It’s simple! The problem is, I just don’t know for sure what direction you need to focus on and from where. I’m sure intuiting what you have to do with the focus and direction and from where part dependent on the way you voice feels and sounds is the best formula for success. I do very much recall trying all sorts of combinations, including one that felt like it was tearing the tissue above(?) my bellybutton. I stumbled on that one by accident a number of times (because you do have to be somewhat careless when path-finding). Another felt as though it was raising my larynx so high that uttering from the state was impossible. Intuit the way forward by allowing the voice to do all the work, but be gentle for the first month or so! I don’t aim to tell you how to experiment, following my footsteps; just be aware: Technique in this discipline isn’t anything like singing, speaking, coughing, yelling, hiccuping, growling, nor any other typical known application for the voice. Glottal stop utterances. Underline that in your workbook!

It did put me into shock losing my voice like that. It was so quick. And all it took was choosing an unnatural direction to focus. In combination with altering the from where during regular speech for a little time, something did happen. And I knew what it was in an instant! Of course, let’s be observant here: I had been doing glottal stop utterances for months. Maybe not every day, but we’d be fools to ignore that fact. I’ve tried hard to not be a victim in my day-to-day and simply state when here, but I have to be honest. If my ramblings on this website or on Twitter have made me sound like a victim, then so be it. That’s the way the cookie crumbles… This is a big deal. It’s one of those things where I figure it makes sense to throwback to the final edit: You own a car. You know it has an engine, but let’s be honest, you know nothing about how it works.

We need someone else to do months of glottal stop utterances. This someone needs a voice energy strong enough to notice the shift I noticed while doing them. This person needs loads of patience, and to be rather open-minded. Bottom line is, having the required voice energy on top of it all may be the limiting factor! Perhaps it makes sense to mention here that in the few days before the incident, I was able to produce a sound that felt so much farther out in front than what I’d become accustomed to in my abilities. If you hold the suspicion that it is likely there will be so many who are already capable of this from the moment they begin and will thus not have any clue what I’m talking about, rest assured! I am certain this will be the case. A similar phenomenon will arise with those who cannot imagine their voice being further out in front of their person … their mouths … their throat areas as well! This is guaranteed!

I am aware you are able to ‘grab’ your voice when it’s strong enough and positioned, for the most part, out in front—or just plain strong enough. This! This! This! This is a clue! It is not a clue because yours truly is trying to be cryptic. No! It is a clue in the way that a snap container lid has an arrow, letting you know which way to pull. And be oh so frustratingly gentle! Be so gentle it makes you consider your voice a living entity inside you, with a beating heart and a desire: to be heard from the mountain tops! Only when you’ve noticed how different every utterance is will you glance at the depth of the voice and its brilliance. And I believe it is here where so many will give up because they will understand my words.

𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬, and in reality, this method raises a number of questions to be explored:

•　Just how much time does one need to excel using this method?
•　Just what exactly is the trigger to commanding such an instinctual mechanism?
•　Does in-dream VE exercising interfere with the rejuvenating properties of sleep?
•　Just how dangerous is this exercising, anyways?

There are other questions, too. We’ll get to them when we get around to them!

（１）I believe it would take a little bit of time to wrestle with yourself during sleep. The line is a tad blurry because when you dream, you dream and are dreaming. There seems to be no way to always become cognizant during a dream because it has a way of carrying you away.

The second issue lies in the ‘want’, too: ‘Do I want to take hold of a lucid dream and shape it into an exercise?’ For the past few weeks, I have been trying my hardest to reconcile within myself the battle between decisions before slumbering: ‘Do I want to take hold of a lucid dream and turn it into an exercise?’; ‘Can you please feel like it, not just now but during the dream period too?’; ‘Will you try more than once this 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘨 “morning”?’

There does also appear to be a third issue and that is the limitation of an exercise cycle: one attempt consisting of the seizure of the lungs, and waking up from the feeling of such a mass of VE overcoming you. In short, there is no way to optimize the process because the feeling of such a mass of VE on your abdomen is overwhelming!

（２）I can imagine, at this point, that the need to have a functioning voice is rooted in genes (which is biology) and temperment (which is argued to be taking place after birth. The whole nature vs. nurture prototype). The question is ‘What is the trigger?’

