An example of what I consider to be very bad advice.

On a recent post on the reddit singing forum, someone posted a clip of himself doing a “siren” from modal voice to falsetto. He sounded like a beginner to me, but I need to hear someone sing before I can offer much advice. Here is his first/initial post:

Here is a clip of me going from chest to head voice. I’m trying to keep the chest (TA muscles) active as I go up but it seems to inevitably shift to a head-dominant mix, if not head voice alone. Can someone explain to me how to keep the TA muscles more engaged as I go up? My passaggio is around G4; that’s where I feel a tilt in my voice.

Someone else then posted this advice:

Flutter do-fa (root to fourth) a glissando with G4 as fixed tonic. Keep your larynx down while you do this, that is the key.

Consistent breath energy (or breath support) is how you keep the mix steady and smooth. Are you managing volume as well though? Notice how it’s easier to pass through your passagio if you also get quieter as you get higher in pitch (quieter does NOT mean less breath energy). So in essence, not only do you need to manage your breath energy, but you also need to manage transitioning, volume-wise.

If you’re still having trouble. Can you lip roll smoothly from G4 to a fourth above? This may be a good starting point. Eventually lip roll into phonation. Try to recreate that sensation without having to lip roll.

To get through your break you need consistent breath energy. To do that you need to give in to the breath, let it do it’s thing, let it carry you. Singers tend to try and conserve their breath. We must release it fully. Give it all away. Singing is a practice of consistently exhaling and inhaling. Do not hold your breath. Do not try to conserve it. Just try to smoothly: take, release, take, release. If we don’t, we get breaks and inconsistency in our sound.

The “OP” [the person who started the thread and wrote the first post] then responded back with:

Yes, lip rolling is quite simple for me; I can go from G4 to G5 without much strain. I do tend to lighten the tone as I get to G4, which allows me to stay connected. Staying connected is not an issue for me; I think what I’m struggling with is maintaining chest resonance as I go higher. I’m trying to resist and resist, but the head voice continues to take over as I get to around A4. Perhaps my breath support could use more work.

As for the larynx, if I maintain cord closure and use forward placement, it remains neutral.

And the second person responded to that with:

Sounds like you need to work on releasing your breath and maintaining general breath movement and support, then. Farinelli exercises on a light hiss for X measures would be a good start. That and a lip roll glissando from G4 (or even F4) to a fourth above, like I mentioned in my original reply, but with an AW vowel on the fourth. With the lip roll, focus on releasing breath as easily and rapidly as your voice demands it. Give it away. Then simply breath it back. Focus on the resonance from vowel coming from the mask, and focus on reaching the pitch as soon as you phonate, as opposed to adjusting and sliding into it.

And lastly, the dopey goo. This ones super super documented, I’m sure you’ll find tones of videos of this one that are explained better than I could.

These three exercises should get you working on what you need to.

Neutral larynx position is fine, especially in contemporary music. But for optimal openness, you actually want your larynx to go lower as you reach higher pitches. It’s like a counter balance.

Ultimately however, keep in mind the intensity of the breath energy, and the volume. Like I mentioned in my original reply. Those two are the keys to maintaining a smooth mixed voice. Keep those in mind as you work on these exercises.

My response to the OP was:

I don’t hear any strong C-T muscle there, so you need to work on loosening up on the T-A and strengthening the C-T, assuming you’ve got breath support and cord closure. I would need to hear you sing simple songs to even know if you are at the point where you should be thinking about expanding your range upwards.

So what was the awful advice given by the first person who responded to the OP? First, we don’t know if he even understands what “flutter do-fa (root to fourth) a glissando with G4 as fixed tonic” means, but being told to do that with his larynx down could result in serious physical harm! Some aspiring singers have tried to use their hands to hold their larynx down and in fact harmed themselves; anyone familar with singing pedagogy would likely know that! Then this “expert” talks about breath support and volume (not knowing if the OP has adequate breath support), but not explaining how to coordinate the two, assuming that is deemed necessary (that is what it sounds like is being claimed).

He/she asks the OP, “notice how it’s easier to pass through your passagio if you also get quieter as you get higher in pitch,” but how does he/she know the OP can in fact do this based upon one very short quick which contains no singing? Then he/she talks about using lip roll exercises if the previous advice doesn’t work, which in my experience just reinforces bad habits. In this case, it might lead to the OP developing more muscle memory for falsetto and modal voice where the T-A muscles are too strong relative to the C-T muscles. The only thing that makes sense anatomically/physically is to figure out how to get the aspiring singer to strengthen the C-T while simultaneously weakening the T-A and not using falsetto, as I’ve pointed out in other posts.

Then he/she goes back to breath support and makes useless statements like, “let it carry you” and “give it all away,” which sounds like the scene from the movie, “Florence Foster Jenkins” (2016), in which the teacher tells the apparently tone-deaf student such things, presumably in order to sound like an expert and get through the lesson without doing anything difficult:

And when he/she said, “singing is a practice of consistently exhaling and inhaling. Do not hold your breath, “I was thinking that this is true for anyone who wants to do anything (other than perhaps swim underwater for a while) and remain alive. Nonetheless, there was no indication that the OP had inhaled too deeply, which could be an issue. In the second response, he/she advises, “focus on the resonance from vowel coming from the mask.” I got no sense from the short clip that the OP was “singing in the mask,” though I don’t use this concept because it is more likely to confuse students than help them in any way (it may help opera singers who are at an advanced stage of learning that genre). But if you do want to do it, don’t you need to determine that the person is at such a stage in their development first?

As to “dopey goo,” that would be fine if you intend to sing the words, “dopey” or “goo” often but otherwise, if you want to sing in any kind of traditional way, you should focus on the simple vowel sounds of the language in which you want to sing. This is fundamental; these other things are “tricks” that certainly could help someone at some stage in his/her development, but it is a terrible idea to asssume it will help any particular person, especially if you have never heard the person sing! You only suggest a “trick” after you have assessed his/her singing and know what the issue is.

Then there’s’ the claim about “neutral larynx.” You can’t keep your larynx in one position if you sing any kind of common song or if you talk with any kind of typical vocabulary, and to me this suggest the individual is some sort of “know it all” who want to pose as an expert. The next claim, that “neutral laryx” is fine for pop but not opera makes no sense. Again, for any kind of typical singing your larynx isn’t staying in one position. As to “optimal openness,” this requires explanation. Don’t all singers, or at least nearely all pop singers, care about the sound they are getting first and foremost? Sure, some care about not putting too much stress on their vocal cords, and if that is the point, then say that (not that the vast majority are going to care), but I don’t think any pop singer has ever said, “you know, I think I have a huge problem because I don’t sing with optimal openness.” Nor do sound engineers nor producers nor audiences say that they are disappointed because the singer doesn’t possess optimal openness. Few would even try to guess what that means unless the conept were to be explained to them in detail.

