How do I sing like this or that singer versus how do I sound like this or that singer?

There are so many threads on singing forums like reddit’s that ask the question, “how do I sing like ________?”  But what I’ve noticed is that most probably don’t want the answer to that question!  That is, they don’t want to put in the practice time to develop the techniques, and instead believe that some “trick” is involved, and/or that a “quick tip” is all they need.

Sometimes they are correct, in that the vocalist is not a good singer in any traditional notion of the term.  However, because so much sound engineering and effects are used, it’s not always easy to tell!  As I told one person who posted a clip of his singing (while he was also playing the guitar):

“There are two major types of advice you could get by providing a short clip like that.  One is if you want technical advice, the problem there being that with some pop genres, the lead vocalists often do things contrary to what is technically-correct.  I understand that many beginners don’t realize this, but that’s all the more reason to point it out.  The other type of advice would best come from producers or sound engineers who specialize in the genre.  They know what you need to sound like to be successful.  Of course, you can also go to open mic nights and just see for yourself whether your vocals can find an audience.  So, as a teacher, I don’t want to give someone advice who will not benefit from it, and actually, the advice might cause problems with the vocals expected in the genre.”

Some people just don’t seem to understand the distinction, and if I could phrase things in a way that would give them this understanding, I would, but I don’t know how to explain things  any better than this.  I don’t think there is anything to lose by learning the fundamentals, however, though if you want to sing most pop genres (and I mean sing, not yell) but are taking lessons from someone who really only knows how to teach opera, you could run into some issues.  One involves breath support; these teachers  tendd to teach very robust techniques meant for high volume, which is rarely necessary for pop singing (and apparently has led to more than a few opera singers getting hernias!).

Another involves embouchure; this may be more of a problem for adult males with typical singing voices.  If you learn operatic technique you will be mostly or entirely using vertical embouchure, but at least in my experience (and with one of these typical adult male voices, probably bass in opera), you’ll likely want to use mostly horizontal  embouchure (in order to work the C-T muscles and bring your range up to an area more common in pop genres).  Of course if you want to sing pop songs with a deep voice, more vertical embouchure may be the way to go.  With most of my singing, there’s usually not much embouchure at all.  The more embouchure, the more difficult it is to control  your singing, which may be less of an issue if you sing in Italian, but it certainly is in English.  Some pop singers get around this by mumbling, slurring, or “rounding off” words in very obvious ways, to the point that one can question whether this kind of vocalizing should be classified as singing in any traditional sense.

But to get back to the title question of this post, if you just want to sound like a particular singer, even if you do have very similar timbre and technique, he or she may be singing into a signal chain that costs in excess of $100,000, so keep that in mind.  Even if you have a “professional” studio nearby, it’s not likely they can match what the “big stars” are using, though of course in some cases that may be possible.  Until you “develop your ear” properly, you won’t know, unless you can find someone who does have that ability, and in my experience, the sound engineering people don’t know enough about singing technique and the singing teachers don’t know enough about sound engineering.  One thing you can do without spending too much is to find a tube microphone that works for your voice and at least learn some editing/effects in fairly simple software like Audacity (you can read my experiences with this in some of my previous posts).

Let’s listen to an example of a singer many want to sound like.

You can fast forward to 6:30. Bon Jovi seems to be over-adducting (as you would do if you were yelling) but it’s at low volume (relative to yelling) and a bit breathy. The sound engineering likely helps a great deal, along with the background music, of course. At 6:41/6:42 there is a vocalization that sounds like singing. Just before 11:00 we hear that same soft yell type vocalization, then a bit of a talky vocalization (11:01), and then at 11:06 to 11:08 he’s back to a breathy singing in lower volume. So, if you want to sound like Bon Jovi in this recording, it’s mostly not singing in any traditional sense that you’d need to learn. You could practice the common vowels to “round off” the end of lines the way he does,” but otherwise you’d have to learn something that tends to be very stressful to the vocal cords (though presumably doing it at lower volume should be better than typical yelling), and of course you could add talking here and there, since you already know how to do this. In this case, you would ask, “how do I sound like Bon Jovi?” Most teachers of singing would not explain relatively low volume, breathy, yelling kinds of vocalizations, though there seem to be some on Youtube who claim to teach this, some calling it singing. Most teachers would have you do all kinds of “exercises,” when in fact you might be able to learn how to sound roughly like Bon Jovi fairlly quickly (but again, you may develop vocal cord issues).

