Alexa: [00:00:00] It is the return of BAST founder Line Hilton to the podcast this week to take another deep dive into the wild and wonderful world of singing, this time on the topic of vocal fach and the singer's range.
From booming bases to soaring sopranos, Line helps us to define vocal fach and helps us to understand some of the vocal timbre that we might expect in such voices.
Line Hilton. We are ready for you.
Line , I feel like we should call this episode: Vocal Range -what the fach? What do you think?
Line: It would be very easy to go in that direction. Yes.
Alexa: Yeah. Although I highly doubt I'm the first person to think that because it's pretty good that pun.
Line: Hmm? Yeah. So it's actually pronounced like you would Bach.
Alexa: Fach
Line: correct
Alexa: yeah. What the fach, so what is a fach
Line: Yeah, so a [00:01:00] fach or fächer which is the plural, is a system that was developed probably back in the late 19th century as a way of classifying voices for operatic roles. So if you were in the soprano fach people knew this is the repertoire you would learn. Or it could also actually be even more specific to that because there's about 30, if not more of them. So coloratura even though that's soprano, that's usually a very flexible voice that can do very fast movements and changes and do these very melismatic lines. A coloratura soprano would be suitable for certain types of composers like Mozart.
So it was a system that was devised to help classify somebody's voice so that the teacher and the singer and the composer all knew where to slot that singer?
Alexa: [00:02:00] You mentioned soprano there, so what other names might we come across in these classifications?
Line: Well, the very obvious ones, which most of us know in the singing world, soprano, mezzo soprano, contralto, tenor, baritone, bass.
Alexa: And so what are the features of those? What determines someone being a bass compared to someone being a baritone?
Line: That's a really good question, and I think it sometimes gets a bit confused. In the more contemporary world, I would say not in the classical world. But in the non-classical world, people often think that a fach, or being labeled one of those voice types actually talks directly to your range.
But actually it really is about the vocal tone and the colour texture and the timbre that the voice has, and [00:03:00] also notes. So. You could have somebody who is a baritone fach, but they could sing tenor notes and you could have a tenor fach who actually can't sing the required tenor notes. So in the classical world, you wouldn't have employment basically if you couldn't sing a top C as a tenor or a high C, which is a C six for a female soprano.
You are not gonna get the roles because you're not gonna be able to sing those notes, but there's also an expectation of the tone and the quality of the voice. That's not to say that you can't have a very flexible voice, but a darker tone. So maybe you have more of a mezzo tone or fach, but you can actually sing quite [00:04:00] rapid changes and melismatic lines.
And I'm pretty sure, 'cause I'm not an expert on this Alexa, but there's probably repertoire that you would be able to sing that would highlight the flexibility of your voice along with the colour. Yeah, so in the musical theatre world. It's actually really used a lot more in terms of knowing where to classify somebody in terms of range. Do we put them in the soprano line or the, what they call alto line, which is a bit of a bug bear of mine 'cause that's incorrect. Or tenor, baritone or bass. Yeah. So quite often baritones will actually be allocated basslines because they're the closest thing. And basses are not really that easy to find. They don't occur as often in the singing voice as the tenor voice does.
Alexa: So before we talk about pitch ranges, could you give us an idea, starting from the bottom at the [00:05:00] bass, what we might expect in the vocal qualities and timbre?
Line: Well bass. Is the lowest end.
So you're gonna get lots of low frequencies and there's often a rumble that comes with it. There's a few popular singers that people will know, like Johnny Cash. And if you follow Harmony Singers Tim Foust, also very bassy. He's from Home Free and then in musical theatre. Paul Robson was a very true bass. Philip Boykin, who's most recently known for Hades. So that's a very distinct sound, you know, it's low, it's rumbly and it's got all those low frequencies.
Alexa: My stomach is often a bass. Yeah.
Line: Yes. And I'm, when I'm sick. When I've got a cold, I'm definitely more of a bass as well. I can [00:06:00] reach some amazing notes then that's 'cause your vocal folds get thicker when you have a cold or a throat virus. Yeah, so those sort of, the lower end males, lower end females, the equivalent would really be what is called a contralto in the fach system. So a very obvious female who's in that area is Tracy Chapman. Tanika Tikaram was another one.