And at the end of the second post, he/she talks about two “keys to maintaining a smooth mixed voice,” but that is not what the OP asked. He thought he needed to, “keep the T-A muscles more engaged as I go up.” But as I pointed out to him, you need to allow the C-T muscles to become stronger and the T-A muscles to weaken as you go up, and if your C-T muscles are not well developed, as is the case for most adult males who take up singing, these other notions will not likely help and may be counter-productive (and possible lead to damage vocal cords!).

Overall, the exchange between these two came across to me as people having little to no idea what they are saying, or are saying inappropriate or irrelevant things, in confusing ways, for whatever reasons. This is a good example of why singing can be so difficult for a lot of people, and it should be avoided easily, but learning how to sing is not like learning something like basic chemistry, even though both are rooted in the physical world in whichi we find ourselves.

Finally, I can update you on my experiences trying to find the right microphone!

It’s been a while because I got side-tracked with non-singing things, but I am now on a vacation and want to update on this subject. I was able to obtain a tube microphone that I thought sounded considerably better than any others I’ve used. It’s an MXL V69 Mogami Edition tube mic, and that tube in it was upgraded (cost was only about $20 for the new tube). I also found a free plug-in that generates a similar effect, but it can only do so much and I think it’s best to start with a tube mic that works for your voice and then you can try to tweak it slightly here and there.

Now tube mics can be quite expensive, so I don’t think you should buy one until you test it out or unless the seller allows you to send it back if you don’t like it (without “restocking fees” or any other fees, though you may have to pay for return shipping). I bought my V69 used and it cost around $100, but I think $200 is more realistic, and you also have to decide whether you want to try changing the tube on your own, which some might have difficulty doing. Then you’ll need phantom power and digital conversion if you want to record on your computer. I bought an MXL MicMate, which does both, for about $30.

And if you don’t know, you’ll at least want to know how to use a simple DAW-like program such as Audacity (which is free). The mics require a power supply and a speciality cable, so buying just the mic may be a bad deal no matter what the cost (since the power supply or cable that goes from the power supply to the tube mic may be very expensive on the secondary market if the retail market is sold out). The cable that goes from the power supply unit is basic and inexpensive, so if that is missing it’s only likely to cost a few dollars to obtain one.

What I noticed is that the sound with the right tube mic is very smooth, and some sounds that can be harsh, such as in the old song, “The Best is Yet to Come,” the st sound in best and the various s and t sounds can be too harsh, even after deessing and trying other enhancements in your DAW. Of course some people may not notice this or not judge your singing by it, but it’s clearly not “professional recording.” To hear what I’m talking about, you can go to my SoundCloud page and listen to several tracks, just remember that it may take you repeated listenings over weeks or longer to fully appreciate the differences:

The top four tracks were recorded with my tube mic. They were all enhanced slightly and in the usual ways (EQ, compression, reverb), but the first also had additional “tube warmer” effect added to it (this is a free plug-in). The fifth track, “The Best is Yet to Come,” was recorded on a cheap smartphone using the free Echo app, which can add a bit of echo to your recording. Then I added the tube warmer effect to it. The next track is the original one without the tube warmer effect added to it. You can read in the descriptions of the other tracks which mic I used and how I enhanced it, if at all.

If you do get a tube mic, be sure to follow the instructions on how to use it, or you may damage it or injure yourself. And if you decide to modify your tube mic, even just to change the tube, be sure everything is unplugged! You can ask questions on sites like Gearslutz and Realgearonline if you can’t find the information you want after contacting the manufacturer or with a quick online search. The special cables needed (usually 7 pin but sometimes a bit more or less) are not interchangeable, so it it’s missing you can’t necessarily just go to ebay and buy the cheapest one you see listed, and again, as with everything else with tube mics, if you use the wrong cable or power supply you can damage the unit or injure yourself.

I’ve also learned that in some cases the tube is soldered into place, so unless you have the requisite skills, it would be a bad idea to buy it (tubes do eventually burn out even if you like the way it sounds). In some cases a model that used to be held in place with brackets was changed and is now soldered, so you really need to see it before buying it. Even if it’s not soldered, it might be quite a hassle getting it out, so search for information on the particular make/model for that as well (and you should never touch the glass of the tube; I think if you wear cloth gloves to handle the tubes that is best). There are also people who will “mod” a tube mic to your specifications, so an online search might help you find those who are still doing this. They may provide the mic or you send them yours and tell them what kind of sound you’re seeking. However, the service is usually at least a few hundred dollars and includes modifying other parts of the mic to get a true “pro sound.”

Note that I am not currently able to offer singing lessons but when I can get back to it, I’ll create a post announcing it.

What is the most important thing to learn first?

This may seem like a simple question with an obvious answer, but I certainly can’t say that I have found it to be! Of course some people will tell you to learn breath support first, and that might be right for you, but is it right for everyone (and is the technique being taught good for everyone?)? I suggest trying to learn the several fundamental things that are required if you want to sing well in any kind of traditional way, and see if at least one of them comes to you quickly/easily. Why not? I don’t see any risk, and the reward is that not only do you have something “down pat,” but it might help you learn one of the other fundamentals!

Opera voice coach Jack LiVigni, for example, believes cord closure is most important and should be learned first:

Most singers fail at the very source – the cords, and this is across the board the biggest reason why people fail – their inability to maintain a grasp on their cord closure throughout the musical line with varying vowels and pitch, and to fine tune it with varying dynamics.

…Your language is a huge disadvantage because your AH OH and OO vowels in speaking are produced by loosening the cords so as to darken. AH OH and OO should be bright bright bright. What is this dark thing? This is a false sound that never is theatrical. These swallowed dark sounds are not right. They unavoidably lead to pushing, particularly when your rep calls for volume.

Exercises for cord closure on the EE vowel are truly important, as well as the EH, especially for English speaking natives.

The link to this used to be (it appears he deleted it):

http://gioacchinolivigni.com/2017/01/cord-closure-for-all-voice-types-post-1/

This is excellent advice, but how many aspiring singers (especially beginners) will understand it? Here is another voice coach’s suggestion on this subject:

As to breath support, the technique I’ve suggested to my students is to take a deep breath mostly in the stomach (not chest) that is perhaps 3/4 of what they could do, but not to tense up the muscles in the neck or head. Then you place one or both hands on your stomach and press lightly. Now you have no choice but to keep air in reserve for singing! This will likely feel at least a bit weird at first, so give yourself time to get used to it. From the chest up there should be no tightness; if there is you’ve got to relax those muscles.

However, other teachers/voice coaches seem to think it’s essential to teach high volume opera singing breath support for acoustic singing to people who want to sing at much lower volume using a microphone (and technological enhancement, such as reverb, which is nearly always used in pop genres), so this is another factor that might cause major prolems. If you can’t afford lessons and are having great difficulty with breath support and cord closure, you can sing simple songs, whatever you sing well. Post on sites like the Reddit singing forum for feedback. If you don’t sing anything well, work on common words that contain the crucial vowels, like you, me, go, in, way, etc. Then make up a song that contains these words, like, “you, you and me, me and you, we can go, in the way, what it was, not to be, so much luck.”