Now let’s say you can sing in a typical pop (low to medium volume), fundamentally-sound way. If you ask me, “how can I sound like Bruno Mars?” I can tell you to be at least a little breathy and a little (or a lot) nasal, so that you feel like you’re forcing some air through your nose. This may not feel or sound all that great to begin witth, but over time you’ll (weeks or months) you’ll develop the right muscle memory for it. In the meantime, find some lines from songs to sing with this technique so that it feels like the words are flowing with ease. Again, over time, you can try more and more difficult words/lines. I also think that most pop singers who demonstrate at least fairly good skills have developed their AES muscle (I would not place Bon Jovi in this category, though he may be better than the yelling type technique and is just using it because that is what his fans want to hear), and that seems to take a long time, and also may require that you learn proper technique, so there is not “trick” to it that can be learned quickly. I speak more about the AES muscle in this post:

https://learningtosing.wordpress.com/2020/12/16/what-is-the-most-important-thing-to-learn/

Of course, a lot of aspiring singers get fixated on “hitting notes” and expanding their range (especially the high end), in some cases to super-human proportions (not realizing it’s not possible and likely the result of sound engineering in most cases, and perhaps it’s not even singing, but rather shrieking). Doing this seems to lead to the opposite result, and then the person might either quit or go with screaming/shrieking//yelling, and again we may be back to a Bon Jovi type situation. You can read about my opinion on pitch obsession here:

https://learningtosing.wordpress.com/2020/06/22/how-concerned-should-you-be-with-pitch/

In my experience, it’s easiest to develop strong muscle coordination/”mixed voice” with Blues and Country type affectation. These styles allow you to round off words without losing articulation or cord closure, and also maintain what Pavarotti called elasticity (assuming you have it to begin with, of course). If you do attain this, you can then work on losing it, so to speak, so that you have a more straightforward sound. With some words/sounds or in some instances, in fact, you may want to use that Blues/Country coordination to keep your singing consistent (and if you learn to use it to a small degree it might not sound like anything unusual or out of place). It may even help you to present a unique sound, which is something I like to work on at times.

Unfortunately, there are plenty of “stars” who are not especially good singers. When people ask how to sing like one of these stars, he/she may cite a video that sounds like effects were used heavily. If that’s the case, you may not want to sing like that star, but you might want to get that sound, which could simply require inexpensive or free software and the knowledge of how to use it, for example:

NOTE: I am not able to offer singing lessons at this time, but you can email me a singing clip if you want a free assessment. I can provide you advice from a technical perspective, particularly with traditional pop songs (crooners, some non-screamy Beatles songs like the beginning of “Hey Jude,” etc.). I’d need a recording of you singing a simple song, even something like Row row row your boat, without background music or stylistic phrasing added. Just use your smart phone’s basic recording app (don’t add reverb, EQ, compression, etc., and don’t use more advanced software like GarageBand). You can sing a few lines from several such simple songs; that would be best. My email is nickspinner55@gmail.com. If you want to take lessons if and when I can offer them again, you can send me an email and I’ll put you on a “call back” list.

Vibrato: what is it, and should you try to develop it?

I’ve seen a lot of posts on the reddit singing forum asking about vibrato, with many who appear to be beginners thinking it’s crucial for them to learn it. Instead, I suggest reading this post first:

https://learningtosing.wordpress.com/2020/12/16/what-is-the-most-important-thing-to-learn/

As to vibrato, let’s start with the Wikipedia definition:

…is a musical effect consisting of a regular, pulsating change of pitch. It is used to add expression to vocal and instrumental music. Vibrato is typically characterised in terms of two factors: the amount of pitch variation (“extent of vibrato”) and the speed with which the pitch is varied (“rate of vibrato”).^[1]

In singing it can occur spontaneously through variations in the larynx.

