I am not much of a musician, but I sing in church. I was very surprised when I went to a church where no one else seemed to be singing during the hymns.
My mom said that when you sing in church, to God it sounds as good as you intend it to be. And, once a year, on Easter morning, we go to the sunrise service. And we sing “Christ is Risen! Alleluia!”, #382 in the LBW. And I pretend that I can actually sing, and go as loud as I can, because I can hit the high notes.
All the folks who only go to church on Christmas and Easter look at me funny. But I don’t care.
I sing in public all the time! I don’t do it well, but I continue to do so despite the pain I probably cause others. My boyfriend has a fabulous voice and he isn’t afraid to sing in public. He also is not afraid to purposely fuck it up to disturb other people and try to embarrass the people with him. Last night we saw Blues Brothers at the Hudson River Flicks (movies projected on a huge screen on a pier downtown) and he sang along with Aretha Franklin. In her range. Luckily neither of us gets embarrassed easily.
I sing in the choir at church. I have only a “tiny flute”, meaning a Very Small Soprano, so I never sing solos, but I’m happy to be filler.
Our church is a “singing congregation”; for some reason there’s a sizeable percentage of people who can really, really sing. We’re not close to Millikin University, as a matter of fact we have no Millikin people here at all, so nobody knows why this is. But the fact is, the collective morning worship service can really raise the roof when they feel like it, on, say, “Victory In Jesus”, or the Doxology.
But they won’t sing in choir.
They’ve been invited, for years now, and one and all have declined.
This is the despair of the choir director/worship leader: “Why aren’t these people in choir?” he will lament, as he requests “A capella, please!”, and the piano and organ fall silent, and he gets a beautifully roared-out a capella version of some hymn, in four-part harmony to boot.
However, if I’m not gigging, I really don’t sing in public often.
(Bolding mine).
This is why you’re a bad singer. I realize that this was a different time, and it’s no use getting worked up about it, but this sort of thing really pisses me off. A kid can’t match pitch, so what do you do? Tell him he can’t sing. Yeah, that’ll help. You’re a teacher; teach him to sing! It’s really not that hard.
Some of the most beautiful music ever has been made by people who do not consider themselves singers, and/or people who cannot really sing well.
For one example, consider this video, posted earlier in a different thread by newcrasher. That thread was about the sheer coolness that is Bobby McFerrin, but in this case, he’s not what makes the video cool. What really makes the thing spectacular is how the whole crowd chimed in and shared a moment singing “Ave Maria” together. Just fantastic.
I’ve got another example too, in anecdote form. I’ve got a group of friends that gets together every summer - we all know each other from various musical pursuits, so understandably, the shindig is invariably filled with all kinds of musical whatnots. A few years ago, one friend brought his (then) girlfriend to the event. She is very much a non-singer. But, as the evening progressed, she ended up singing a song for everyone by the fire. Now, like I said, she’s not a singer - the performance, if one were to critique, was decidedly imperfect. But the shit was AWESOME, and everyone there felt it. I enjoyed that sooooo much more than anything from my more “musical” friends.
I’ve mentioned in other threads that I am a musician, and I am fairly shameless in terms of taking opportunities to sing in front of people. But, I’ll tell ya what really makes my day. Its when I play a song informally with a group of people, and everyone sings along. That is absolutely bad ass. When that happens, it stops being about me as a performer, and starts being about everyone in the room enjoying a musical journey together. It really doesn’t get much cooler than that.
So I guess my point is to encourage people to not be afraid to sing. I understand that some people really don’t enjoy it, and I would never want to force anyone into an uncomfortable situation. But please understand - there’s a reason they call it “playing” music, and not “working” music. Don’t be afraid to play, folks
There’s a sense of unity in it and comfort in singing in a group, especially spontaneously. For a few minutes, or even just the length of a chorus, all those people are pulled out of their individual lives to become part of something bigger. It touches something primal in us, I think–the part of us that hearkens back to huddling around the fire, singing songs to hold back the darkness.