Try to sustain the vowels in these words, not all in one go, but rather work out different phrasings so that, for example, the “uh” vowel in luck is sustained in one phrasing but quickly passed over in another. Some will find this very difficult without learning breath support first, so again, it’s all quite variable, from one person to another. This is even true for professional opera singers – here’s some evidence to that point:

Professional opera singers activated the TR, INT, RC and OBL muscles to higher levels than the student singers did. Another finding was large inter-subject variation in muscle usage, showing an idiosyncratic composition of the muscle contribution to subglottal pressure.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15260181/

And listen to as much singing as you can! You will learn all kinds of useful things, such as how articulated the words are. The more muddled or slurred, the easier it is to do just about anything with singing, and of course “scooping” and “sliding” are common in pop and can help you not just sing well, but add interest to your phrasing. If you can, work on changing your volume levels within a song; so long as you are going to sing with a mic, technology exists to keep the volume consistent (expecially compression). Some aspiring singers actually think their favorite “stars” sound like superhuman singers, but in fact it’s mostly due to things like reverb, EQ, and compression (often at a 5 to 1 or even 10 to 1 ratio!). And if you can, obtain a copy of Henry Pleasants’ “The Great American Popular Singers” and read it more than once.

If you do listen to a lot of different kinds of singing, one thing you should notice fairly soon is that words are always sung the way they are usually spoken. And obvious example is the “ee” vowel, such as in the word me. Often it will be sung as “may” instead. I’m not saying this is good or bad, just something you can consider when you practice singing a song and try to get it right, or at least right for you. An interesting example is the original recorded version of Led Zeppelin song, “Black Dog.” Plant vocalizes “hey hey momma said the way you move,” but he does vocalize “the” as “thee” or even “duh?” To me it sounds more like “di” or “dih.” Try it yourself and see what happens. If you try to sing it as most Americans say the word “the” you probably will become “tongue-tied.” By consciously trying to sing it as “di” or “dih,” there’s a smooth transition to the word “way” that you may not get singing “the” in other ways.

Trying to sing rather than just singing is another major issue I’ve encountered often. What this means is that you are trying to do one or more things you think you need to do, such as keep the soft palate raised or the tongue in a certain position (in some pop genres, you might even want to keep the soft palate down!). While such things may be important once you get beyond the fundamentals, I think it’s a huge mistake, at least most of the time, to even think about such things before you have learned them. If you listened to the advice of someone who told you to do this or that before learning the fundamentals and now you find yourself fixated on it, I’m not sure I know what to do to help you in particular. Perhaps if you listen to singing in genres that never interested you in the past, and try to emulate that singing, it might help you get out of a bad habit.

Many beginners are embarrassed to be beginners, but what’s more problematic is to get into bad habits, which no one teacher, no matter how good, may be able to get you out of! And I would also emphasize that you should not be straining in any way as a beginner. I would get far away from anyone who tells you, “no pain, no gain” or anything remotely like that. Many people I’ve taught only wanted to sing on a “basic” level, and that’s fine – it works for many popular songs. Others want to become “virtuoso” pop singers, even if they don’t realize it, and that is something it’s important to avoid until after you master the fundamentals (and probably the vast majority don’t realize they will require “studio magic” to accomplish this, no matter how well they sing!).

If and when you are ready to expland your range in order to be some kind of virtuoso singer, there will be three options:

1. yell/screech (bad idea health-wise, and not singing in any traditional sense, but can be cleaned up by the sound engineers to sort of sound like singing); in terms of biology, you would be over-adducting your vocal cords with this approach (common in Rock and Gospel, for example).
2. soften/lighten up, perhaps become slightly breathy, use plenty of reverb (you’ll likely need to use a mic with this approach), but be careful not to strain your vocal cords because there’s a tendency to push more than is safe to get an extra tone or two.
3. learn Bel Canto type technique, which involves singing the “pure” vowels up and down your range, “pushing” ever so slightly every few weeks to expand that range, then learn to modify the vowels; I suggest doing this under the guidance of a competent teacher.
4. use falsetto (for adults males; female pop singers usually use this if they go beyond a tight range, but it’s generally just considered the higher part of their range).

Some pop vocalists will use a combination of 1 and 2 (and men often add 3 too), as well as add a short, high-pitched vocalization here and there. Most pop vocalists/singers do not use 3. If you want to understand such differences in more detail, I suggest reading the book, “The Great American Popular Singers” (1985), by Henry Pleasants. You can use it in conjunction with listening to the songs he discusses on Youtube. It’s almost like taking a college course on the subject! Be prepared to read it more than once (I suggest waiting at least a few months before you go back and read it again) if you want to get the most out of it. Jerome Hines’ books may be of interest too, especially if you want to sing opera/”Classical Crossover.”

There’s one other key thing to learn, at least if you want to be the best singer you can be, and it is to develop the AES muscle. This allows for less breath support if you want to sing traditional pop songs with a microphone, so it has that additional possible benefit. There are various claims about “quick tricks” to develop it, but in my experience it develops if you sing for a period of time with proper breath control and cord closure. Trying to develop it before the other two may be a big mistake, and I don’t see any reason to rush things, as that seems to be tyhe biggest mistake you can make when you learn to sing! Though I am not endorsing all that is said in this article, I suggest reading through it after you master the fundamentals.

The Teacher’s Secret Weapon: The Method You Never Got Told To End Vocal Strain Forever

Note that I am not currently able to offer singing lessons but when I can get back to it, I’ll create a post announcing it.

“Has anybody taught themselves to sing without a teacher?”

The title of this post is also the title of a post over at the Reddit singing forum, and it does come up from time to time.  Being one such person, I’ll try to “cover all the bases” on the subject.  First, of course it’s possible, since most people can sing on a basic level with more or less no knowledge or understanding (according to some researchers).  Most aspiring singers want to go beyond that stage (often far too quickly), though.  The key question seems to be, how does one go about doing this?  There isn’t one answer to this question, but I will share my experiences, beginning five years ago.

Before that time (when I decided to try and figure out how to sing on a more complicated level), I had tried singing in a “garage band” in the 1980s, then sung some falsetto along to opera singers while driving to work around 1990, and tried to mimic a line or two from a song in modal voice on rare occasion (with mixed “success”).  I did have “cord closure” by 2015, due to having had to “speak up” while giving lectures.  What I learned first back in 2015 was the importance of breath support, and one video I watched on Youtube on this subject helped me out considerably (I looked for it a couple years ago but it was gone, apparently).  This allowed me to sing in my tessitura, which is low, and I worked on that for a couple years, as I was interested in trying out different songs and listening to what other singers were doing.

