An example of how confusing traditional terminology about singing can be (advanced).

On Quora.com recently, someone asked, “How can I tell if a singer is using his or her head voice or chest voice?”

One “expert” response by a person who claims to be a “Piano, Guitar, Bass, and Vocal Instructor,” and who appears to have been involved in music since a young age (take a look at http://www.irvnelson.com/irvstory.html) was:

In untrained singers, it’s easy to tell the difference. Chest is normal voice, and it is used in lower and midrange notes. When untrained singers try to sing higher in chest voice, it turns into a scream. Head is falsetto voice, and in an untrained singer it sounds like a little kid.

With classically trained singers, there is an obvious difference between chest and head voices. With operatic voices, the head voice is trained to become almost as powerful as the chest, but the two voices can sound so different from each other that it actually sounds like two different people when the switch is made.

With most professional pop and rock singers, the break is obvious. Think of when Chevel Sheppard (who won The Voice last year) yodels in a song. The high notes in the yodel are falsetto, the lower notes are chest voice. There is an obvious break between the two. When these people sing high notes in chest, it is called “belting”. Many contemporary singers have good belting voices and avoid singing in falsetto at all because when their voices finally break into falsetto they sound horrible. Others (especially male singers) use their falsetto to their advantage, and it becomes their trademark voice (think Adam Levine).

https://www.quora.com/How-can-I-tell-if-a-singer-is-using-his-or-her-head-voice-or-chest-voice

With some well trained contemporary singers it can be very difficult to hear the difference, because they learn techniques that eliminate the “break” between the two voices. The “Mix” method of vocal instruction is one of the methods that teach this. It actually sounds (and feels) like as the singer moves up in pitch, he or she moves to a mix of chest and head voices; like 75% chest 25% head, then 50/50%, then 25/75%, then finally on the very high notes 100% head. As a result, there is no break, and the transition sounds completely natural. Some pop and rock singers found this on their own back in the day (think David Gates) and more and more are finding it now, with help from instructors knowledgeable in the technique.

Using the term falsetto and head voice as equivalent is potentially confusing, as we see in his comment, when he talks about a mix of “chest” and “head.” There is no such thing. You can go back and forth between the two, such as in yodeling, but he mentions that and understands what it is. It is also not necessary to go from chest voice to yelling/screaming if you don’t have “proper”/operatic technique. You can lighten up a bit, especially if you use microphones (unlike in traditional opera), but that doesn’t get you much higher. If you are an adult male with a tenor-ish voice, your chest voice will tend to sound better in most pop songs but without proper technique, you won’t likely have more than a couple of tones on a baritone-ish (or lower) adult male pop singer’s voice. There are some natural male counter-tenors, but they are so rare as to be not be worth going into detail about them here.

Next, no there is no obvious break in opera singers’ voices – that’s one of the key points of Bel Canto, for goodness sake. Yes , if you were talking to a male opera singer and asked him to sing as he usually does (assuming he’s not a counter-tenor/falsettist), then to sing in falsetto, sure you’d hear the difference, but they don’t do that in professional performances, and there are only a few operas in which that sort of thing is done, for comedic effect. What this “expert” doesn’t seem to understand are the muscles involved. For falsetto (what he calls head voice, apparently) you use the crico-thyroid muscles. For “fry” you use the vocalis or thyro-arytennoids (there is some debate but for the purposes here, there’s no need to “get technical”). In any other kind of singing recognizable as such, you would use a mix of the two (in yodelling, you go from all crico-thyroid to a vocalis/crico-thyroid mix, back and forth). The reason so many pop singers yell/scream when they go higher is that they sort of lose their grip on the crico-thyroids because they have not developed them properly and coordinated them with the vocalis.

As to “belting,” this can be confusing too. Many if not most female pop singers these days actually sound “screechy” when they go higher, which of course is not good for the vocal cords, but it is “cleaned up” with technology. I’ve cited examples of this on more than one previous post here. Belting safely probably best refers to someone who can go up and down in their range without screeching or yelling and who have a “decent” range (more than an octave, though for male pop singers one octave should be plenty, then one can “flip” into falsetto, which seems to be fashionable these days). When I go up to the highest notes in my range I allow the crico-thyroids to really take over (and avoid going into falsetto, because I don’t personally like that sound and plenty of others have already used “flipping”), so I have power but I’m not yelling. For most people, I’d guess it will take a year or two to develop this, or more (such as if you can’t do much practicing).

