hey chris liepe here with how to sing higher if you're a baritone i'm making this video because
in almost every single video i've made about how to sing higher i've gotten that
question and it's a valid question because tenors have higher voices than baritones
or do they i want to clear up some misconceptions about what's possible
with the baritone voice i want to give you some examples and i want to give you two practical ways
if you're a baritone to free your higher range to sing higher to do things with your voice from
a range perspective that you never thought you'd be able to do yes even though you're a baritone
if this doesn't take you down
make is
if you'd like more help with your voice and you'd like me to personally come alongside you and be
your vocal coach the best place to start is by clicking the link below and joining my free course
there's lots of ways that we can work from there uh but that's the best place to start
all right the first sort of mind shift we're gonna make as a baritone is that we're going
to consider that the classification of baritone has more to do with timbre
texture and girth than it does actually what notes you can sing lest you disagree with me and say
well but these tenors can sing higher notes than not always that's a generalization that bites
a lot of baritones uh because they tend to go well i'm a baritone i couldn't possibly sing that stuff
but chris cornell ian thornley from big wreck axel rose these are baritones that sing really really
high and what we miss if we're not careful is that tenors use the same methods to really blast
out an amazing range as baritones do but because baritones are girthier and thicker particularly
in their chest voice and the contrast is is greater when they go to their mixed voice
we we tend to think that tenors just have a better range in general or they can sing higher but
really we're just not hearing the transition we're not hearing the fact that the tenor's mixed voice
is a lot closer sounding to his chest voice just because his chest voice is thinner or less complex
here are a few examples so we can actually put some meaning behind what i'm saying here
gary levox rascal flatts even listen to him in his lower resonance
his voice is thinner than mine right it's this if i do that
even if i try to thin it out there's that whiny thing that happens when i try
to thin out my voice his is naturally thin but we go over here right there
he's blending he's mixing he's doing the exact same thing that i'm doing
but there's more contrast going on there next example brad delp
he is not hitting that note because he's a tenor he is hitting that note
he is hitting that note because he has learned to blend his resonances together you can
tell less because the tone of his higher notes is closer to the tone and timbre of his lower nose
when i do that there's a there's a bigger difference but i'm still hitting the notes
uh and and to to clarify when you look at my chest range and my resonance i am not a tenor i am a
high baritone brad delp is a high tenor but again we need to get our minds around the fact that
let's not let the word baritone be limiting to our range you learn how to use your mixed voice you
learn how to blend resonances and you learn how to access your head voice better work with your head
voice you will be able to unlock these notes case in point my next example ian thornley big wreck
good compression oh incredible voice
very very baritone right that's very different than brad delp listen to what happens
so using nasality starting to mix a little bit
do you hear the difference in timbre that's happening it's much more similar to my voice
there's this this crowishness that happens there's the mixed voice there's compression there's all
sorts of things that i've talked about in other videos and there's a greater contrast it's the
same technique as the tenors but you don't hear the contrast this is where we i for a long long
time same i had this this idea of well i can't hit that note he's got a higher voice than me
we just have to realize the approach is where it's at let's listen to a little bit more of ian
there it is
with all that grit and all that wonderful uh compressiony baritone glory don't let the term
or the typecaster the label baritone keep you from this kind of wonderfulness last but not
least example chris cornell this is the live or video version of fell on black days and i want
to highlight something in particular about his voice chris cornell is very very fun to listen to
live because you you get a lot of neatness uh you notice a lot of things that you wouldn't normally
notice listen to this next line this is partly a stylistic thing and what makes cornell's voice so
interesting and fun but listen to how as he goes up he changes his resonance his placement his tone
ah right there seems seems agreed this is not now chris cornell is a baritone just like ian thornley
seem to greet me with a smile no he's setting himself up by changing his
placement changing his resonance using that crow on nasality ah using more compression
and the dying cat thing that i've talked about in so many other videos seem to greet me with a smile
notice that the timbre change very similar to what we heard ian thornley do the tenors are doing
this also yes they might be doing it in a little bit higher range or they transition differently
but we don't hear it in the same way as we do the baritones again chris cornell's not a
tenor and can sing notes in his developed mixed voice all around where these tenors are he's
every bit on top of those notes like brad delp is let's listen to another section here of this song
chest
that's not just a shouted b4 it's not cha cha no
thinned it out added the compression back in change settlement let's say
here i'm changing my resonance around so don't mind the change it's a baritone voice
hitting that b4 in mixed voice now there's a section at the end where hits hits that d5
he's so good at thickening up his mix but that hold i know it sounds so much higher
when i'm not thinking how would how would i know that this could be my
faith the key thing to remember here and i think i've shown this through these illustrations
is that it's more about your approach and how you use what you have accepting that the sound is
going to be different if you're a baritone versus a tenor so what are the things that we want to do
to sing higher as a baritone the first is what i just said except that you can sing the notes
for the most part that tenors sing there might be some that you can't touch
but it's not nearly what the excuse monsters would have you believe and here's the second thing
really really get in tune with using your head voice
in your speaking if i go hey everybody this is the start this is where i tell everybody to start when
they want to start singing higher or when they want to start developing their mixed voice if you
are a baritone likely if you're not an experienced singer you have developed a habit of being very
much comfortable in your normal speech range your normal talking voice just like this yadda yadda
if you practice going up and down with your head voice here and there
that's what ian thornley's doing that's what chris cornell is doing
in these songs but we as baritones need to be able to access those different resonances
in a seamless way if we're going to hit that notes those notes and we are going
to need to be transitioning sooner and make more use of our head voice more
so that we can make more use of our mixed voice because more notes that we sing are going to be
utilizing mixed voice than a gary levox or a brad delp or some other tenor so we need to be aware of
that and we need to be aware of how important it is and i'm doing it right now how important it is
that we utilize our head voice in our speaking voice i'm exaggerating that a little bit too
much maybe start doing that as a baritone and then look for ways with your voice to scale around that
throw your voice up into your head voice get back down into your chest voice hey everybody everybody
mess with your vowels mess with your placement just like these guys crow it up hey everybody
that's pure head voice add a little more compression hey everybody
hey everybody
hey everybody and then that's a whole other level of ways that you can be higher and grittier and
it's compression it's being very comfortable with your vocal brake there's all sorts of things that
you can do to create awesome range with your baritone voice i encourage you to keep going and
pursue these kinds of things hopefully this was helpful seeing and hearing these examples
baritones go to battle not really baritones start using your head voice more and realize that the
tenors and the baritones have a lot more in common than you think we'll see it for more