However, at some point around that time it was clear that my low voice wasn’t appealing to most people (I learned that by playing recordings to them).  I didn’t know about “EQing” my recordings to remove the “muddy low end,” but even if I had done that, I doubt it would be much more appealing.  Here’s an example of the kind of singing I found most comfortable to do back then:

However, though I found it difficult at first, I worked on developing a voice for Led Zeppelin songs, and that led to a “mixed voice” that I found worked well for Blues and Blues/Rock, which are my preferred genres.  Here’s an example of where I’m at with that, sung a couple days ago (the karaoke track I used caused me problems when I mixed them so it does sound to me like they are out of sync):

But back to learning to sing by yourself.  Having a specific goal can be very helpful, but you also have to consider which approach you want adopt, which I explain here:

https://learningtosing.wordpress.com/2020/03/17/what-is-singing-what-is-the-best-way-to-learn/

So, you might start off trying out the “low larynx” approach but then decide you don’t like it for some reason, then switch over to the “high larynx” approach.  Either way, you have to understand at least one of these approaches or else you are essentially hoping to stumble into it, so to speak, and that’s generally not a good idea in any endeavor.  You can watch videos or read books/blogs on the subject, but it probably won’t “take hold” in your mind for a while.  And from what I’ve seen, most “voice coaches” don’t want to try and explain it to you, because they want  you to keep coming back to them (they want to be your singing guru or something along those lines).  It’s also possible most don’t even understand and are just doing what their teachers did when they tried to learn how to sing (and possibly failed).

I would suggest not trying to use genre affectations until after you develop a consistent, fundamentally-sound technique, and as I’ve said before, phrasing and overall musicality are difficult to teach (I’ve recommended taking acting lessons for those who do have such difficulties).  However, you can study singers in the genre that interests you, because developing your “ear” is very important if not crucial.  And on that note, you can also learn some basic audio editing to help with this.  It also gives you an idea of what you can do to make your voice sound more “professional,” so that you don’t  try to sing in a way that is not humanly possible (as many do who try to emulate studio recordings).  As I’ve said in previous posts, I’n now using the Samson Go USB mic and free Audacity software (if you want a free assessment, though, please use your smart phone’s basic recording app because that is what I am used to hearing when I do the assessments).

There are some good books you can read, though you are not going to understand everything that is said, unless you read the book over and over again until you do.  Two that I found very helpful were “Great Singers on Great Singing” ‘by Hines and “The Great American Popular Singers” by Pleasants.  Also, don’t assume everything you read in such books is accurate or applies to you.  The idea is to get a sense of how “pro” singers think.  The concept of “placement” is especially interesting, and I think of that in terms of singing a bit higher than feels entirely comfortable these days.  I am “placing” it in a higher key but losing some tone and maneuverability.  However, it might sound better after I use Audacity to “clean it up.”

Time is crucial; do not try to rush things!  Learning the “pure” vowels, crucial for “low larynx” singing, takes week or months, for example.  Too many seem to think they can quickly learn to sing in a near professional way if they just learn a few “tricks” that a voice coach claims to know.  After doing a lot of study, research, practice, etc. (just make sure you don’t strain while trying to learn on your own), you then might want to take advantage of the free assessments or initial lessons that many voice coaches offer.  That will provide you with feedback, and you can also get feedback on forums such as the one at Reddit.  And it’s often crucial to step back at times, when you feel “stuck in a rut,” and try to figure out what the problem is.  If you can figure it out on your own (or with some advice, such as at the Reddit forum), you don’t only solve the problem, but you become a better problem-solver in general (and it’s very common for “great” singers to find themselves in need of help at times).

What I often encounter are aspiring singers who want advice, but don’t seem to want to do what is necessary to solve the problem they are having.  They ask for help but then they don’t follow up with advice they are given.  For example, it’s common for beginners to sing in a weak and flat way, so I have told them to try and “push” their singing just a little bit (again, avoiding as sense of strain), record the result, and let me hear it.  I’d say nine out of ten times I never hear from them again.  If you can’t even follow up on something that might be a “quick fix,” I don’t think you have the temperament to be a singer.  My sense is that successful singers tend to be perseverant and highly motivated.  They don’t care if someone tells them they are bad singers, because they know what their goals are and they intend to keep working hard (but intelligently) to get there.  Moreover, they may know that a “raw” or “dry” recording is now what most people are used to hearing, and they might call such recordings of their favorite singers “bad” if they heard the unprocessed track!

NOTE:  As of this date I am still offering a free first lesson/assessment with absolutely no obligation of any kind.  Just email me: nickspinner55@gmail.com.  Also, I won’t give your personal information to anyone else.  I might reference your singing on some blog posts if you provide me with audio clips, so let me know if you don’t want me to do that, but remember that the idea is to help aspiring singers!  If you have publicly posted on sites like Youtube or Soundcloud, I’ll assume it’s okay to link to those in my blog post.  I can’t guarantee that there is room for you in my schedule at any given time, and the earliest I can schedule new lessons will be some time in July, 2020, but I should be able to provide you with some advice that might be helpful, after getting a sense of where you’re at.

 

What can we learn from the early reviews of Barbra Streisand’s singing?

For those of you who haven’t heard of it, there’s a book that I suggest you read, “The Great American Popular Singers,” by Henry Pleasants, first published in 1974.  Though of course some notions are outdated, there’s enough in it that might help the aspiring pop singer that it’s a “no brainer” to read.  In this post, I’ll address some things Pleasants said about Streisand in the book, which involve her earliest “pro”‘ singing and the beginnings of her second stage of “artistic development.”  The main point is that Streisand had a tendency to “oversing,” which is still rather common.  Of course, one could ask, why not do what one of the most successful pop singers of all time has done?  That is something for you to decide for yourself, but why wouldn’t you want to know what your options are?  At the very least, why not compare yourself to excellent pop/microphone singers of the past?  Learn what they did and ask yourself if you can use it too!

Today, most female pop singers especially (who want to be in that category of “diva”) scream their high notes, and the sound engineers (or some technological device)  “clean it up.”  It’s not difficult to tell because if the singer has no “elasticity” in her voice during the high notes or while belting it’s highly likely to be a scream.  You can hear the elasticity in Streisand’s singing voice at all times (at least when she was younger and her voice was still in its “prime”).  Pavarotti was the first singer I heard use this term in this context, and he was referring to opera singers, the point being that operatic training does not ensure that a singer will develop this!  If you develop this quality, it probably means that your skill level (at least in terms of muscle development) is such that you have more to worry about from stylistic mistakes than technical ones, and that’s where Barbra Streisand’s early singing is interesting to consider.  Here are some passages from Pleasants’ book on the subject:

…She is a big artist, and the pop song material with which she has been saddled throughout the better part of a decade, or with which she has saddled herself, has been to slight. She has reacted by blowing up the songs emotionally beyond what a slender subject and a slender musical frame can support or sustain.