If you're in the jazz world- Cassandra Wilson. Then coming up we go to Baritone for males, and that's your Elvis Presley's, your George Ezras. They've definitely got this lower bottom end to their tone, but they also have a upper end as well. Maybe more middle to upper end. They might not go super high.
Actually, there's a classical, well, no, he's a folk bass singer and he does a lot of Russian material [00:07:00] by the name of Ivan Rebrov and, he's a true bass, but he has a huge range. So he'll go from anything like a D2 maybe even lower up to G5, sometimes higher. It's really quite amazing to listen to if you go onto YouTube, you can check it out yourself. But he's definitely a bass. So that's the interesting thing about classifying a voice and why it's maybe a little bit more difficult in the contemporary world because even though someone may have those tonal qualities, their range may not necessarily be indicative.
And then we have tenors. So in the contemporary world, Bruno Mars, Freddie Mercury, have you got some musical theatre examples?
Alexa: One of my favourites, Ben Platt. He's got some lovely tenor notes . and a gorgeous vibrato and resonance just to fly [00:08:00] that flag as well. What does a tenor have that we are going to in their tonal quality, then that the basses are gonna have the buzz. What, what's the tenor got?
Line: They've got a ring. So it's very pingy. They also, especially in the classical and the musical theatre world, they need to be able to sing C5 s minimum and in some cases, maybe even an E or a F5. Just depends on the repertoire that they're singing.
That's definitely lighter. I think pingy, pingy and a ring. There's definitely this element of a sound that carries over everything. And that's often because they're in the tuning into the singer's formant, you know, which is this range of frequencies that really help resonate and carry over an orchestra. [00:09:00] Yeah, so that's how I would describe them. I mean, there's probably more official ways of describing it with females. You can also have a mezzo, which I suppose is the equivalent of a baritone, in the musical theatre world who would you label there?
Alexa: Maybe someone like Idina Menzel.
Line: Right? And Patty Lu Pone is another one. Yeah. And then we've got Sopranos,
Alexa: Idina's friend, Kristin Chenoweth.
Line: Sarah Brightman, of course in the contemporary world, Kate Bush. But even someone like Beyonce in the early days, definitely I would've put her in a soprano fach. But now I've noticed that her voice has dropped a bit, and that could be hormonal. Yeah, so I mean there's probably, I mean, there's millions of examples that we've missed out.
So [00:10:00] sopranos, same thing. There's definitely this expectation of an upper range. It's a lighter sound, so it has more treble in it. So both the tenor and the sopranos have more treble than they do mids and bass. But it depends. So if you get a little bit more mids, then you might say that's more of a mezzo.
Yeah, it's, it's very difficult in the contemporary world to talk in this manner and it's useful maybe in terms of if you wanted to categorize certain singers in terms of finding repertoire or just to have a discussion about someone's voice so that in the case of Kate Bush, if you said she's a coloratura soprano.
If the other person understands what that means in terms of sounds, then they have an expectation when they're going to listen to Kate that they're gonna get this high [00:11:00] coloarota very fast moving very trebley sound coming out. Yeah,
Alexa: I guess it can help in choir parts as well. If you want to put yourself in the most comfortable place for you in a choir then knowing your soprano bass that might be useful and as you say, with repertoire and, and knowing where you are for certain jobs. But why might it be not so helpful to know your fach?
Line: Well outside of the classical and the musical theatre world where it actually helps to categorize somebody into a part, whether it's a role or whether it's a genre you know, like a certain type of composer or whether it's in a chorus, I'm not sure that it's particularly useful in the contemporary world.
Unless, [00:12:00] uh, say for instance a producer is looking for a particular voice type for something that they're doing, in a recording they might then put out, you know, they're looking for someone who's soprano like qualities. 'cause they don't want Tracy Chapman turning up, which obviously why would you not want Tracy Chapman turning up?
But in terms of if you've envisaged, you know, to have a certain voice quality, then you might ask for a soprano. So then it might be useful to know what your classification is. But I think a lot of people think of that classification more as a way of describing what their range is, and I think that can limit people as well.
Alexa: Yeah, there can be that limitation of, ah, well if I'm considered a bass, then I'm not even going to try and attempt some of the tenor work because I obviously can't sing to that high note when, as you've just described, you may very well could do, so you're just [00:13:00] putting a bit of an obstacle or a limitation on your ability.
