Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A necessity for any rock singer., November 8, 2001
I read this book 2 years ago and thought it was great. Now I'm just reading it again, and I realise how much more than just "great" that book is. It is a necessity!!! Just get it, NOW!It's not just another book full of scale exercises. This one goes much deeper into yourself, with that overall concept that a singer is both a musician and its instrument, all in one. And it really helps understanding the instrument better: how your body is going to react to what your mental state is, what you eat, what drugs you do... Then it also explains how to get rid of all the muscle activity that comes with singing that you DON'T need. So it kinda goes from the principles that everything is already inside you, you just add to many tensions to it making it difficult. Mark is really good at helping you isolate and focus on the simple muscles you'll need to sing, and develop those while getting rid of everything else you do that prevents your voice from going out unaltered...... Another thing I love with that book is that instead of finding yourself practicing hundreds of various scales exercises, but instead you'll know precisely why you're doing a particular exercise, and what it's developing in your body. That makes the whole exercise much more valuable!!! Get it, read it, and practice. And in two years, read it again. You'll understand how necessary reading material it is for any rock singer.
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14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
There Are Better Books Than This One, May 9, 2005
This book is obviously a labor of love. It is clear to me that Mr. Baxter is passionate about singing, and teaching singing, and that this book--to which he provided not just the text, but the illustrations too--is his baby. For these reasons, he should fire his editor....
The book is full of typos, and very poorly organized. The typos I can live with. The over-development of some topics, and under-development of others, and the problematic organization...I can't live with them.
First, there is much too much unnecessary verbiage concerning anatomy. We simply don't need page after page after page of detailed anatomical charts and descriptions of our "instrument." Some, yes, but not volumes. The space would have been much better spent providing useful exercises for, say, keeping the larynx low, which Baxter says is vitally important (and he's not alone), but for which there is practically no instruction beyond "feel your Adam's apple, and when it rises, force it down." Okay, great--HOW?
There IS useful information in this book, but it is so often buried in what seems to me to be unnecessary exposition that you often have to dig for it. I think it would have been much more helpful to begin with some basic anatomy, then some typical problems, their remedies (exercises), and then more detailed instruction for fine-tuning your singing.
I found some of the breathing exercises helpful, but got so tired of wading through the excessive exposition that I got another book (Roger Love's, which I strongly recommend over this one), one that more closely meets my needs. This book does not come with a CD, so if you want to do the exercises, you will need a musical instrument of some sort to practice with--and not a wind instrument!
I suppose this book might serve as a useful reference, and that's why I gave it three stars instead of two, but as a book of practical instruction, I'm afraid it falls short. You won't hit the ground running, or notice dramatic improvements quickly if you rely on this book. The exact opposite is true of Roger Love's book, which is why I recommend you get it before this one.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Slow but sure, February 16, 2005
Mark Baxter through this and his other published material has not only changed my singing, but also my life. The problem with people who want to sing better is that they are IMPATIENT... impatience will only make the wrong group of muscles stronger. His approach is simple... in order to learn to sing better you need to vocalize, not sing. You need to vocalize around the sounds that feel loose and free and then challenge yourself a little more... if you crack, DON'T PUSH more air and make yourself hurt... as opposed to control, that is lack of control and nothing else. Mark's approcah isn't classical, and it really isn't about "special" exercises that turn you into a great singer in minutes... they're all about simplicity. Let your voice crack when you vocalize, adjust the air pressure, you might be pushing the air or using too little of it. Find the BALANCE between the amount of air coming from your lungs (and being regulated by your diagphragm) and the amount of resistance your vocal cords are putting up. It's really that simple! We singers make it harder either because we are insecure or underdeveloped. PATIENCE and HARD WORK is what achieving control over the voice takes! It's not about how loud you can blast, it's about how much dynamic control you have over your voice. Do not raise your larynx, you are using muscles that you do NOT need to be using. The idea, ESPECIALLY in rock music is to use THE LEAST amount of muscles it takes! If you're using your neck to control a pitch you're unnecesarily sacrificing your ability to RELEASE your voice. If you don't trust your voice (which you develop through training) it is unlikely that others would. Even if you're pushing it harder than you should, which will limit your abilities more than you could ever imagine. BUY THIS BOOK! I also recommend the Singer's Toolbox. They're both dated and the book has grammar and spelling issues, but the information and insights are INVALUABLE! Also do a search on his 15 minute warm-up routine... I live by it!
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Interact With Your Music: Discover, listen to, and buy new music, all from the pages of SPIN's digital edition, free to Amazon customers.
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