To make sure your Better Voice technique is really firmly established, the exercises in the course so far have used quite a limited range of notes. The voice exercises in this and the following two units work towards extending the range of your Better Voice – for singing or speaking.
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 used properly 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.
To make sure your Better Voice technique is really firmly established, the exercises in the course so far have used quite a limited range of notes. The voice exercises in this and the following two units work towards extending the range of your Better Voice – for singing or speaking.
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 used properly 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.
