Anyone Here Raised Vocal Range?

[Tele-beeb]

I realize there are YouTube videos… I am looking for real-world experience from the TDPRI.
To be direct, I am singing quite a few high (for a man) songs. Two of the highest are:
@Rock and Roll All Night, not in Eb… in standard tuning.
@simple Man… not in Eb, but in standard tuning C. I can do it by itself, but after three (real) sets it is tough.
I think the note in question (for both songs) is an A that is one half step above my safe range.

Suggestions welcome!

Maybe the wrong sub-forum?

 

[matttt]

I realize there are YouTube videos… I am looking for real-world experience from the TDPRI.
To be direct, I am singing quite a few high (for a man) songs. Two of the highest are:
@Rock and Roll All Night, not in Eb… in standard tuning.
@simple Man… not in Eb, but in standard tuning C. I can do it by itself, but after three (real) sets it is tough.
I think the note in question (for both songs) is an A that is one half step above my safe range.

Suggestions welcome!

Maybe the wrong sub-forum?

Heh, youre right where I and all the other guys are who cant get into middle/head voice, G#/A. Ive never managed to raise my register :/

 

[Tele-beeb]

Heh, youre right where I and all the other guys are who cant get into middle/head voice, G#/A. Ive never managed to raise my register :/

Thanks… gives me comfort, misery loves company as they say. But, I hope for all of us, there is an answer!

 

[Andyfreddy]

Hi, My register raised quite a bit (from high G up to a Eb above that!), at age 19-28, but that was with 4 years of college voice lessons and then a few years of grad school voice lessons. Lots of singing and exercises and trying to make the high notes come easily as opposed to straining.

I’m 43 now, and it has come back down due to age and less use. I don’t think I could get it back to what it was at this age, even with a lot of work.

 

[matttt]

Thanks… gives me comfort, misery loves company as they say. But, I hope for all of us, there is an answer!

I used to just about be able to choke out a B. On the rare occasion when I do exercises, I can just about get there if I concentrate on keeping the initial onset going. Seems to me that you need to remain in that glottal attack that occurs at the beginning of a vowel and not let your breath blow through and open up the chords, or else it falls apart. I took a few lessons years ago but only enough to confuse me. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing

 

[Jakedog]

Mine happened by accident. I’ve always been a singer, and by all accounts a pretty good one. But I’ve got a deeper voice and never had a huge range. When I was singing in rock and metal bands from ages 14-23 or so, I had a lot more than I did as I aged.

Christmas 2021. I got that thing that was going around that were not allowed to talk about. It wasn’t bad, felt like crap for about a week, then all better. Or so I thought.

That was the beginning of me being sick pretty much continuously for the next 16 months. Yep. 16 months. Of respiratory infections, sinus infections, bad flus, pneumonia, bronchitis, you name it. I’d get better for maybe a week and then be sick again. For sixteen freaking months. Through all of this I never knew from one day to the next if I’d even be able to talk, let alone sing. I did all the gigs I could do when I could do them, but I pretty much stopped purposely booking anything I had to front and was working almost completely as a side man because I could not trust that my voice would work at any given time. It went on so long that I had just kind of resigned myself to the idea that this was my life now and I wasn’t going to be healthy, or be a singer/frontman ever again.

Until April of ‘23. Round about the third week of April 2023, I woke up one day and felt great. My voice wasn’t really back, but it mostly worked. A few weeks later I felt flippin fantastic, and my voice was insane. I had to learn control all over again because stuff I was working to hit before I got sick I was overshooting by a third or more. So I just started going for stuff, and was hitting it all. I’m still lower range. True baritone. But now I can hit stuff quite a notch above that. Well into middle tenor territory. Stuff I haven’t hit since I was 19 or 20. And back then it was work. Now it just pops outta my mouth. At 50 years old. And it’s not like it shifted. I still have all my low range.

No matter how much I’m enjoying it now, I would not recommend staying sick as a dog for almost a year and a half. I have to think these results are atypical after something like that. But I’ll take em.

 

['64 Tele]

Go down one size in underwear.....and a shot of whiskey right before you sing.

 

[cyclopean]

The more i sing, the more the capo creeps up.

 

[NoTeleBob]

I would go the other way. And I did. They wanted me to single Simple Man in E because no one wanted to downtune. I said "Fine, but there'll be some notes changing".

 

[NeverTooLate]

Check out KTVA: Ken Templin Vocal Academy. I only need public speaking so all I do is the Volume 2 workout, about 15 times/month. But it is the same workout for singing, then Volume 3 is where the real singing work begins.

 

[telekaster1999]

I'm actually a better harmony singer than lead singer.