Line: On the other hand, it's just made me think of a student that I had who was a true bass. And he came to me because he had voice problems and he'd lost his voice and lost his range. And it turned out that he'd been making his voice sing tenor songs like rock tenor songs. And he really wanted to be a rock tenor singer, like a, maybe a Freddie Mercury or Steve, Tyler, kind of thing.
And helping him to understand that wasn't how his voice was structured like in terms of physiologically, helped him eventually to come to terms with the fact that pushing his voice into these high tenor parts was not going to help his vocal health. So I guess that's a case of when actually it does help someone to understand [00:14:00] that they are a particular fach and there is a physiology that goes with it in terms of how thick, how long your vocal folds are, what kind of acoustic space you have. What's the ratio of mouth, space to throat space, and that sort of thing. So whilst you can make some changes to certain aspects, you can make your tone more rounder or more edgy at the end of the day. If you have, long, thick vocal folds, you're never going to have a soprano voice. It's just not gonna be possible because it's like saying to a, a bass string, you know, sound like a, like a low bass E string, which is that big thick one. Now I want you to sound like an E6. Well, you can't 'cause physically it's just not feasible.
Alexa: Can we talk about the ranges then? Can you give us a ballpark of where a bass might be singing from and to. [00:15:00]
Line: Yeah. I look to start off with, I don't tend to think in this way. I tend to just take what I've got in front of me and work with what I can get from the voice, in particular when we're doing lip drills or SOVTs, for me that's a really good indicator of someone's eventual or potential vocal range. So this is me. And, um, there are probably gonna be plenty of people who go, oh no, you know, they're not the right ranges. But if I've got a bass and they've got to be performing, then I need to find out what they're performing as well.
So are they able to sing in that range? And I would expect a good G2, A2, and then I would like to work them up through into A4, maybe even C5 with time maybe, but I'd be quite happy with a G4. [00:16:00] So their passaggio is going to shift. It's not gonna be as high as the tenor passaggio, so their passaggio will probably start somewhere around A3 Bflat3, somewhere around there.
And that means that the Eflat4 is going to be their second shift, so that's gonna be their more acoustic shift. So it just depends on what they're capable of doing, what they need to do with their voice. But I have to say, in my career, I've only really come across maybe two or three true basses, but I don't work in the classical and the musical theatre world.
So with a tenor, I'd be happy if they got a C3, but maybe even a B2 or A2. Sometimes if, especially if they've got a bit of lower end, they'll be able to reach that without any problems. But I'm not gonna be worried if they can't get any lower than a C3 and then I'm [00:17:00] working want to work them definitely through the first transition to an A4.
But if they're singing high stuff like, you know, high tenor rock stuff, they probably need a C5, they might even need an E5 so I'll be working them towards that. Female voices- I've only worked with a true one, true contralto and, and I actually ended up treating her voice as I would a tenor. So the first transition being around the Eflat4, second around the Aflat4 she had a really good upper range. She had a lot of flexibility. She had a huge hole in the middle. It was out of, just not a, it took actually years to get it sorted out. It was a very complex voice. So of course, as a female [00:18:00] singer, that's the area that you're singing in the most.
And she had lovely bottom end. She could sing down to, I think, a. D, D3 C3, uh, but she didn't want it, you know, it wasn't what she was wanting to do with most females who are around the sort of soprano range. I want a good G3 and then I'll take whatever I can get as we go up they need to get to, depending on the genre, if we're talking contemporary, probably an E5 but I want to be working them up to at least a G5, A5, maybe even a C6, depending on their repertoire and their genre. So that's where I'm working towards most of the time. I like to stretch it as far as I can down and up or [00:19:00] left and right as Kaya references.
Because I want everything in the middle to be really easy. So for me the range isn't necessarily as important as are they able to get through the passaggio or the transition
Alexa: When it comes to the male voice types, then what do you think of the idea of helping any of those voice types be able to sing to say an E four, F four in true chest voice.
Line: I think it depends on what they need it for. My experience has been that if they maintain that weight too high, then it's really difficult to transition into the next area. And definitely a singer, you know, and I've worked with male voices that can push their voice up to that F4, and as long as they don't have to go any further, they're good.
