Help with male voice...

[lapwing_47]

I've sang for some time now, albeit badly.

But not ill-researched. I've spent a lot of time trawling through forums and tips and techniques website to gather all the information I can on the voice and try and relate it to my own. 

The reason this has happened and that I have had to become geeky on the subject is that I find my range annoyingly placed and can only imagine that its because I'm not using it properly. I think, from reading about ranges, that I am a low baritone. I don't have an issue with this in fact I quite like my voice in some parts of my range. 

 

It's worth noting here that I also play violin and guitar.

 

The problem I have is i want to be able to sing the songs I can play with ease on the guitar and can usually manage most verses as they tend to be low in the singers range but when there is a change of dynamic for a chorus I just cannot reach these chests notes to complete covering these songs. My music theory is pretty good fortunately so I can transpose songs pretty quickly and for a couple of songs this has worked for me by transposing the track down one or two semitones (more at times). But for the most part when I transpose songs down they begin to sound dull and lifeless in a lower key on guitar and voice. 

My range in chest voice, the lowest note i can sing that is usable is a F1 in the bass then up through to D#/C above middle C. I can force out up to a G above middle C but to be quite frank it sounds horrible and is more like shouting, it feels weak and incorrect. My aim is basically to learn to sing to a F#/G in this chest voice. This would open up a whole to world of tracks that I would be able to cover or even be able to write songs with notes in that range. 

Is this achievable or are people unable to make that much of an improvement to their range?

 

Im constantly encouraged by people who hear me play to go and do acoustic/open mic nights but I never do because these people never hear me completely failing to step things up for choruses etc.

 

Any help would be really appreciated, I've wanted to write this for a while now and I'm glad Ive got round to it!

 

Thanks

[Masklin]

You can develop your falsetto into something that sounds much like high chest voice, and that is, as far as I know, what singers do to increase their ranges. It's what Freddie Mercury, Robert Plant, Ian Gillan, etc, did (though they already had tenor-ish voices).

 

Specific drills for doing this... well personally I do not know of any. But, a starting point is to enter your falsetto and then focusing intently on making it beefier, richer, stronger.

 

Your voice sounds much like mine. On a good day I'll reach a quick D4 or so, but anything above that is more or less a shout. But, once when I was having a lesson with my vocal coach I reached a G#4 without shouting too much - evidence enough that it's possible.

 

There's at least one forumite here who knows how to access this high voice (often referred to as mixed voice, head voice, falsetto, or some other vague term). His username is staticsound. Throw him a pm if he doesn't see this thread.

 

Good luck!

[davie]

There isn't really any straight forward fixes for the specific issue. I find that being well-rounded in each vocal concept is your best bet and correct any vocal imbalances. My guess is that your voice is probably chest voice-dominated at the moment. You can't hit F#/G in pure chest voice, your voice will just fall apart quickly. It has to be done in mixed voice. I've experienced this issue in the past. It usually takes a complete routine and proper instruction to build up  the voice. But some specific ideas that helped me were: stop overly thickening low notes, practice falsetto (without squeezing), and avoid pushing too much air.

I hope that helps