Do you sing in a comfortable key or do you push your voice?

[Telecruiser]

I have discovered for myself that when I am in a "comfortable" key it is the wrong key for my voice. I have found when I push my voice, sometimes raising the key a half or whole step, that I sing on key better and there is more energy in my voice. Yes, it is more work at first but for me it pays off. When I hear other solo acts singing in what sounds like a comfortable key they sound boring with very little enthusiasm. I have found pushing myself vocally increases my range and overall vocal tone. I have also noticed this with pro singers.

 

You?

[MusicalSchizo]

I push when necessary.

 

I try to sing the songs in their original key as often as possible. Sometimes that pushes my voice to its limits, sometimes it works out really nice. I really don't like the way changing the key changes the feel of songs, though, especially when it's a big change in key - a half step down isn't a big deal, but when people play, let's say "Don't Stop Believin'" in C, well, it just sounds super weird to me. YMMV, of course...

 

Brian V.

[Telecruiser]

I push when necessary. I try to sing the songs in their original key as often as possible. Sometimes that pushes my voice to its limits, sometimes it works out really nice. I really don't like the way changing the key changes the feel of songs, though, especially when it's a big change in key - a half step down isn't a big deal, but when people play, let's say "Don't Stop Believin'" in C, well, it just sounds super weird to me. YMMV, of course... Brian V.

 

I have never been married to the original key. I find the key that works best for my voice. I may have some tunes on my list that I do in the original key but it's not that important to me. Most of the songs, if not all, I have made my own in one form or another.

[Loner]

I like to push my voice too. I have been singing CCR 'Long As I Can See The Light' in the original key of B for a couple years now. It's right at the top of my range in a few spots. Sometimes I can't hit it, but I hope my enthusiasm and love for the song will overshadow a few clinker notes when they happen. I'd rather push the envelope than play it safe. It's more fun that way!

[Vito Corleone]

I think many "original keys" are based on pushing the voice. Sting, with the Police, almost always sound like he was singing just as high as he possibly go, and most of those songs are the better for it.

[SLScott86]

Always push it. I choose songs this way rather than keys usually.

[cephus]

I am much better in tune when I push it, I think. But, there are certain songs that I do at the beginning of the night or as convalescence that are therapudic because they are lower and get the blood flowing to my vocal chords again. I always warm up by singing as low as I can on the way to the gig. Not songs, but arpeggios/exercises. I'm a fairly {censored}ty singer naturally. I have to work hard at being mediocre.

[SusieP]

I never strain to reach a note.

 

I have a wide enough range to [hopefully] prevent the audience from nodding off to sleep, and I mix up the songs so that there is plenty of light and shade in the show.

 

I try to make sure that I don't sing in the same key each time. Maybe two songs in the same key will follow each other but their tempo will be different.

We do loads in Ab, Bb, C, Eb, F, G - and some swing like heck, some are slow ballads, some are bossa nova/latin tempo - there's a whole variety in our show and we mix 'em all up so it doesn't get boring.

 

Also, because my partner plays sax, bongos, blues harp, keyboards and a jazz drum kit, we try to make sure we don't do a load of songs together where he is playing sax on all of them, or swinging drums on all of them. Too much of an instrument on one song after the other can be as boring as too many songs in the same key.

 

I think it's all about variety and versatility.

 

I know you have to push yourself to see what your vocal range is, but I don't think you should STRAIN. There's a subtle difference.

And that can be the difference between longevity of singing career or buggered up vocal chords.

 

Be careful when you push your voices.

 

xxx

[Potts]

I don care about original keys either. I have at least a dozen tunes that I will slap a capo at one or two because I too like to push my voice. Theres also tunes like "Baby I Love Your Way" by Frampton that I had to completely transpose because it's entirely too high.

[Telecruiser]

I know you have to push yourself to see what your vocal range is, but I don't think you should STRAIN. There's a subtle difference. And that can be the difference between longevity of singing career or buggered up vocal chords. Be careful when you push your voices. xxx

 

I remember a story David Foster told (Celine Dion's producer). He was recording her and then told the musicians to move it up a half step. Celine wasn't happy. After that he told them to another half step up. Celine was not happy at all but put everything into and sang the song and stormed out of the studio. The next day she came back in (still a bit perturbed) and listened to the playbacks. She was amazed how good it sounded.