But if you get need to get to the [00:20:00] G4, what happens if you've got all that weight there? And I can see it in females as well, where they can push their voice up in that chestier coordination with more TA involved, C5, sometimes even beyond. But what happens after that? And more often than not, it's a sudden transition.
Now there's just too much weight. The CT needs to come in, and the only way it can do it is if the TA totally lets go, and that's when we get that crack or that flip, and then the CT takes over. Now, that's not to say that some voices could manage that transition, even keeping that weight higher up.
Because you know, the physiology is different from one singer to another, and also maybe if you've got some ligament stretchiness, due to hypermobility, you might be able to sustain that and then [00:21:00] transition without there being much of a, an obvious transition. That's just my thought and from my experience, but I'm not the be all and end all of this kind, and I've never done any studies on it. You would have to stick some needles in to the uh, vocal muscles to find out whether or not that was possible. Necessary, normal, an option. Yeah.
Alexa: You mentioned that the word alto can sometimes be a bit of a bug bear for you.
Why is that?
Line: So, I guess it's because I the term alto it will come from contralto to, and as I discussed earlier, contralto is a fach, and it's a description of a tone and quality of voice. When we use the term as a part, so if we've got soprano, alto, tenor bass, what we are really talking about is what part is that person singing?[00:22:00]
And in the instance of alto, you could be a soprano, but sing an alto line. Being an alto doesn't mean you can't sing soprano. If you've got the range and it's become a bit like, oh, I'm a an alto because I can't sing a G5, but actually tonally you are a soprano in, you know, by the true term. So actually it's more a case of I don't know how to get into that place technically. So that doesn't mean that you're a low voice, it just means that technically you can't get to those notes that are required for that particular part. And it goes also for the lower part. So quite a, because basses aren't so easy to find, you'll find baritones and even dramatic tenors [00:23:00] taking basslines just because they're closer than anyone else and they'll do, and so they end up pushing their voice down and that can sometimes cause problems as well when they try to go back to singing their more normal range and parts.
Yeah. So my bugbear is that people think that alto is a voice type, but it's just a harmony part.
Alexa: What would you have considered in your singing heyday to be as a fach?
Line: I was a soprano. Yeah, definitely a soprano, but I liked singing alto because it was juicier.
Alexa: When we had Kaya on the podcast, we were talking about different ways and things that we can measure when we're working with a student talking about physiology. And part of that was talking about this topic of range, and she mentioned some exercises that she might take singers across to test out the lowest comfortable note and the highest, which can be useful for musical theatre performers who need to put that [00:24:00] on their spotlight or such things. What's your favourite way of testing out a singer's range
Line: On a song, actually, because I've noticed that sometimes people can exercise quite comfortably over a much wider range than they can sing, and when we are singing lyrics, we've got consonants and vowels that get in the way, as well as obviously the rhythmic aspect and different melody interval jumps and things like that. So I'll take a song that they're comfortable with and then I'll just transpose it down until they get to the lowest part and then we'll transpose it up until we get to the highest part.
Alexa: And typically, in your view, how many octaves should or can singers move across in their entire range?
Line: Oh, I dunno if I've ever thought about that, but I've always been curious to know what people meant by she's got a five octave range or a seven octave [00:25:00] range. I think for the most part, most singers have, I wanna say two octave range, especially in the contemporary world, though obviously if you've got access to whistle tone, then you've got an extra on top.
Yeah, so like Mariah Carey, people, I think regard her as having a five octave range, and I think the lowest note she's supposed to have sung is like a Gsharp2 up to a, was it something like an E7 something like that? Which E7 will be the whistle tone for sure. But I have to question that G Sharp two.
Has she done that live, was there any production on that? Because obviously if it's recorded then you don't know what kind of production has been added into, attain that note. Yeah, so I would say most singers between two, two [00:26:00] and a half and exceptional singers, maybe three. I don't know. What are your thoughts?
Have you looked into that?
Alexa: I think I'm curious about it because I think people put a worth on how many octaves you can sing as if it means you are a better singer because you can do more than two. Or and for the poor adolescent boys who sometimes have what, five notes in their range, that automatically means they're crap.
I don't think so. I think it just means that they're going through something physiological and change is happening. So I don't think that we can put our value as singers on how many octaves we can sing, even though it can get pretty impressive for sure.
