Intro:
I'm of the firm belief that everyone, or at least most people who like to have a good time, does some kind of singing. However, this usually only goes as far as singing in the shower, in the car, or off in the middle of nowhere far away from anything with working ears and a beating heart.
I'm far and away from a fantastic singer, but I've picked up a lot of useful information over the past couple years since I have gotten into it. I think it's a benefit for anyone who wants to sing to become more comfortable with their voice.
The thing about singing itself is that it's an exaggerated way of talking. As such, there's a nice crossover where learning how to sing can carry over to improving how you talk with some of the techniques you learn. However, keep in mind this won't magically transform your voice into Morgan Freeman. What you got is what you got, so it's best to use your voice in the way that works the most for you.
I'm just going to get some of the more obvious stuff out of the way since you've probably heard in plenty of places by now. Men's voices tend to get tossed into three categories: Bass, Baritone, and Tenor. There's also the Counter Tenor range, which is above the Tenor range. Keep in mind, these voice types are decided based on where they fall relative to Classical music.
Contemporary music is more unpredictable: the tone of your voice, the power of your voice with high notes/notes, being able to belt notes or growl, and many other things can change which music suits your voice best.
Jumping back to a little earlier, the countertenor range is really rare. Freddie Mercury was known to sing in this upper range while having a good lower range as well. It's easy to get obsessed with this type of thing and think you have to sing notes as high as Freddie to sound good, but it's not that important.
Each voice type tends toward a certain range, but it's not set in stone. Men, on average, tend to have two full octaves they can comfortably sing at. A small percentage of people of up to four octaves like Mariah Carey. If you don't have four octaves like Mariah Carey, one day you'll learn to live with yourself. However, learning how to sing high notes relative to your natural range, and doing it so it sounds good, can add some extra oomf to your personal sound.
Case in point:
This guy isn't a tenor, and he sounds great hitting the high notes relative to his vocal range with a full voice.
Voice Types and Ranges:
![[Image: uitlegweb.jpg]](http://www.harmoniumnet.nl/Images/uitlegweb.jpg)
Generally, these voice types have certain ranges. They're more on the side of estimates, so there's no guarantee your range will be exactly the same:
Bass: E2 to E4
Baritone: A2 to A4
Tenor: C3 to C5
There tends to be more crossover between ranges as you get more experience through hours of practice. For instance, a baritone could develop their range and get more notes going into the bass or tenor ranges.
Tessitura:
Most of the time, you will want to stick to songs in your tessitura. These are the notes you will feel the most comfortable singing. Hitting these notes feels completely natural and almost effortless.
A common problem most men tend to run into is they try to sing higher, find they can't hit the notes, and end up straining too much trying to reach them. It's much better and safer for your vocal folds to slowly develop these higher notes. Much like lifting weights, you want to go up to about as high as you can comfortably go, and try to get a note or two higher. Eventually, you can hit these notes more easily and make them sound better. This is how you begin to develop your upper register.
Lower Register:
There are a lot of phrases that get tossed around about where your singing will resonate. The main area you're most likely used to singing at is the lower register. Chances are, you speak from your chest; what this means is that as you sing, you will find yourself automatically singing through this chesty voice. This is the lower register of your voice.
Upper Register:
Then there is what's known as the head voice. This is where the sound primarily moves from the chest to areas in your skull. When singing up here, you will probably feel vibrations around the "mask" of your face and on the back of your neck. The mask of the face is between the upper lip and your cheek bones. Some people naturally sing up here and have trouble going down to chest resonance, but on average men will develop singing in their lower register and have difficulty reaching into this upper register.
Starting out, when you first start going into this register, the sound will come out thinner and lighter than the power you feel in your chest. As you improve, you get better at matching the quality of your chest voice so it sounds more even between higher and lower notes. Personally, I have had a hell of a time figuring out how to sing up here. Expect to make a lot of strained and unpleasant sounds as you figure this stuff out, but it's all a part of the learning process.
Falsetto:
The falsetto, also known as the "girly" voice or "Mickey Mouse" voice, can usually reach higher then the head voice. However, it's got a more airy tone and quality to it. It's more of a trick that can be used every now and then to compliment your singing, but it lacks the meat that your normal singing voice will have.
This guy does a good breakdown and demonstrates the differences between chest, head, and falsetto:
Voice Teacher:
Above all else, you will want to find a teacher. Most of the time you will be practicing on your own, but it will make you progress much faster if you have someone to push you in the right direction and correct any major/minor mistakes you make when singing.
