Singing "higher" by singing... "lower"!

C

chessparov

New member
Just wanted to let my fellow singers here know that lately I've been getting better results by doing more singing in the lowest
COMFORTABLE area of my voice (high bass).

Net impact seems to be more ease in the highest comfortable range as it "places" the voice better, partly due to more efficient
breath management, and being more vocally relaxed.

Any feedback or questions from anyone who's done this, or plans to, is welcomed BTW.

Chris
 
HI BROTHER,

Fist of all congratulations !

I remember a point in lessons where I had stormed over to my coach's house.
I had done a recording and I was very unhappy with the sound of my voice.

Prior to lessons I sang very in the throat, he had instructed me to sing more nasal.
When I heard my voice on a recording, it was "way to nasal".

In anger, I expressed my lack of satisfaction with the sound and the 5 years
or so of lessons I felt I had wasted.

He said, "Ok, for now on, you pull it back into the throat."

From that day on, as he would of said,"The book has opened up." And it did.
I consider myself trained from that day on. Even though I continued with lessons for many more years, there was no point in time like that one. All lessons after that was simply to stretch the range and reinforce the mechanics of singing, but really the learning was mostly over.


Perhaps this is where you are, and I really hope so, for you will feel like you can do no wrong.
Anything that you will want to sing, in range of course, will come out with out any thought at all.

All the technical things we have practiced, becomes habit, natural, easy, flowing.
Control and placement become a joke, "oh, today because I'm not feeling 100%, I'll make it just a slight bit more nasal for protection." or " I'm feeling really good, lets see what I can really do."

I'm excited for you. Great days ahead.
 
Chris, can you give more details as to what you are experiencing. I am not quite sure what you mean. Are you saying that you are directing the sound more downward?
 
morindae,
As I understand it Chris is talking about the actual range of the voice. I was told that if I exercised my lower register my higher register would increase and vice versa. It makes pefect sense to me that thru this excercise your voice just naturally becomes more flexible increasing your overall range. Chris are we on the same page?

-b
 
Ok terocious, that makes sense to me. My interpretation of what you are saying is that if you get your technique working well in the lower part of your range then it should carry over to the higher range.
My belief about this so far, and I could be completely wrong, is that the middle voice has to be developed to gain easier access to the the whole of one's voice. So far I have found this to be true. However, being a self taught hack, I'm always happy to learn something new. :)
 
Chris did a real good thing in his initial post by emphasizing comfortable. An analogy for this concept would be doing a split every day. Each day you get closer to the floor and your body is that much more flexible but you have to do this slowly or you can hurt yourself... I think, Morindae, what you were saying about the middle voice is true. I remember one of my voice teachers telling me that she thought my "True Voice" was actually higher than how I chose to speak on a daily basis. She then went into the social and psycological reasoning for the choices we make vocally. The most generic being that guys think they are supposed to have a low voice and then on to the more personal such as who are heros are and the list goes on... You get the point. Anyhow I did not really want to hear it at the time but since have come around to the idea of a true voice. I realise that this was not specifically what you were saying but I think in the land of terminology middle voice and true voice are, you know, connected.

-b
 
You guys are on track because my "true" voice is placed lower than what I've been conditioned to use (about 1/2 a note).
Really a full voiced baritone, rather than a high baritone.

Actually, according to what I'm learning now, start at the lowest
comfortable (yes that word again!:)) area of the voice and work upward.

Chris

P.S. "Low" meant low notes, etc.
 
Chris, I'm wondering if your voice has changed as you have matured, and it is now more comfortabe as a full tenor. I think I remember reading in one of your posts that you are in your early forties.
Terocious, I am totally hip to what you are saying. The term I have heard for this is 'the speech fundamental frequency' (SFF). I once read somewhere that American men have a lower SFF than European men. Read into that what you want :)
My own SFF is on the low side, which according to what I have read, isn't natural, and tends to strain the voice.
 
I always wanted to be a "true" tenor, but nature decreed baritone, and it is getting fuller as the years progress.
(pretty "thin" as a teenager/young adult)

Chris
 
I hear you Chris, I have a similar history. I'm a high Baritone with aspirations to the tenor range. But realistically, I have to stay more in the baritone range to perform comfortably.
 
In high school chorus I was a tenor 2. I think I am closer to a baritone now. Cigarettes? That SFF thing is interesting. Most of the guys I know from europe do indeed speak in a higher register. Another thing my voice teacher told me was that it sounded as if my voice was coming from behind a curtain. I think my voice has opened up a lot since then but it is crazy how that image of my voice has stuck with me.

-b
 
The normal tendency is for our voices to "drop" as we age.

Typically an entire note at the "top", HOWEVER, we usually gain
way more than that at the "bottom".
Hell for operatic tenors, heaven for baritones and especially
basses! :D

Chri
 
hi im nathan
i seem kinda lost about singing
im 14 yrs old and im currently trying to increase my range higher. I was just wondering how i should go about it, should i do exercises up high or should i do them down low or what should i do?
If anyone can help me it would be really great
thanx
 
it would be good if someone can give me some advice quickly because i can only get Eb above middle C and i wish i could just get a bit higher. Now lately ive been trying to strenghten my higher notes but what i have noticed is im not getting any higher notes, just more lower ones. Am i doing anything wrong? i would be so much happier if i could have more higher notes, so if anyone has any advice please tell me
Thankyou
 
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