Ways To Increase Vocal Range

Adding high notes is what mostly discussed in articles that talks about how to increase vocal range and ignoring altos and basses. Lower voices, this one's for you! By using your chest voice, we'll explore some ways to add some more low notes on your voice.How To Sing

When you talk, most of us uses the chest voice. In fact, your speaking voice can teach you a lot about your singing voice. The way you use your speaking voice can either help or hinder your singing voice.

Let us explore your speaking voice for starter. Laugh, cry, yawn, sign etc are your various non-speech sounds. Try voicing it out. If you have a piano or pitch pipe available, find the nearest pitch to the sounds you made. Now speak a few monosyllables: uh-huh, mm-hmm, aha. Once again, using the piano or pitch pipe, speak a few monosyllables and match the pitch you produce.

Now speak a few simple sentences, such as "my name is_____" or "I love to sing". Once again, find the matching pitch. Ideally, the pitch should be the same for speaking as it is for monosyllables or non-speech sounds, but many people try to speak at a lower pitch than is natural for their voice. Doing this is not recommended and is not healthy thing to do.

Continue exploring your voice by speaking monosyllables at various pitch levels on a piano. Without sounding gravelly, try and find the lowest pitch you can speak. The gravelly sound is called "vocal fry" and is not healthy to sustain. Your ideal speaking pitch should be about four to five steps above your vocal fry level.

Next, speak sentences or read a paragraph aloud. Experiment with higher speaking pitches to see how high you can go. As you do the exercise, feel you voice and note where it is most comfortable and where you start to hear and feel strain.

When using your "chest voice", you will feel vibration (resonance) in your chest when producing tones in that pitch range. With you thumb and fingers resting on your collarbones, put your hand gently on your upper chest. Do a yawn-slide (exhale on the syllable "hee" or "hoo" while sliding from the top of your range to the bottom). As you slide down into your chest voice, you should feel the vibration from your hand.

You must know that the resonance is happening in your throat and mouth although it may feels like it's occurring in your chest. The vibration you feel is the result of air moving from your lungs and across your vocal folds.

The fifth slide is the simple low-range singing exercise. Starting in the comfortable middle part of your range, use the buzz (puckered lips vibrating as air is expelled) or a syllable such as "vaw" to sing the starting pitch and slide down five steps. That would be 'so->do', or G-C inf you're doing it in the key of C Major. The slide should be smooth, not bumpy or creaky. Start each repetition a half-step below the previous one.

If you feel bumpy or creaky sensations as you descend the scale, you're probably holding some tension. Pause and do some face and neck relaxation exercises. Gently massage your face and throat, then try again. Close your mouth slightly from its starting position as you descend the scale.

Next, using again the buzz or "vax", sing an octave scale up and back down. As you go up the scale, allow your jaw to drop and your mouth to open a bit wider, then reverse that as you come back down. It may be helpful to imagine your tone on a path leading away from yourself, with low notes nearest and high notes farthest away. You can move one hand back to your side as you descend and move it away from your body as you ascend the scan. Well, that's one thing to try out.

The arpeggio is another helpful exercise. Sing do-mi-so-do-so-mi-do on a vowel sound, such as "oo", "ee", or "ah". Start each new arpeggio a half-step lower than the last.

As with any singing technique, adding to your lower range will take time and effort. If you are patient and persistent, you will see positive results.