Her singing of Jim Webb’s “Didn’t We?” on the Live at The Forum album is a serviceable example among many. The song itself is an endearing, rather wistful account of a love affair that almost made it. Barbra sings it as if it were Floria Tosca’s “Vissi d’arte,” or the Immolation Scene from Gotterdammerung. Indeed, it has often occurred to me that she should have been an opera singer.

She needs greater, more imposing dramatic substance than most popular songs can give her. A Peggy Lee can take a popular song and make it more dramatic than “Vissi d’arte” simply by mining all that the song contains – and no more. Barbra, instead of scaling her singing to the dimensions of a song, as Peggy does, tends rather to scale the song to her own imposing dimensions and a predilections as an actress. Something has to give, and it is not going to be Barbra. She sings about her “precious freedom” in a harmless French trifle, “Free Again,” for example, as if she were celebrating an Emancipation Proclamation for the human race – and sounds silly.

She is not obviously, going to be an opera singer. Her most recent albums, however, suggest that she may have found a more congenial repertoire in the newer folk, rock, and soul idioms, and especially in the latter – then she did in the older mainstream songs with which she began. A departure was suggested with what about today? In Stoney’s End she came closer to a satisfactory identification with the style of today’s young troubadours.

It was no accident. Richard Perry, who produced that album, told an interviewer shortly after its release in 1969: “I convinced her that she had gone about as far as she could with the kind of pop stuff she’d been singing up to then.  I brought her a pile of new songs and we sat down and worked them out…”

Finally, with “Barbra Joan Streisand,” Barbra would seem to have found her true vocation in a style closer to soul than to folk or folk-rock. John Lennon’s “Mother”  may not be everyone’s idea of a soul song, but Barbra, with expert assistance from Billy Preston, a gospel based organist, and an ingenious arrangement by Perry and Jean Page, makes a soul song out of it, sound remarkably like Aretha, only better.  Embellishments that sometimes disfigure her treatment of straight pop songs suddenly sound just right. And toward the end she produces three upward portamenti, ascending to the high F, that remind me of Mahalia Jackson in her exuberant prime…

Repertoire has been the despair of most young singers of the past decade, and many of the older singers, too, as they have tried to keep up with the times. Those younger singers who grew up listening to Ella Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee and Frank Sinatra, listening to the songs they sang and to the way they sang them, and fashioning their own singing accordingly, have been unable to establish rapport with the young listeners or to efface from the oral memory of an older audience the great singers of the 1940s and 1950s. At the same time still younger singers who have grown up with the post-Presley sounds of folk and rock and pop, who have written the new songs, and sang them, have not been able to address of themselves successfully to listeners of an older generation. Barbra, apparently can take the blues- and gospel-derived songs of the young, and show how they can be sung well without being made to sound square and old-fashioned.

…It is unlikely that she will ever stop hollering.

If I could interview Streisand, I’d ask her why she sang such limited types of songs, and really, a limited number of them, or if she practiced different types (even perhaps arias) but decided it was not something she wanted to perform in public or record in the studio (even if the idea was to preserve a public image).  I want to know what my voice is capable of, but it seems that Barbra either didn’t care, thought it would be a bad move to do it publicly (for whatever reason), or thought she had perfected her craft (or very nearly so).  Still, why wouldn’t one record a bunch of different kinds of songs after one had achieved “stardom,” but not release them for the moment (if there was a reason for not doing so)?  If there is a metaphorical crime here, that is it, because once the voice loses some physical abilities, there is no going back!

What I’ve found is that trying to sing a song I don’t intend to sing publicly has led me to discover quite a few things that are quite useful and may not have come upon otherwise (most of which I have shared in my blog posts!).  I can only imagine what Streisand might have been able to accomplish if she had stayed with singing and tried out different approaches to all kinds of songs.  Of course, back then, without today’s internet resources, seeing other singers sing was something you had to mostly go and do, rather than watch on Youtube, so it’s understandable few if any would attempt it, and in her case, acting was the ultimate goal (and perhaps some of her singing performance choices were meant to showcase some aspects of her acting abilities).  But again, if you have the money, why not record some different kinds of songs and keep them as a kind of historical record of your capabilities?  Oh well.

NOTE:  As of this date I am still offering a free first lesson/assessment with absolutely no obligation of any kind.  Just email me: nickspinner@gmail.com.  Also, I won’t give your personal information to anyone else.  I might reference your singing on some blog posts if you provide me with audio clips, so let me know if you don’t want me to do that, but remember that the idea is to help aspiring singers!  If you have publicly posted on sites like Youtube or Soundcloud, I’ll assume it’s okay to link to those in my blog post.

Happy Halloween(with Black Sabbath’s Ozzy Osbourne singing)!

One opera voice coach has this to say about Ozzy’s singing:

Initial reaction: “Fourth guy is just bad throaty singing… Made my throat tight to listen to him. How long did his career last?”

This is a singer with decent diction and good musical instincts but no command of vocal technique. He is massively over-adducting his vocal folds while driving enough air through them to get them to speak, but his throat is so tight that there is no flow or resonance. His rhythmic punctuation of the lyrics is very distracting…  The entire range of his singing is contained within a single octave – with the exception of the moment when he yells “Oh Lord!” a little higher, in my opinion the only quasi-free vocal sound on the entire track.

Read More: Ask a real musician: 5 classic male metal singers | http://www.invisibleoranges.com/ask-a-real-musician-5-classic-male-metal-singers/?trackback=tsmclip

This video is referenced in her blog post:

I think the major problems here are his range and the way he wants to sing this song.  He wants to belt at the end of the lines but doesn’t have the skills, so he over-adducts his vocal cords and creates a grating/off-pitch sound (unlike other Heavy Metal vocalists who learned to add “grit” in a way that sounds more consistent with the music).  And then there is a nasal sound added to that, which sounds quite bad in the Bel Canto tradition.  The nasal quality is likely due to a low soft palate, which perhaps served to define his unique sound, so I’m not sure if he would have even wanted to change this.  He also exhibits a weak/quavering quality at times, suggesting that the relevant muscles are not developed or coordinated.

As to how someone with a “better” voice could sing it, a kind of operatic approach would sound too formal, IMO.  However, a softer (or at least less strained-sounding approach) might work well, for example (using the Rec Forge Lite free app on my inexpensive Android smart phone, in a non-studio room, no effects added):

This is the first time I’ve ever sung the song, let alone recorded myself singing it, and you may be able to tell that I’m trying to make minor adjustments as I “feel my way” through it.  I think most amateurs would be inclined to try and sing with more force or volume, whereas I’ve found it’s better to start with low volume, singing as softly as you think you can, so that you have some “room” to add emphasis or to make it sound bolder, if you think that’s necessary.  Of course one could change the song  entirely, for example, to make it more of a Blues song, but I assume the point is to maintain the theme/style (otherwise, just about anything is possible).  Heavy Metal, though, largely went in a different direction, with less nasality, but more theatricality and more “grit” or “rasp,” and over time the sound become generic, for example:

Also, a touch of an operatic type quality is sometimes added in places, sometimes using a variant of supported falsetto (called the “witch’s cackle” in Bel Canto).  I prefer Ozzy to this kind of approach, because at least he seems like he’s having fun and enjoys being unique if not “good,” but who is best to learn from (either in a positive or negative way) depends upon what your goals are.  Heavy Metal became too theatrical for me by the mid 1980s or so, and I began to listen to the Blues, jazz, and then Classical (including early music), though now I appreciate Blues Rock a lot more than back then, mainly because I think of it as the ultimate in singing in American English (Italian is best for opera, by contrast), due to how one can round off words, “slide around,” and bend notes, allowing for maximum creativity (if you sing with a microphone or in a small venue without one).

