Product Details

• Actors: All That Remains, Melissa Auf Der Maur, Randy Blythe, Keith Buckley, Dallas Colin Coyle
• Directors: Denise Korycki
• Writers: Melissa Cross, Denise Korycki
• Format: Color, DVD, NTSC
• Language: English
• Subtitles: English
• Region: All Regions
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Warner Brothers Pub.
• DVD Release Date: March 6, 2007
• Run Time: 145 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000AVZVTY
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,986 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "The Zen of Screaming: Vocal Instruction for a New Breed" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

ZEN OF SCREAMING - DVD Movie

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

41 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Too bad this is more advertisement than lesson..., October 30, 2007

By 

J. Atwell (Lafayette, CO United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Zen of Screaming: Vocal Instruction for a New Breed (DVD)

I heard Melissa Cross on NPR and immediately bought this DVD, excited to learn how to scream without hurting my voice. I was disappointed to find the disk is about 55% advertisement for Ms. Cross, 44.5% standard vocal warmups and exercises, and 1 or 2 minutes of vague information on screaming.

I'm sure the vocal warmups are helpful for those who are too "hip" to take voice lessons, but if you've ever had a voice lesson, there isn't much you haven't heard before here. If you are interested in watching various metalheads praise Melissa Cross, then you'll love this DVD. But if you already have the least bit of vocal training and just want to learn how to apply it to screaming, be aware that the material here is pretty thin.

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A little Disappointed..., November 6, 2006

By 

John Habibi "John" (Detroit, MI) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Zen of Screaming: Vocal Instruction for a New Breed (DVD)

The information you are looking for is in here. The thing that made me disappointes is that for the most part it is an ad for Melissa Cross. She seems like an awesome teacher. I just wish that it was more information on technique than Melissa Cross plugs.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars so much better stuff out there..., May 12, 2010

By 

neoromantic (Madison, WI United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Zen of Screaming: Vocal Instruction for a New Breed (DVD)

This is pretty awful. As far as the regular technique, it looks like Melissa is better than the average voice teacher, but certainly nowhere near the best in the world, and if you're buying a home product, you can just get the best instead of this. At least she's telling you to breath in through your nose and she's not telling you to raise your soft palate like some teachers, esp classical, but she's emphasizing breathing way too much and wants you to push from the gut like a bad classical voice teacher. If you raise your shoulders when you breathe, maybe her classical technique section will help you... that is if you can get passed her home made cutesy names alla Phoebe from "Friends." Phoebe tried to teach guitar and calls an F cord "old lady" etc... Melissa has so many comical names "Rotunda" breathing, a "by the way" catch breath, etc... All of it is imagery based teaching on the off chance that when you think of the same thing she's thinking of you'll do what she's doing... instead of actually training your muscles to do what she's doing without the intermediate step. She actually makes people bite pencils to get better placement. It's comical. All of that is pretty common among voice teachers, though, and is her teaching at best. At worst she encourages you to scream on pitches to build compression on high notes, which of course if you actually do you'll hurt yourself bad, but if you can match what she's doing (without any explanation other than the demonstration) you'll sing in a good balanced mix and then leave with the idea that that's what it means to "scream" on a pitch. The next 20 minutes are all telling you not to push to hard, so maybe it's ok to use the word "scream" like that.

If you don't want to spend much money, don't buy this, buy Seth Rigg's "Singing for the Stars." If you don't mind spending quite a bit buy Brett Manning's "Singing Success" and/or "Mastering Mix," both expensive programs, both worth every penny. These are three of the best home vocal programs in the world... when you can get that, why buy this?

As far as the actual false cord death metal 'scream' technique this product is hyped as covering, there really isn't much here. I don't know much about false cord technique except Tuvan throat singing which is very healthy for your voice, just keep the constriction above your vocal cords and not right on them. If it makes you want to cough, you're squeezing too low, stop, and see if you can make the false cord sound while maintaining an open, unhindered true tone underneath. I checked out this DVD to learn more about false cord singing and I know nothing more about it now than I did ... it feels like at least 3 hours ago but it can't have really been that long or it wouldn't all fit on the DVD!

For death metal screams you might try something like Cathrin Sadolin's "Complete Vocal Technique" home program, which has been recommended to me. I've ordered and it hasn't arrived yet. It looks much better than this, though, like it actually tells you how do these death metal vocals safely, rather than just wanting you to experiment until you find the way that doesn't hurt. I feel bad promoting a product I haven't yet sampled, but I don't want to simply say this is bad without recommending an alternative. Cathrin's program *has* to be better than this waste of time and money. Try that or get a good vocal coach who's familiar with the kind of death metal vocals you want to learn. If you try to learn death metal vocals just from this DVD, you could be wandering around in the dark hurting your voice for months before you stumble upon a healthy coordination.