Many years ago, I was part of my home state’s All-Star marching band. Hundreds of kids from all over were thrown together for a week, practicing far into the night to learn how to move and play as a unit. One night, we were all staggering back to the dorm from the practice field at about midnight. I don’t know who started it, exactly, but someone started singing softly, then another picked up the tune, and before anyone quite knew what was happening, we were all linking arms and singing as we walked. Five hundred filthy, exhausted kids, most of them strangers to each other, walking arm in arm in the dark, singing “Lean On Me”. It wasn’t polished or beautiful…but it was magnificent
Yup, I sing a lot–started in church choir at the age of five and continued until my teen years when I stopped doing the church thing. SCA bard specializing in comic filk songs, karaoke (my favorite is singing BOTH parts on "Paradise By The Dashboard Light–not as easy as you’d think, heh,) sing along to the radio all the time. I do a wicked Ethel Merman impression, usually belting out Pearl Jam or Nirvana songs in an Ethel voice–that can be screamingly funny. Once when I was working in a call center my team lead asked me to sing something–it was near closing time and the phones were dead so I stood up and sang “Sit On My Face.” We hadn’t counted on the near perfect acoustics of the building, though, and some people ran over from aaaaalll the way in the far corner to see what the hell was going on. Good times! I have no shame and don’t give a shit about embarrassment–I just like to sing!
But maybe she was right and I really was terrible and bringing shame upon the Christmas concert!
But I still sing when I’m by myself in the car and my 2-year-old likes my singing, so all is not lost. When I sing him a song he always says “again!” The two-year-old especially likes Funiculi Funicula. My five-year-old is more discerning and asks me to turn on the radio instead.
I know that feeling. A few times, singing in groups, when we could all hear what the others were doing, I just felt so . . . full. Near tears with the emotion of it.
One was when I was taking part in a workshop on gospel harmony singing with the awesome group The Reedy Buzzards. Another was when two friends and I started rehearsing for an a capella trio that sadly never made it past the rehearsal stage. We’d pick a song, play with arrangement for a bit, and then give it a go. Oh my God. The three of us had never sung together, but for some reason it was like angels from heaven when we put our voices together. I can’t even describe how much I loved those few sessions.
I eagerly sing in public at any opportunity, and only wish I had more opportunities. If my work schedule allowed it I’d put together a band just so I could sing more. As it is I have to settle for karaoke once in a while (the guy that runs the karaoke at my usual place loves it when I show up - I’m apparently a welcome break from what he has to listen to most of the time).
I have the added benefit that I can sing almost anything, too. I once blew away an audience with my versatility. A few years back I was filling in on bass guitar and lead vocals with with a country band whose regular bassist/singer was ill. For the first half of the gig we worked our way through a list of country songs for the mostly “older” crowd. Around 11:00 the older folks started going home and a much younger crowd was filtering in. The younger people were obviously more interested in rock & roll than country, and fortunately we in the band had good rock & roll chops to go with our country skills. So I got quite a reaction from the audience when I went directly from singing George Strait’s “Amarillo by Morning” into Judas Priest’s “You Got Another Thing Coming”
I don’t like labels on vocal ranges, either. As far as I’m concerned, words like “bass”, “baritone” and “alto” are adjectives that describe the harmony parts on the sheet music, not nouns for the singers. I believe that everybody can sing higher than they think they can, but they get labeled as “altos” or “baritones” at an early age and somehow they believe that label defines what they can do with their voices.
One thing that drives me absolutely nuts when I’m playing with the worship team at my church is the alto singers whinging all the time about songs being “too high”. I want to ask them, “What, is Sunday morning the only time you sing?” I got labeled as a “bass” when I was about 14 (I’d never really sung much before that). The highest note I could reach comfortably was the A below middle-C. The problem was that my favorite music at the time was The Beatles, and not long after that I got into the likes of Rush and Judas Priest. Stuff that was way “too high” for me. But dammit, I wanted to sing it. So I did. Of course, I sounded like utter crap for a few years as I strained for those high notes, but by singing all the freakin’ time I was able to develop my voice and expand my range (with no formal training whatsoever) from my original one-and-a-half octaves (“low E” to the A below middle-C) to a full three octaves (all the way up to the E 14 steps above middle-C). Age and cigarettes have since taken a bit off the top of my range, but I can still comfortably reach notes that are higher than what a lot of these women think they can reach.