Line: I think one of the problems is, as I agree, you know, you get defined by your vocal range, but there are so many artists who have had very limited ranges who've been very successful.
Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra. Even if you listen to someone [00:27:00] like Amy Winehouse or Adele, they don't have huge ranges as they say. It's not the size, it's..
Alexa: I have heard that.
Line: Yes. And I think it can apply with the voice as well,
Alexa: as well as what Line? I dunno what you're alluding to
Line: Wrong podcast.
Yeah. So range. Yeah. I don't think that should define someone's ability nor whether or not you can sing high notes. I've heard a lot of high notes that are really not well delivered, or the musicality isn't there or the connection to the emotion isn't there. I'd much rather listen to someone with a limited range who has, is emotionally connected and able to connect to me as an audience member.
That's my opinion, obviously, in the worlds of musical theatre and classical. Now it becomes, you know, this is part of the job [00:28:00] to be able to sing those notes.
Alexa: As we move from our lowest range to our highest range, what do we understand anatomically and physiologically to be happening inside and extrinsically?
Line: I don't know about extrinsically 'cause in theory, other than obviously the muscles supporting everything, you don't wanna have too much tension there. Intrinsically, skip to the next sort of transition areas. Now this in, this is in more of an acoustical shift, so you are going to have to make changes to the shape of your vocal tract.
It might mean you have to drop the tongue out of the way a little bit or bring the larynx down a little bit, or raise the soft palate a little bit in order to be able to attain the pitches and still retain the resonance and the volume, et cetera. [00:29:00] So it's a lot, you know, there's a lot of things happening.
Uh, in the meantime, if your larynx, which likes to move around quite a lot, and especially likes to track up or down with the pitch if that's coming up, it's going to interfere, and so the singer needs to be able to control the vocal apparatus, which includes the larynx and the vocal folds and the vocal tract in such a way that they're constantly maintaining this balance, and I often equate it to, you know, initially you're on a seesaw and you're going woo down one side and up the other, and then woo, then the other. But eventually, as you get used to it and you do the repetition and your body starts to understand what it needs to do, and the muscles and the nerves get more refined in their motor skill, now we're constantly just balancing, but in a very um, slight movement way. It's not so dramatic up and down. [00:30:00] So those things are constantly in motion. And that's without considering things like, how tired are you? You know, how are your vocal folds a bit swollen? Are you a bit vocally tired 'cause you talked too much yesterday? How hydrated are you? Have you been drinking enough water so that your vocal folds are nice and moist and able to glide over each other easily and effortlessly. Or are they a bit dry and now they're gonna have to work a bit harder? Are you feeling stressed about something? And so now there's external tension coming in that's impacting your vocal instrument.
Yeah, so there's all sorts of things that will impede that if they can. And so keeping fit and well. Keeping well hydrated. Doing your vocal warmups and development training are going to work to reduce the various challenges that might occur as you transition through your range. [00:31:00]
Alexa: When it comes to range for, say, a child versus an adult, you already mentioned Beyonce and how you've noticed that her voice has lowered.
If you take something like Listen from a couple of years back, which doesn't feel like it should be as long ago as it is, which is really weird. And then something like her Cowboy Carter songs that she's been doing recently. You can really see the shift in tessitura where she's actually singing. So what could we expect from that, say little five, 6-year-old up to aging?
Line: Well, children often have the ability to get into stratospheric ranges quite easily. Uh, but they won't have the lower end 'cause their vocal folds won't be thick and long enough. And they also may not have the challenges that adults have in terms of the [00:32:00] transition. And of course there'll be a much lighter, more trebley sound.
Children up until the ages of puberty, uh, you often can't tell the difference between a male and a female voice. Yeah. So range wise, they may struggle on a C four. So there might D four might be kind of their lowest part of their range. It just depends on the size of the child as well. I have worked with young children who can sing down to an A three, and this is what I was saying earlier about, I don't really think about, oh, this is a female, I need to work in this range I'll just take what I can get and then work around that. And if they need more, I'll, you know, help them strategise ways of getting more bottom and more top. Yeah. So with a child's voice, definitely if they can't get lower than whatever their lowest note is, you don't need to worry about that.
That will come with time. And then [00:33:00] in terms of the upper end, it could be anything. You know, I had one boy that I worked with and he was singing up into what would be whistle tone for a female but it was totally head voice.
