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Hi everybody.
My name is Justin Stoney and I'm the founder of
New York Vocal Coaching here in New York City.
Welcome to episode 25 of Voice Lessons To The World.
The show where we want to help you guys as singers by
answering your questions from all over.
And I'll give you a chance to ask questions later.
But our question for this week comes from Kira S. in Sydney, Australia.
And Kira says, "Dear Justin, I'm a guitarist and I also
enjoy singing along to songs that I play.
But most of the music I like are by men or boy bands.
So when I sing these songs I either can't match the pitch, or, when I can,
the high notes don't sound right.
How can I sing the songs I like in a way that my voice is able to handle?"
And that's a great question, Kira.
And I really appreciate you asking it,
because so many singers are getting lost just by a simple fact
of not knowing what key to put the song.
And so that's what we're gonna talk about today,
is knowing that and having wisdom about the key that you're singing.
So the first thing that you're going to need to know is what is your range.
You need to identify your vocal range.
You need to know where the low notes lie.
You need to know where the upper notes in your range lie.
And maybe you could figure that out on your own.
Especially if you're a guitarist or an instrumentalist.
But it's really important that you know the exact notes.
You can also get a coach to help you with this.
But, you need to identify not just that
not just the low and the high, but then also where your
chest voice lies, where your head voice lies, and where your mix is.
All of these things will change over time.
They'll improve as you work.
But you need to know right now, where these parts of your voice are,
so that you can determine where you're going to place those keys.
And then, not being afraid to change the key.
We're going to talk all about that today.
So know your range, know where your different registers lie,
and then we're going to have you change the key to fit where that's at.
But next I want to talk here about what you said about
the differences between guys and girls.
You're singing these male songs, and a lot of females want to
sing male songs, and male people want to sing female songs.
And that's great.
But you have to understand that there's differences in the voices.
The voice works the same pretty much for males and females,
or very similarly, at least.
But where the exciting notes lie is very different.
In other words, if a female were to just sing a song in a male key,
it probably wouldn't be all that exciting.
It would probably be actually kind of a little bit strange.
You need to alter it.
So where a male has his sort of exciting notes,
especially in like contemporary music and with a belt,
would be F4
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through C5.
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Guys that can sing up there, that's very exciting.
But women singing in that territory it's pretty common.
For a female the exciting money notes would be, a Bb4
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through an F5.
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So that shifted up about a perfect fourth.
So that doesn't mean you always want to sing in those territories per se.
But you need to know where your voice lies, where your "money" notes are,
so that you can put the key into that place.
Also I should just mention that, we tend to prize guys that can do
lighter higher coordinations.
Guys sing with a lot of chest voice.
So when a guy goes up into a high head voice, it's very thrilling.
But when a female sings in a lighter, headier tone,
we tend to not think that's as exciting.
We tend to think when they're in their chest voice,
that's what's more exciting.
So there's that difference too,
is that, you know, a male singing high and light is impressive,
and a female singing low and powerfully is impressive.
That's just something to keep in mind too, when you're deciding what key to do.
Next I want to just talk about what you said, Kira, about singing along with artists.
It's not such a bad thing to, you know, throw on the stereo
and sing along to artists.
There's some advantages.
You can learn style, but it's actually probably, mostly,
something that's going to limit you over time.
You might strain because the notes are too high,
it might not be the right key for you,
you might try to manipulate your voice to try to sound like that artist.
There's a lot of reasons why singing along with artists
is not really the best thing.
But since we're talking about keys today, that's one of them.
You may very well be singing in a horrible key when you're
singing along with the artist.
So that's why you really have to get your keys changed
to suit your range, to suit your registers, and to suit what is
exciting and is comfortable in your voice.
You want your keys to be kind of a moderate challenge.
Not too high and strained, not too low and boring,
something that's a little bit difficult for you,
but a challenge that you can overcome.
So how do you do it? First of all, Kira,
if you're a guitarist, you've got a capo.
You can just shift the keys with a capo.
That's very handy for anybody that's a guitarist.
If it's an instrumentalist, you might print out the key.
There's tons of resources these days.
There's websites that will help you print songs in any different key.
That's very handy.
There's transposers that can transpose music for you.
There's coaches that can help you find the right key
and also transpose that music.
But in this day and age, it's so easy.
There's so many resources for finding the right key.
So there's absolutely no reason to just sing the
key that the original artist did.
That's putting you at a very big disadvantage.
So I hope that's helpful for you guys today as singers.
I don't want you guys to be discouraged
because you can't sing the exact key that you heard.
Go ahead and change it.
It's the easiest thing in the world,
and it will make such a big difference if you have
some wisdom about what you're doing with the keys,
so that you're not just straining and unable
to accomplish your vocal goals.
If you guys have questions that you'd like to see us answer on the program
you can send an email to: Questions@VoiceLessonsToTheWorld.com. [♪]
We just encourage you not to lose that joy. [♪]
Don't lose that passion. [♪]
Get with a great instructor in your area [♪]
and find the right key for your songs. [♪]
If you guys are in New York City, you can check us out at: [♪]
www.NewYorkVocalCoaching.com [♪]
And if you like these videos you can visit: [♪]
www.VoiceLessonsToTheWorld.com [♪]
I'm Justin Stoney. [♪]
We'll see you next time. [♪]
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