Vocal Guide – belt sing without killing yourself

> Current literature does not distinguish between head voice and falsetto.

Hmm, are you sure about this? I thought chest voice and head voice were understood to be a single register called the modal register. And falsetto was fundamentally different.

Thanks for adding your thoughts. First tenor here with a high C+ when trained and active. I lost my (true) falsetto 10 or so years ago, any tips on how to get it back?

Also I lost my whistle register 30 years ago, but I think this is normal :)

Thank you for the feedback, caryme.

And big yes - there is no better ressource than a voice teacher!!

This is just a lookup tool (and then some)

>For all those who think they're not talented and therefore can't learn how to sing, some good news here: Learning to sing is a matter of coordinating and strengthening muscles, so it can be practiced and improved just like anything else. The predisposition is largely the same for everybody (vocal pathologies excluded).

When I got children I started singing for them almost every night. After doing that for some years now it's incredible how much better my singing has become (for me at least). Before that I didn't dare to sing when other people could hear me, but now I have no problems with that. I really enjoy singing for my kids and look forward to it every evening.

Was looking for this comment. You articulate it well. Many people claim they "can't sing" but when they try it's clear to me they just have an underdeveloped muscle control

Huge thanks for your thorough feedback. Do you have some links for this info that I can examine?

Btw. I'm investigating how I can map the traditional Vs CVT without doing too much confusion. I'm leaning towards keeping traditional and adding cvi notes. And a mapping page.

Let's see

Yes everyone can sing, but not everyone can be listened to :).

Thanks and I agree. And yes Claude is on the team :-)

The actual point is a guide for people who wants to sing or already sings. A handy tool to lookup how to ...

I'm not positioning it as anything else.

Regarding AI. Sure i used it. But i use it as A(ssited) I(ntelligence). Being both a singer and developer I hope I qualify

It's not metal growling. Thanks for mentioning this. I'll add a note to the effect

Yeah, this can be confusing. This is referring to the "growl" effect in complete vocal technique. Imagine Christina Aguilera making a dramatic car engine growl when you kick down the gas pedal. I think this is roughly what this is about.

Not growl as in death metal vocals.

It's an AI website with zero credentials

Could probably just add Mike Patton to all the sections lol

They didn't?? Jokes aside. You're right. I'll update immed.

Well I knew that ;-D

Thank you for your feedback. Means a lot

Thanks for feedback. I'm fixing that immed.

Jesper

:-)

Not true :-) I care a lot

Thank you

You can also hold down the back button to get a menu of previous pages in order to skip multiple back button presses. (I still agree with your point and you might already know that. Maybe it helps someone.)

Thanks. I'll look into that. It was recommended exactly for backtracking but I get that if you want to leave it's a whole lot of backpaddling :-)

Some vocal techniques - like belting and the classical voices - require the actual development of musculature, both to hold a shape (for high pitches) and to be able to stabilise shapes. That's not going to happen overnight, so you have to spend sometime sounding horrible before you can do those well. That doesn't mean it's impossible - it's like lifting weights, anyone can improve it.

However, that's not the techniques used in the majority of popular singing. You absolutely can sound drastically different very quickly. This is simply because most people don't use most of the degrees of freedom that the voice has. If you look at the Estill method reference material, which concentrates on how the vocal system features actually operate to produce different vocal effects, they identify around 14 degrees of freedom.Some discrete, but a lot of them continuous. It is very common for someone who thinks that they have a terrible voice to take a few lessons and find that they can sound much better. It's just that, as another commenter pointed out, you can't see inside your own mouth and throat. You can't see that you're always holding them in a certain way.

For example, some women habitually sound shrill, usually because they have had to develop a penetrating voice. This is often true of teachers, who have to be able to make themselves heard over a bunch of shrill children (and aren't able to use the option of a deep bass). This is a vocal technique (twang) but it can also become habitual,to the point where they don't think they can do anything else.

From your comment I don't know you have tried this or not, but get some sessions with the best trainer you can. Singing and even speaking with a good voice is incredibly counterintuitive for some people, speaking from experience. You might have everything needed for a great voice expect the skills, or you might be trying for a voice that's far from what works well for you.