Now as to the positive side of Ozzy’s singing endeavors, he does have decent tone at times (“ruined” by the nasality) and some squillo/ring here and there.  In some ways, his singing reminds me of people who want to paint scenes that are simply too difficult for their skill level, and may be impossible to do “free hand” (in other word, various devices would be needed to accomplish their goal), and so the result is a “bad” painting.  The rhythmic punctuation the voice coach mentioned may simply be due to his lack of any kind of formal training, and for a “newbie” he is able to do something odd but at least somewhat compelling (to those who like this sort of thing and/or don’t know or care about singing technique, as I did for a while as a teenager).  No, I doubt such singing would be welcome these days, other than to cover sing Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne songs, obviously, or as some sort of “it’s so bad it’s funny” type of situation (as with William Hung on “American Idol”).  However, if you are a newbie/beginner listening to Ozzy may be a good way to understand what can “go wrong” in your singing.

NOTE:  As of this date I am still offering a free first lesson/assessment with absolutely no obligation of any kind.  Just email me: nickspinner@gmail.com.  Also, I won’t give your personal information to anyone else.  I might reference your singing on some blog posts if you provide me with audio clips, so let me know if you don’t want me to do that, but remember that the idea is to help aspiring singers!  If you have publicly posted on sites like Youtube or Soundcloud, I’ll assume it’s okay to link to those in my blog post.

Vacation time!

I’ll be taking a few days off and the next full post will be about a week from now. Of course, you can still send me an audio clip of your singing if you want a free assessment, and I should be able to get back to you within no more than a couple of days (just remember not to use any technological enhancement). In the meantime, I was thinking about a new piece of advice I could offer, and in fact I was able to think of one! You’ve probably heard advice about “pushing things” or not doing so. Few suggest that you disregard pain or discomfort (I would add to be concerned if your throat seems to be getting dry), so how should one reconcile these two notions? There’s a third factor, which is how you sound. Before I get “warmed up,” I can sound just as bad as anyone, but I am gentle at first, and if I don’t feel any tightness (let alone pain or discomfort) and the sound is right, I continue to push, until I get to “full strength.”

If the sound isn’t right or there’s tightness, I do some vocalizations that I have found to be safe and seem to stretch out the relevant muscles. If that doesn’t do much, I usually wait until after I eat my next meal, and I drink warm tea. So far, that has always worked for me. If you are a beginner, I don’t think sounding “bad” is necessarily cause for concern immediately, just so long as you can tell that the vocal cords aren’t being stressed (and I’m not sure if one person can be sure that another’s is being stressed or not, unless medical equipment is used by a professional). If you feel you can tell, and if you think there is no stress, then you can consider pushing (gently) a bit more. If you want to sing optimally, at some point you have to do things with the relevant muscles that you haven’t in the past, and so the question is what is the best way to do that. If someone has a better idea, I’d like to hear it, but I can’t think of a better and safer approach.

NOTE:  As of this date I am still offering a free first lesson/assessment with absolutely no obligation of any kind.  Just email me: nickspinner@gmail.com.  Also, I won’t give your personal information to anyone else.  I might reference your singing on some blog posts if you provide me with audio clips, so let me know if you don’t want me to do that, but remember that the idea is to help aspiring singers!  If you have publicly posted on sites like Youtube or Soundcloud, I’ll assume it’s okay to link to those in my blog post.

What is Leonid (and his “friends”) trying to accomplish?

First, let’s take a look at this band and how it sounds (on a Youtube video with quite a few views, about 530,000 in this case):

What does this represent?  There are a huge number of very positive comments, and I certainly agree that they did a great job trying to replicate the music I listened to decades ago (I was a big Chicago fan and had several of their albums back then).  But why wouldn’t I just go to Youtube and listen to the originals?  In the fine art tradition, one would go to museums and try to copy the “masterpieces,” and I’d guess some are still doing this, but the idea was to learn how to do it, not to then go on and sell copies of the originals!  Here’s another example of impossible singing they do:

Note how when a few of them are supposedly singing at the same time, it’s not something that is possible live.  Now if they had performed Chicago covers live, that would have been interesting to me.  I  sometimes go to Youtube an look up covers of songs that I also like to sing, because I want to consider the differences.  But here, Leonid’s singing is so obviously and extensively “produced” that it doesn’t represent anything useful to the aspiring singer, IMO.  Again, one can just listen to the original.  Perhaps this is part of the phenomenon we see on shows like “The Voice,” though even there it’s often the case the some amount of originality is encouraged.

And why make it seem like you are performing “there and then,” when it’s so obviously highly produced?  Again there is a parallel in the art world, which some call “commercial art.”  This involves a person who has no fine art credentials, but who works or worked as a commercial artist, trying to to create “pretty pictures” in large numbers (such as prints in editions of 10,000).  The idea is to get gullible people to think they are getting “real art” rather than the “junk art” they can get at yard sales, major retailers, furniture stores, etc.  The problem, other than how ugly the works usually are, is that the prices are a lot higher!  With this music, it’s not necessarily ugly, but it simply makes no sense.  I’d really like to know what this band sounds like either performing live without lip syncing, doing their own unique renditions of older songs, or doing their own music.  Here’s a “mashup” video of the band singing live:

The problem is we don’t hear Leonid doing much solo singing, though around 4:07 it sounds like some sort of effect his used on his vocalizing.  This one is better:

Of course, this performance doesn’t sound anywhere near as “good” (or produced) as the first two.  I’m not suggesting these aren’t talented singers/musicians, only that what they are doing in most of their videos doesn’t make any sense.  And it certainly is of very limited use to aspiring singers (other than to provide a good example of what not to try and duplicate unless you have a sound engineer and high quality equipment to work with!).  If asked about how he might improve his singing, though, I’d say he could try softening up, such as with many of the “ake” sounds in this song.  The line “wondering how much I can take” ends too sharply/abruptly, for example.  Now it may be that one can make some “decent money” doing this sort of thing on Youtube, but that’s not something I have experience with.