This “expert” seems to think that “mixed voice” means that the singer has learned to incorporate falsetto into chest voice, but if you try to do this you may damage your vocal cords, and this is the main reason why I decided to write up a post about this claims. He mentions pop singer David Gates, who sounds like he has a tenor-ish voice, but note that Gates sings in a mellow way, without belting, so he’s still vocalis-dominant, as most pop singers are, but goes higher with less power (since amplification allows it) and has good musicality. Gates seems to be a good example of maximizing his tenor-ish chest voice, but this does mean he has developed and coordinated his vocalis and crico-thyroid muscles, though it’s possible he did but just didn’t use that ability due to his song choices.  Here’s an example of his singing from the period the expert mentioned:

Note that 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 a blog post.

 

Should you use your “natural” or your “best” singing voice?

There were a couple of posts on Quora.com recently that I thought should be addressed:

https://www.quora.com/Can-someone-without-a-natural-singing-voice-be-taught-to-be-a-world-class-singer

And:

https://www.quora.com/Whats-your-best-singing-voice

The ignorance demonstrated on these threads was a bit alarming, actually.  I suggest you read them for yourself, but here I’ll speak to what I think are the most important points.  First, there’s no such thing as a “natural singing voice.”  There are two sets of muscles one must learn how to use in order to sing in a “mixed” voice, which Pavarotti pointed out has an “elastic” quality to it (both in terms of how it feels and how it sounds).  Some might sing well with no training by using the muscles required for the highest notes (cricothyroid), which might sound better in children (though I do not work with child singers and suggest taking children who want to sing to a teacher who specializes in this field).  This was known as falsetto in the Bel Canto tradition.  Today, men who sing this was in the Classical arena are known as Countertenors (or just falsettists).  Many pop vocalists use this technique, but rarely for the entire song.

Others (mostly adult men who sing with a deep voice) might sing with mostly with the other set of muscles (vocalis or thyroarytenoid, two sides of the same structure, so some refer to one or the other in this context).  If one sings entirely with vocalis, then a “gravely” sound with be produced (called “fry”).  People can learn to sing as a falsettist, or mostly with cricothyroid, or mostly with vocalis.  Few begin to sing with just vocalis, obviously, though they might produce this sound when they speak, for example, to talk about a horror movie or to act the role of a character in a horror movie.  What may feel “natural” to one person may feel very uncomfortable to another, though the other person may not even be able to produce the sound.

A key point is the language one is going to sing in, as Italian is among the easiest, due to the “pure vowel” usage in that language, whereas English has some difficult sounds, especially with certain accents (which is why so many singers from the United Kingdom sound American when they sing).  In fact, some sounds that are not easy in American English are sung in a more British way by American sings, but most listeners don’t notice.  One aspect of singing, at least in a traditional way, is that words get “rounded off” (to keep a melodic flow) so that a world like bottle, for instance, might get sung as “bah-ohl.”  However, if you are going to sing softly, such as the old tune, “Time in a Bottle” by Jim Croce, you might want to pronounce it as your speak it.  Learning how to to this, at least in the context of one genre, for all sounds you will encounter, if part of learning how to sing in languages like English.  It’s very common for me to hear an aspiring singer who doesn’t understand how to sing a particular sound but is otherwise quite good.

The reason why so many people can reasonably well, so long as they don’t try to do too much (such as if they sing the Happy Birthday to You song in a gentle way), is that they are “mixing” (cricothyroid and vocalis) when they do this.  If they try to sing a song that requires more “power,” however, they can’t hold the mix together because their muscles lack the coordination, which takes time to develop.  Also required for “power singing” is the development of the aryepiglottic sphincter, which allows one to use less air (the air gets focused on the hard palate with precision once this muscle is developed).  If you go for anything powerful before this muscle is developed you’ll produce a strained sound or it will clearly be a scream or yell.