Alexa: Somebody who's done some great work on that and has the third edition of her book out.
Jenevora Williams, our friend Jenevora, who has the chart in her books, uh, to say from 0-2years, you could expect maybe that C4, and then it can go up and you might find that it gets lowered to around that G three and and beyond. As you say, it will depend on that individual body. And then when we're aging, what happens to us? I mean, those kids who have got those stratospheric notes, you know, they don't realize how good they've got it. Playing Sylvan families and Barbies and whatever you wanna play, and getting to the top notes. What happens as you get to ad adulthood, Line?
Line: Well, females tend [00:34:00] to find their voice drops, as we just talked about with Beyonce. There's definitely been a shift in her voice. In the tone as well as, um, you know, in terms of the range that she works in now. So as we get into menopause and even a little bit earlier, like perimenopause for females, the vocal folds thicken. And so that's why we end up getting, lower range. And my def mine definitely has, and a lot of sopranos in the classical world will shift to mezzo soprano parts.
And then with males, they may get actually higher, uh, because their vocal folds thin out a little bit. Yeah. Uh, but it just depends also what you've been doing with your voice. There are some people whose voice definitely drops just because they've been abusing it, and, uh, they've got these very floppy, thick vocal folds as they get older from the abuse, whether it's smoking or [00:35:00] yelling all the time. Whatever. Yeah. So, uh, that probably will happen. And it doesn't mean you can't sing though. You just might have to change your repertoire or change the keys , and for many genres, that's fine.
Alexa: And we've got a great podcast with Joanne Bozeman on the Menopausal Voice, so we'll pop that in a show notes, so you can go and check that out too.
What are some of the ways that we can help a singer to extend their range then get higher up?
Line: Higher. Oh, higher up. Well, I think the first way in is through SOVTs. There's an element of the psychology of it, as you know, in terms of. If you've worked with a singer who's been singing for a while and they've never managed to get up into the upper range, they will have a resistance or they'll have a limiting belief around it, and this becomes like a self-fulfilling prophecy really.
So SOVT is a really easy way to kind of [00:36:00] trick the voice into getting into this area of the range that they may never have visited before. One scale, which is really useful to help trick the voice up into the upper area is that long range scale. I call it the extended arpeggio. It's also known as the one and a half octave Long scale or the Rossini Scale. So that arpeggiated, uh, jump. Is really easy for the voice and so on. Something like a lip tril or a v or a, you know, blowfish sound, on an OO, that can easily slip the voice into other upper ranges. And so psychologically now the singer is going, oh, oh, actually my voice can go up there. And so they start to get used to it.
And then I, once I've started getting [00:37:00] them into that range, upper range, so we're working here, so we're going up to G five, and maybe the singer has never sung in that area before. Female voice. I might then say, well, let's hang around there a little bit longer. So.
And I'll just get them to hang there. So they're starting to physically get used to being in that area for a sustained time. And once I'm getting more security in the SOVTs then I might find something like a, an MM, sound or a, NG. Yeah, probably just a creaky M sound, so we might do something like just hang in there for a little while and then come back down. I particularly like this extended [00:38:00] arpeggio for this work. Sometimes when you use shorter scales, it's just too much for the vocal apparatus to manage, you know, and to sustain that. So it's just a quick visit in, and then we're out and we're back into our comfort zone. Oh, another quick visit in, and then we're out. And then we do a little bit of sustaining. And then after a while, then I'll go to a shorter scale like an octave arpeggio,
and then going into that range, you know, eventually. To where they, you know, had struggled to get before. And quite often from a psychological point of view, I won't tell them where they are. I'll just say, oh, just let's give this scale a a go. Let's try this sound, see how that feels. And then afterwards I'll say, do you know where you were in your range?
And more often than not, they'll think there's somewhere around the middle. And then when you say, well actually [00:39:00] you just sang a G five, they'll be in shock if they know what the G five is. You go, how did you get me to do that? It was magic. It's like, well. You know, I know how to make it look like magic.
Yeah. So for the upper end, I think so SOVTs and the extended arpeggio are really good tools to get started.
Alexa: And how does differ from extending the lower because I guess we can stretch our vocal folds out, but how? How can we slacken them more? Can we get them fatter?
