Author Topic: Tips for increasing vocal range?  (Read 2398 times)

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Offline Ħ

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Tips for increasing vocal range?
« on: May 15, 2013, 12:44:32 AM »
Do you guys have any tips for increasing your vocal range? Starting at a E2-G4, trying to get to a Ab4 or maybe Bb4. Those notes show up a lot as the money notes. Do you guys know any tried and true methods for getting higher?
"All great works are prepared in the desert, including the redemption of the world. The precursors, the followers, the Master Himself, all obeyed or have to obey one and the same law. Prophets, apostles, preachers, martyrs, pioneers of knowledge, inspired artists in every art, ordinary men and the Man-God, all pay tribute to loneliness, to the life of silence, to the night." - A. G. Sertillanges

Offline Manolito Mystiq

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Re: Tips for increasing vocal range?
« Reply #1 on: May 15, 2013, 01:14:02 AM »
Let me help you on this one.

The reason that your range’s current max is about G4, is most probably because you’re not switching gear (literally).
Try to talk in a way when you do when you’re about to yawn, somewhere above your normal speaking pitch. Keep that sound and try to hold it talking lower and lower and lower. Yes, you probably sound a bit like a classical singer (no wonder, because they use a similar formation). This is just practice, though.

Sing a song of your choosing with this formation or do scales. It might sound odd, but again, this is an exercise. Go up to E4 and keep that formation going higher and higher. This formation has some lightness to it, some warmness, but definitely not some yelling sound. Actually, it’s more of a crying sound. You can easily cry in a high pitch, so this will be possible in a singing attitude. If you do this for some time, say several days, you might notice that a singer like James LaBrie is ‘crying’ from E4 and above. Other great theatrical-like sounding singers like Joey Tempest, Dennis DeYoung all have this crying sound, especially in the E4-C5 range.

If you’ve got the hang of it, you could try to get louder, but by being more present, not by yelling. It’s like giving a conference to a huge crowd. Think Steve Jobs. He was very present, but he wasn’t yelling.

That’s it for now.


STORY
---
I start with something seemingly unrelated: Newton’s Universal Law of Gravity. We still use it today, because in several cases it works. It’s an easy concept, in many ways, perfectly understandable. However, it’s flawed. The simple reason for that is that the idea of gravity is flawed. Technically, we are not pulled inside the earth from the core of the earth.
Einstein changed all that with his General Theory of Relativity. Due to the phenomenon called spacetime, we are pushed to the earth by an outside force.

Coming back to singing. For a very, very long time, the idea was that one would sing in their true voice / full voice or not.

Then there were methods had the concept of registers. You speak in your chest voice, somewhere starts your head voice, and if your support or vocal configuration is ‘incorrect’ you go into falsetto. Chest Voice, because the resonance comes from the chest, Head Voice, from the head, and falsetto, because it’s wrong (false).
This idea is derived from physical sensation one could get when he sings ‘in chest voice’, ‘in head voice’, etc. There’s already a problem, though. Labeling registers this way gives the idea that the tone is suddenly changed from one sound to another, but there are many singers who seem to have no bridges, no spots where they sounds significantly different. Therefore, the mix-register was introduced (Speech Level Singing concept as far as I know). You could see Mix as the ease and high range of head voiced ‘mixed’ with the power and presence of chest voice. This idea changed the concept of the physical sensations of chest and head voice, because how would that work, both resonating, or both at use? There are quite a number of people who don't have the sensation of chest resonance when in chest voice and especially not head resonance in head voice (I haven’t). For some methods, there's also vocal fry (your vocal folds are not stretched up) and whistle register (super formation of head voice, creating similar acoustics of a flute, resulting in a flute-like sound).

Methods using the register concept this way, let’s call it CHF (though some seem to have adapted/updated to modern research):
Speech Level Singing by Seth Riggs
Singing Success by Brett Manning (former SLS student and teacher) updated to modern research
Raise the Voice by Jaime Vendera
The Rock-N-Roll Singer’s Survival Manual by Mark Baxter
Pro Secrets of Heavy Rock Singing by Bill Martin

The Modern Approach
The late Jo Estill did a lot of research for decades how the voice works inside. What muscles are at use, how they are configured, etc. She created a system—not a method—of the human voice. Some CHF methods had ideas for what is going on inside, but they could only theorize. The idea that the voice is vibrating fully in chest voice and zipping up in head voice was a nice idea, though that’s not what’s really happening (but an effective idea, the succesful method SLS and SS used it all the time).
« Last Edit: May 15, 2013, 01:32:17 AM by Manolito Mystiq »

Offline Ħ

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Re: Tips for increasing vocal range?
« Reply #2 on: May 16, 2013, 03:33:33 PM »
Wow! Thanks for the help. I am getting used to recognizing "chest voice" and "head voice" and this is helpful. The problem is no one can physically show you how different techniques are supposed to feel. It's like a mystery and you have to keep experimenting before you figure it out.

