Punk Rock/ Grunge Singing

Hi,

The two artists that I would like to emulate would be Kurt Cobain and Joe Strummer. What would I need to focus on if I wanted to attain a voice like these two with their harsh, raspy, and aggressive voices? I am a beginner by the way. Key songs would be: 

- Smells Like Teen Spirit (Nirvana) 

- Tommy Gunn (The Clash)

Thanks. 

Hi James, I'm asking Abram to weigh in on this, since he has experience teaching rock vocals and distortion! 

Hi Camille,

Have you heard anything from Abram? 

James

Thanks for checking in, James! I'll follow up!

Hey!

Sorry for the late reply! 

You definitely want to be cautious about singing with the harsher grit style as a beginner. My recommendation is to focus on fundementals and anything that works on support in both chest and head voice first. The key is actually finding a lighter mix sound (that doesn't necessarily mean less support!) for the healthiest grit in your upper head voice register. One you have enough space to work with, then experiment with gently squeezng your false vocal cord space into your actual vocal cords to create a little bit of distortion. It's easiest to find in heaed voice first! Allowing for some build up of mucos to sing on is also helpful.

I have a short video on adding grit to your sound borrowing from a throat singing technique. I plan on making a more complete rock course in the near future as well that goes into more depth with this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHhKOWpchxc

The other sound that's used a lot is vocal fry. This is mainly for the low less energetic singing in chest voice like in the beginning of "Smells Like Teen Spirit."

Finding a healthy chest voice grit takes time and careful experimentation so only work on this technique for short bursts and then focus on just conditioning and stretching your voice so you have a more sensative control over the muscles. I consider singing with grit like an extreme sport, so it takes more control and skill to ride the edge.  Lots of coughing, teary eyes, and any hoarsness/loss of voice is a sign you aren't doing it efficienctly and so if you get to that point, I recommend taking a break and working on it more carefully with a teacher who has experience in this area!

Hope that helps!

Abram