And all this assumes you understand the difference between singing and vocalizing; the latter can include grunts, whispers, growls, snorts, shrieks, etc. (mostly done by pop vocalists, of course).  So the Quora question, but singing on a “world class” level if you are not a “natural” singer makes no sense.  Few excellent singers will ever be among the top 100 opera singers in the world, if that is what the person wants to know, which should be obvious, but otherwise, what does it mean?  Pop vocalists who are bad or mediocre singers can be quite successful – in these genres, what matters most might be to learn how to vocalize with a microphone to get the sound you want (assuming you don’t care much about vocal cord health, which seems to be the case for many if not most of them).  If you really want to learn how to sing, you have to set aside quite a bit of time to practice, you need to practice the right things in the right order, and you can’t get discouraged easily, because it takes at least months to develop these muscles so that you can deal with all the sounds you’ll need to sing in the English language.

As to the Quora question about what is one’s best singing voice, that would depend upon the genre.  I’m not going to sing the U.S. National Anthem the way I would a Led Zeppelin blues/rock song, that’s for sure!   You might learn how to sing in one way and want to stop there, and for you that might be the best decision.  Then there are other issues, such as phrasing.  You just might not be good at phrasing for a particular genre/style, and that means you can keep working on it or stick to what you can phrase well, because even though you might sing a song well, without good phrasing, you might sound “stiff” and audiences will not be pleased.  Or you might want to try to do something very different, knowing that it’s not likely to be popular at first, such as singing “upbeat” and simple pop songs in a deep bass voice (assuming you have one) .  Of course, what you best singing voice is now may not be true a year from now, especially if you are working on developing it, and you may want to sing only in a genre that you don’t think features your best singing voice, so you modify it.

One thing it certainly makes sense to do, if you are still learning or are not sure about something, is to take advantage of the opportunity of free lessons that many voice coaches offer.  Note that 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 a blog post.  And for those who are new to this blog, I mentioned at the end of 2018 that I wouldn’t be doing as much posting in 2019 because there’s only so much to say.  Singing is a skill, and you just have to learn it, though of course many go about it in ways that don’t make sense, or aren’t sure about exactly what they are trying to achieve.  At some point, if you are a microphone singer, you might want to work with sound engineers or producers – that’s how you’ll get the sound you hear in “major productions,” such as the final songs sung on a season of “The Voice.”

“How do you know if you’re a good singer?”

Recently, a person asked the following on Quora:

How do you know if you’re a good singer? I’ve had people who heard me solo tell me that I’m good but I can’t tell if they are being honest or nice.

https://www.quora.com/How-do-you-know-if-youre-a-good-singer-Ive-had-people-who-heard-me-solo-tell-me-that-Im-good-but-I-cant-tell-if-they-are-being-honest-or-nice

I wasn’t all that impressed by the responses, so I thought I’d write up a post about this.  The “short answer” is that if you can’t tell you if your singing in at least one genre is competent, then it’s highly likely you are a “good singer.”  However, you may be good an mimicking sounds, and have impressed people with a rendition of a well-known song.  This is even the case for a few people who sing an aria or two (such as Paul Potts), though these singers tend to be criticized by the opera crowd (usually for good reason, IMO).  Some of them have made a lot of money, from what I understand, but this is likely in spite of their abilities rather than because of them!  And with all the technological enhancements and modifications that can be done these days, microphone singers don’t have to be “good.”  In fact, these days there are plenty of people who think they can judge pop singers/vocalists, but clearly don’t know what they’re talking about.

One example are the Youtube videos about microphone singers who can “project” or are “resonant.”  These notions are not relevant for singing if you don’t have to be concerned about amplification, and such “wannabe” critics are likely referring to tone, or vibrato, or belting ability, or something else.  What they should be mentioning, IMO, is that many pop singers who are said to be “great” would sound bad (at least at times) if sound engineering wasn’t used!  So, what you should ask yourself first is, do I want to learn how to sing optimally, or do I want to take the quicker path and vocalize in a way that might work in a particular genre (though you probably won’t be thought of as a “great singer”)?  Yes, you might sound good to your friends/relatives or even some strangers in a karaoke setting, but again, for most people this means that you did a decent (at best) job of mimicking one or two songs.