Line: Quite often people can't get their lower range because they're doing something like lowering the larynx as they go.
Say, for instance, we're working with a female and she says, oh, I can't sing anything lower than a, you know, an A three. So they might do something like, ah, and then the sound disappears because as I said earlier, the larynx likes to track it to [00:40:00] go up when we go higher in the notes, or more to the left, more to the right, I should say. And it likes to go down when we go to the lower notes or more to the left. So we need to help them understand that actually the larynx doesn't need to drop down. And if we can keep it more stable, in a more neutral position, it's more likely that you'll be able to get the vocal fold closure that's required to get the pitch.
So I might get them just to count and as close as I can to making a sound at pitch 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, not, and once again, not to be there for too long. Just touch in on it. Or I might say, let's use a sound like GUT. So something that's like a word or MUM
and every time they do, I'll say, just go to talk it. MUM, MUM, MUM. Now do [00:41:00] that at pitch. And quite often they'll start to realize that, oh, actually, if I keep my larynx in this position, I'm more likely to get vocal fold closure, and then the pitch and the sound will come out. So I'll start very much with speech like approach. I might also do an ugly, AE, sound, , and just keep it ugly all the way because it, you can't keep it ugly if you drop the larynx. Again, it's tricking that voice into doing what you want it to do, and then afterwards you explain what's happening, why it's working. And I often will say to the singer. Just figure out what it feels like, what you're thinking as you do that, when you're doing it correctly and in your practice, go back to that place, find [00:42:00] the strategy that gets you there, and then work from there out. So after that, after they're getting those notes and we're extending it down, and quite often in that instance, you can get an extra three or four, or maybe even five notes. Then I'll start to go with the more challenging sounds like your OOs and EEs. And then fricative sounds like, FF and WW So I'll start first of all with consonants and vowels that make it very easy to get that chestier resonance like AE AH. EH, and then I'll shift the vowel to the more challenging end and the consonant as well so consonants that are really useful are ones that give you nice closure or help the vocal folds with a bit of back pressure, like b m. g. d. Those kind of sounds. And one more thing [00:43:00] is in particular because we are encouraging vocal fold closure, is to add a little creak or a cry sound. Mm mm Because when we create that sound, the vocal folds have to come together. There's no other way to create that sound, so I might say, add a little cry onto that mum.
. And it's very exaggerated in the beginning, just while we're getting the function working. So it's like going to the gym and sweating it out. You know, it looks ugly, it doesn't sound great, but ultimately it's gonna help the muscles and the nervous system adapt and make those changes with repetition, and then eventually we can ease off and sound more inverted commas normal.
Alexa: Is probably a good point to say that we've got some great, the best exercises for episodes for things like chest voice, head voice, laryngeal stability, and the transition. So this is a really good part of that series, really. [00:44:00] So go and check those out if you haven't already. So when we we're talking about vocal health and the range, where might be some red flags for you?
Line: So one of the very obvious areas that will become problematic when a voice is sick is the transition area. So if someone's been singing without any problems through their transition, and now they're struggling, like it's cracking, they can't control it, they're going off pitch and there's no other cause of it.
So from a functional point of view, they're seemingly doing all the right things. Then I'd be going, oh, what's going on? Is there something going on with the vocal folds that's causing that to happen? If the vocal folds swell, and this might even happen, say, for a female, who's still menstruating. So in the premenstrual stage, their vocal folds get a little thicker and they'll notice that they're transitioning a little bit earlier. [00:45:00] It might feel a bit weighty and heavy and, and maybe even they're getting a couple of lower notes that they don't normally have. So the transition is definitely an area that will show up, uh, as problematic if there's some kind of pathology or issue. It might be that they're getting lower notes that they didn't get before because the vocal folds are, uh, getting thicker for whatever reason and swelling.
It might be that notes are cutting out that never used to cut out in the lower range or the upper range. Maybe as they go up to the upper range, there's a sudden flip that never used to be there. Uh, might be because, you know, there's some kind of pathology on the vocal folds and, uh, so it's flipping into sort of another area of the voice, or we might hear more than one note coming out.