[fingerpicker]

I never strain to reach a note.

 

Well Your a female!

In pop music its very uncommon for woman singers to go ultra-high. (I'm sure someone will cite an example now)

[gearo999]

I have been taking singing lessons since March this year. We have moved some keys around to make sure I have the best tone for that song. I really don't keep track of keys. This fall, the plan is to start getting into lots of crazy runs and fills to push the quality of what I do...to have more tools. I sing some of my chorus an octave higher and we try to find a climax in every song. Being honest, none of this stuff is comfortable but we focus on tone more than anything.

[SLScott86]

I never strain my voice solo. Destroyed it completely for a week in the studio one day. All vocals all day from nine til about seven. Couldn't even talk. I let it crack naturally sometimes for effect. It's one of my favorite things to do these days, and I have to be conscious to not fall in love with it. When I push, it's a controlled gravelly yell. That's what my voice is. Without that characteristic I would never have stuck with singing in the first place. So I'll ride it as long as it takes me. Frankly as a solo act, it's all I got.

[Loner]

I personally think that songs should be in their original key that the artist you're covering it from did it in. (?) When I started doing Johnny Cash 'Sunday Morning Comin' Down' It didn't sound right in G, but capoed up to G# it sounded better. Just my weird little quirk.

[daddymack]

funny, I have spent a good portion of the past two months re-keying a large chunk of my repertoire because I found that I sounded more natural when I wasn't fighting the key. Momma Mack even commented last week how so much of the material seems to just 'fit' now...part of the issue is my retraining myself to sing 'all purty-like', instead of my 'blues rasp' (think Satchmo meets Howlin' Wolf) that I have been doing for the past fifteen years.

[Bajazz]

I try to sing in original key when possible, but sometimes I have to transpose to get the song more "functional".

 

Example "Smoke on the water" where I play in A, cause I can get the bass line driving, and also play guitar solo while holding the open A as bass.

 

Also, Folsom prison blues where I play in E, while Johnny often capoed up to F, also b/c of soloing and more punch in the song. Also gives the vocals more thump!

 

Other times you can't transpose without destroying the song: Good luck trying to transpose the essential riff on "Wanted dead or alive" by Bon Jovi, or "Mama I'm Coming home" by Ozzy.

[Bob Dey]

Both. If I feel my voice isn't up to singing songs in a higher range I won't do them that night. I learned not to try to sound like the original artist if it causes strain. Closing the throat in order to sound like Springsteen for example isn't good for the vocal cords. It's more important not to damage your vocal cords - especially when working a lot.

[Howie22]

I transpose a lot. I often do sing some things a half step higher than the record, just because it does push my voice a little. Even if I comfortably sing it in the original key, that half step gives it a little extra "ooomph."

 

I'm actually getting away from that now that I'm playing more trio gigs, just so the other guitarist doesn't have to play so many leads in G# or Eb.

[JimboKeys]

Yeah, straining is a bad thing, but it's not the same as pushing (as in singing in a higher key). Paradoxically, i often find that raising the key makes a song easier to sing ... i think that when the song is in the lower key, i may be straining unconsciously trying to get the energy level up to where it should be, or something like that.

 

- Jimbo

[Telecruiser]

I'm trying to figure out this obsession with doing a song in its original key. The audience doesn't know the difference. I can see if there are chordal moves and positions that retain a "sound" or signature for the song in a particular key but why not put it in the key that best fits your voice? As I said earlier, I have very few songs that I do in their original key if any.

[EightString]

I'm always trying to stretch and do new things with my voice. That includes expanding my range in terms of pitch.

 

It has taken decades of work, but my range is now wide enough that I can experiment with just about any key on material like jazz standards to give different feels, laid back or more urgent, and I can do songs from Johnny Cash and Barry White to Whitesnake and Dio in the original keys.

 

I used to be stuck at the lower end, and the pop and rock selections "down there" aren't as plentiful, so you can imagine I was motivated to do something about it.

[EightString]

 

I'm trying to figure out this obsession with doing a song in its original key. The audience doesn't know the difference. I can see if there are chordal moves and positions that retain a "sound" or signature for the song in a particular key but why not put it in the key that best fits your voice? As I said earlier, I have very few songs that I do in their original key if any.

