I love to sing, and do so at every opportunity. After puberty/voice changing, I was left with a fairly solid bass/baritone voice. At the bottom of my range I could hit a low E (same pitch as the open low-E string on a guitar), but I struggled to even sing as “high” as middle-C. Unfortunately, it was the late 1970s / early 1980s, and I was into hard rock and metal. All of my favorite male singers were power tenors with insane upper registers. Dammit, I wanted to sing like Halford and Dickinson! So I screamed and screamed and screamed until, eventually, I had extended my upper range to high E (octave & a third above middle C), which was good enough for most metal.
Unfortunately, nobody wanted to hear that, because while I could hit the notes, it sounded like shite. By the time I was 20, I’d resigned myself to not being a power metal singer, and found an interest in country music, where my voice was better-suited. Through my 20s and into my early 30s, I gradually lost my ability to hit those high notes.
Now, I’m approaching 50, and over the last handful of years my vocal range has once more expanded … in both directions. Admittedly, the bottom of my practical range is still that low E, but most days I can reach down to D. And, if it’s early enough in the morning, I’m able to get down to A, and even managed Ab once or twice. But there’s a dramatic dropoff in volume once I go below D, making those lower notes impractical for anything but amusing myself, and in any case I lose the ability to hit them within about two hours of waking up.
The big surprise is that I’ve pretty much regained my whole upper register, and actually sound good singing/screaming that high. I hate to say it, but I credit karaoke. I suspect part of it was that, with karaoke, I was concentrating entirely on my vocals, as opposed to my past singing while playing guitar, bass, or piano. My voice had my undivided attention, and I was able to actually hear myself properly through a decent microphone and good speakers (rather than un-miked in my bedroom). It also let me start really focusing on actual technique, rather than just straining to go higher and higher. My proudest moment was the day I finally figured out Brian Johnson’s vocal technique, and discovered that I could actually sing Shoot to Thrill all the way to the end and sound good (well, as good as Brian Johnson). That had always been my favorite AC/DC song, but I couldn’t sing it, even as a teenager. I just could not hit those notes at the very end, and in any case I sounded awful trying. Now I sing it in public and get high-fives from strangers.
We take our singing seriously, so many of the congregations I have belonged to have had singing practice outside of worship. Everyone, regardless of voice quality, is encouraged to sing.
But it’s who I am/what I do. Once I’m able to spend more time networking, I think (hope) it’ll pay off and I’ll start getting calls.