In some of the Quora responses, the suggestion was made to record yourself and listen in some sort of “objective” way.  The problem is that it’s been demonstrated that people tend to think their singing attempts are better than they actually are, and you should also have an idea of what your goal is.  In my case, I could hear that I wasn’t where I wanted to be (when I listened to myself in the “early days”) – it didn’t sound “professional.”  I didn’t realize that pop singing needs to be genre-specific, and I was studying operatic technique, which actually worked out well for me, but I didn’t know that I needed to transition to different techniques (“microphone singing”) once I developed the relevant muscles.  So, if you are a beginner, you should listen to yourself with the thought that there are going to be some issues.  If you can’t figure out what they are, you can consult a voice coach who offers at least a free initial assessment, which is mentioned by one of the people who responded on the Quora page:

A teacher SHOULD give you an honest assessment if you ask for it. If you can’t afford weekly lessons, you can always ask a teacher if they have time for an assessment only, being sure to make it clear that you just want an honest assessment and no more.

But before asking others, listen to your own singing and also the “raw” singing of someone who is singing in the same style/genre.  It may not be easy to find such recordings for any one singer, but if you can’t (or you’re not sure), just look for another singer’s live performances on Youtube (also whose doing what you want to do).  And you can’t just do this once – you may have to listen to the same recording several times, until you begin to hear the “little things” that are responsible for big differences (but don’t do it on the same day, which is likely to lead to frustration).  I think that after you do this, advice from a voice coach is likely to make more sense.

One of the major things I advise students to do is to learn how to sing the most common sounds found in pop songs sung in English.  Now some of the sounds occur in words that you might as well learn, since they can actually help the process.  An example is the “u” vowel, as in you, blue, knew, etc.  Since “you” is so commonly used in songs, and it’s easier to sing “you” than “u” (“ooh” type sound), that is a great place to start.  The word “me” is yet another.  These are emphasis words/sounds, so for example, a simple line, “you and me” can be very helpful (emphasizing the first and third words).  Singing the word “and,” though, is usually a problem for beginners (if you sing it as you would properly speak it), but if you sing it as “an” and don’t emphasize it, as is usually the case in pop songs in the English language, it should be a lot easier to deal with until your muscles are ready to do more.

Note that this approach is very different from mimicry, and the idea is to develop the ability to sing any sound you wish (at least in English).  At the same time, though, you can still do some mimicry though, so long as you don’t feel any pain or discomfort.  That might help prevent boredom, and perhaps it will help you recognize the difference between singing and mimicking sounds.  But also keep in mind that there are a lot of singers who get out there and sing in a non-optimal way, and are mostly viewed as “good.”  They tend to have consistency issues (I’ve explained this on previous posts).  The point is that if you understand the expectations of your audience, your beginner or amateur level might not matter in that particular context, and you’ll derive some performance experience.

If you don’t know, a producer figures out what to do with the voice you have (if you allow him/her to do it), and this might include all kinds of technological enhancements, whereas a voice coach is trying to teach you the fundamentals (if needed) or how to sing for a certain genre/style (if the coach is competent).  Of course, there are likely more than a few voice coaches who can (or even insist upon) teaching you to sing with technological enhancement, but beyond a certain point and it approaches the ridiculous, because anyone’s voice can be enhanced to the point of it sounding “good” to a lot of people.  It’s one thing to learn how to sing with a microphone (assuming that’s what you to do), because it’s crucial to get control over your volume for most pop genres, but it’s another to do things like scream and have a sound engineer “clean it up,” because you can damage your vocal cords doing that!

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.

You can’t learn how to “hit high notes” within a few minutes!

