Quote:
Originally Posted by Deliberate1
Friends, I would be very interested to know how you accomplished singers determined your vocal range.
I am two years into the guitar. I took it up after decades of jazz woodwinds in order to give life to songs I was writing; songs that were vocal pieces. And I learned and worked up these songs with open chords, for better and worse. I never sang much, so that was new too. As my speaking voice is quite low, I assumed that my singing voice would have the same pitch. I tread on the cusp of bass/tenor.
But all that changed when I went to a bluegrass camp a couple weeks ago, and was introduced to the mystery of the capo. Seems that most of the tunes we did were in B with the capo on the second fret. It obviously brought my singing voice up correspondingly, and it felt pretty good to be out of the basement. The tunes had limited range so I did not top out.
Since then, I have played a few of my songs with the capo on the second and even third fret. It feels, voice-wise, pretty comfortable, so long as the range of the song was somehat condensed. I also rather like the sound of my guitar with the capo on as well (Fairbanks SJ), though I do find that the intonation can suffer, with my cheap capo.
So, am I on the right track - basically figure out what the range of the song is and try to match it to my vocal comfort level. Or is there a more "scientific" approach to determine one's optimal range.
Obliged.
David
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I just got into the habit of warming up the voice by humming then singing up and down a scale, doesn't matter which , toward the lower end of my range I can still sing the notes but the volume starts to drop of, beyond my upper limit I sound like a rusty hinge so my range is between the two. I'd love to have a few singing lessons once this covid situation is easier, if just to learn how to protect my voice from strain, some singers seem to sound fine into their 80s and that would be a pretty cool achievement I think.