I won’t speak to opera singing notions, as few on the forum are interested in becoming professional opera singers, and if you are you should study with a specialist teacher. I will point out that when most people think a singer is using vibrato in a pop genre, it’s usually obvious and I’d guess it’s faked a good percentage of the time (by fake I mean they are at the very least significantly exaggerating it). An obvious pop vibrato (though perhaps it was pre-recorded and modified in some significant way) can be heard starting at 2:16 in this video:

And here’s a less obvious example with the same singer, at 0:29:

Vibrato is a consequence of technique (as in learning the moves of chess, then the strategy, tactics, etc., and that leads to being able to checkmate your opponent), and in fact it’s more difficult to produce a constant tone than vibrato if you sustain a note at high volume. The only reason why vibrato would be more difficult is if the aspiring singer is consciously trying to do what he/she thinks vibrato is (causing himself/herself problems), rather than to just sing using proper technique! I have also seen the same kind of situation with those who claim they possess “too much tongue tension” (usually the result of developing a technique that involves straining for high notes).

In pop genres these days, there is often a stylstic choice not to demonstrate obvious vibrato but instead to “belt” or “flip” into falsetto (or just stay in your “comfort zone” and don’t sustain notes). With belting, you slide or scoop to a sustained note without obvious, operatic-style vibrato, but at high volume (or at least what may come across as high volume, once the “studio magic” is added). If you can do a healthy belt or sustained note, try just loosening up slightly on the muscles you feel controlling the sound and/or use less air (after achieving the belt); that should produce at least a soft vibrato. As to faking vibrato, you can try pulsing air or even just opening and closing your mouth quickly (not totally closing it, obviously) and see if that’s what you want. Just be sure to stop if you feel any kind of strain.

You might want to read my post about concerns over singing on pitch, if you haven’t already:

https://learningtosing.wordpress.com/2020/06/22/how-concerned-should-you-be-with-pitch/

In that post I quoted a passage from the book, “Bad Singer;”

“Hutchins [a researcher] has also studied what he calls ‘the vocal generosity effect’ and discovered that listeners considered vocals in tune when the singers were within half a semitone of the correct pitch, but were less willing to accept such variations from violinists…”

The point here is that some might perceive a singer using vibrato while others don’t! Also, I’ll mention that I don’t have time to give lessons, but if and when I resume I’ll create a new post announcing that students can contact me about available times.

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.

Learning by listening, in this case, “Beyond the Sea.”

First, if you’ve read my previous blog posts, the following should be a good test for you.  Watch these videos (perhaps more than once) and ask yourself what they represent:

The most obvious thing to me is that the first video is clearly a lip sync performance.  Now if you are just learning to sing, you might not realize that it may be humanly impossible.  That is, there is not enough time between some of the lines, so it might have been recorded as separate tracks and then put together by the sound engineer.  This is a way to make a song sound more exciting, but then if you sing it live without major technological enhancements you won’t be able to duplicate it.  Overall, I doubt much technological enhancement was used, other than some kind of echo effect, but I think it’s worth studying the studio and live recordings, and if you can sing it reasonably well, pay attention to areas of difficulty, if any, then see if that’s the case for Bobby Darin in the live version.

There are some other interesting characteristics of this song (if sung in a similar way).  Adjusting embouchure, particularly with words that end with an “ee” sound (me and sea), can allow you to hold the notes longer with strength, for example.  And while singing the word “sailing” in this song it’s best to not close the mouth to make the “ng” sound, as is common in English words ending in “ing.”  Instead, singing it as say-lin may be best, again, so that you can hold the note longer with strength.  Many of today’s young pop vocalists might sing it with too much volume, what I’ve call “scream/singing” in the past, but what we have here is a crooning style with some belting touches.  Thus, it’s a good exercise in maintaining consistency, which tends to be a problem for amateurs.

