You might think you only need a wide vocal range if you’re a singer, but speakers often unnecessarily limit the number of notes they use, which means they miss out on a lot of potential interest in their voice.
The voice exercises in this and the following two units work towards extending the range of your Better Voice for speaking or singing.
Make a sound on the highest-pitched note you can. How would you describe it (apart from, possibly, not very pleasant)? You might label it as squeaky, thin, bright or sharp.
What’s your lowest-pitched sound like? Thick, dark, woolly or rich perhaps.
Whatever the exact labels you chose it’s very likely that the low note sounded ‘thicker’ than the high one.
You’ve just demonstrated that:
So, notes have different sound qualities depending on whether they’re near the top or the bottom of your vocal range.
Yet when you listen to a good voice you are not aware of jumps in sound quality between thicker and thinner. This is because the singer or speaker has practised smoothing the sound quality across their whole vocal range. They have brought some of the bright quality of the higher-pitched notes down into the lower-pitched notes, and the rich quality of the lower notes up into the higher ones.
Exercises such as the ones in the next section, which divide the distances between notes into small steps, are an excellent way to practise this smoothing of the sound quality in your voice. Using the hum helps the process even more.
Q: Do you feel your voice currently has a smooth quality across its range?
You might think you only need a wide vocal range if you’re a singer, but speakers often unnecessarily limit the number of notes they use, which means they miss out on a lot of potential interest in their voice.
The voice exercises in this and the following two units work towards extending the range of your Better Voice for speaking or singing.
Make a sound on the highest-pitched note you can. How would you describe it (apart from, possibly, not very pleasant)? You might label it as squeaky, thin, bright or sharp.
What’s your lowest-pitched sound like? Thick, dark, woolly or rich perhaps.
Whatever the exact labels you chose it’s very likely that the low note sounded ‘thicker’ than the high one.
You’ve just demonstrated that:
So, notes have different sound qualities depending on whether they’re near the top or the bottom of your vocal range.
Yet when you listen to a good voice you are not aware of jumps in sound quality between thicker and thinner. This is because the singer or speaker has practised smoothing the sound quality across their whole vocal range. They have brought some of the bright quality of the higher-pitched notes down into the lower-pitched notes, and the rich quality of the lower notes up into the higher ones.
Exercises such as the ones in the next section, which divide the distances between notes into small steps, are an excellent way to practise this smoothing of the sound quality in your voice. Using the hum helps the process even more.
Q: Do you feel your voice currently has a smooth quality across its range?
