Increasing Vocal Range?

Question:

Increasing Vocal Range?

heh i was just wondering if any of u guys know any vocal techniques which are sure to increase my vocal range. i am singing practically all the time i can see progress but i also want some vocal techniques that would help me to increase my vocal range.

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: There are certainly ways to increase your vocal range. But first, some critical information.

Every voice has a definite bottom. This because there is a point at which your vocal chords can not shorten any more. At that point, your vocal chords will separate and you will not be able to go any lower. Because your chords will move away from each other, the air simply moves between then and may only illicit a small sound (it will be pitched but it won't really be "singing"). Most people can easily sing down to their lowest note, and there's very little you can do to strech lower. You can smoke and get sick, both of which result in a thickening of the chords which in turn results in you being able to sing lower before they push so far apart that you can't sing. (However, I strongly discourage you from smoking or getting sick on order to thicken your chords to attain a few lower notes. Then again, there are many professional singers who intentionally smoke to lower their voices and to change the vocal quality/timbre. Go figure.)

At the other extreme, your voice can go higher and higher until you reach a point where your personal physiology constrains the chords so that they can stretch no more. As you stretch your chords, they become longer and tighter. The pitch goes up and up. The best vocal exercises are the ones that gradually stretch the vocal chords. Here are some helpful exercises:

1. Hum in a slow siren over intervals of fifths. For example, C-G-C. Go up by half steps. The humming helps because it doesn't require any tongue or mouth movements. That tends to keep everyting loose in the neck area.
2. You need to make sure that you neck is absolutely loose. Absolutely NO tenstion what so ever. As soon as you start to feel tension, slowly turn your head a little bit to the left and right. That usually prevents the "tension causing" muscles to loosen up.
3. Make sure your breath support is solid. The hardest thing to do is sing high notes without proper breath support. You need the requisite air velocity to vibrate the chords. The higher you go, the thinner and tighter they get and the more air it takes to make them vibrate.
4. Sing 1-2-3-4-5-4-3-2-1 (ex. C-D-E-F-G-F-E-D-C) where you pronounce the five as fahv. Start in the middle of your voice and go up by half steps. Hold the "fahv" until the sound is clear and focused then go back down the scale. Make sure you "punch" the top note out with air.

There are tons of exercises. Your best bet is to find a voice teacher who can see/hear you and customize exercises to your particular voice and to address whatever "bad habits" you may have.

Note for women: there is, for some women, a whistle register that sometimes adds a few notes, but that is infrequent and there is a lot of controversey over what it is and how it works. It's better to sing the notes in full voice than to depend upon a "whistle" tone.

Note for men: there is, for most men, a falsetto register, that can add several additional notes. However, you need to learn how to support it properly. For some men, they can sing very high notes because of a situation that occurs where they are singing with only a fraction of the total length of the vocal chords. This results in singing that sounds like a woman's voice because the amount of chords they sing with is comparable to the size of women's chords)

Note for both: there is something refered to as the "vocal fry" at the very bottom. It's not a "lovely" sound and technically it really isn't singing but it can add a few breathy pitches to the bottom.

Bottom line: You will reach a point where you can go no higher and go no lower. That's just the way it is. There is no fix. Some people have a potential for a wide range - others don't. Ones isn't necessarily better than the other. It is what it is.

There is only one exception: If you have a physiological problem (such as nodes) that are preventing you from attaining your full range, you need to see an ENT to have it addressed.

Good luck with your range expansion endeavors!