NOTE:  As of this date I am still offering a free first lesson/assessment with absolutely no obligation of any kind.  Just email me: nickspinner@gmail.com.  Also, I won’t give your personal information to anyone else.  I might reference your singing on some blog posts if you provide me with audio clips, so let me know if you don’t want me to do that, but remember that the idea is to help aspiring singers!  If you have publicly posted on sites like Youtube or Soundcloud, I’ll assume it’s okay to link to those in my blog post.

More about the notions of Seth Riggs.

I watched another video interview with him talking about his methodology and how he came to it, so let’s begin there:

Some things I think are noteworthy include a claim that there is or was a “great Bel Canto hoax” (fast forward to about 3:40), but then he talks about the importance of “pure line,” which he says Pavarotti told him about, and then he calls it legato.  But then we are told, “if you didn’t have their voice you couldn’t do their thing,” without explanation  (at least one that makes sense to me).  We are also told that you can adapt your voice to any style of singing if you can sing “evenly,” but he seems to think the only alternative is scream/singing.  Then he talks about vocal cord safety, and also states that one sings opera on the beat, but pop music is off the beat.

His claim seems to be that if you try to go higher, at some point you will have to yell if you don’t use his method, and for some reason he equates yelling with swallowing.  He seems totally unaware of how opera singers use the C-T and T-A/vocalis muscles in different balances to go higher or lower, but I’ve addressed this in detail in at least one previous post.  One claim that also requires explanation is that singers are asked to “belt” for auditions.  I’d guess he means either for music schools (“classical”) or for a musical production, but then he talks about pop singers.  He doesn’t seem to think there are any distinctions to be made, whereas what I’ve learned is that if you don’t need the high volume of opera or musical theater, it’s quite easy to “belt,” with no need to even think about “bridging” (though “covering” the vowels is the technique I use, which comes from Bel Canto).

Mr. Riggs also said that he was going to study with someone, but then apparently was quite surprised because he “couldn’t get through his first bridge.”  He realized “something is terribly wrong” and presumably decided not to study with him.  He asks, “how do you get through the bridge? That’s how this all came about. That is the original Be Canto.”  So, he seems to think that he has rediscovered the “real” Bel Canto, which we can’t verify because we don’t have recordings from that time, but what does that even matter?  People want to sing in certain ways today (how many of his students want to be opera singers? are there any?), and claiming to be some sort of repository of ancient wisdom probably doesn’t mean much to them.  They want to know what to do!

There’s a lot to “unpack” here, but one of the strangest claims to me is that one needs to sing in a flowing fashion or else the only option is to yell.  I know this is not true because I don’t need to do either (and in fact my vocal cords seem to be very sensitive, which has led me to sort of “wire my brain” not to yell), but why would a flowing style allow one to go to one’s highest notes in modal voice (again, he says he doesn’t mean falsetto)?  I think in practice it allows one to weaken the T-A-vocalis muscles (“chest voice”), but that doesn’t nothing to strengthen the C-Ts (“head voice,” but not falsetto).  Now one might regard this as a “great trick,” but it’s not going to allow you to sing in certain ways, which I think are what most aspiring pop singers want to do!

And while he does say you can be creative in pop singing, he doesn’t point out that one element of this can be using “release” to protect the vocal cords while you “hit your high notes,” but don’t hold them the way opera singers do (without obvious vibrato that is held for long periods of time).  If you just “hit” the high notes and try to stop “on a dime,” that puts quite a bit of stress on the vocal cords, or else it can sound abrupt/unmusical.  But he can’t understand how to get to that point; it seems that he thinks you are either a kind of “natural musical genius” as a singer, or else you have to decide between yelling/screaming or going higher weakly with a flowing quality (which won’t even work for some genres).  I find it strange that he talks about African-American and/or gospel singers in positive terms, because those of the period he mentions (such as Aretha Franklin) tend to obviously be yelling, for example:

Now at least at times she appears to be using her C-T muscles in a dominant way, but she’s also using “uncovered” vowels, which is yelling without over-adducting the vocal cords.  In the Bel Canto tradition this is simply unacceptable, so is Mr. Riggs claiming that there was an original Bel Canto and that what has been called Bel Canto since the time of sound recording (or even earlier) is somehow fake?  One problem there is that yelling is yelling – the point of the Bel Canto tradition was to sing in a clearly pleasant way (that involves singing “pure” vowels that require “covering” at times).  If he is claiming that “original Bel Canto” singers sung at a lower volume, then why didn’t he just say this?  I agree that high volume singing is a bad idea, and not just due to possible vocal cord damage – it leads to trying to make the dominant T-A/vocalis muscles stronger, when they should be weakened while simultaneously making the C-Ts strong.

Mr. Riggs thinks that his exercises will make the C-Ts stronger, whether he realizes it or not; I think there is a better way (consistent with Bel Canto), which involves developing “release” (for pop singers) as well as developing the AES muscle too.  No need to “reinvent the wheel” – just learn how to sing the “pure vowels!”  If his methods are good if not optimal, where are the audio clips showing the progress of several of his students?  My main complaint about his approach, as I’ve said in other posts, is that it seems to encourage aspiring singers to strengthen the T-A/vocalis muscles, and at the same time they also seem to lose or not recognize how useful it is to learn phrasing and musicality while learning how to sing.  Understanding something yourself and knowing how to teach others that thing often don’t go together, as I’ve learned in my many experiences as a teacher or student!

His student mentions the “consistency of line and vowel” in opera, and Mr. Riggs says, “that’s right,” and then Mr. Riggs uses him “mum, mum, mum” exercise to supposedly demonstrate something, but it’s not clear to me what it is.  Ironically, at 8:52 he vocalizes in a way that demonstrates his use of the C-T muscles in a dominant way!  He also talks about a “neutral larynx” in this part of the video and indeed, if you know how to coordinate the relevant muscles, the larynx tends to not rise (at least if you are singing opera, and you’re not a falsettist), but few pop singers want that sound!  Instead, I suggest not thinking about the larynx at all, because it is an effect, not a cause.  The cause is using the relevant muscles in certain ways, and what helped me to that mostly (I think) is singing the “pure” vowels and learning how to “release.”  However, I’m not sure how many aspiring singers will get to this point or want to get there.  Instead, they might be content with simply going up with less force – this is the case for “old school” crooning, for example.