Speaking of which, in the rendition by Keven Spacey, what we hear is a solid amateur performance.  He seems to understand the importance of consistency on at least a basic level, and he stays within his abilities.  He apparently doesn’t know how to belt, or can’t maintain consistency when he does, so he refrains from attempting it.  If he were a student of mine, I’d make sure he has proper breath support and then ask him to push just a little bit more air during whichever belting part of the song he feels most comfortable singing.  It may be that he has yet to develop his AES muscle, which I think it crucial for doing this, but I’d likely be able to tell based upon what happens when he tries to belt.  If his AES isn’t developed, I’d have him do exercises with “pure” vowels and simple, smooth lines.  After a few days of that, he could go back to singing the song, or parts of it, and I’d see if he has more focused strength to his singing (that’s what the AES enables).

But what’s most interesting to me is that while he’s an actor, his performance is rather “under-powered.”  It should have more “punch” or “energy,” as is so common for many (probably most beginners) non-professionals.  In previous posts, I’ve mentioned that beginners whose singing is rather ‘flat” or weak might consider taking acting lessons, or at least a course in public speaking.  It’s crucial to show your audience that you want to be there and that you’re going to give it your best effort, yet so many non-pros seem tentative, as if they are “not worthy.”  Instead, you could do three renditions of a song, one that is tentative, but also one that is “over the top,” as well as one that you think is “just right.”  Wait a few days, then listen to them and see what you think.  Ask others which rendition they prefer.  Once you get to the point that you can sing on a very basic level competently, it’s time to think about performing – some amateurs are mostly missing this element and nothing else!

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.

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.”

“Vocal Gymnastics” and is it acceptable to use a “little” auto-tune?

Two related topics came up not long ago, so I thought I’d combine them into one post and explain my thinking.  First, I’ll address the concept of vocal gymnastics.  Now it’s possible to mostly sing and use a little of these non-singing vocalizations, but what it’s common these days to see someone who thinks he/she can sing, but is actually trying to mostly or entirely do vocal gymnastics.  This is a good example:

And notice that he titles this video, “I learn how to sing for 30 days.”  No, he didn’t learn how to sing, not in any traditional sense.  He learned how to prevent his vocal gymnastics from being as off pitch as when he started.  If you are interested in this sort of thing, and not singing in any kind of traditional way, then it’s important to recognize it!  Don’t fool yourself.  In fact, it seems that a large number of people are trying to learn how to sing by replicating studio recordings, though some (perhaps most) such songs can’t be replicated with just the human voice (or even the human voice amplified and with some echo effect added).  I’m not a sound engineer, so all I can do is to point out what sounds like something that isn’t humanly possible.

Beyond this, there is the “produced sound,”‘ which means the singer’s voice has been “cleaned up” substantially.  Again, a sound engineer does that, and if a producer is involved, he/she will decide whether the result is “commercial.”  I have spoken about this before, but I think the concept of vocal gymnastics is worth mentioning, because it clarifies what goal is sought.  As to using auto-tune, this came up in a video by one of the major Youtube voice coaches:

The thing about auto-tune is that without it, vocal gymnastics are either impossible or would sound bad most of the time.  This voice coach seems to like to sing the songs of others, rather than creating his own songs, which is fine (I do that too), but if you want to be a singer and do that, you need to choose your songs wisely.  I sing some Led Zeppelin songs, for example, but I don’t scream, as Robert Plant does often, so that limits me to certain songs of theirs.  Of course, I could sing those “screamy” songs in a significantly modified way, but for the time being I mostly sing the non-screamy ones in a very similar way (I view them as good “exercise” for my vocal muscles).  However, if you are going to try and sing vocal gymnastics songs (with or without screaming), I think you should either learn sound engineering or work with a sound engineer.  Before doing this, though, I advise that you learn how to actually sing (in a traditional way), because you will have more options open to you and it’s less likely to damage your vocal cords.