I don’t mind singing in groups; I was in the Women’s Glee Club all through college. Solo - hell no. i did a karaoke thing once at a fund-raiser, and even that worked out well: They got to me pretty late in the evening, everyone was drunk, and the mic crapped out. So I got feel-good points for doing it, but nobody seems to remember that they couldn’t actually hear me!
I’ll answer for them (or for me - because I’d fit right in). Nope, sing all the time around the house, to music on the radio, to myself (see above). But I’ll sing things in my range or move them down to my range, or drop it an octave if it isn’t in my range.
I have a low voice for a woman. When I was younger, I’d try to push it - and I think I damaged it (I need to take lessons, to see if there’s anything that can be done. And just for fun, really). So now, if it hurts, I stop. Pain exists for a reason. When I go above my comfort range, in order to keep from hurting, my volume goes way down and the way I sound to myself is odd. On the occasions that I do push through the pain, I suffer for it. Not only do those pushed notes sound strange and wrong - but I can’t sing inside my comfort zone afterwards without being in pain (during the rest of the song and after I’ve stopped singing) and having those notes sounding strange, too.
Plus, there’s something fundamentally unfair about the fact that I’m expected to sing all the way up in the stratosphere, but no one ever asks the sopranos to hit a low C. And they’ve always got the melody, too.
I know a lot of people do this. The problem I ran into when I started out was that sure, I could do it for folk songs and most Beatles songs, but when I started getting into the heavy guitar riff-based music (most hard rock and metal) it became impossible simply because the nature of so many guitar riffs is that they are tied to a particular key and just sound completely wrong in a different key (and in some cases, the riff doesn’t work at all in a different key). And then there’s the problem of playing and singing along with the record/tape/CD - in that case you’re pretty much stuck with the original key. So for me that meant that if I was going to sing the song I was going to have to do it in the original key.
I was probably fortunate that I stumbled upon [mostly] proper technique early on - breathing and supporting the notes from my chest rather than my throat. It also encouraged me when I discovered, upon hearing them speaking in interviews, that many of my favorite male singers with the highest, most powerful voices — Rob Halford, Bruce Dickinson, David Coverdale, etc. — had naturally deep voices (somebody here mentioned that Michael Jackson also has a naturally deep voice - the effeminate speaking voice he uses is a put-on).
I should point out that I didn’t start right out trying to belt out the highest notes - I accepted that there was some stuff that I couldn’t sing … yet. Instead, I picked songs I liked that were just a bit too high, and practiced until I could comfortably sing them. Then I picked new songs that went just a note or two higher, and tried until I could do it. Wash, rinse, repeat until I finally topped out where I did. Another key was adequate warmup. Even now, I never start out with songs that hit the top of my range. I always start off with lower-pitched songs and as my vocal cords warm up and stretch out I’ll move to more demanding songs. I always set up the set lists that way when I was the lead singer in a band. For example, our set list included AC/DC’s “You Shook Me All Night Long”, but that song never showed up until the last set, by which time my voice was good and ready for it.
Your comment about your volume dropping is interesting. I’ve always sung louder to go higher as I push more from my diaphragm.
The worship leader at my church is also a professional voice teacher, and she told me once that the bottom end of a person’s vocal range is pretty much fixed. I know that’s borne out in my case - the effective bottom of my range has remained the same low E that I had at 14, despite loving country music as much as hard rock and many efforts over the years to match low notes with the likes of Trace Adkins or Josh Turner. If it’s very early in the morning (like just got out of bed early and I’m very relaxed) I can sometimes get down to an Eb or D, but that’s gone within an hour or less. But the E is always there.
