It seems like it's been awhile since we did one of these, where you identify various grit techniques you hear. This is Judas Priest live from 1982. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9PjOhz3FSM At only three seconds in, Rob Halford says: "Hey Memphis"! - Is this motorboat grit? I'm not sure because I know Metallica is sort of the quintessential example of motorboat grit, but here I'm hearing the subharmonics emphasized more than I ever do in Hetfield's vocals. The only time Hetfeild came even close was maybe on ...And Justice For All and he blew put his voice. soon after. Meanwhiule, Halford is going strong at 74 years old! Clearly Halford's using a different, healthier technique than Hetfield was using on ...And Justice. Throughout the spoken intro, what is the grit technique, or grit techniques Halford is using? The spoken intro gets much grittier at 24 seconds into it when he says "The Metal Gods"! Is that Hardcore Bark? I associate Upper Grunt more like what Mick Jagger does on Start Me Up (that was a great critique/explanation you did on that)! If he isn't using Hardcore Bark when he says "The Metal Gods" and it actually is Upper Grunt, what makes Halford's Upper Grunt so much more distorted than Jagger's? MY FAVORITE QUESTION IS COMING UP - PLEASE ANSWER THE QUESTION IN THE PARAGRAPH BELOW : ) The singing starts at 47 seconds with: "We'd taken too much for granted"- Again, I can't tell if thjis is Upper Grunt of Harcore bark. Is there some sure telltale sing that it is one or the othjer, or is possible for a singer to straddle the line between Upper Grunt and Hardcore Bark? If you only answer one thing I really hope you answered what I asked in the above paragraph. At 52 seconds he sings "And all the time it had GROWN" - I put "grown" in caps because he gets a different,. more gurgly, more distorted sound on that word. How does he get that effect? It sounds so cool! Afterwards, for at least the next minute or so, it sounds like Upper Grunt - there is still nothing as gurgly sounding or as filthily distorted as on "GROWN" at 52 seconds.

I happened to release an album last week https://tothesun.bandcamp.com/album/autonomic-solipsistic First I'll say a little something about this song from it https://tothesun.bandcamp.com/track/the-shepherd-and-the-slaver It was one of the ones recorded longest ago. After it was recorded, it was brought to my attention that the way I was going about the more aggressive sort of lines in it was resulting in an epiglottal growl. When I revisited this song, I didn't really think it sounded bad and decided to keep it anyway. If I claim it as a stylistic choice, then no one has to know that I didn't have control over it. I added some overdrive to it and then added a more lifted, crisper take to the choruses to give them some variety and stand out, leaving the old line as a double. So the choruses are newer and show more of the control I've developed in avoiding that epiglottal sound. As for the other songs recorded more recently, I did consciously avoid that sound on them when singing more aggressively.

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I finally understand why I've been stuck! Pushing too hard was the only repeatable way I could get distortion on notes. Fry scream has never been too hard. But real, on-demand, comfy distortion? Never. Cranking up my "gain knob" tended to just produce even cleaner, tighter tones (heavier mass) rather than the burbly grit I'm looking for. I took a break from learning distortion when I started making myself pass out in the middle of the best compressed grungy tones ~2nd passagio (G up to C#) even though my voice wasn't feeling any pain. Coming back into it in the past few months, trying to learn completely different coordination, I realize how seriously challenging it is for me to isolate adduction (heavier mass) from compression (more respiration pressure + constriction up top). This is why only "pushing" works: a huge force of wind overcoming heavy mass distorts - but too forcefully. If I could lighten up my mass while maintaining compression, then distortion would be a breeze! What's helped me learn differently this time: 1. Trying to always keep a little wind in the note - I visualize adding some of the 'h' sound (as in 'hot') to things, which took me a long time to grasp but is working out nicely. Doing it without a note sounds a bit like a constant wheeze. This seems to be part of the distortion "gain knob". 2. Using cry tilt more - Thanks to copying Draven's default singing mode, I'm currently obsessed with isolating cry exactly. Over-crying in silence with no other efforts (while doing chores, etc.) to exercise that strength and coordination, regardless of what my face decides to do. 3. More TA/CT strength-building - distorting positions are usually unstable, and more strength makes stability naturally easier. At constant pitches across my range, I do the "superhero": mmm-ee-yeh-yah-yoh-oo (my souped-up version of Maestro Kyle's "hero") with lots of quack at the y's. Doing these slowly in the tenor range feels 100% like lifting weights and *works* like gangbusters!

In 1976, Judas Priest recorded Sad Wings Of Destiny with Rob Halford on lead vocals and at 7:19 into the song Victim Of Changes, Halford begins what may be the first false fold scream on record. Halford absolutely does a false fold scream from about 7:19 to seven twenty two and a half seconds and you might argue that from about seven twenty two and a half seconds on, that maybe it no longer is a false fold scream and you'd be right. It's something much harder to do. At somewhere between 7:22 and 7:23, Halford's false fold scream transitions into something where the sound from the true vocal folds can be much more clearly heard despite a massive amount of distortion over his voice. Essentially from seven twenty two and a half seconds on, the false fold scream becomes a "distortion siren" that peaks at A5! It's a remarkable achievement for any vocalist, but by 1976 standards, this was the metal equivalent of what putting a man on the moon was in 1969. Here's the link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swiKkmcHxHY