 

[String Tree]

I realize there are YouTube videos… I am looking for real-world experience from the TDPRI.
To be direct, I am singing quite a few high (for a man) songs. Two of the highest are:
@Rock and Roll All Night, not in Eb… in standard tuning.
@simple Man… not in Eb, but in standard tuning C. I can do it by itself, but after three (real) sets it is tough.
I think the note in question (for both songs) is an A that is one half step above my safe range.

Suggestions welcome!

Maybe the wrong sub-forum?

I have been singing all of my Life.
I have what I feel is a limited Range.
My Savior has been my ability to Transpose Keys that Suit MY Voice.

When you Sing a Song in a Key that doesn't Tax your Voice, well, people like to hear that!
When you sing in a Key that isn't, you will sound like you are having problems.
That's because you are.

Learn how to transpose AND learn how to teach those new keys to the people you play with.

Best of Luck
~ST

 

[1955]

Do it in a lower key, or learn to adjust your voice on the fly so that you are not straining to hit higher notes. Or drop the song.

If you have d-heads in your band that don’t care, and will not work with you regarding changing keys, your only recourse is to sing the higher parts in a lower register, and start looking for another hobby with different people.

There are lots of ways to improve range. Just because you can hit a note doesn’t necessarily mean you should. Nobody sounds good straining at the top of their register, no matter what emotional softeners they allow themselves to believe.

One reason so many male vocalists from days gone by are ineffective is that they insisted on making records at the very top of their register that could not possibly be replicated night after night, year after year, onstage.

Always make it easier on yourself, not the other way around.

 

[Chester P Squier]

If you sing a lot, and a lot in your upper register, it will get easier. I sing bass in a senior choir (I consider myself a baritone), but three people have tried to tell me I'm a tenor.

But if you practice singing every day, support from the diaphragm, and open your mouth wide to sing, the upper notes will come out. Just takes practice.

 

[newminglewoodblue]

I'm of the opinion that our vocal range has limited capacity to be pushed in either direction. There are definitely exercises to help, but imho it will boil down to technique (proper breathing especially).

Change the key..... "Singer's Choice" is ALWAYS the correct answer when someone asks "what key should we play it in"? It's typically intuitive but not always, in my experience, when deciding what key to sing a song in. I'm often surprised when very good guitar players are determined to play a song, no matter what, in the key the original artist popularized the song in.

Most importantly, I've NEVER heard a great singer sound forced. Natural, breathy, sometimes almost talking their way thru a song with zero (apparent) effort.... fake it if you must but don't strain to hit a note in either direction.

 

[Bastion Highwalk]

Get a teacher. Seriously. I’ve been a singer for many years and happy with my ‘cigarettes and whiskey’ natural singing voice but decided I too wanted to be able to sing higher and stop transposing stuff to where I can sing it, or at least not as much. My guy has helped me immensely by giving me stuff to do that bridges the gap between my current belting range (which is and has always been loud and comfortable) into a head voice, learning to open vocal cords etc. My range is much more than it was before I started with some lessons, I can sing easier than I could before, and anyone can extend their range (my speaking voice is very low).

It’s worth finding a teacher that will work with you to help you extend, not change your voice (if you don’t want, I don’t want). Yeah you’ll sound ridiculous doing these exercises but they work! Oh and I do mine online (my dude lives in Manchester, far away from me), in case there’s no one near you.

 

[Aldus Bunbury]

I watched Billy Joel interview Don Henley. One of my favorite moments was when Billy Joel asked, “Do you still do all the songs in the original key?” Henley just gave him a look, and then they both started laughing.

 

[cnlbb]

Like everyone else said, change the key to something better for you when you can (the only people who might notice will be those who understand why), and also if you do gotta sing higher practice you mix. From the songs you listed your head voice isn't going to sound right, but you don't want to push too hard, so you can use a bit of a mix to make singing near the top of your range sound fuller while not causing damage.

 

[schmee]

Everyone I know who took vocal lessons says it really helped. Warming up is important, so at least dont choose those songs that are a stretch until you've warmed up on a couple easy ones.

 

[Jakedog]

I have been singing all of my Life.
I have what I feel is a limited Range.
My Savior has been my ability to Transpose Keys that Suit MY Voice.

When you Sing a Song in a Key that doesn't Tax your Voice, well, people like to hear that!
When you sing in a Key that isn't, you will sound like you are having problems.
That's because you are.

Learn how to transpose AND learn how to teach those new keys to the people you play with.

Best of Luck
~ST

This 100X!

“That’s not the key it’s in on the record!”

Who cares? Put it where it suits your voice.