If you're in college, then I would suggest looking into a Voice Class (it should pop up as a 1 credit class). It gives you the opportunity to practice and sing in front of other people. Everyone is vulnerable in this environment, so I would say it's the best place to get comfortable with your singing voice. Plus you get to meet other people as you go through the process of learning to sing which is always a positive.
Alternatively, you will have to search around the web and look up teachers yourself. I don't have any experience in this field myself, so it will be up to you to gauge and test out who seems to know their stuff and who's a bullshitter. Another way to go about it is to join a local acting class or theater group. Regardless of the type of people that join them, most people in those classes will have a background in musical theater. Network and talking to people here would be an easy way to find recommendations for singing teachers.
Classical Singing:
There are generally two main types of singing to learn from: Contemporary and Classical. They both feed into each other in different ways. Classical gives more of an opera and old timey vibe. Classical teaching tends to cover proper breath support, going up and down scales, projecting your voice forward without yelling, and learning to drop your larynx and relax the throat going into higher notes. It's about the proper technique to singing.
Contemporary Singing:
On the other hand, Contemporary singing is everything else. This can be classical rock, pop, modern rock, country, metal, alternative, blues, jazz, R&B, etc. The point is, these types of singing will often break a lot of the rules established in Classical music, but breaking those rules is what gives these songs their unique sounds. This could be growling, screaming garbled phrases in metal, or screaming the high notes in "Dream On."
Warning About Straining the Voice:
However, a lot of these vocal manipulations are usually created through straining the voice in unique ways. This can cause damage to the vocal folds and put a singer out of commission for awhile. Worst case scenario, the damage is too extensive and they cannot sing anymore (though you would really have to do some heavy damage to get to this point). This is one of the reasons a band suddenly stops making any more music or why tour dates get canceled.
In some cases, a singer's voice might give out during a live performance. When that happens, they can resort to their classical training to make it through the show since it helps them sing without all the strain. Although it won't sound quite the same, it's worth it to keep their voice in tact. I'm not saying to completely avoid contemporary singing, it's just important to realize there are risks involved and why you typically hear classical teachers downplaying contemporary singing.
I'm not downplaying contemporary singing, as I want to do it myself. These are just some of the arguments that come up when staunch classical singers downplay contemporary singers. It's also important to keep these ideas in mind so you have an idea of when you can push your voice, and when you should take a break and let it recover for awhile before singing again.
Own Your Voice:
An important point to keep in mind is everyone has their own unique voice and level of talent. Like anything else, there will always be naturals who just seem to "get it." What's important is to own your voice since it's probably not going to change any time soon. You will find that your voice may fit certain genres you're not too keen on, and then find out your voice doesn't work with the ones you do want to sing. My own voice is generally suited to bluesy, classical rock, folksy, and country music. If you want to find out what will suit your voice best, I'd recommend asking some reliable friends or your voice teacher what matches your voice best after you've gotten a better grasp on your singing voice.
Practice:
This guide is for getting into the basics of singing and pursuing it as a side hobby. Aim for around 30 to 60 min. a day to practice and you will be good. It's up to you. Just be careful not to overdo it. If you've been out at a club all night or talking to people all day and using your voice a lot, you can still practice as long as you don't overstress it. Take it easy and sing softer if you need to do it.
I suggest finding a place to practice where no one can hear you. You want a place where you can scream things out and test how different things change your singing voice. It helps a lot when you can have a place to experiment for fun and keep the voice tricks you like.
Warm-Up:
As far as warming up goes, I usually do it for 10, sometimes 30 minutes if I want to. Singing in the shower helps to wake up the voice, and bathrooms have solid acoustics which is a bonus since you can listen to yourself better.
As far as the actual warm up, I usually go with Jeff Rolka's videos since I've found them the most helpful for me:
Karaoke:
If you're looking for a nice challenge, I would recommend going to do karaoke sober. It's very exhilarating going up on stage, by yourself, and singing in front of a bunch of drunks. And even if you mess up or straight up suck, it's not some huge performance and most people will forget about it in no time. It may even become fun at some point instead of unnerving if you keep at it.
Vinny's also got a datasheet on leveraging karaoke into your game: thread-57670...ht=karaoke
I tried to be as comprehensive as possible in this one since the voice is a strong but delicate instrument. If anyone here has anything to add on or things I got wrong/missed, feel free to comment on it below.