Well I’ll say, part of the trigger is mimicry. When in the womb, there is no doubt that a fetus is subconsciously mimicking what it hears. I posit, by the time it has vocal folds, it surely is trying out its organ in its mind, during its first dream.

But what does this mean? I have my suspicions, and what I can claim to know is that a ‘subconscious’ sustained ‘utterance’ during a lucid dream promotes voice growth.

So, are you screaming, crying out, yelling, or any other synonym hypernymous to utterance? In your dream, yes, but you have to feel it, too!

（３）For this, I haven’t the slightest. There is the cycle of waking up after every attempt, and that surely gets in the way of resting.

（４）I have thought about this just a little. If, for the sake of argument, you didn’t wake up after having your breathing paralyzed, you’d certainly suffocate, but that’s common sense – and that flies in the face of biology and how we’re programmed. I suppose, if I understand sleep apnea correctly, there is the chance of something serious happening; however, that would be because of sleep apnea (something you should seek professional help for).

I do wonder what the dangers really are. We are, in fact, tapping into the very mechanism that drove the growth of our VE in the womb. What territory comes with this exploration of subconscious phenomena?


For today, I’ll leave you with this: Forever we’ll ponder and justify our behavior. Sometimes we’ll reconcile; sometimes we’ll rectify, but most times we’ll be living with regret. It has been my aim to do my best expressing my experience(s). There will be a lot of turbulence as our world goes through its changes. But there’s one thing I don’t want to regret: not contributing to society the only way I can since having my singing voice taken from me.

So then, let us open up to this new thing we call conversation, shall we?

A: I’ve been concerned about this nearly my whole life, really, because it concerned me, you see?

I was (and am) so aware of my voice. You could say I was hypersensitive to it. I always wondered how it was made and why it seemed as though I had to put so much effort into it.

I have answers to these now, but at the time… ~14-16 years old … I didn’t have a clue.

A: Yes! Well, you see, that was the most pressing thing and the most stressful aspect of it all: To think that it is possible to ‘skip’ the voice!

I was immediately put into some great state of denial by this—being there and living it in that moment. Honestly, I still am somewhat troubled by how easy it is [under the right conditions].

A: Here. I’ll record myself right now utilizing my voice in vocal fry. I’ll have to send you home with some homework though; you’ll have to learn how to vocal fry. But it’s important that we both use the same device with the same settings.

Pay attention to the volume of the hiss by the rocerder itself, and play that off the loudness of the vocal fry. Of course, pay attention to what dissimiliarity presents itself between the voice clips too!

You’ll notice something very sincerely troubling.

Now also, remember to edge between effortlessness and clean tone. Do it in one (or two or three) separate utterances: from lightest, faintest touch to solid, clean tone. And compare that with my sample.

A: Yes, that’s a state.

A: Yes, that’s a state too!

A: Yes, VE is instrumental in understanding why you can’t do it but someone else (a singer) can.

A: For personal reasons, it just doesn’t make sense to try to be as—forgive the pun—vocal about VST as I know is possible. Also, it doesn’t help that I don’t handle negative feelings very well. If, during my lifetime, the day comes when VST is ‘known’ and more accessible and more is done on the scientific playing field, I’ll have to try to avoid the comments sections on my videos; mainly because I get the shakes, and that makes me feel quite horrible.

It would be nice if I weren’t like this, but this is how it is for me. One day, I may be glad I grew into this weak, fragile psyche.

A: I hate to cut you off, but I feel like that’s about all I’m interested in being interviewed about for right now. Come back later. By then, I’ll have come up with some more answers to your ever-inquisitive questions.

E͟s͟s͟e͟n͟t͟ial r͟e͟a͟d͟i͟ng:

The meaning of the final evolution of man

VST (final edit)

Voice Strength_next

Voice Strength short note: article 5gd2

Voice Strength small insight: article 5gd3

Congratulations: article 5gd4

Congratulations_II: article 5gd5

Congratulations_III: article 5gd6

---

S͟h͟o͟rt t͟h͟a͟nk y͟o͟us:

Thank you, Marvin Gaye, for being a voice to be trained by.
Thank you, Layne Staley, for being a voice which inspired.
Thank you, Doug, for being a fine vocal coach and music producer.
Thank you, nature and biology, for giving me a voice and making it next to impossible to ‘truly’ lose it.

Note: Thank-yous are subject to change.