In another video interview, Mr. Riggs states:

“Most of us who are teaching in speech level singing have to get rid of extraneous muscles, extra muscles that other teachers have induced to try to make a bigger sound. You’ve got to do the work with resonance, with coordinating and compounding the resonance in the bridges. if you try to force up, you sing a g up with an f stretch, oh yes you can do it but you’ve destroyed the bridge, and usually are not in the mix…”

Then he makes a soft yell type sound, the point apparently being that these are the only two options.  My opinion here is that resonance is simply not an issue in this context, and if you use microphones, resonance is not an issue, though for stylistic reasons you might want to generate overtones.  You “do the work” by develop proper muscle coordination, which he may be alluding to here, but then talks about “the mix,” which is just another way of saying that the desired muscles coordination has been achieved.  “Destroying the bridge” apparently means that because the muscles aren’t coordinated correctly, the singer’s voice will “crack” or some other unwanted thing will occur.  If you want to see the video go here (you might want to fast forward to 8;30, for the above quotation):

Why the confusing terminology and muddled explanations are used an interesting question.  And in yet another interview video with Mr. Riggs, a person commented:

Seth Riggs was teaching bel canto technique years before any of the other teachers caught on. He figured out that damping, not stretching the cords is the only way to access the high voice without straining and/or damaging them. Also, I don’t know any other teacher of his stature that knows how to teach bridging the voice. The man is a genius, and if you listen to his singers you will notice that they don’t get tired and they don’t have a break. Bravissimo, Maestro!

This is alarming to me, because it sounds like yet another level of misunderstanding or misinformation is being generated.  What does “damping the cords” mean?  It’s one thing to weaken the T-A/vocalis muscles in a mistaken attempt at singing higher without screaming, but this sounds like the commenter thinks one should use some sort of forceful action to accomplish this!  Yes, if you know optimal technique, you use the C-T muscles to stretch the vocal cords, which increases pitch.  How else do you increase pitch?  This is the purpose of the C-T muscles, at least in opera singing.  And a lot of voice coaches are using “mum, mum, mum…” type exercises, so why would someone think “bridging” can’t be taught (note that I don’t think the concept has much if any value, since the Bel Canto tradition has the better “vowel covering” one).  The reason there is a “break” is because the aspiring singer is trying to force a muscle into doing something it can’t, rather than learning to coordinate the relevant muscles so that one muscle picks up where the other leaves off, so to speak.  If you want to go to the video where that comment was posted, here’s the URL:

NOTE:  As of this date I am still offering a free first lesson/assessment with absolutely no obligation of any kind.  Just email me: nickspinner@gmail.com.  Also, I won’t give your personal information to anyone else.  I might reference your singing on some blog posts if you provide me with audio clips, so let me know if you don’t want me to do that, but remember that the idea is to help aspiring singers!  If you have publicly posted on sites like Youtube or Soundcloud, I’ll assume it’s okay to link to those in my blog post.

Why you can’t sing everything the way the original singer did.

At least one Youtube voice coach claims that “you can sing anything.” What does that mean? Nearly anyone can sing anything badly, but clearly that’s not what was meant. Perhaps he means you can sing anything reasonably well, but that certainly isn’t what most newbies and beginners probably think. Instead, most might think that he can teach them to sing the way “pop star X” does. Leaving aside the issue of “studio magic,” which I’ve discussed in detail in previous posts, if we judge by his attempts at singing well-known rock songs, I’m not sure we are even talking about singing, at least for a good portion of the time! But let me provide a specific example that I believe illustrates my point well, starting with a video by voice coach Ken Tamplin:

Now let’s watch a live performance from when this vocalist was in his prime:

This is where the claims about someone being a tenor or baritone (or lower) are relevant, to some degree.  No, he’s not an operatic tenor, but he has a tenor-ish quality to his voice.  If your voice is naturally in a lower range, then you’re not going to be able to replicate the timbre/tone he possesses.  So, what are your options?  You can use falsetto, which doesn’t seem like a good idea here, or you can scream, which I would argue is never a good idea, or you can sing it in modal voice as best you can, without trying to sound exactly like him.  Now if you do that last option wrong, you’ll sound like a cartoon character (as one voice coach I won’t mention here once did, which I found quite amusing).  So let’s move on to someone who uses falsetto (what used to be called “the witch’s cackle, and was meant to be used as a learning tool, and never performed in public):

This singer clearly has a tenor-ish voice too, but what he seems to do very well is integrate the witch’s cackle falsetto sound into his modal voice singing (assuming you find this pleasant); note that other, supposedly live performances might contain a lot of echo type effect and even pre-recorded vocal sounds during the high note segments, but this one doesn’t seem to possess such elements.  Now let’s turn to a video where this same voice coach is trying to teach the student to sing this song in a similar or nearly identical way:

First, we don’t know if the student possesses physical structures that would enable him to do this, even if he learned the technique.  Second, I would not teach this before I knew if the student understood how to “release,” in order to prevent possible vocal cord damage.  That’s for modal voice; for falsetto, it should be sung at as low a volume as possible (assuming you’ve got a microphone), which will also aid in control (especially if you are “flipping from one mode to another).  It might be a good idea to practice with a PA system that has an echo type effect, because that’s clearly present in the original studio recording (probably among some other effects and vocal track layering).  And for those interested, I don’t think this voice coach  knows what he’s talking about when he says to the student, “you’re pushing the sound to the front of the cord” (what could that even mean?).  I do think the student is making a mistake with what one might call a harsh transition, but I would categorize it as consistency issue (which is how the judges on the TV show “The Voice” perceive this kind of problem, apparently).

The main “take away” from this lesson seems to be to “round off” at times, but then he says that the student is doing well but is having problem with the high note.  Does he think an audience is going to be able to tell the difference between a C5 and a D5, or whatever?  It is also disclosed that the student is ill, and the voice says that he must learn to deal with it, which to me is terrible advice, because you are risking damaging your vocal cords during a lesson you are paying for!  My motto is you’re going to have to pay me a huge amount of money if you want me to take unreasonable risks with my vocal cords.  In this case, the student apparently wants to do live performances, so why not focus on a “solid” rendition that can be replicated night after night?  Instead, he seems to have a misguided (IMO) notion that he needs to be perfect.

Moreover, the student often sounds quite bad in this video, and we don’t know if he can actually sing a simple song well or not (that includes the ability to phrase, a sense of musicality, etc.).  My approach would be to figure out if he can sing the modal voice parts and then give him some general ideas about “flipping” into falsetto (I don’t teach falsetto singing by itself), but I’d also be sure to tell him that he may never be able to sing all that close to Miljenko Matijevic.  One big mistake a lot of beginners make is to try and sing a song that can only be rendered well in the studio.  The original vocalist often sings such a song live, but for one or a small number of parts, there is a recorded track played at the same time or effects are used, but the beginner doesn’t realize this, which is why I pointed out this usage in one of my first few blog posts!  But for “She’s Gone,” you’re not going to sound like Matijevic unless you’ve got the same physical structures, which most adult males dco not possess.  Even if you did, it’s not something to “jump into” before you learn the basics!

NOTE:  As of this date I am still offering a free first lesson/assessment with absolutely no obligation of any kind.  Just email me: nickspinner55@gmail.com.  Also, I won’t give your personal information to anyone else.  I might reference your singing on some blog posts if you provide me with audio clips, so let me know if you don’t want me to do that, but remember that the idea is to help aspiring singers!  If you have publicly posted on sites like Youtube or Soundcloud, I’ll assume it’s okay to link to those in my blog posts.