Warming up and proper breathing are two major components of good screaming. By warming up, you are not only preparing your voice/improving your preformance, but it also pumps you up, lets you get the feel of it (especially how your voice sounds in the room where you're singing (a hollow sounding room, an absorbant one)) and it can also help a whole lot with stage fright. If you're already in the stage area for half an hour, it's not going to be quite as scary as if you just got there a second ago.
Warming up--
This is very imporant, especially for the overall tone and quality of your voice. Your throat is a muscle, and if it is overworked, it can injure or get sore just like any other muscle.
Often the hardest part about warming up is finding a place to do it! It helps if you warm up a little bit all day. Buzz around, hum. Just anything that will keep you going. Good places to warm up are in cars, a room in the building or place you're singing at (IF you can find one) OR if bands are already playing, some people just warmup in the crowd. People probably wont notice if it's loud.
When first starting your warmup, just make easy hums, nothing too hard. Move on to making EEEE AHH and OOO sounds, buzzing sounds, and then start to focus on your tone and quality/pitch.
Do a few scales, (it's great if you have a piano/keyboard or guitar to help you match the pitch with, but alone will do as well) If you pull a note that is off key, start from the beginning and go up again, slowly. Don't speed up until you have the scale down pat. If there is a note you just can't get, don't over stress. You can try more or less slurring up to reach the note. It's a gradual thing. THEN start over.
Warming up can take anywheres from 10-15 minutes to over an hour. Much of it depends on how much you're singing.
Breathing--
This is one of the most important things of singing, and so many never realize it. With singing, you have to breathe efficiently (obviously) otherwise, you'll run out of air. uhoh.gif
The most effective breathing method is sticking your gut out and controlling your air with your stomach (diaphragm). When you breathe in, your stomach goes OUT (not just your chest). Your abdomen is much more powerful than just your throat/lungs, and it will give you a steady stream of air, which will help keep your tone even and improve your dynamics. If you're doing this right, it should feel like the sound is coming from your chest, and coming through your throat. You shouldn't feel pain afterwards. The entire idea of proper breathing, is being efficient with your air. You will realize how little air it takes to make a good sound.
A good way to practise this (especially when you're first starting off) is laying on your back and breathing. When you breathe in, watch your stomach go up. When you breathe out, it should go down.
Starting off--
Most people start off whisper-screaming. You make the rough whispery sounds with your voice, but without the volume. You can practise this laying down so you can focus on proper breathing at the same time.
Next, bringing up the volume, with growling or screaming. Try doing long notes. Start off soft, then get louder, then get soft again. Do a slow scale of this. Take your time. Try laying down for this too, as you still must get used to the breathing technique. Do this until you're feeling quite comfortable.
From what I've heard if you're growling correctly, it should feel like you're on the verge of a burp.
If you think you have anything to add to this, post it, and I'll add it here.
(taken from taborama)