Anyway, I worked on my range today, really tried the best I could and here's what I got for myself:
Lowest note: C2 (not sure how to tell if I am using vocal fry or not)
Highest note without falsetto: Ab4 (pretty tough, and everything above F4 sounds terrible even though I am technically hittiing the pitch)
Highest note with falsetto: A6

Question: as you get higher and higher (without falsetto), are you supposed to feel your throat tighten up? And also should you be feeling it start to enter into your nose a little bit? That is my experience with everything between F#4 and Ab4. Also my voice is kinda scratchy up there, not sure if that is a bad sign.
"All great works are prepared in the desert, including the redemption of the world. The precursors, the followers, the Master Himself, all obeyed or have to obey one and the same law. Prophets, apostles, preachers, martyrs, pioneers of knowledge, inspired artists in every art, ordinary men and the Man-God, all pay tribute to loneliness, to the life of silence, to the night." - A. G. Sertillanges

Offline Manolito Mystiq

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Re: Tips for increasing vocal range?
« Reply #3 on: May 16, 2013, 04:19:56 PM »
Your voice tightens up, because you probably want to keep this ‘chest voice’ sound. What you are doing is keeping your TA muscles as straight as possible to keep your vocal folds thick. Now, this is possible, even quite some tones higher than what you are (currently) capable of, but the sound will sound clamped/cramped.

Try to quack like a duck as sharp as possible from around C4 and experiment going higher, not singing but quacking. This will stimulate your twang to work and it will loosen up your TA muscles so your vocal folds will slowly become thinner the higher up, but still with a strong sound because of the twang.

Offline Ħ

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Re: Tips for increasing vocal range?
« Reply #4 on: May 16, 2013, 04:25:50 PM »
Quack like a duck? What syllable is that?
"All great works are prepared in the desert, including the redemption of the world. The precursors, the followers, the Master Himself, all obeyed or have to obey one and the same law. Prophets, apostles, preachers, martyrs, pioneers of knowledge, inspired artists in every art, ordinary men and the Man-God, all pay tribute to loneliness, to the life of silence, to the night." - A. G. Sertillanges

Offline Manolito Mystiq

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Re: Tips for increasing vocal range?
« Reply #5 on: May 16, 2013, 04:48:00 PM »
The [æ] vowel of bad. You could also cry like how newborns do. Remember, this is an exercise.

Offline Ħ

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Re: Tips for increasing vocal range?
« Reply #6 on: May 16, 2013, 04:49:22 PM »
Is it a sharp staccato noise, or do I sustain it?
"All great works are prepared in the desert, including the redemption of the world. The precursors, the followers, the Master Himself, all obeyed or have to obey one and the same law. Prophets, apostles, preachers, martyrs, pioneers of knowledge, inspired artists in every art, ordinary men and the Man-God, all pay tribute to loneliness, to the life of silence, to the night." - A. G. Sertillanges

Offline Manolito Mystiq

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Re: Tips for increasing vocal range?
« Reply #7 on: May 16, 2013, 04:51:36 PM »
Sustain it, so you keep the sound longer. Just like: wæææææææææææææ!!!

Offline Ħ

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Re: Tips for increasing vocal range?
« Reply #8 on: May 16, 2013, 05:21:15 PM »
Thanks. I'll work on it. I'm hoping that since I basically just started like a week and a half ago, I will be able to really build up my range. I'm reaaaally hoping I can get that C5 and be a classical tenor. I guess it's only 4 half steps away from where I am now, which might not be that much because I just started. But being a tenor would be sick.
"All great works are prepared in the desert, including the redemption of the world. The precursors, the followers, the Master Himself, all obeyed or have to obey one and the same law. Prophets, apostles, preachers, martyrs, pioneers of knowledge, inspired artists in every art, ordinary men and the Man-God, all pay tribute to loneliness, to the life of silence, to the night." - A. G. Sertillanges

Offline Manolito Mystiq

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Re: Tips for increasing vocal range?
« Reply #9 on: May 17, 2013, 05:59:43 AM »
You being able to hit a C2 with no formal training, suggests that you are not a tenor, at least not in the classical field.

My lowest note is a G2. F#2 is possible, but because that’s my extreme low limit, I don’t really trust it for using it—I do use it for those two notes in Queensrÿche’s The Killing Words, but my classical sound stops around B3, already.

That doesn’t mean you can’t hit C5s in full voice / full closure / mix, or however you would call it.

Offline Elite

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Re: Tips for increasing vocal range?
« Reply #10 on: May 17, 2013, 11:25:59 AM »
I recently starting singing as well and it really helps just to try and get higher/lower everytime. In just the first two month of singing Ive found my range increased by quite a lot.

Right now I'm at:
A1-F4 in my chest voice
G3-F#5 in head voice

Note that the lower and higher notes of both registers aren't really all too well and especially the head voice needs a LOT of training. I suppose I'm a 'baritone', or however you want to call it, but my voice is most comfortable singing between E2 and C4 in chest voice and E4 to D5 in head voice. The transistion between the two I find very difficult still, but I'm working on it.
Hey dude slow the fuck down so we can finish together at the same time.  :biggrin:
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Offline Kotowboy

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Re: Tips for increasing vocal range?
« Reply #11 on: May 27, 2013, 07:42:31 PM »
I've got a weird one.

I can sing along to bands all day long but as soon as I try and sing without music - my voice lasts about 5 minutes :/

Offline Fiery Winds

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Re: Tips for increasing vocal range?
« Reply #12 on: May 28, 2013, 01:08:15 AM »
I've got a weird one.

I can sing along to bands all day long but as soon as I try and sing without music MetallicA- my voice lasts about 5 minutes :/

Fixed for me.