Now in the auto-tune video, Tristan Paredes tells us, “I had the producers send me over a clip with no pitch correction at all.”  Whether or not the pitch correction technology used was “major” or “minor”‘ is not an issue (as it apparently is for him), though.  The reason is that it’s so common (even Michael Buble had it used, and at least some of the results were awful, as I wrote about in a previous post) that it’s not worth arguing about at this point.  Instead, I think it is worth asking, why did you need a producer?  There must have been a sound engineer, so why not tell us what they did do to your voice, besides pitch correction (such as compression)?  The key point here is that when you try to sing vocal gymnastics songs and you haven’t mastered the fundamentals, you are not going about things in an intelligent way, IMO.  Even when I can sing a song, sometimes the phrasing is difficult (if I want to keep it as it is in the original rendition), and I have to decide whether it’s worth spending the time learning it.

So, if you don’t have the fundamentals down, the phrasing is difficult, and it’s more of a vocal gymnastics/studio magic song, you are likely setting yourself up for failure.  You wouldn’t think you were ready to drive in the Indianapolis 500 if you just obtained your driver’s license, would you?  The more I learn about my singing voice, the less interested I am in vocal gymnastics, actually.  The reason is that I know how to be “impressive” without resorting to things that are “cheap” (such as including a shriek) and may result in vocal cord damage.  The nuances/subtleties of singing are a lot more worthy of study than the obvious (and usually screechy) vocal gymnastics.  In at least one past blog post, I’ve spoken about the fixation some people have with “runs” (melisma), and this is similar, except that runs are part of traditional notions of singing (some people think that is the most important thing to learn how to do, apparently, though I don’t think it’s wise to try and do this in the early stages of learning how to sing).

For most of those learning to sing, the problem with being off pitch is that the relevant muscles haven’t been developed properly.  So, once that is accomplished, if you are off pitch, it could mean there is inflammation (such as if you have a cold), or that you are trying to do something beyond your (or any human’s) capabilities.  You can always modify a song slightly, and if you have to modify it significantly, that almost always means something is very wrong, such as that you are trying to do what is not humanly possible.  It’s not likely that you have a “bad ear,” assuming you have learned to sing in a traditional way, though you might have difficulty matching pitch on a keyboard, for example.  I wouldn’t concern myself with that, unless a professional has determined you are “tone deaf.”  However, you can certainly practice a little each day.  The thing is, if you can’t hold a note that’s well within your beginner’s “comfort zone” range, then that is the place to start.  If you are a baseball pitcher, you learn how to throw a fastball (technique) before being concerned with the velocity of it, for example.

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.

Learning to sing versus taking voice lessons.

Obviously, “voice lessons” is a more general notion, which can include learning to speak more professionally. However, when most people say they are taking voice lessons they mean they are doing so in order to learn how to sing, in my experience. Recently, there was a thread on Quora.com with the title, “How good at singing were you before voice lessons?”, which I think is interesting. For example, one person responded with:

I wasn’t bad. I sang mostly on pitch, I had musicality, and I could power through popular “diva tunes”, i.e. Whitney Houston, Barbara Streisand, pieces from musicals such as Les Miserables, Phantom, etc, although I could tell even then that those were not freely done, and there were some notes I couldn’t reach.

However, I didn’t have technique, which was why in high school and college I could strain to hit stuff and then I couldn’t find the air to sing in my 30’s, due to an airy vocal habit. Correcting that, and then learning technique, has made a nice difference in the resonant quality of my singing, as well as my speaking voice…

I don’t know what “power through” means here. In particular, would most people want to hear her “power through” effort, or did she and her friends/relative think she did a “good job?” Then there’s the claim that her abilities (if they existed) declined as she got older due to airy vocal habit, whatever this is (breathiness?). The type of singing she was apparently doing, however, did not require (and wouldn’t sound good with) a breathy sound, so it would have been quite interesting if she had provided audio clips of her singing over the years. She also doesn’t mention what kinds of technical enhancements, if any, she felt she needed to use at different times. “Resonant quality” is vague as well.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem that she has an understanding of the muscle control required for optimal singing, and without examples of her singing, I can’t say much if anything about it. Another responded, however, did provide a clip (of his recent efforts). He tells us that he:

…was really terrible at singing before taking voice lessons. When I first started singing at about 12-years old, I could sing intervals of a song correctly but I literally always sang everything an octave below – for a really good example of this, I thought I nailed an F4 when in reality it was only an F3, which was also sung with a terrible tone that was highly muffled and froggy. I will also suffer every time I go for a higher note, where I will do all sorts of things that do not help such as scrunching my face, which only does more harm than good.

Frustrated with my singing despite my love for it, that eventually began my journey and desire to become a better singer, and throughout my life I have had 3 vocal coaches, with my first 2 coaches being more pop-oriented and my latest being more classically-oriented. Voice lessons did me wonders – not only it improved my vocal technique dramatically, but my aural skills also improved by a huge mile…

One question I’d have is, why is a 12 year old concerned about singing lower yet correctly? Did his voice change at that time, which might explain things? No matter, why is this a problem? One should not be trying to sing an entire octave higher than one’s tessitura (as it’s called in the world of opera)! From what he says, it sounds like he became fixated on notions about how to sing that were not accurate (where did these notions originate from?). A “muffled and froggy” quality is something that should indicate that one “back off” and reassess things, and possibly seek professional help (of at least the musical variety). But since he did provide a clip of what he thinks is reasonably good singing, let’s turn to that now:

Let’s compare that to the original:

Now it’s true that comparing live versus studio rendition is fraught with possible problems, as I’ve pointed out in some previous posts, but here (for at least the beginning of the song) there isn’t much technological enhancement in the studio version sung by Paul McCartney.  However, one problem many if not most beginner microphone singers don’t understand is how crucial volume is.  Liu is singing for a small live audience, it seems, but McCartney is singing for a recording.  One  problem with doing the former is that the ability to explore certain nuances is lost – it’s usually a “one size fits all” situation, which leads to many pop vocalists resorting to things like growling, yelling, groaning, etc. in order to avoid sounding boring.

There’s a less obvious issue here, though – listen to them both sing “night” and see if you notice any difference.  At around 0:10 into the Liu video, his “night” starts high, whereas around 0:07 in the McCartney recording, notice that he starts lower and goes higher as he sings that word.  It may be that Liu should just listen more carefully to the song renditions he wants to copy, which may be crucial for anyone who wants to be an excellent singer.  Now if McCartney did sing it at a lower volume, as it sounds like is the case for at least part of the song, one has to develop the muscle coordination to do that; just because you developed muscles to sing high volume opera, for example, does not mean you can also sing a low volume song well.  And that brings me to this opera singer’s comment in the Quora thread (which you can find at https://www.quora.com/How-good-at-singing-were-you-before-voice-lessons):

I have a theory that all the really terrible natural singers are the most naturally talented ones, because their vocal tracts are weird, and therefore hard to use. It’s not a perfect correlation, but usually when people are making painfully awful sounds in lessons with me, those are the people who make most impressive sounds when trained.

First, if you sound terrible then should you even be called a singer, natural or otherwise?  As has been discovered by researchers, most people can sing reasonably well in a limited range with little or no instruction or study – we are all “natural singers” (and there’s no reason to sound terrible).  Yes, if you want to be an opera singer you might sound terrible without instruction or study, but for pop singers the bigger problem is not understanding how to sing in a certain way, such as softly with a microphone, though it’s also common for them to sing with too much volume (though that often leads to yelling, which isn’t singing at all).  I’d also like to know what he considers an “impressive sound.”