So some kinds of pathologies, because of where the pathology sits on the vocal [00:46:00] folds, we end up with having two gaps and the two gaps produce a pitch. And so we get Diplophonia, so we get more than one pitch coming out. Yeah. So those kind of things would be a red flag to me. And also if the singer's saying, I just can't get through my range as much as I used to, I've, I've lost my bottom end. I've lost my top end. I, uh, feel very fatigued afterwards. It's such an effort. I lose my voice. Those kind of things would be a flag for me.
Alexa: I remember listening to Dr. Laurie Sonenberg on a webinar. I think it's what she did with Chris Johnson, and she mentioned that if you find that when you get sick, your voice goes, you lose your voice on the regular when you are ill, it could refer to some underlying swelling on the voice anyway, so [00:47:00] that might be something to consider. That when, when you are ill and automatically your voice just is affected and goes because of it, maybe there's something underlying anyway, and we've got a lovely podcast with Laurie that we did on Muscle Retention Dysphonia, which is a definite must listen to.
Line: Yeah, actually there was something else I wanted to add to that, and that is that sometimes you'll notice something in your voice before the symptoms. I've particularly noticed if I'm coming down with a cold, I might not realize it, um, from a physical point of view, but when I'm singing, I can feel and hear changes in my voice.
And actually it's because the infection has started and my vocal folds have started to swell. And it's not so obvious when I'm speaking. But then when I'm trying to sing through my range, suddenly it's like, oh, hang on a minute. You know that wasn't there before, and then two or three days later come down with a cold.
Alexa: Overall then, Line, what [00:48:00] is gonna be your top tip for singers who want to access an easy, free and extendable vocal range and get to know their vocal fach and really just utilize their full vocal range potential.
Line: Find a good teacher. I think at the end of the day, it's something that's very difficult to do on our own, especially if you haven't figured it out already.
So if you can't. Figure it out based on the YouTube videos you've been watching, then maybe it's time to get someone to come in and assess your voice, um, and give you some bespoke exercises that can help your particular issue or need. When it comes to vocal fach, I'm not so sure in the non-classical and musical theatre world whether that matters so much.
Maybe it's interesting, but. If you do need to know for those reasons because they're the areas that you work in, then [00:49:00] once again, find a reputable teacher who can help guide you and help you identify what fach or range you are. So that, obviously if you are a musical theatre singer, you have to have that on your bio, don't you?
Alexa: Yeah. And Spotlight will ask you for that, and usually when you go for agent meetings, they might ask you for your vocal range as well. So just before we go then, Line, you are just the other side of the five Day challenge. The most recent one that you ran for bus training. How did it go? How are you feeling?
Line: Well, it's a lot of hard work. Oh my gosh. But I love it. Yeah, so we had 115 people sign up and we had about a hundred people in the challenge and really active, interesting people who seemed to have really benefited from the challenge and the tasks that were set each day to help them identify what they can bring to being a teacher, uh, how they can attract the right kind of [00:50:00] student and who is the right kind of student for them, how they can set their prices.
And, uh, how they can get started marketing. So I've had a lot of really good feedback from that. And maybe we'll create another one. I'll see how I feel because it, it's probably about three or four months work, if I'm honest, right from scratch. But we will run this one again at some point later in the year.
So if you're interested, make sure you join the mailing list because we'll let you know via the mailing list when the next one starts. Yeah. So right now it's all closed down and it's finished. But Kaya and I and you were quite involved and, um, we got lots of good feedback, so that was good.
Alexa: If you haven't already, please go over to our BAST Training Instagram page and hit like we would love to see you over there and get some conversations going.
Also, you would've seen my pea head pop up halfway through this video. I'm sure telling you to [00:51:00] please hit that subscribe button. We would love to see you there as well, and to build that community and geek out on these topics.
Line: Yes. And also we have a free Facebook group that you can join with other like-minded teachers or people wanting to be singing teachers, and all of us pop in there and answer questions and everybody's very helpful whenever some one posts a question. And the other thing I would say is if you think that you might be interested in the Foundation course or the Level 5 course, then I'd love to chat to you about it. It's not a full on sales call. Don't feel like there's any pressure. It's really about finding out if this is the right fit for you, and if so, which one, whether the Foundation is where you're at or whether the Level is where you're at.
So don't hesitate to get in contact and book a call.
Alexa: Until the next time, Line,
Line: Thank you very much. I'll see you later.