I'm of the firm belief that everyone, or at least most people who like to have a good time, does some kind of singing. However, this usually only goes as far as singing in the shower, in the car, or off in the middle of nowhere far away from anything with working ears and a beating heart.
I'm far and away from a fantastic singer, but I've picked up a lot of useful information over the past couple years since I have gotten into it. I think it's a benefit for anyone who wants to sing to become more comfortable with their voice.
The thing about singing itself is that it's an exaggerated way of talking. As such, there's a nice crossover where learning how to sing can carry over to improving how you talk with some of the techniques you learn. However, keep in mind this won't magically transform your voice into Morgan Freeman. What you got is what you got, so it's best to use your voice in the way that works the most for you.
I'm just going to get some of the more obvious stuff out of the way since you've probably heard in plenty of places by now. Men's voices tend to get tossed into three categories: Bass, Baritone, and Tenor. There's also the Counter Tenor range, which is above the Tenor range. Keep in mind, these voice types are decided based on where they fall relative to Classical music.
Contemporary music is more unpredictable: the tone of your voice, the power of your voice with high notes/notes, being able to belt notes or growl, and many other things can change which music suits your voice best.
Jumping back to a little earlier, the countertenor range is really rare. Freddie Mercury was known to sing in this upper range while having a good lower range as well. It's easy to get obsessed with this type of thing and think you have to sing notes as high as Freddie to sound good, but it's not that important.
Each voice type tends toward a certain range, but it's not set in stone. Men, on average, tend to have two full octaves they can comfortably sing at. A small percentage of people of up to four octaves like Mariah Carey. If you don't have four octaves like Mariah Carey, one day you'll learn to live with yourself. However, learning how to sing high notes relative to your natural range, and doing it so it sounds good, can add some extra oomf to your personal sound.
Case in point:
This guy isn't a tenor, and he sounds great hitting the high notes relative to his vocal range with a full voice.
Voice Types and Ranges:
Generally, these voice types have certain ranges. They're more on the side of estimates, so there's no guarantee your range will be exactly the same:
Bass: E2 to E4
Baritone: A2 to A4
Tenor: C3 to C5
There tends to be more crossover between ranges as you get more experience through hours of practice. For instance, a baritone could develop their range and get more notes going into the bass or tenor ranges.
Tessitura:
Most of the time, you will want to stick to songs in your tessitura. These are the notes you will feel the most comfortable singing. Hitting these notes feels completely natural and almost effortless.
A common problem most men tend to run into is they try to sing higher, find they can't hit the notes, and end up straining too much trying to reach them. It's much better and safer for your vocal folds to slowly develop these higher notes. Much like lifting weights, you want to go up to about as high as you can comfortably go, and try to get a note or two higher. Eventually, you can hit these notes more easily and make them sound better. This is how you begin to develop your upper register.
Lower Register:
There are a lot of phrases that get tossed around about where your singing will resonate. The main area you're most likely used to singing at is the lower register. Chances are, you speak from your chest; what this means is that as you sing, you will find yourself automatically singing through this chesty voice. This is the lower register of your voice.
Upper Register:
Then there is what's known as the head voice. This is where the sound primarily moves from the chest to areas in your skull. When singing up here, you will probably feel vibrations around the "mask" of your face and on the back of your neck. The mask of the face is between the upper lip and your cheek bones. Some people naturally sing up here and have trouble going down to chest resonance, but on average men will develop singing in their lower register and have difficulty reaching into this upper register.
Starting out, when you first start going into this register, the sound will come out thinner and lighter than the power you feel in your chest. As you improve, you get better at matching the quality of your chest voice so it sounds more even between higher and lower notes. Personally, I have had a hell of a time figuring out how to sing up here. Expect to make a lot of strained and unpleasant sounds as you figure this stuff out, but it's all a part of the learning process.
Falsetto:
The falsetto, also known as the "girly" voice or "Mickey Mouse" voice, can usually reach higher then the head voice. However, it's got a more airy tone and quality to it. It's more of a trick that can be used every now and then to compliment your singing, but it lacks the meat that your normal singing voice will have.
This guy does a good breakdown and demonstrates the differences between chest, head, and falsetto:
Voice Teacher:
Above all else, you will want to find a teacher. Most of the time you will be practicing on your own, but it will make you progress much faster if you have someone to push you in the right direction and correct any major/minor mistakes you make when singing.