One of the problems I’ve encountered with dropping the key for the benefit of the altos is suddenly finding that the key is now too low for the basses. Now the basses can’t reach the lowest notes and have to sing an octave higher, which in turn makes the highest notes difficult for them …
I heard a fun joke: What’s the definition of an alto? A soprano who can sight read.
However I have a penchant of really getting into my music when running with my ipod. Sometimes I’ll start singing a few bars on the middle of my route. People usually give me some funny looks.
Absolutely, yes, please, please, please - don’t sing something that it hurts to sing. You vocal sounds are (to an extent) based on muscles and how they develop, and it would be unfair to ask them to go beyond their existing capacity. As a parallel, if someone can currently bench press 200lbs, it would definitely cause some pain and anguish for them to suddenly try to bench press 300lbs.
Well, let’s be fair. Depending on the arrangement you are singing, it might be possible that you are singing a higher note than the sopranos… but by and large, however high the note is that you are singing, chances are that the sopranos have one that is even higher.
But, part of the problem here is with the convention of choral arrangements assigning such a finite number of distinctions to people’s vocal ranges. If we’re talking the standard SATB, that means only four distinct buckets to encompass the entirety of choral singers. Some arrangements do make finer distinctions (i.e. Soprano I vs. Soprano II and the such); however, even then, there are never enough options to truly account for just how many variations there can be in peoples’ voices.
Hear, hear. The concept of support coming from the diaphragm as opposed to the throat is an important but often neglected one. Although, as I stated above, pain during singing is NEVER a good thing, but if one had to choose between the lesser of two evils, it is better to be hurting in your gut after singing than hurting in your throat (but just to clarify once more, pain should not ever be caused by singing, ever).
One thing about “natural voices”. I agree that there are a lot of singers whose speaking voice is markedly deeper than their singing voice. However, I believe that this has more to do with cultural norms than with range. Most cultures have a certain accepted norm with regards to how male and female voices should sound, and this manifests itself primarily in one’s speaking voice. Singing voices, on the other hand, are generally (although as in everything, there are exceptions) much less bound to these norms.
Also, I don’t necessarily agree that one’s bottom range cannot be expanded. Most often, if your natural (i.e. how you sang before you or anyone else trained you) voice is not in the “bass” range, you just don’t really have much incentive to train that part of your voice. Conversely, one will almost find good reasons to try and expand the upper part of their register.
I have the privilege of singing with about 60 other people in my church’s choir. When I’m not doing that, I’m in the congregation singing. When I got married, I even made sure we had hymns with good harmonies. Now, I have no formal training as a singer, just a lot of experience with choirs. I’ve hit E below middle C in performance while I was singing 1st tenor, and I like singing low, powerful notes in the alto range. In my choir, I’m an ordinary second alto. On the other hand, if I try to sing anything above E above high C, I have a tendency to squeak. I can do better if I get enough volume behind the notes, but there are times when the music doesn’t always call for it.
Unfortunately, I married a man who doesn’t sing, doesn’t like singing, and who doesn’t particularly care for vocal music. He sees singing as work. I’ve sung next to him in church and I admit he isn’t that good, but he also doesn’t read music, which may be a factor.
I should have been more specific By “deep” speaking voices, I meant “deeper than is typical”. Most of the men I’ve known have tended to speak in roughly the same range — in what I guess you could call the baritone-to-low-tenor range — regardless of their singing ranges. The main distinction has been that those with bass or baritone singing voices have tended to have smoother speaking voices than their tenor counterparts, even though they are speaking in the same range. The singers I mentioned spoke in a distinctly lower register than the “average” male - Coverdale most notably, whose speaking voice was almost into Barry White territory.
I may have incorrectly remembered what I was told. I remember asking this voice teacher if I could develop the bottom of my range and I’m sure she replied negatively. Her answer may have been more along the lines of “The low end isn’t going anywhere”, and I may have misinterpreted that. Or she may have misunderstood my question and given an answer that meant something more like “your lowest notes aren’t going to go away”. I’ll have to ask her again.
