Why no vocals?

[davephillips]

Why are a lot (mostly?) of the composed songs overhere instrumental? Why no vocals?
Would love to hear all your motivations, visions and opinions.

Some of us sing :

https://soundcloud.com/davephillips69/sets/blues

https://soundcloud.com/davephillips69/sets/songs-by-dlp

Best,

dp

[magicalex]

And what great singing it is!

[lykwydchykyn]

Well, for the casual/amatuer musician, the barrier to entry is a lot lower if you aren't doing vocals (or any instruments that require live-mic'ing). I mean if you want to make purely electronic music, you basically need a computer, a set of headphones, and your favorite sequencer.

If you want to do vocals, you need a good ADC that will do low-latency audio, a microphone, preamp, a quiet room (in which you can get loud), and, of course, some singing talent.

[sadko4u]

I think that the main reason is that the vocal lays a lot of limitation on the composition. Most vocalists can't sing chromatic gammas and precisely intonate, for example. Most of them have very limited (1.5 - 2.5 octaves) vocal range. Also it's very hard to write something new and original for the already written text because of the rhytmics limitations (and common very limited number of rules for writing poetry that affect the rhytmics, too).

[tavasti]

My personal point of view:

1) my voice, It's not that good. Try to make nice song when vocalist sounds like bull kicked to b*lls.
2) Lyrics: I don't want to make song of meaningless rubbish. On the other hand, don't want to give out too much of personal things. Then what's left?
3) Actual singing some melody, I think I can quite decently sing along on someone else singing, but when creating that melody by myself, harder. Can't create melody for vocals on the fly, like I create rifss/melody for guitar.

And how to solve these?
1) Stay on punk / something like that where sounding bad is ok
2) ???
3) Create vocal melody with synth, maybe then with vocoder / autotuner for experimenting, then sing along with it. Not tested will it work for me, hopefully have time to experiment with it following few months.

[davephillips]

My personal point of view:

1) my voice, It's not that good. Try to make nice song when vocalist sounds like bull kicked to b*lls.

I think that this is the main reason most players don't sing, they think their voice sucks. But you have to practice to get better, just like you did on whatever instrument you play. The first stages usually sound pretty bad, but if you practice you improve. Singing takes practice too.

There's your voice, and there's singing. Many singers don't have "good" voices but they sing just fine, and a "good" voice doesn't necessarily equate to a good singer.

2) Lyrics: I don't want to make song of meaningless rubbish. On the other hand, don't want to give out too much of personal things. Then what's left?

I tell my students to get a local newspaper and write songs about people and events they read about there. E.g., take a person's obituary and create a song about their life, real or imagined. Ditto for an event or other news item, you don't have to be accurate, just be creative.

Writing lyrics, just like playing and singing, improves with practice. Initial efforts are rarely impressive, skill in any endeavor takes time to acquire.

3) Actual singing some melody, I think I can quite decently sing along on someone else singing, but when creating that melody by myself, harder. Can't create melody for vocals on the fly, like I create rifss/melody for guitar.

Music critics sometimes refer to the "melodic gift" of certain composers. It does seem that some writers are better at melodies than others. Nevertheless, you can get better at writing melodies, again by simply practicing writing them, a *lot* of them.

And how to solve these?
1) Stay on punk / something like that where sounding bad is ok

Fine, if the genre fulfills your expectations as a musician.

2) ???

See above.

3) Create vocal melody with synth, maybe then with vocoder / autotuner for experimenting, then sing along with it. Not tested will it work for me, hopefully have time to experiment with it following few months.

That's as good approach as any. Keep it up, try other things if you need a break, but keep at it. I can't say for sure that practice will get you there, but I can say for sure that *not* practicing will definitely not get you there. Find a method you enjoy, stick to it, improvement will come.

HTH,

dp

[lykwydchykyn]

Why need talent? Go for it, i would say.

Well, ok. Talent, or the chutzpah to sing without talent.

Rap can be a solution. Or screaming rock or metal. So that all ain't a good reason.

As a singer who was called on to Rap on an album, I can attest that Rap takes talent if you don't want to sound like a complete dufus. It's a talent I don't think I have (and I'm ok with that, I'll stick to singing).

Anyway, I'm just pointing out (or, rather, surmising) why people tend not to do it, not why they shouldn't.

Just to be clear: I make music with and without vocals, it just comes down to what kind of music I'm making.

[tavasti]

First of all, thanks for great responses for Beck & Dave!

I think that this is the main reason most players don't sing, they think their voice sucks. But you have to practice to get better, just like you did on whatever instrument you play. The first stages usually sound pretty bad, but if you practice you improve. Singing takes practice too.

Yes, I know. And that's one problem: with great voice (in terms of decibels) practice needs empty house. I've heard, that me talking in telco is sometimes annoying even if I'm behind -35 db door. So singing would need family away, and definitely not practice or record when my family is in sleep.

2) Lyrics: I don't want to make song of meaningless rubbish. On the other hand, don't want to give out too much of personal things. Then what's left?

I tell my students to get a local newspaper and write songs about people and events they read about there. E.g., take a person's obituary and create a song about their life, real or imagined. Ditto for an event or other news item, you don't have to be accurate, just be creative.

Does not sound to be my way. That would be meaningless still for me, and for my 'rush years' life I don't have time & energy for such plain practice. Need to have something I want to say, and I dare to say.

And how to solve these?
1) Stay on punk / something like that where sounding bad is ok

Fine, if the genre fulfills your expectations as a musician.

Near enough, for middle aged man starting from zero, all this is just therapy.
For sure I can say, that with my own voice it is impossible to create music which I would like most. I won't never sound like Ronnie James Dio or Timo Kotipelto, and even less like Tarja Turunen or Pat Benatar.

[Lyberta]

I don't think instrumental compositions qualify as songs.

[chaocrator]

Why no vocals?

because there are VERY few singers that treat their voices as musical instruments.
the vast majority treats voice as the instruments for articulating text in (more or less) music friendly manner.

[rghvdberg]

Got a few instrumental songs you could write lyrics for and sing along.
Feel free to write lyrics and add the vocals.
https://soundcloud.com/rghvdberg/rghvdb ... day-osc-88

And one song a friend of mine made lyrics to and I'm gonna remix with vocals sung by a kid.
You can hear why
https://soundcloud.com/rghvdberg/rghvdb ... ttle-train

[CraigPid]

I notice on my page ... https://soundcloud.com/craig-pidruchny ... there are 9 instrumentals to 5 vocal tracks. I think the main reason I lean toward writing instrumentals is that I'm not really so good with words and I can express myself so much better with the guitar. If I sit down and try to write a vocal song I usually get disgusted with myself and trash it. At the same time, if you listen to pop music in general, the lyrics are usually so trite and general nonsense. So maybe I'm too hard on myself but I would prefer to write a song that is meaningful and hasn't already been said millions of times.

[sysrqer]

I make stuff with vocals.