Why do people that don't know how to do a thing vibe out reasons that they'll never be able to do it? It's the hugest self-own. Also if you don't know how to do it, why would you assume it's based on some secret anatomical lottery. Could it just be you don't have access to the right information and direction for improvement at the moment?

It can be taught!

I can play instruments but never thought I could sing outside a range of less than an octave in the baritone range.

When I was 50 we had a singing teacher over at our house for my children. I asked if she could help my range. That day she took my voice to a high C. I am actually a tenor and can sing pretty much all the high parts. I am my in-laws’ favorite opera singer now.

Also I was too timid. Singing is really just controlled shouting.

Ed Sheeran used to be bad at singing [0]. So was Jon Bon Jovi.

In-person vocal lessons and consistent practice have dramatically improved my voice from terrible to half-decent.

[0]: https://youtube.com/shorts/I05Ahr0tpAc

You can. That progression is normal. I know this because I am such a case. I wasn’t able to produce a single sound on pitch. Now I can nail some songs (as long as they don‘t go crazy on technique).

Learning to sing is taking control of your voice. You use the same biology that you have been using for speech and other vocal sounds since birth. It all comes built in. Of course it comes more naturally to some people, just like any other activity.

There are some decent videos on YouTube, but take actual vocal lessons if you can. Videos are not a substitute for lessons.

I don‘t like the posted page. The descriptions aren‘t very helpful and neither are most videos on YouTube. I know from experience. For a complete beginner, this is frankly a useless resource.

As with many things in life, see it like stats in an RPG: your 'character' may have "0" in the singing skill INITIALLY. But it's still a skill that you can learn, even if you start low.

However, what is true is that, you will sound like YOU. You can get close or make impressions of artists you like. But ultimately your voice is YOUR instrument and it can gain range, and power, but you'll sound like you.

For instance, I'm well aware that I will never have "Celine Dion's voice". I don't mean her skills, I mean literally her voice.

That's what one of the first AND biggest tough thing to accept when singing: you might never sound exactly like the singers you admire. But it doesn't mean you can't sing or be extremely good at it.

It's like Michael Jackson was sad because he knew he would never be able to sing like Barry White. Does that mean Michael Jackson is not a good singer? Nope.

Genetics limits your potential and influences your timbre, but pretty much anyone can learn any technique, and I'll go out on a limb and say anyone can learn to sound really good.

Anecdotal evidence from my own singing at 20 compared to 40 seems to point to the opposite.

> How come some people can naturally sing and others produce a horrible screech?

From my own experience many of those "natural" singers simply grew up around music, so it can definitely be learned. Natural talent doesn't really go that far and it's just a small temporary boost that can just as easily be ruined by bad habits later in life. The same is true for other physical abilities.

Some of the best singers got their start on wind instruments. Music is all one big ecosystem of overlapping skills. Unless we're talking legendarily insanely great levels of singing, I don't think any musicians would agree singing is all that special.

In fact, if you isolate the vocals on many hit tracks you might be surprised and disappointed.

Being able to sing on pitch is more music training than voice training. Music can be trained in any voice pretty much. As for vocal range - it is one of the easiest ones to improve! Simple daily drills can get you there. It's the same for simple voice quality things like learning to sing from your chest/diaphragm rather than just a head/nasal voice. As for having an "aesthetic voice", the steps needed is is extremely specific to each individual and each trainer. Both of you will "path" towards something that will be aesthetic for you and also achievable. Musicians e.g do this to adapt themselves to the "beloved" voice of their target industry. For an example, see https://www.google.com/search?q=arijit+singh+voice+transform... - the AI overview is a pretty decent summary with links to original source. Bollywood really likes love songs to be in husky male voices, so he adapted to that. You don't have to do all that of course, but a small % of similar work will get you to "aesthetic" territory.

Listening to lots of vocal music (preferably with very light accompaniment) also helps a looot. We are really good at imitation.

Yeah I took over a year of singing lessons from a vocal coach and saw minimal improvement.

That’s fine, but it annoys me when people lie about this stuff. I don’t say everyone can program, and that’s okay. Nobody can say “everybody can X” because nobody has met every person.