He also tells us that some people have “weird” vocal tracts that are difficult to use.  I doubt this is the case with opera (I’ve never encountered any claim like this in the past), but with pop singing there are all kinds of technological enhancements one can use to change how one’s voice sounds.  John Lennon, back in the mid/late 1960s, for example, used all kinds of “studio tricks” because he didn’t like how his voice sounded.  In my experience, the major problems involve trying to sing a song that is not possible without the aid of a sound engineer (and his/her equipment) and trying to sing using what one might call one’s talking muscles, as opposed to developing and coordinating the muscles required to sing in an optimal way (for whatever the volume desired).

Most voice coaches who teach (or think they teach) singing rely upon “exercises” and “warmups,” but I don’t see the value in the former and I think the latter of highly overrated.  For example, I eat breakfast before singing and then just test out certain common sounds, starting at low volume and then gradually increasing it – that’s the extent of my “warmup,”  and it usually takes seconds rather than ten minutes or more.  However, if you don’t have the right muscles developed, that is what to work on first, IMO (but of course you don’t want to do that beginning with high volume, and rarely if ever is high volume needed for microphone singing!).  Also, some songs are easier to sing well without significant sound engineering/”studio tricks,” so those are ones to practice while a beginner or amateur, and just by trying out as many songs as you can, you should be able to figure out what works for you.

Moreover, if you are only interested in singing in one genre, you may want to avoid certain kinds of singing techniques – that’s something a competent “voice coach” should help you understand.  And because you likely can sing at moderate volume in a tight range with little if any “training,” why not start there?  That’s what I like to do with students.  This allows me to assess where problem areas might be, and I can then offer suggestions, usually involving singing a line or two that will help develop the appropriate muscles.  Then, depending upon what genre or types of songs you want to sing, I can offer the relevant advice, such as how to learn to belt, generate overtones, taper off, etc.  It’s not that it’s difficult to do, but rather it’s easy to go down the wrong path and make things worse, which is what I see has happened to more than a few students who took “voice lessons” but weren’t taught how to actually sing (or who tried to learn on their own), which is what their goal was!

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.

Should you fear making an “ugly” sound?

I’ve heard it said in the world of opera that this or that great singer had an ugly voice, or something along those lines.  I’ve also heard many students or aspiring singers say they they thought their voice has an ugly quality.  You don’t usually hear this said about pop singers, though.  Why?  One major reason is that there are ways to mask it with sound engineering, but I think it’s also the case that most fans of pop music simply don’t notice it, no matter how obvious it might be!

Karen Carpenter was a major pop start who people mentioned in the context of a “nice,” “pretty,” or even “beautiful” voice.  I like to tell younger students about her because her style was “easy,” and she didn’t scream or try to do too much.  And unlike so many female pop singers of today, she didn’t rely upon sound engineers to correct pitch or cover up a screechy sound (so common these days).  However, did she make “ugly” sounds while singing, and if so, why?  Let’s take this example:

From around 1:37 to 1:40, the sound is about as unpleasant-sounding as is possible – if it was any “uglier” it would likely stand out as such to everyone!  Now there are a few reasons for an “ugly”‘ sound, one being that the singer is not familiar with the genre.  Another is that the singer has some difficulties with singing a particular vowel in a certain way.  And of course it may be that nobody notices it (at least back then), as seems to be the case with this example.  But if you sing into your smart phone’s recording app, you might think you’ve got a major problem with your voice if you hear such sounds!

The most important thing here is to not worry about it, because there are much more important things to do as an aspiring singer.  If you are very nasal, for example, that can be corrected by sound engineering (assuming you want it “corrected”), but usually there is some major issue involved.  In the case of singing nasally, this is common for beginners, usually because they have yet to develop the appropriate muscle strength/coordination.  If you have a nasal accent, that shouldn’t be a problem, though some people believe this is the case.  No doubt your singing might sing a bit more nasal than someone without a nasal accent, but it should not prevent you from singing well (in a traditional way), but pop singing in general is characterized by a bit of nasality, certainly if compared to opera singing.  Another possible nasality issue is a low soft palate, but that is something any competent voice coach should notice and help you correct.

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.