If you're in college, then I would suggest looking into a Voice Class (it should pop up as a 1 credit class). It gives you the opportunity to practice and sing in front of other people. Everyone is vulnerable in this environment, so I would say it's the best place to get comfortable with your singing voice. Plus you get to meet other people as you go through the process of learning to sing which is always a positive.
Alternatively, you will have to search around the web and look up teachers yourself. I don't have any experience in this field myself, so it will be up to you to gauge and test out who seems to know their stuff and who's a bullshitter. Another way to go about it is to join a local acting class or theater group. Regardless of the type of people that join them, most people in those classes will have a background in musical theater. Network and talking to people here would be an easy way to find recommendations for singing teachers.
Classical Singing:
There are generally two main types of singing to learn from: Contemporary and Classical. They both feed into each other in different ways. Classical gives more of an opera and old timey vibe. Classical teaching tends to cover proper breath support, going up and down scales, projecting your voice forward without yelling, and learning to drop your larynx and relax the throat going into higher notes. It's about the proper technique to singing.
Contemporary Singing:
On the other hand, Contemporary singing is everything else. This can be classical rock, pop, modern rock, country, metal, alternative, blues, jazz, R&B, etc. The point is, these types of singing will often break a lot of the rules established in Classical music, but breaking those rules is what gives these songs their unique sounds. This could be growling, screaming garbled phrases in metal, or screaming the high notes in "Dream On."
Warning About Straining the Voice:
However, a lot of these vocal manipulations are usually created through straining the voice in unique ways. This can cause damage to the vocal folds and put a singer out of commission for awhile. Worst case scenario, the damage is too extensive and they cannot sing anymore (though you would really have to do some heavy damage to get to this point). This is one of the reasons a band suddenly stops making any more music or why tour dates get canceled.
In some cases, a singer's voice might give out during a live performance. When that happens, they can resort to their classical training to make it through the show since it helps them sing without all the strain. Although it won't sound quite the same, it's worth it to keep their voice in tact. I'm not saying to completely avoid contemporary singing, it's just important to realize there are risks involved and why you typically hear classical teachers downplaying contemporary singing.
I'm not downplaying contemporary singing, as I want to do it myself. These are just some of the arguments that come up when staunch classical singers downplay contemporary singers. It's also important to keep these ideas in mind so you have an idea of when you can push your voice, and when you should take a break and let it recover for awhile before singing again.
Own Your Voice:
An important point to keep in mind is everyone has their own unique voice and level of talent. Like anything else, there will always be naturals who just seem to "get it." What's important is to own your voice since it's probably not going to change any time soon. You will find that your voice may fit certain genres you're not too keen on, and then find out your voice doesn't work with the ones you do want to sing. My own voice is generally suited to bluesy, classical rock, folksy, and country music. If you want to find out what will suit your voice best, I'd recommend asking some reliable friends or your voice teacher what matches your voice best after you've gotten a better grasp on your singing voice.
Practice:
This guide is for getting into the basics of singing and pursuing it as a side hobby. Aim for around 30 to 60 min. a day to practice and you will be good. It's up to you. Just be careful not to overdo it. If you've been out at a club all night or talking to people all day and using your voice a lot, you can still practice as long as you don't overstress it. Take it easy and sing softer if you need to do it.
I suggest finding a place to practice where no one can hear you. You want a place where you can scream things out and test how different things change your singing voice. It helps a lot when you can have a place to experiment for fun and keep the voice tricks you like.
Warm-Up:
As far as warming up goes, I usually do it for 10, sometimes 30 minutes if I want to. Singing in the shower helps to wake up the voice, and bathrooms have solid acoustics which is a bonus since you can listen to yourself better.
As far as the actual warm up, I usually go with Jeff Rolka's videos since I've found them the most helpful for me:
Karaoke:
If you're looking for a nice challenge, I would recommend going to do karaoke sober. It's very exhilarating going up on stage, by yourself, and singing in front of a bunch of drunks. And even if you mess up or straight up suck, it's not some huge performance and most people will forget about it in no time. It may even become fun at some point instead of unnerving if you keep at it.
Vinny's also got a datasheet on leveraging karaoke into your game: thread-57670...ht=karaoke
I tried to be as comprehensive as possible in this one since the voice is a strong but delicate instrument. If anyone here has anything to add on or things I got wrong/missed, feel free to comment on it below.
"Their emotional waves will swamp you if you're just quietly-floating, so you need to learn to surf." - AnonymousBosch
||Learn How to Sing Datasheet||