First, I’ll point out that the notion mentioned in the title references some of the advice given here:

https://www.quora.com/Do-you-need-more-or-less-air-when-singing-high-notes

This is one of those questions that newbies or beginners tend to ask but which are more likely to cause problems than to be helpful (and to be clear, in this post I’m only referring to singing in modal voice, not falsetto, and certainly not trying to scream a high note).  Now if you asked me if this requires more air for me (an adult male with a singing voice on the low end of the spectrum) to sing a “pure” u vowel (such as in the words too, blue, soon) in a crooning style and with emphasis (such as at the end of the line in “Call Me Irresponsible:” “Rainbows, I’m inclined to pursue”) as a high note (as in the song) or as a low note, I’d say singing “pursue” in a low/breathy tone would. How much did that very specific response help, though?

It’s interesting to consider why anyone would ask this question. Most likely, he or she is looking for a “quick tip” that will lead them to overcome a “plateau” that they feel like they are “stuck on.” For example, if the aspiring singer is able to sing reasonably well in a tight range and without much stylistic variety, it would make sense to think about whether “breaking out” of that range, probably to try and go higher, would simply be a matter of taking in more breath before the sound is sung, learing breath support (or better breath support), or just trying to force a bit more air through the vocal cords. I’d guess that few would even think that less air is required, but some might get the idea when they see someone sing a high note in what appears to be an effortless way.

Unfortunately, the way it works, IMO, is similar to asking how much pressure a NASCAR driver uses (with his/her hands) when shifting gears. I have no idea what the answer is, or whether there is a lot of variation from one driver to the other, but I have a strong feeling this is not the kind of thing to be thinking about when you first learn how to drive these kinds of cars in the way they do! In the case of singing, you have to develop the right muscles and then you’ll be able to sing high notes with apparent ease (though there are other issues involved). Before you obtain that muscle control, I think it’s a bad idea to try and “hit high notes,” unless you prefer to sing those notes in falsetto.  One thing I do often see that I consider a bad idea is opening the mouth wider vertically when trying to reach higher notes.  The highest note I sing in modal voice without effort (when I’m fully “warmed up”) is A4 (my low is in the C2/D2 range), but when Id o this my mouth is only open a small amount (and I’m using “horizontal embouchure”), the reason being certain muscles have to be “pulled up” in order to stretch out the vocal cords in the appropriate way.

And this leads me to the advice given by Cheryl Hassenfritz on that Quora page:

Today, were gonna talk about how you can sing really high right now…
For todays little nifty exercise, we are going to yodel. Thats right…well kind of. Were going to engage the cords on the bottom note. Then, were going to zip the cords up real fast. But dont think of the top note as a note you must hit. Think instead, its a release. Strive for a nice connected bottom note, and then release the top note slightly on the breathy side. Engage then release. What we are teaching the voice to do with this exercise is to be changeable, adaptable, and flexible.

Here is the full video:

What she demonstrates seems too dangerous for newbies/beginners. Instead, it’s a matter of what sounds work for you. In my case, I discovered that the words”bay” and “bow” (as in rainbow and not as in “he took a bow in front of the audience) were best. At first, when I tried to “go up” singing these words the sound was weak, but over time strength developed and I was able to do what I wanted. Here is an attempt at “reconstructing” how one might sound while learning the “bay” sound over time (the amount of time it takes to get from one “stage” to another can vary considerably and is likely to be at least a few days at absolute minimum, or perhaps months at the maximum; the key is not to get discouraged, because it might seem that you aren’t making any progress for days or even weeks, just be sure you aren’t trying to force it):

I do agree with Ms. Hassenfritz’ point that the larynx can constantly move up and down or “stay neutral;” this is an effect, and not something to think about either. For example, when you see smoke coming out of your car’s exhaust pipe, it might be normal or it might suggest an engine problem. You’d have to do some tests to determine what’s going on; with singing, the main indicators, in my experience, are the sound and the feelings in the throat (such as slight vibration, which is best, pain, which is probably worst, dryness, strain, etc.). I’d guess that many newbies or  beginners waste a whole lot of time thinking about these things and even trying to “fix” a non-problem, when in fact they should be doing some very simple things to develop the relevant muscles. A competent voice coach should know what to suggest, then see if are progressing with the those things. There’s no “secret,” but instead some people understand the fundamentals and how to learn them, while others don’t.

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.