 

 

Depends on whether you're doing unique reinterpretations or going for authenticity in sounding as close to the original as possible.

 

When I hear that first C chord in "Can't Get Enough", I immediately know what song it is. I've heard it so much that any other key sounds "wrong" to my ears. There has to be a percentage of audience members, even non-musicians, who have certain songs so ingrained in their auditory memory that too much deviation in key makes it sound "wrong" to their ears too, without knowing why.

 

But that said, I also think there is wiggle room. Given some rework of the instrumental parts, sometimes getting close to the original key in terms of vocal "feel" is good enough.

 

[video=youtube;Wy3Wi9hYwAo]

[Shaster]

I can sing most of the commercial stuff in the original key, but basically I don't worry about the key except as it relates to guitar. I'll change any song's key to fit my voice unless the guitar is going to sound funny. Then I try to work a compromise.

 

IMO for a solo act, songs like Long Train Running and Do It Again are way too high in the original keys - even when I can pull them off, so I do Em and Fm respectively. In fact I know a lounge singer that plays almost everything a fourth or so down. Because the songs are at the top of his range a fourrth below, they still have energy while keeping most of the melody below middle C - which is great for lounges.

 

All in all though, most of my songs are in the original key if it suits me - but no higher than that.

[MusicalSchizo]

I'm trying to figure out this obsession with doing a song in its original key. The audience doesn't know the difference. I can see if there are chordal moves and positions that retain a "sound" or signature for the song in a particular key but why not put it in the key that best fits your voice? As I said earlier, I have very few songs that I do in their original key if any.

 

It's not an obsession for me, it just sounds weird to me when people make large transpositions of songs, especially when they transpose them way down. I think it's because often it puts it in a key where the timbre of the singer's voice is so far removed from how the song was performed on the most familiar version of it that whatever pushing or falsetto or whatever was needed to make those original higher notes happen just isn't there, and it's replaced with some middle-of-the-range, lower energy thing.

 

Also, to me, different keys have completely different feels and can change the way a song affects you as a listener. I think EightString was alluding to that where people just notice something's off even if they don't know what it is...

 

The bottom line, though, is that you give a good performance, and if that means playing it a minor third down or two steps up, so be it. I'm fortunate to be "blessed" with a pretty wide range and no self-discipline, so I tend to just go for it in the original key. If it sounds {censored}ty, I either find another way to do it (down an octave or change the key like you and many others do) or scrap it entirely.

 

Don't confuse my stridency for inflexibility. I'm just a bloviator.

Brian V.

[leftyjay]

when i started my solo act 25+ yrs ago, i sang in the original keys. i had about 100 songs at the time and some were really high. i could reach them fine on good nights. not so fine on nights where my voice was crappy. but i never moved the keys because of the chording and the balliness of my voice straining to sing the song as it was done by the original singer.

 

but over the years, i got smarter, and realized if i was going to do this every day, i had to transpose the song or not do the song at all. i decided to transpose the tough songs so i could sing them everynight. i still do beegees as well as some of the 50s doo-wop songs that are extremely high. as well as going real low and singing josh turner style. but its all done in moderation.

 

i now have a lot of those songs sequenced in multiple keys to let me sing the song no matter how rough my voice is that night. i can transpose on the fly, so key changes dont bother me. telling the person asking for a song that i cant sing that night because my voice isnt good, thats not acceptable. i'll lower it till i know i can sing it. believe me, people dont care what key you're doing the song in. as long as you sing it.

 

by the way...if you listen to elton john....he has transposed a lot of his songs 1/2 step and sometimes a whole step. he cant reach the notes like he use to. at least not every night. either can robert plant of led zeppelin, lou gramm of foreigner, joe elliot of def leppard, sammy hagar, and the list can go on. these guys all sang high and to their limit. but they also strained their voices doing so. i heard van halen with sammy live in cleveland. he couldnt hit the notes at all. sounded terrible. why couldnt they just lower the song a tad so he could reach it. like i said before...people dont notice this. only hardcore musicians would notice. and if they knew how hard it is singing every night and being spot on everynight, then they'll understand its not easy. especially when you recorded the song in a tough key to begin with.